Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - I Started Drinking Alcohol at 12… It Took Me 30 Years to get sober - Antoine's Story

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

Alcohol didn’t crash into Antoine’s life — it slowly became normal. In this episode of the Sober Motivation Podcast, Antoine shares how drinking started at just 12 years old, was reinforced through culture, school, and social life, and quietly followed him for three decades. From boarding school overseas where alcohol was normalized, to college, hospitality, and years of “functioning” drinking, his story shows how easy it is to miss the warning signs when everyone around you is doing the same thing. We talk about the pressure to fit in, living with ADHD, blackouts that were brushed off, and the moment in Apex, North Carolina that forced him to take a hard look at his relationship with alcohol. Antoine opens up about trying to cut back, why that didn’t work, and what finally made sobriety stick. This episode is for anyone who’s questioning their drinking, feels stuck in the cycle, or wonders what life could look like without alcohol. You don’t have to hit rock bottom to choose a different path. One story at a time—you’re not alone.   -------------- Join the Sober Motivation Beta Platform FREE: https://sobermotivation.net/ Connect with Antoine on IG: https://www.instagram.com/asavageslife/

Welcome back to season five of the Sobermotivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week as my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We're here to show sobriety as possible. One story at a time. Let's go. On today's episode, we have Antoine. And this is a powerful reminder that alcohol doesn't have to look chaotic on the outside to be costing you on the inside. Antoine grew up with alcohol as a normal part of life.

and over time it quietly took more and more. We talk about the moments that shaped his drinking, the turning point that changed everything, and what life looks like now on the other side. And this is Antoine's story on the sober motivation podcast. What is going on, everybody? We are all the way into February already of 2026. For a long time, I've had a dream, a vision,

maybe even a mission of creating a custom sober motivation app, not only where you can track your sober days, but also have a journal, have a daily commitment to your journey, but also build an incredible community where we can get connected, have meetings in all of the above. And one of the things I share about on the podcast a lot is start before you're ready. Start your sober journey before you're ready. Do the things that scare you most.

Don't get lost in the future about how things can go. So we're starting before we're ready. in the Subur Motivation, beta test launch is live. I was only opening this up for 100 people, announced it last night, and we've had our first 100 members join. But I couldn't leave my podcasting friends out of it if you're not following on Instagram. So I want to invite all of you to check it out. We'll leave it open for another couple of days.

I'm hosting a meeting on Friday tomorrow to kick things off. Sort of a meeting, greet, share a little bit about the vision, share some of the guidelines. But it is incredible. And I would love to have you join us. If you've already quit drinking, if you're curious about quitting drinking, and you're tired of doing it alone,

you want to connect with some other people, hear some relatable stories, maybe learn a few things along the way. Come and hang out with us. I'll drop the link down in the show notes below. Or you can head over to htttps forward slash forward slash sobermotivation. dot net, sign up.

It's completely free. I would love to meet you. Hopefully we'll see a few of you there. Just don't wait though. Get signed up because we eventually have to close this down. We're really looking to test what we have. Is it something that people would be interested in? Is it going to be helpful?

All of those questions, I don't have the answers to. And I need your help to find out. Now let's get to Anton's story. Welcome back to another episode of the Subur Motivation podcast. How are you doing today? Doing well. How are you? Yeah, I'm good. I'm happy to have you. I'm happy to jump on here and share your story with everybody. So what was it like for you growing up?

Yeah, growing up, gosh, it was a whirlwind, but I was very fortunate to grow up in Stanford, Connecticut. You know, my parents worked really hard to provide myself and my two siblings with a fantastic lifestyle. So life was always pretty easy, to be honest, through my young years. But, you know, alcohol always played a part in my life since I was maybe, 12 years old, it's when I had my first drink in my basement, me and a couple of friends. I was having a sleepover with two other buddies in sixth grade. And we happened upon my parents' wine stash in the basement and just got to drink in. And I remember that day very vividly because it was the first time I've had a, it was a kickoff to what, a three-decade-long

relationship with alcohol, which is kind of daunting to think about. when you put it in that type of perspective, right? So childhood was good. It's just, like I said, alcohol was always some part of it, right? We are a family that really love to host and have guests. So we'd have Christmas parties every year and that's having champagne and mold wine and things like that. When you get into middle school and high school years, when you're going to parties, right, alcohol was always just a regular part of it. I actually was blessed to go to high school overseas for three years of my high school career. I went to boarding school in the north of Scotland. And the school, it was a fantastic school for character building and education. They had actual alcohol

education built into the curriculum. And not to say we were going into a class like drinking and learning how to drink and tolerate it, but what they would do is since the drinking age in the UK is 18, they thought, well, look, it's important for our students to understand how to handle alcohol responsibly. So we'd have these things called socials on Saturdays, where, where we would drink and have, we'd be allotted like two drinks over the course of like a four-hour night to teach alcohol education. But really, the point is to say that alcohol had always been an acceptable part of my lifestyle throughout childhood and teenage years, so much so in the UK where it was accepted, right?

It was almost encouraged. And I didn't realize until later in life that, gosh, maybe I don't need alcohol in my life. like I've learned it to be in my early years. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing all that, too. I have to say that's the first time I've heard of such a school, man, such a school experience, right? I mean, one part of it, it makes sense, though, too, right? Like, it's a reality that most people are probably going to experiment anyway, go into it with some education.

