Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - Over time, alcohol took over Dave's life, but giving it up improved every area of his life.

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

In this episode we have Dave, who shares his deeply personal and inspirational journey from growing up with an anxious mind and early struggles with guilt and shame, to becoming a defined party guy in high school and college. Despite achieving professional milestones, Dave's life was becoming increasingly unmanageable due to his drinking. He opens up about the physical and emotional toll his addiction took on him and his loved ones. Dave recounts his turning point moment of seeking help, the challenges of early sobriety, and the transformative effects it has had on his health, relationships, and overall life. Dave and I discuss the importance of replacing drinking with healthier activities, the persistent struggle with alcohol cravings, and the critical role of self-awareness and support systems in recovery. --------- Join the Sober Motivation Community: https://sobermotivation.mn.co   Dave's IG: https://www.instagram.com/daveg717/

Welcome back to season three of the Suburmotivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week as my guests and I share incredible and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible, one story at a time. Let's go. How's it going, everyone, Brad here? Welcome back to another episode, and I've got a huge announcement to make, something I've been thinking about, wondering about for quite some time now. See, a podcast is interesting.

My guests and I, we go through the story. share our thoughts with you, but it doesn't really provide an opportunity for you to share your thoughts with us or with me. And this is one of the reasons behind creating the sober motivation community. Inside of the sober motivation community, we're going to support each other on our alcohol-free and sobriety journeys. I'm also going to be hosting meetings each week, and we're going to have other guests hosts that are going to be hosting meetings as well for us to check in, talk about what's going on and just work together to get another day sober. The most incredible thing about this entire journey truly is meeting other people that are on it

as well. Watching them grow is so amazing. And I just want to formally invite everybody who's a fan of the podcast to jump over and join us in the sober motivation community. We are now welcoming founding members to the community. You get two weeks free, $20 membership. and once we hit 100 people in the community, that's all going to change. So I would love for you to embark on this new journey with me, with us.

We already have some people joining in the community. And I would love to see you there. So click the link down in the show notes below or send me a message on Instagram. I'll send you over to link to join and let's do this thing. In this episode, we have Dave who shares his deeply personal and inspirational journey from growing up with an anxious mind, an early struggle. with guilt and shame to becoming a defined party guy in high school and college. Despite achieving professional milestones, Dave life was becoming increasingly unmanageable due to his drinking.

He opens up about the physical and emotional toll his addiction took on him and his loved ones. Dave recounts his turning point moment of seeking help, the early challenges of sobriety and the transformative effects it has on his health, relationships, and overall life. Dave and I discussed the importance of replacing drinking with healthier activities, the persistent struggle with alcohol cravings, and the crucial role of self-awareness and support systems and recovery. And this is Dave's story on the sober motivation podcast. Welcome back everyone to another episode, Brad here, and I have a massive announcement that I'm so excited to share with everybody. Since I started this podcast, you know, a podcast is interesting, right? Because it's me, my guest, sharing with all of you.

and it's not really a platform that allows all of you to share with me, which I love so much. And that is why I have just recently launched the Suburmotivation community. And this is going to be incredible. We are officially starting in September 1st, but there's a two-week free trial for everybody to join and check things out in the meantime. What you're going to get with this trial and with this membership is a ton of support. I'm going to be hosting meetings inside of the platform. We're also going to have other guests that are going to host meetings as well.

I'm going to be putting together some bonus podcast and content and a lot of really cool stuff. But most importantly, if you're on an alcohol for your sobriety journey, you're going to be amongst others who share a similar story to you and who are just working on getting better and improving our lives every single day. And we're going to do it together. So this is your invite to be a founding member of the sober motivation community. I would love to have you. Can't wait to meet you. And I'll see you on the inside.

Welcome back to another episode of the sober motivation podcast today. We've got Dave with us. Dave, how are you? I'm doing great, Brad. How are you? I'm good, man. Thank you for reaching out and be willing to share your story on the show. You bet.