Like, I don't think it's too outlandish, but that's definitely different. When you go back to that first time at 12, everybody kind of has a different. different story here to where, you know, they hit it off with alcohol and this makes a whole ton of sense and check some boxes and some people, it's just a blimp in their whole life. What was that experience like for you? Oh, gosh, I loved it. I really did enjoy it. It was almost like a like a mental right of passage for me because at sixth grade, I went to a private school in Greenwich, Connecticut. If anybody here is familiar with Connecticut, you know that private school in Greenwich. But a lot of these kids were drinking and socializing during the week.

weekends to fit in, right? So when I had my first drink at sixth grade and understood that I can drink and my body accepted it and I can still have a good time and do silly stuff that people would laugh at and enjoy, enjoy, I thought, okay, this is great. This is a write-a-passage type thing, right? I'm on the right track, per se. So for me, the experience was fine. I remember enjoying it. We were drinking wine and some Coors lights. I had, oh, I can be able to be maybe like three or four Kurs lights. I had a little bit of wine. The next day, I was so incredibly hung over that I, like, I remember throwing up, like,

just straight bile, just yellow vial the next morning and just thinking to myself, well, that's just part of it. Like, this is, this is fine. This is part of drinking culture and what happens to you. I'll be fine. And that really shaped my alcohol use and abuse for the following 20. 25 to 30 years. I just always thought it was a normal thing. I thought getting drunk and having fun was a normal thing. I thought having hangovers was a normal thing. I just didn't think much of it.

And like I said, I also enjoyed it. I was one of those people that friends would say I never seemed, I never looked like I was drunk, right? You never looked like you're drunk. Why? Because I'm, as you can tell, naturally high energy, naturally an outgoing extroverted person. A lot of people need alcohol to be high energy or extroverted, right? I had that inherent in me. So not only did I think alcohol kind of enhanced those characteristics, but I thought it was normal to be drinking alcohol because people thought I didn't look drunk, right? Because they kind of fit with my normal personality.

And funny to think how many years later, after giving up alcohol, I realized, dang, without alcohol, I am still an energetic and extroverted and fun person. I think that's a great realization for a lot of people. You realize you still are who you are without the booze. So quite an exceptional experience. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that too. It is so true. I think that a lot of people do, you know, that social lubricant, right, of, you know, I'll drink and then I'll be able to just loosen up a little bit. But you're, you have that naturally, you know, in a sense. But even amplifying or intensifying that too is one of the things. I mean, how does your life look like through high school and, you know, all that stuff? Yeah, through high school, you know, what's funny is I was,

I was a great student through grade school. And I'm diagnosed ADHD and I attribute a lot of my school struggles after grade school into middle school and high school to ADHD. But when I think about it, you know, a lot of my school struggles really happened after I had that first drink, right? And look, I wasn't, I wasn't like drinking during grade school, you know, drinking in seventh and eighth grade in class or anything like that. It never became that extreme. But when alcohol started to become a part of my regular routine or sporadic routine as a seventh and eighth grader and then became a little bit more frequent as a ninth grader in the high school, now my education became secondary. And it certainly took a backseat to being more

of to me wanting to just be a socially, social butterfly accepted by others and getting out and partying and fitting in. And funny, because I never, I've never really thought about that until now, until talking it out. I always attributed my downfall in education and academics to my ADHD issues and not medicating until college. But that's no coincidence that it also coincided with my increased alcohol use over time. So thanks, first of all, for the realization. But through high school, it was just trying to fit in through school days, trying to make my way through a five-day school week, and then getting out to socialize with my friends.

I never had a problem making friends mainly because, like I said, it was outgoing, enthusiastic, high energy, but also because I was pretty much down for anything, right? I was down to go to a keg party and do keg-se. stands and and show everybody that I can drink. I was down to smoke a little bit of weed and change pace a little bit and hang out with people who wanted to just get stoned. It was fun for me during the weekends, but what was tough is when you always had to go back to reality during the weeks and try to be a good student. And I struggled. I certainly struggled, so much so that in freshman

year of high school, my dad sent me, well, did not send me. My parents decided it was best for me to try out the school in the UK that we talked about. Yeah. Because nothing in the U.S. was working. So I feel like they thought they had to send me internationally. So I went to a school that was really well known for its character building, for its culture, for more experiential than it was focused on academics. And it was a lot of fun, but, you know, it was a campus of 450 co-ed students age 13 to 18.

We're out on some beautiful land in the middle of the Scottish Highlands near the water as well and tons of woods to get out and just do teenage things. And most of you can probably figure out what those teenage things are. But one of them was alcohol was centered around this stuff, right? Like I said, they practiced alcohol education on the weekends for juniors and seniors. So it was acceptable to have some fun, do your teenage. age stuff while as hormones are running wild and also have some alcohol involved. Obviously, if you were drinking alcohol in excess, they discipline you for it, right? You get caught out and you

get disciplined appropriately, be it you couldn't get suspended because you couldn't leave the school because we were living on school grounds, but they do something called house gation where they, where you'd be stuck in the house, be kept in the house during social hours, things like that. But high school was, it felt to me like it was just a constant, push and pull, like me constantly trying to just get through and get away with certain things and enjoy myself. Whereas I knew in my heart of hearts I had to do better, but it was hard for me to do better because of what I thought was ADHD, but most of all was alcohol abuse, right? And just the general malaise you get from drinking where you just don't want to accomplish

much, right? You feel kind of lazy. You feel kind of just kind of unmotivated. So high school was, high school was tough. Was that like a collaboration with you and your parents to go to this school or were they like, hey, this school would be a good fit for you? Like, here you go. Yeah, good question. My father, uh, who had a very successful career in finance, he worked in international finance. Uh, he had a business partner in London. His London business partner had a stepson who went to the school. And when, um, my dad's business partner was also a very good friend of his, uh, named Axel Hansing. And when my father, confided in Axel about my struggles in school in the U.S. in Connecticut, Axel had recommended

this school to my father. So we actually flew to Scotland for a weekend to go check the school out, and then we flew back. And on the flight back, my dad said, hey, did you enjoy the school? I said, yeah, I thought it was a good school. He said, can you see yourself there? Yeah, I can see myself there. I never thought my dad would send me overseas to high school. But sure enough, he did. and that's how I ended up at at at at at at at a Gordonston for three years and it was a great experience but it was not planned on my part no I was I was kicking and screaming on the way out there but after I got out there and I figured out I can misbehave and do the things that I want to enjoy

without the immediate disciplinary actions of my parents because I'm not under the same roof as them I was like man sign me up this is this is what teenage life should be all about I can do whatever I want not getting in immediate trouble I just have to answer a phone, take a licking over the phone and hang up, go back to my business. Yeah, so there was people from all over the world that went there then. Yeah, yeah. Big portion of British and a big portion of British, be it UK and English, but let's do it. I'm thinking, too, what do you do after, though?

Because you've kind of been, you know, you're removed and then you go to the school and, you know, share sort of your experiences there. What are your plans for afterwards and where do you go from there? Yeah, what's funny is I didn't really have any plans for after. I really just followed the framework that my father expected me to, right? So my dad was very successful in finance, went to college, went to, went to a master's program, and then started working in finance at a young professional age, went on to be a very successful businessman in the financial industry. So, but he was a disciplinarian, certainly.

And I think that's what made it so hard throughout my school days. And then what made it kind of gave me kind of a relief when I got to Gordinson because I wasn't going to have to deal with my dad every single day. But bless him for being a disciplinarian because it brought me to where I am today, right? It gave me the discipline eventually to quit alcohol, which is why we're here. But going back to your original question, I didn't know what I was going to do. I just knew that my dad wanted me to leave school and go to college. I knew that was the next natural step, and I would not get them off my back unless I went straight to college.

So I wanted to stay in college in the UK, but my father was insistent that I'd come back to the U.S. for university. And I wish I would have pushed back on that a little bit. I wish I would have pushed back on a lot of things in my young life. But like I said, my father was a bit of a disciplinarian, but also I think I was a bit lackadaisical about my personal interests. I didn't think too much about my personal interest. I just thought, hey, look, dad will tell me what to do and I'll just try my best to do it. If not, I'll try to make a good excuse as to why I didn't do it. And it's funny how that plays into adult life later when you have your life being affected by alcohol and drug use and trying to make excuses, right?

So anyhow, I was able to get into a university called Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, not because of my grades, but mainly because my father was a board of trustee there. I know that had a hand in my acceptance. Got into Hopkins, started off well, but pledges of fraternity. And the fraternity, obviously, there's drinking involved. And as you can imagine, I fit right in. They wanted me to be a part of the fraternity. Why? Because I was high energy.

I was fun. I was social so I can attract other prospective members. And I can drink like a fish, man. You can probably guess right. College didn't work out so well. I failed out at Hopkins. I was dismissed from Hopkins not once but twice. After that college career or college stint,

I was fortunate to get into the Howard University in Washington, D.C. for a second crack at college. And Howard started off well, right? Started off strong. But then, of course, same trends. Made some friends fit in well because I'd like to go out and drink and socialize and attract others and bring people. together with my energy. And as you can imagine, after drinking and drug use, failed out of Howard

University. So it was wild. As we continue the story, I eventually went to college, graduated, and then got a master's. But that was years and years later. But that was the start of my college career. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that too. You know, it's kind of interesting. I think you look at maybe relatable, maybe not. You know, that college experience too. You've got your dad that's, I'm just picturing here. That's so important, you know, that's up at the top of the list here. You probably want to do well, too, I think, as any sort of human with an opportunity. What do you feel had you maybe more interested or more leaning into the party side of things

then, okay, let me kind of get this figured out for the next couple years and move on. Yeah. That's so funny. You ask that because now I think about my life now and all I want to do is not party and focus on excelling in life, right? Back then, this is a complete 180 from my mindset back then. So to think about it, what attracted me to it, I think just how natural it felt, right? How natural it felt, it's almost like I'd been training for it, right? So imagine a good student, imagine a student that was great, a great student through all a grade school, all the high school, right?

They're ready to go into college and execute. And they typically will go to college and execute as a good student. So I was just a student of not of academics, but of social life and alcohol abuse, quite literally, right? I started training for advanced alcohol abuse at age 12, trained all the way through grade school, right, through late grade school, through middle school, late middle school into high school, trained real hard in my final years of high school while I was in boarding school. So I was ready by the time I got to college. I was ready to join a fraternity. I was ready to fit in socially. I had been training for years for that.