So what was it like for you growing up? Well, before I begin, I just want to thank you, Brad, for all you do. I think this podcast has been life-changing for me. I've listened to countless episodes and just hearing everybody's story is inspiring. There's commonalities, but there's differences and just listen to everybody's story. It's amazing how all walks of life are affected in very similar ways. So it's inspiring to listen to everybody. I'm a little hesitant to do this.

I've lived inside my own head for pretty much my whole life. I've never been to AA. I don't have a sponsor. It took pretty much every ounce of strength I had in years of convincing myself. that I had a problem to even seek help. And even when I did, it took me forever to kind of open up. But, and today I'm four years sober. And as someone in recovery, I'm convinced that I have an application to help others in a similar situation.

So with that in mind, that's where I began. So ever since I was a little kid, my brain has always kind of been in an overdrive, mostly with thoughts of guilt and shame. But for no real good reason, which of course made me feel even more guilty and shameful, which is kind of the catch-22 of it all. Grew up in a middle-class family, medium-sized town in Ohio. Child of the 90s, third of four boys, so as a Gen X, middle child, I had pretty feral childhood.

Not that I was necessarily forgotten about and neglected. I've always just tried to avoid making waves and made an effort to fly under the radar. To this day, I hate putting people out or even the mere appearance of being a burden on someone. my parents are amazing people married forever they work their butts off trying to provide for us blue collar and they're also trying not to kill us because you can imagine four boys in a house it was pretty interesting growing up like that again i've always felt guilty about that too they worked so hard to clothe us to feed us make sure we're at a great christmas and a loving home in fact i still feel

guilty about that i feel like i'm trying to make up for it every day but again raising poor boys takes a lot of time and energy so just trying to make up for that is a constant battle anyway So that combination of an anxious mind and the need to keep everything inside kind of creates an almost unbearable amount of tension. And I was kind of constantly feel like I was ready to blow. So that was kind of how my childhood went. Yeah. Interesting there.

Yeah. That's, yeah, that's busy four boys. My goodness. I was even thinking about that. You said anxious mind. That brings me back to when I started this whole internet thing, how this whole thing started with me sharing stories and everything. go back six years, seven years.

I was like, I want to be a writer. And I never did well with academics or anything. That's why I speak on the podcast. And I created this piece, this blog it was at the time, and it was actually called The Anxious Mind. And it was about never feeling good enough and always just being inside my own head. It kind of took me back to where it had a decent response

from it wasn't like a viral thing or anything, but people were like, wow, the vulnerability in that was really cool. So I can relate to that anxious mind in a sense of it just never stopping. How do things look for you like moving, you know, through those early years? Yeah. It was a good childhood. Even though I had that anxious mind and everything was, you know, I felt that guilt and shame. Again, I have no reason for it.

It's just the way my brain worked. I still had a great childhood. My family was great. I had a lot of friends. I participated in a lot of sports. I got pretty good grades. moving in high school. I was fairly popular. Got along with mostly everyone. I made a real effort to do that, mostly because I felt like I needed everyone to like me. But the town I grew up in had a reputation for

hard partying among its teenagers. And I'm sure it had a lot to do. Well, I'm sure a lot of midsides, Midwestern towns do. There's not a whole lot to do. A lot of teenagers find the booze. And that's what we did. The first time I drank, it was on a visit to a nearby college campus. A friend's brother was a there and his band was playing in his backyard and my friends and I were hanging out and somebody came by it with them, an artful of beers, handing them out to us and said, cheers, cracked it open, put it to my mouth, chugged it down in about a half a gulp and didn't quite like the taste of it, but as soon as the icy rim of that can touch my lips, something changed. I think back on it now and clearly biology was at work there. Something told me right then

there it was something special so listen to that terrible band play this just shitty music and the sweltering e drinking those watered down beers everything just slowed down for me and i never experienced that before i know a lot of people have a bad experience the first time they drink and and it doesn't happen for a while again they come back to it not for me i knew it was my thing as soon as it was for me it was the answer it calmed my mind and i felt like it made me more likable I'm not sure if it did, but it certainly felt that way. From that moment on, I was partly defined as the party guy, just the guy who drank a shit ton, right?

I was the good time guy. So that's what we did in high school. My friends and I would desperately try to score beer on weekends and during the summers and get blasted in someone's kitchen or cornfield because, again, it's the Midwest and we've got a lot of cornfields and abandoned building or wherever we could get away with it, right? But even among my friends who were big time drinkers and big time partiers, I was the drinker of drinkers.

I never stopped until I physically couldn't anymore. Again, thinking back on it now, I just thought I was the strongest party over them all. But no, there's clearly something more at work there. Well, I even thought it was interesting in what you had sent me before we jumped on here, too, is that it was this like a love affair in a sense, like that first time, right? Because you're right, people do share different experiences, right? Some people, they get right into it from the beginning. And then other people, it's, yeah, you get sick.

and it's like, okay, well, I'll take a little break for a bit, but it is so interesting, Dave, what you bring up there to where it checked some of those boxes for you. And then even with your peers, you're noticing early on that you're drinking looks a little bit different than other people around you, right? Like maybe in a sense, like hindsight, when I look back at my drinking,

I was drinking for a different reason I felt than my peers. Like my peers, they were just going out, they wanted to just kick it, do that. But they always seemed to have a ceiling. Like they knew when not to push it too far. And then there I was, just couldn't get enough, close down the party. They'd have to carry me out. And that started for me too.

That was, I started off early on. I'll never forget that first time. The first time I walked into this party, it was on a college campus. I'd never drank before. My folks weren't drinkers. I never really saw people drunk. I never understood the concept of alcohol. It's such a weird thing.

I never grew up around that. I didn't know anything about it, but I walked into this party. They had the cooler there. It was like some sort of juice, ever clear and fruit, and it was just disastrous. And I'm with you, man. I had that first drink. I probably felt that I was a small guy, 110 pounds or so then. So I felt it kick in, and I'm with you, man.

I felt like I was good looking, whether that was true or not. I felt like people loved me. And the next day, even after that, I got, I guess I had exchanged. phone numbers with a bunch of people and I got messages from people text messages and I never gotten that before like the only people that had my phone number was like my parents and if my mom wanted to get a hold of me type thing I wasn't really that connected person and man it was just that level of acceptance that I felt even though it wasn't all real I was sold man that this is it so I can relate with you on that well it's funny how I think we talk about how alcohol alcoholics are

liars, right? We lie all the time when we're in it, but the biggest lies we tell are to ourselves. And it starts back then, right? It lulls you into thinking you're better drunk than you are sober, right? I felt like I was cooler, but I probably wasn't. I mean, how cool are you when you're stumbling around a party and just slurring your words and being loud and obnoxious? Some 15, 16-year-old kids, just being the most obnoxious person. in the room. Yeah. Did you have any experience? Like, was it, was there a lot of drinking growing up or not really? Not really. I mean, drinking was always around. I grew up in Irish Catholic family, so it was a regular thing. You know, my, I had relatives who were alcoholics, but they

weren't close relatives. I didn't see them very often. So while the biology is there, the genetics were there, the exposure wasn't necessarily there. My dad was a regular beer drinker, but, I never saw him out of control. I never saw him what I would consider drunk. There were times when we went to family get-togethers, and I saw people having a good time, but I never saw anybody where it really stuck out in my head. But it was part of the culture, like I said, an Irish Catholic family, so it was always around. But again, I think it was just my makeup at work, but it was very interesting.

Yeah. But yeah, that's how ice school went for me, but it was okay because I was still flying under the radar, right? I was still getting good grades. I was still doing what I needed to do. I still had a lot of good friends. I was quote unquote a good kid, right? I got into all the colleges I applied to. I got good test scores.

And I went to college and college. That was different. Before I get back into that, I think that what kept me grounded in high school, though, were a couple of different things. And I think this is kind of a common theme that wound itself way back and really kept me grounded my whole life and continues to today. And I was blessed with two things, a good moral compass.