Crazy to think how that works out, right? That perspective just dawned on me. So I think that's what draw me is the path of least resistance. It was easy to fit in and socialize and drink and drug along with other people who want to party and fit in because I did it naturally. Hopkins, a lot of really smart people, right? they were probably really good students in high school, unlike myself. So they probably had to teach themselves the social side, whereas the academic side came naturally to them.

I was a complete opposite, right? The social side came naturally to me. I had no idea what I was doing from an academic standpoint. No idea. And that obviously manifested itself in some pretty horrible grades and getting booted twice. I even think back to like my own attempts at college. I mean, ADHD is definitely part of my story too. and for the longest time, I didn't understand how that was showing up in my life in different ways,

but school felt like the heaviest lift. I mean, all of the rules and all of the structure and reading books and all that stuff, I never, even though people thought it was a lack of discipline, now I know I just absolutely had no interest in connecting with things that way. But I think it upset. I think my parents got frustrated with me because I operated a lot like what you're saying is I was so worried about what people thought. And I was so worried about that social element.

in the school part never crossed my mind and my parents would just like tell me none of like that stuff doesn't matter as much as what you're gonna you know you're getting your education and if you want to go and hang out with people for the rest of your life do it but for me it was everything for me it was like do i have a sense of belonging am i fitting in um what is my identity what do people think in me and i value that more than i valued showing up in the classroom and like pushing through and then found myself you know in the academic probation and the And then finally, it's like, hey, we've done all we can do. Maybe, you know, maybe you have to figure something else out.

But it was interesting. But now, but now as you get older, like you said, it's, it's completely, you know, a huge shift of like the priorities. I think maybe that's like what I was looking for is like maybe my priorities were just, you know, different. But you've been practicing. When you say practicing, it's like you've been drinking. And I mean, what does drinking look like for you in this stage of your life?

Is it every day? Is it on the weekends, partying? Oh, gosh. And my time, and if we're talking specifically about college, it was at least five days a week, at least. And we had like, I remember talking to one of my fraternity brothers who's still a very good friend of mine. But back then, one thing that, there weren't many things that I remember for back then, because I was, I was drunk most of the time. But what really sticks out is we were talking about our schedule of social events throughout the course of the week. And there was this event called TNDC, Thursday Night Drinking Club, Thursday Night Drinking Club. Thursday night drinking club. Thursday night drinking club. Club was the name of this like social event we had. So there was that. Then we had another place. We'd go to this place for like 50 cent wings and pitchers of beer on like a Tuesday. Then we had another place I think called Rudy's that we go to on a Wednesday. Then we had TNDC on Thursday. And then we had the weekend where we'd have a party at the fraternity house. So I remember talking to my buddy and we're like, dang, we literally have a social event, like a fun social

event to do five days of the week. And we'd show up and we'd drink, man. I mean, you know, beer, Mad Dog 2020, if you remember that stuff. Just ran soko was, oh, Southern comfort back then. Sorry, when I talk, and also, like, my brain is so switched off of alcohol. When I talk about the types of things that I used to drink, it makes me nauseous. Like, it makes me sick to my stomach. I think about what I used to drink and also the copious amounts of it that I used to consume. And it makes me visibly nauseous. But back then, And gosh, I've almost blanked that part out of my head because the amount of alcohol abuse we did in these nasty, dingy basements was just absolutely fascinating to me. But yeah, it was like five days a week drinking and not a lot of room for schoolwork.

Plus, we know scientifically you're abusing alcohol, you're killing brain cells, right? You're literally giving yourself like base level or very minor level brain damage when you're abusing alcohol. And that's what I was doing to myself daily. So I could not look at these books or these assignments on these mornings. The mornings hung over and apply myself. And I was so frustrated. I couldn't understand why can I understand this stuff? I used to be a good student.

What's happening? And it's because I was killing my brain. I was killing my brain cells. So it's ADHD. Of course ADHD played a part. But you compound that with slowing your brain function with alcohol abuse. And it makes a lot of sense that I just. couldn't get through college.

Yeah. Makes a lot of sense, though. You just brought me back down memory lane with all the different nights, right? The Thursday and Tadio Tuesday and everything, all the discounts at all the bars. It was interesting too, a hard thing for me to get, though,

because I used to party with a lot of guys, and they were able to turn it off. So, like, if they went, I mean, they went so hard just like everybody else on the weekend and maybe a little bit during the week, but they were able to reel it in, still do well in school. I mean, do well enough.

I don't know if they were on the Dean's list, but they did well enough. And I was like, man, how are they, how is it something that they keep together? That always kind of, it was interesting to me because I hung out with a lot of people that were, you know, they were able to. Yeah. I think maybe, maybe Braddock plays a little bit into our ADHD and the compulsion that surrounds that condition. And I think about it this way is that when I was drinking, I was and socializing, I was kind of obsessed and, you know, compulsively obsessed with maintaining my drinking tolerance and maintaining my social circles and growing my social circle and showcasing the people that I belong.