And I have my parents to thank for that. And the love of a wonderful girl. I started dating my now wife when I was in high school. She was 15. I was 16. And she's stuck with me for, we've been together for literally 30 years now. And she's the mother of my daughter. And I'm convinced that those two things that have helped me fight.

and win that sobriety today. And without that innate moral compass and the love of my wife and now my daughter, I couldn't win that battle each and every day. But anyway, after high school, came college, and then the rains came off, right? Because things got really interesting there. That's when all the rules and routines went out the window. I drank my way through college, but I went to class and still got decent grades. But it became a full-time gig.

I'd drink all day long into the nights on weekends every night during the week. scrounds through couch cushions to find loose chains to buy $412 packs. I think I had my first inkling of a problem when, again, we'd be partying. And I find myself waiting for people to pass out because one of my favorite things to do at night is sit alone and drink by myself and close out the night and just listen to music and just polish off the rest of whatever I had in my hand, whether it was that last six-fack or whatever was left in that bottle. That was, I remember thinking at the time that this probably isn't right. I was in my late teens, early 20s, so I didn't give it a whole lot of thought or invincible then, right? Much later, I'd find out that even my friends who were the drinkers of drinkers thought about having an intervention with me.

Even back then, not that it would have worked at the time, but I think back on it now and I imagine how life maybe could have turned out differently, but not that I'm blaming them. It just clearly from an early age, the signs were there. Yeah. It's like what you said though, right, too, in college, right? I think we shape it up as like maybe when your situation, I think you're kind of noticing the difference, but everybody's doing it. Like, it's everywhere, drinking. You know what I mean?

Like you're kind of realizing it sounds like at this point that maybe there's another level to the way you're drinking, but I think it can be easily justified when we're younger. That's the college experience. That's what you do. Like in your you're mentioning too, like other areas of your life are going all right in a sense. I mean, you're doing the grades. You're going to class. You're checking those boxes, right?

So why not just let off a little bit of steam at the end of the night? But, you know, that definitely, man, you know, that's such a tough spot because I think once we get to the spot where it's like, I've got a problem and I know it. I think we try our hardest to avoid that spot to believe it because then it's like our subconscious might go to work on. how are we going to get ourselves out of this and keep ourselves safe? And we want to try to avoid that leaking into our everyday life, right? Because then they might ruin the drinking for us. Yeah, you're 100% correct. And again, it goes back to the lies we tell ourselves, right?

Because even though those subtle signs, quote unquote, subtle signs, even though the ones we may not see, but even the obvious ones we downplay, right? I mean, I can remember so many times, even as a young person, like, it's a miracle I'm alive today. There are so many times when I could have done something so stupid that I could have easily died, right? I remember clearly, I've driven drunk, right? It's a miracle I didn't hurt myself or God forbid hurt anybody else. I remember during college, we all went up on the roof of my apartment complex and it was a staggered roof and it was a tar-covered roof and it was a tar-covered roof. So it was black.

I couldn't even see my feet. I fell off, went six feet down, fell on my face, split my chin open. We thought it was funny. Had to go to the hospital, get six stitches in my face. If I hit the wrong way, I could have easily broken my neck, could have been paralyzed or killed. And how many times does something like that happen, just an inch here or a moment there? And we could have died. And at that time, you're laughing at it, right?

And you're lying to yourself saying, yeah, this is a. a problem. This is this, like you said, this is the college experience. This is what you're supposed to be doing. You're supposed to be young and stupid. So yeah. But you said it previously, people that don't have those problems, they can shut it off, right? They kind of know when they've reached their limit. And I've never experienced that. And I don't know what that feels like. And I've always been so jealous of that. And it actually, it gives me a panic attack when I see somebody leave a half drunk drink, right? I'm like, how can you do that? Yeah, I know. I'm with you on that. I mean, what was happening in the early days? If you could kind of put words to it, like when you

had that first drink, I mean, what kind of took place for you on the inside? Yeah, like in terms of of why did I have that first drink or just like when you, yeah, like when you would get the ball rolling, right? Like, if you can put words to it about what was preventing you from stopping? That's a hard one. What was preventing me from stopping was it would start as, again, it would calm my mind, right? It would stop all that noise, that feeling of guilt and shame and that anxiety. That's where it would start. And then it would roll into my identity, right? That's how I define myself. That's how I became likable. I was defined as the party guy. So people expected me to be drinking that much, right? At least. That's what I thought. And I can't let people down. God forbid I let people down and disappoint people. I mentioned before, one of my biggest fears is letting somebody down and being a burden on someone. So if I let them down by betraying my identity, I couldn't handle that. So the reason I couldn't stop is because it calmed my mind, because it allayed my anxiety, and because it helped me become more likable and really helped me express my identity or my proceedings. identity to the people I cared about, that's what kept me going. And over time, just morphed,

morphed into something that became part of who I was and what I was mentally, emotionally, physically. I just had to do it. It became a compulsion that I couldn't stop. Yeah, beautifully explained. Beautifully explained there. I can relate with you too on that. I mean, for me, I always look at it like that first party I went to where it just checked all the boxes. I mean, it worked so well. I mean, I think that's one of the most dangerous things with it, is it works so well. And then as we know in all of these stories, there's a point where it doesn't do what it once did in a sense. It starts to create a bunch of problems. But looking back at those early years, I kept drinking to try to get back to what was, like to try to get back to the way I felt the first time in the way. Yeah, in the way out way I felt like people just loved me and now loved myself or maybe like maybe not. the first time in my life, but for the first time where I kind of had control over it, I felt like I was in control, right? I could just drink this and then, oh, I love you. You're not a bad guy after all, Brad. And it kept me stuck for a long time, right, trying to get back to what was. And then

when I, like, just honestly look at my story under a microscope is that I never arrived back to where and how it once was. I never found myself back there because then you pile on the guilt. You're already experiencing, especially in your story, the guilt and shame from an unknown place. And then the drinking, for me anyway, and maybe you can relate too, is that it just piled that on even more, right? Why can't I figure this out? Why can my buddies? And I think as we wrap up your college experience, I really struggled after college because

most of my buddies moved on from all this stuff. And I moved back to my hometown. And that was seen as a failure thing in a sense, right? I moved back to the small town. I didn't get the job out of college because, like, well, I mean, I wasn't employable if I'm being honest to get a job. But still, then it was just like everybody else moved on. It seemed like they had stuff going for them.

And there I was. What does the transition after college look like for you? Yeah. Well, transition for after college was, it was an extension of college. Honestly, the power drinking just continued. And it just became a part of my adult life. I just tacked on the responsibilities and tried to plow through them. I graduated.

I was fine. I got a job. I was a newspaper report. I got a degree in journalism. I started writing for newspapers. And all the while, the drink is still defined me. I worked terrible hours. So I didn't really hang out with people.

I remember my first job out of college. I was working at a 24-hour news organization. So I was working four to midnight on Mondays or Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, then midnight to 8 a. on Fridays and Saturdays. So I was drinking at all hours of the days just to chase that buzz and to make sure that I was getting my fill. And it was difficult. So the only people I really hung out with was my girlfriend. But even that, few and far between. She was still in college. She went to grad school. So again, I was mostly alone. I was living inside my own head and physically. I was

pretty much alone. I lived with one of my brothers, but we never saw each other because we had totally opposite schedules. Yeah, but it's still, the drinking really still define me, but it didn't create any real problems that interfere with my life on a daily basis because I was still doing well at work. And yeah, it was starting to create the cracks, though, right? My girlfriend was starting to say, hey, aren't we a little bit past this now? So I was starting to do that. I was starting to lose relationships because of it, but not. so bad I could convince myself that, nope, I got to move on from this because it was so ingrained in who I was. I wasn't serious enough to quit yet, not for me at least, for somebody else,

clearly, but not for me. I was still healthy. I was still sharp in my mind, and I was doing okay at work. So why did I need to quit? I said, ah, you know, the next stage of life is getting married. When I'm getting married, I'll slow down. That's when you become responsible. Then something weird happened, it goes back to what you were saying. It wasn't doing the same thing. It it had always done for me. Instead of quelling that innate guilt and shame and anxiety, it started to make things worse. Alcohol broke its promise to me.