And now it's totally, totally different. Now that I don't drink, my priorities are my wellness, right? And I know we'll get to this at the end, but my priorities are running a specific amount of miles a week and making sure I hit the gym a specific amount of times a week and completed a couple half marathons and a triathlon. And after I completed the half marathon, I said, okay, now a triathlon. And after I completed the triathlon, I said, okay, now I'm going to do a half Ironman this year, which I am in July 19th. So it's compulsion, right? Like I want to continue to level up. It just looks a lot different now. So I think when we think back to your point on these folks be able

to turn it off, I think it's because we are ADHD compulsive minds. stay kind of obsessively motivated to accomplish one thing and excel at it, it just happened to be the wrong thing for us back then, right? We were focused on getting better at drinking and socializing. If we went a different direction, if I went a different direction at age 12, right, this trajectory would have been a lot different. I probably would have been focused on something else. I don't trade it for anything, but of course I think back on that sometimes.

I think back on some of my decisions and how I could have gone a different direction. But I wouldn't trade it for anything because it brought me to where I am today. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's the main thing too. Like even when I look back at every wrong turn, yeah, it's, yeah, I wouldn't trade it either. You know what I mean? It kind of built character along the way and hopefully an interesting story for the grandkids one day.

Where do you go after college? Yeah. So after, really good question. So after, remember, I failed out, I got dismissed from Hopkins once, went back, then failed out for good. And then got accepted into Howard University, did okay there, kind of just scrape my way through for two years, and then left, kind of dismissed myself. And funny enough, I went into the hospitality industry. And that's glorifying it, like I went into bartending. why because it satisfied all of my needs it it kept me social kept me engaged it was no

not to take anything away from hospitality workers we are the hardest workers and you you gain a lot of transferable skills that bring you into other parts of life or you can do it forever very successfully but for me um it you know I love being social loved the free alcohol right and and that's that's really the simple formula of I stayed in the bar industry for 10 years after that. It worked well. It was a great escape hatch for me to tell my parents, hey, look, I know I didn't graduate college, but I'm working.

I'm earning a living, but I'm earning that living, and I'm pissing the money away on drugs and alcohol and just kind of reaching a dead end every day, drinking through it, waking up the next day, trying to figure out what happens next. So, you know, those 10 years in Washington, D.C., in the bar industry. I made some good friends,

but man, it's hard for me to go back to Washington, D.C., because it was a blur, and it was all centered around drug and alcohol abuse. And I was able to always maintain a job because I'm blessed by my parents

who were hard workers and dedicated human beings. So I knew I always had to keep a job, but man, just drinking, drugging, you know, having problems sometimes making rent, not being able to do anything that I enjoy, going to sleep at 3 a.m. in the morning, drunk and high, waking up, what, at like 3, 4 p.m., a couple hours before my shift, like not seeing a drop of sunlight and just rinse, wash, and repeat

for on and off for about 10 years, man. It was rough. That was the roughest point of my life from probably about 22 to about, yeah, to about 30, 32. Yeah, man, back down memory lane for me, too, again with your story there. I mean, that's when things really kind of got out of control. for me, I think where I really lost direction in life was when I got into the hospitality. You did the same. Look at that. I did the same, man. I mean, what it was for me is I started hanging out with people that were older. Yeah. Like I started hanging out. We had our own little crew and you'd go, you know, this restaurant or this bar is open until then and then you get to know everybody. It felt like this subculture, you know, that I was a part of. And

check that box for me again, that I felt like I belonged. And I mean, drinking wasn't frowned upon and drinking on the job wasn't really found upon. Other people were doing it. And then the shifts too, right, where you started, you know, maybe worked forward to midnight or something or whatever it is. Yeah, you kind of had, I did it anyway. I felt like I could go out, tear it up and then had a buffer, you know, buffer zone.

Of course, I woke up and I was a little bit hungover, but I didn't necessarily have to go out all night until three in the morning and have to get up for a 9 a.m. job. And we kind of sleep it off. And yeah, it was a very easy place for me to get stuck into. I was like, I got to do something else. I have to do something else. And then, you know, a year would go by.

And then another year would go by. And I'm like, okay, man, I'm in the same spot. But it's kind of comfortable. It's kind of known. And yeah, it was kind of like the natural progression, I think, from college, from hanging out with, you know, my buddies there. And then kind of them graduating college and moving on in me being kind of, you know, feeling left behind.

And then this was like the other, you know, friend group, right, that I kind of plugged into. So, yeah, man, makes sense. It was, it was wild. And interesting, you're picking up what I'm putting down because you went through almost the same track, it sounds like. It is, like you said, the subculture, just I was, I was entrenched in it for 10 years. And it was, it was a dark 10 years. So after that, I just realized, just a switch went off around 33, 34, where I was like, man, I got to get out of here. I'm going to die.