I started drinking alone and really hiding it. And much like when I was a kid, I kept it all hidden into myself. It became real intense and my drinking was mostly private. While my family and friends aren't surprised at my need to get sober, I don't think they could guess at the depth of how dependent I was on it. even after I got married, it didn't slow down. If anything, I became more dependent on it.

And I couldn't figure it out. Like I said, even though it wasn't doing the same thing, I was still chasing it. And that's the frustrating thing, right? I don't know why we continue to chase it if we know that it's not there. Yeah. Why, I mean, it's counterintuitive. If it's not there, why do we continue to do it? I guess that's the science.

Yeah. It's so interesting. I mean, that's one of those million-dollar questions, right? It's almost like that thing for somebody who struggles with gambling, they say the worst thing to do is to get a big win, right? Because once you get a big win, then you feel like every time there's that potential, right, for a big win. If you just lost all the time, I would imagine then that would kind of be set in to us,

right, about like, hey, I'm always going to lose. And maybe that's in one way or another. What kind of is in it with alcohol, right? is because it worked for so long. It worked for a while to alleviate the pain or the discomfort or to help us. And then another thing you mentioned too consistently here is that identity piece, right? And I think that big thing comes up too for a lot of people I talk to on this quest is like, who am I without alcohol?

And then immediately we feel fear because it's the unknown. And I look back at my story too. And even though it was extremely destructive in my life, I knew what to expect. and I was more comfortable going into situations where I knew the disappointment, the guilt, the shame, what to expect, then to take a shot on myself or risk it to go against the grain in a sense to the unknown. Like the unknown was extremely terrifying. Even though the known was destroying my life and everything around me, I was comfortable or more comfortable in that space, which is like really, I think when the cycle really, picks up. What age did you get married at? I see, I was in my late 20s. My wife graduated from grad school, and so I was 26 when we got

married. And again, you know, I was hiding it. I was drinking in my basement and it was hiding bottles in my storage room and going back and chuttle chugging bottles of vodka after I got home from work. And then I would tell myself, oh, when I have a kid, that's when I'll slow down. That's when I have to slow down. I'll be a dad. And I take that seriously. My dad was a great dad. I can't disappoint him. Then in 2013, my wife got pregnant, and I told myself, okay, it's time to slow down. But what did I do? I celebrated by doing what I know best. I got blasted, right? So it kept going. My daughter was born the following summer, and my wife had some complications during her delivery, which created a nightmare, fear, and

anxiety because I almost lost her. It was scary. It was the most terrifying thing I've ever been And when she was recovering, it was clear that she was going to be okay. She had to spend a few more days in the hospital. I took a break and I left the hospital for a little breather, went home and I shared a beer with my dad. Now, my dad didn't know the death of my problem, so he didn't think it was a big deal. But so he thought it would be good just to blow off some steam like a normal person and share a beer, right?

Very sweet thing to do, very fatherly thing to do. But he left and then, you know, I proceeded just to take that bottle and take, take, a few shots, pass out for a couple hours, go right back to the hospital. So anyway, my daughter started to get older. I tried to moderate, as we all tried to do. And I should say also, I tried to moderate all along. I tried to quit, even quit for a couple months several times. Never worked.

But I could feel myself declining over the years. Getting older, I was declining. I know I was heading toward a bad ending. Things happen along the way that I still can't talk about openly. now and like people say when you hit rock bottom and i don't know why people have to wait until rock bottom to do something about it so i knew i was heading toward the bad ending and i knew i had to do something the days were becoming routine and not in a good way i'd wake up hungover i just remember every single day standing in the shower berating myself for failing again and again i'm going to work

I'm telling myself not drinking the night. And around 3 o'clock, I get that itchy feeling. My knuckles would go like this. I'm now starting watering. Stop by the liquor store, pick up that six pack in a bottle, and I spend a few minutes with my family. Just to say hi. And I go in the basement, drink your beers, have that bottle just in case six beers

wasn't enough. Never was. So this one, I'm for years, and I mean years, basically throughout my entire 30s. And all the while, again, just living inside my own head, I thought I was hiding all of it. I knew it was wrong. I knew it was heading towards something bad and the amount of energy I put into hiding my drinking, lying about it, making up this narrative and lying to myself about it was utterly exhausting. And I was oblivious to how it was impacting my family.