I'm literally going to die. I need to figure something else out. So that transitions to the next stage of my life when I moved from Washington, D.C. back to back to New York. And I continue to work in hospitality, but that's when I put myself back into college in 2013, I believe. Move back to New York, got myself back into college, still drinking and drugging, but got myself through college again after two and a half years. And that's when my priorities started to make some gradual. shifts. I realized, I was like, okay, I realize now I got to get back into school so I can get a

good job and start to turn life around a little bit. And I think it wasn't because I cut down drinking, but it was because I just started to mature. So put myself back in college, going well, went straight from college into business school in 2016. After my first year of business school, I got my first job in finance and financial asset management at a firm called Alliance Bernstein, which is where my dad had a very successful career as well. So things kind of came full circle. I remember when I told him I got my first job in finance at Alliance Bernstein. My dad who's since passed away this past July,

but I'll never forget like he did this rain dance in the middle of the street, like this hallelujah dance when I told him I got my first job in finance. That was a really formative moment for me because I was still drinking and drugging, but I realized how gratifying a shift in my focus would be. right so we talked about that compulsion right to accomplish specific things and continue to level up that's when it started to be professional you know personal and professional achievements right above and beyond just alcohol and drug use i've been in finance now for for for almost 10 years since 2016 and it's been a great career but the first couple years of of finance i was still you know

I was still drinking and drugging and having a good time and being functional. But like I said, over time, I realized that I needed to level up. I was like, look, if I really want to continue to level up and make advancement, something's got to give, something's got to shift because I might have a good job, but I'm still kind of living paycheck to paycheck. Where's all this money going? What's happening here? And why can't I get things accomplished during the weekend?

And why am I spending so much time on the couch watching Netflix shows and not getting things accomplished. Why am I not losing weight? And why is my body not feeling healthier? And all roads led to a substance that had been in my life for three decades, which was the booze. So yeah, that then started the journey of trying to cut down and eventually quit in 2024. Yeah. Was there something that brought it? Was there like a conversation or awareness? Yeah. What kind of brought it to your attention that, hey, maybe this is it? Because I think we, when we have all this stuff going on, I hear it all the time.

We want it to be everything else but the alcohol. Like it's got to something else. What was it for you? We really do, right? We try to think of like, what's going on? Selective choice or memory. But for me, my body started to react differently to alcohol consumption.

And maybe not differently. Maybe I was more aware of the effects. Let's put it that way. So if you remember, as a kid, I said, people always said I never looked drunk because of my high energy and things, but that started to change. I started to have some bad reactions. And one, first of all, I relocated to Nashville, Tennessee from New York City in 2019. And Nashville was a, is a great place to live. It was an incredibly formative part of my life, bought my first house there, got sober there.

a number of different things that I accomplished in Nashville. But Nashville is a heavy drinking town. This is no secret to anyone. And I think working in Nashville, I also got an incredible job while I was in Nashville that tripled my income. So I had triple the amount of disposable income. And I was in Nashville, Tennessee. And I was traveling for work and entertaining clients where I can drink on company

dime. It was just, and this is after the pandemic. This is a perfect storm of my alcohol. whole use, like skyrocketing, almost as much as I used to back in college, except I'm like a functioning member of society with a pretty important job with a financial asset manager. And the hangovers just started hitting harder. I couldn't get as much done. You know, if I'd go out drinking on a Saturday heavily, I'd be hungover until a Tuesday.

Like, I couldn't be on a morning, Monday call with a bunch of managing directors having constructive conversations. That's just not it. It's not acceptable. Just the alcohol abuse and the drug abuse started to become unacceptable by my standards. But there was one specific incident that told me it was time to quit. And this is about a five-minute story. I had a friend, Andrea, who I met in Nashville. She moved from Nashville to North Carolina. She had a housewarming party in North Carolina. This must have been maybe March or April, I don't know, maybe a little bit later, maybe June or something of 2023. So I go, Andrew invites me to her housewarming party. Like I said, I said, yeah, of course, I'll fly to your housewarming party, no problem. So I fly to

our housewarming party. I stay at a hotel not far from her house. Tons of friends, family, we're drinking, having a good time. I'm just regular old fun Antoine drinking. Don't look drunk, right? High energy, enthusiastic. We have a lot. We have. I have a couple drinks at the house and the party ends at like 8, 39 o'clock and everybody's going home and I say, Antriman, what are you going to do? I was like, man, I'm going to see what this town's all about. I go to this neighborhood bar. I can't remember the name of it.

I go to this neighborhood bar by myself. I go in there, start drinking, meeting people. I meet this guy. I can't remember his name. He insists that we take a shot of Rumpelmints and I think a shot of Yeagermeister back to back. And I was like, I haven't done that in a while. but I'll try it.

And I did. And I don't know if I was drugged. I don't know if it was my body saying this is the last time you're going to drink like this. But I blacked out. I remember somebody trying to wake me up at a table there and like just kind of being out of it. I drove my rental car there. But the bartenders took my keys since they saw what state I was in. So I go outside trying to leave in the rental car.

The bartender comes out and says, where are you trying to go? you're too drunk, you cannot drive. I said, no, I'm not going to go. I'm just going across the street. She said, where are you going? Your car's here. Your phone's in the bar. I said, no, I'm just going somewhere.

I'll be fine. I went across the street and fell asleep under a tree for how long I do not know. I was passed out. Sorry, I didn't fall asleep. I passed out under the tree. Passed out under the tree for four or five hours. When I woke up, I had these welled up sore feet. from what I think were fire ant bites

because I was passed out and I had fire ants feasting away at my feet without me even noticing. Somehow I got my hands on the car keys. So I felt like I was a little bit, at least not as drunk as I was earlier. I was still drunk.

I had alcohol in my system, but I felt like I was okay. So I walked to the car, get in the car, and proceed to go back to the hotel. The problem is that I don't have my phone and I don't know where the hotel is. So I spend about an hour driving around with what I felt like was alcohol poisoning,

trying to find my way to this hotel. Magically, I find my way to the hotel. I get to sleep for a couple hours. I fly back to Nashville and I just thought to myself, the next day I woke up, still hung over, of course. My feet are all welled up and swelled up with fire amp bites. I had no idea what happened the night before

and I was like, you know what? Something's got to shift here. This is just, this is too much. And that honestly was, that's not, that's most of the story, I think. But that was a memorable point in time where I thought, man,

it's something's got to give. So that was that one. Yeah, and that was in North Carolina. That was in North Carolina. Yeah, just outside of a town called Apex, North Carolina. Yeah. Dude.

You want to hear how small the world is? That's where I grew up. Oh, man, Apex. No, really? Yeah, I did. Come on. We're kindred spirits here. Yeah, that's where I started to get sober.

That's where the journey started. Yeah. Was this like a one-off for you or had you experienced things like this or similar to it before? That was probably, that was rock bottom for me. That's the worst it had gotten. Now, in child, well, pledging a fraternity, I remember, I blacked out plenty of times before. I remember blacking out in college during, we had a night called bottle night where you'd have I had a little brother in my fraternity.

They kind of initiate, they pair you up with a little brother. You guys drink together whenever you have your camaraderie. I remember drinking too much that night and like throwing up all over one of my friends' dorm rooms, bathrooms and cleaning it up. I don't remember it. Somebody told me the story. But I blacked

out plenty of times before. But this one just really took the cake. I was like, I can't be doing this as an adult anymore, man. I got to get it together. So I think I just became more aware. later in life and decided that it was time for something to give. Yeah.

So it's interesting part too. Like I'm wondering to people who don't, you know, maybe struggle or, you know, have this alcohol abuse thing in their life. Like, yeah. How much that we seem to maybe normalize blacking out on this journey of

drinking, you know, like blacking out. I'm thinking of somebody who's not struggling with this and like they black out. Like that might be like, okay, well, breaks,

breaks. Yeah. But for us, it's like, I don't know, we move on from it so quick. I did anyway. I had those things too where, I mean, it was like, I should have turned the corner then, man. I truly should have turned a corner then. And I mean, some of the situations that I even made it out alive, I mean, I shouldn't have made it out even alive from some of these things. I mean, behind the wheel, whatever it was. And it would kind of hit me for a couple days and I'd say, okay, you know, I mean, you got to learn something from that, but it just didn't last. It didn't stick with me to that, you know, how serious it was or what was going on. It's really interesting kind of when I look back and then I think of, you know, early sort of red flags,

early signs of things are not headed, you know, to a very productive direction or whatever. And I see that as one of them, you know, these kind of earlier blackouts and just kind of rolling with it, you know, in a sense. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah. Look, I agree. I think I just always make an excuse for something like that for a blackout and just be like,

hey, look, it happens. I'll be fine. I remember a couple instances where I had some episodes fighting with other people being drunk or getting in arguments. And then the next day being like, hey, look, let's not worry about it. Like, I was just too drunk and just not taking any accountability for your actions. It's crazy to think. And luckily now, look, we have.

this, first of all, like, shout out to our subculture, our sober subculture via social media. I mean, you are a, you're a pillar of it. But I think these days you have a lot more access to information that informs you, that informs us about the pitfalls of alcohol consumption and abuse. And I think if you can go on social media and put in the right words and, you know, your algorithm kind of catches on to it, it'll start to siphon all these positive messages and positive folks like yourself and alcohol-free females and other people I can think of that have become friends of mine as well as confidence that have supported my journey, whether you know it or not.

So I think that's helping, at least this might be biased, but I feel like it's helping this movement, it's assisting this movement, and informing people more so, so they're more aware of the effects of alcohol. But also, I think about the digital age, I don't feel like people are, I would hope people aren't blacking out as much because they don't want to get caught on camera doing it. Like, I mean, you're around the same age as me. It was very rare that you get caught doing those things back in the day, right? Now, somebody can catch you kind of blacked out or doing something silly and it's on the, it's on the internet in an instant.

Right. So I think it's maybe social awareness now that's that's helping this movement of people staying away from alcohol because they know how it impairs their judgment and actions. and think a little bit more about the repercussions of that. Whereas back in the day, I didn't really worry about the repercussions. I was like, everybody's going to forget. It'll be fine. Yeah, everybody will move on. Yeah, that's an interesting take on it.

You know, things are more easily documented and can live on. Live on what I hear from people, though, a lot with the blacking out thing is I say, like, hey, was there, did you have an idea? Like, when they were going to black, like, was it four drinks or was it 10? was it a dozen? People would, people have shared with me that it wasn't really something they kind of knew when it was going to happen. If they felt like the longer they were drinking, it could change. It could vary. It wasn't like an exact science, which is interesting. So you have this, this thing happened. And we kind of talked a little bit before about, you know, the cutting back and in trying to figure it out. I mean, share a little bit of sort of that journey with us.

Yeah, I just started. I knew that I had to start to cut back a little bit. So I I tried a couple things. Like, you tried Jai January for a little bit. And look, we're in January right now, which is serendipitous. Guys, if you try Jai January, give yourself a little bit of grace, you might slip up a little bit. Have people who ask me, how did you just stop cold turkey? Like, what works for you? I said, look, it's really not about what works for me.

It's about what you think is going to work for you. And so find a formula that works for you and stick with it and then try to build on that. For me, I just started to cut back to, I tried to drive January out a little bit, maybe slipped up here and there, but I just kept trying to roll with it. Sober October, I tried once or twice, and I know that kind of worked. But, you know, thinking back to 2023, I was studying for a pretty big financial exam. And I said, okay, while I'm studying for this exam, I'm just going to cut back to one night a week. And it was that catalyst. It was something that I knew I had to achieve.

that was going to help me excel in professional life and also personal life, then I said, okay, this is the catalyst. This is an important thing to cut back on. This is worth cutting back my alcohol consumption on. And I did, cut back to one night a week. The only problem is that on that Saturday, I'd make up for all the days that I missed during the rest of the week. And that would lead to a two-day hangover.

So again, I'm on that Monday morning call, and I don't know, you know, I don't know which way is up. So I just thought to myself, you know what? Let's cut back on that Saturday. So on that one night a week, let's make sure it's a little bit less. And that helped. It started to help. And I think also at the same time, my wellness journey really started to take off, completed a half marathon,

wanted to do this triathlon in 2024. So I thought, man, I mean, if I want to get my body to where it is, I also need to cut back on my alcohol and drug use. Like, it just has to happen. So I just remember one point through 2023, I said, you know what? I think I'm just going to give this a shot in 2024. I think I'm ready. So I'm going to hang out with my friends on December 31st. I'm going to party.

I'm going to have some drinks. I'm going to do my thing. And then I'm going to kick off dry January. But this is when I'm going to stop. I'm just going to stop. And I did. And it's been, I think it's on shirt. Yeah, it's been two years since.

So, look. But the point, everybody should find a formula that works for them. I think that's the point. And if you are struggling with the formula, then lean on folks like us, right? Folks who are blessed to have been sober, I think we're out there when we want to support folks who are interested in taking the similar journey, whether it be fully sober, whether it be sober, curious, alcohol-free, whatever it may be, because everyone is going to have their own formula.

And eventually, you're going to start to reap the benefits. And don't be afraid to ask for help, I think, is the most important thing. Yeah. And that's a great point there, too, of asking for help. You know, reaching out to people, I mean, we do it in every other area of our life. If I wanted to start playing pickleball, I would hang out with other people and find people who played pickleball, probably not. golf people that, you know, played golf or whatever, right, unless they did both. But you get what

I'm saying is leaning into other people that have been there. And I think just picking up certain things that are relatable to your life as the person who's trying to move on from a life with alcohol to a life without, but also realizing too that I think a lot of us have different fears of how is life without alcohol going to look, right? Like is it going to be boring? How am I going to make friends? How am I going to do? dating. How am I going to, and it does take time, but I feel like we figure it all out and all of those experiences become much more enjoyable and we remember them. Yeah, yeah, the remembering is huge. I like to say that, I mean, I remember everything now. Everything is more qualitative.

All my relationships are better. Even my relationship with my dog is better. Like we're going on longer, more intentional walks. Like, she feels my love. She doesn't have to jump off the couch when I come home from a long night of drinking. because she can smell the booze on me. Like my dog used to react that way, right? Work is better. My workouts are better. It's the best life hack that you can do.

And we are living proof. And there's a bunch of our people in our community that are living proof that it's the ultimate upgrade. So I understand we are in a drinking culture, but I feel a shift. Maybe because my algorithm is just feeding me the shift. but I'd like to think I'd like to think there is a shift and I'm just I'm just blessed super blessed to be a part of it I see myself you know I celebrated two years I put it out on on IG got a lot of traction and it's just it's so inspiring to see that there are a lot of folks

out there who are super invested and if not invested super interested in an alcohol fee lifestyle and a sober journey so yeah that's cool really really happy I'm really happy to be here man I've seen a bunch of people do this podcast, and you know, you are one of the first handles I started following around, you know, that are sober focused social media handles and just love all the content you put out. And you might not know it, but you're a huge, huge motivating factor in maintaining my journey. So, so thanks for everything that you do. Yeah, thank you. That's so cool. You never know, right, who you're impacting for what I do.

And then for you, too, sharing your story, right? You never know who might be able to relate to it and maybe make some changes. Exactly right. Anything before we wrap up that you would like to share with everybody? Maybe a few people that are struggling or like considering, hey, maybe this is something, a direction I should have? Yeah. I would just say, you can do it.

And I'll expound on that and say that if I can do it, you can do it. Trust me. I remember back in the day, I never. thought, I never thought alcohol would not be a part of my life anymore. I thought it was going to be a part of my life forever. And now I can comfortably say that I will never, ever touch a drink of alcohol again, touch a drop of alcohol again. That is crazy. I mean, my life is literally taken a 180. So you're capable of doing it. Lean on others for support, right? Believe in yourself. Because, again, it is, it is the ultimate life upgrade. And we all, we all deserve to take advantage of it. Yeah, awesome, Antoine. Thank you so much. Thank you, Brad. Well, there it is, another incredible story here on the podcast.

Thank you so much for listening along. I'll drop Antoine's contact information down to the show notes below. Be sure to send him over a note on Instagram if any part of his story was relatable for you on your journey. And wherever you listen to the podcast, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, be sure to subscribe, leave some comments. And I'll see you on the next one.