I thought it was just impacting me. And that was probably the worst part about it. So again, my health was in decline. I would get a physical and my numbers would come back terrible, my doctor. And like we all do, I would, when they ask you how much you drink, we would grossly underestimate it. My mental acuity wasn't there. I never drank while I was working. I've certainly showed up drunk from the night before.

I was in a constant fog. I couldn't do things that I'd once done so easily. And my work suffered. But worse of all, I was missing out on watching my daughter grow up and play and be who she was. you know, the most energetic and most personable little girl you ever meet in your life. She's the kind of girl who just wants to make friends wherever she goes. She doesn't have a shy bone in her body. And I was missing out on that just to watch her as a joy.

And I was abandoning my wife and being part of that team of being a parent and not being a partner in our marriage, not treating her the way she deserved as somebody I loved. So I was cheating, I was cheating everyone, including myself. It went on for years, and I was just, like I said, just exhausted. And I couldn't do it anymore. So there was no flashpoint, really. There was no terrible event that happened. There was just a slow decline into hell.

And so the day I quit was December 16th, 2019. And my wife found a receipt for a bottle of vodka after I told her that I'd quit. that I had quit drinking booze and I was only drinking beer. Again, one of the ways I'd hang in on to that demon on my shoulder. And she looked at me, there was no judgment, no anger on her face. She just looked at me and she told me she was going to join Allen on. And that, for whatever reason, that shook me to my core. I never thought for a second that she was considering that.

I never thought that it impacted her in that way. She's the person that had stood by me for 30 years. and she needed that help. And it was all because of me talk about being a burdened on someone and being a burden on the person who meant the most of me. So there it was. So all that pain and anguish that I've been heaving on myself, I'd really been heaving on her for years.

So that at night I called the nearest alcohol treatment center and I scheduled an assessment. So after that, I did six weeks of an intensive outpatient treatment. And that was interesting. First, I didn't really speak because, you know, I kept out all of myself. I just listened, but it was fascinating. That's when I learned about how alcoholism, it does not discriminate. It does not, it affects everyone from all walks of life, and it doesn't care who you are.

That room, I remember looking around that room, seeing the diversity in that room from race, creed, socioeconomic, just anything. But everybody was there and listening to each other. You would never see that collection of people in a room other than in this scenario. And it was simultaneously depressing yet awe-inspiring. So some people clearly took it more serious than others. But seeing that really over my eyes and really inspired me to get sober. So a lot of people say that sobriety won't happen unless you do it for yourself.

And while it didn't necessarily start that way for me, I did it because the real reason I went was because I was hurting my wife so much when I got in that treatment center. And I looked around and I saw how it impacted everybody else. That's when I realized how it was impacting me. And that's when I knew that I had to do it for myself. What I struggled with was in addition to not wanting to be a burden on other people. I often think that my feelings don't really matter in the grand scheme of the world, right? The Earth's four and a half billion years old. There are billions of people on the planet.

There are trillions of people that have lived. What does it matter of my feelings? Why should they matter one bit? But I learned that they should look at the opposite way, right? Of the billions of people on the planet, there's only one me. And there's only one experience that I've ever had. So that's special. We should hold on to that.

I should respect that. And I try to hang out to that every day. And that's part of what keeps me sober every day. Wow, man. Thank you so much for sharing that. That is incredible. There was one thing, too, that you reached out when you had mentioned that I thought was really, really powerful. And I think it played a part in maybe that decision making with your wife and how she said,

necessarily, this is what I got from it. So correct me if I'm wrong here. She wasn't leaving you because of what you were struggling with, but she had to learn how to love you with who you had become. in a sense, right, with the drinking. Yep. Yep. That's exactly right.

And we talked about it to this day. It was never an option for her. She wasn't going to leave me. She was just, you said it perfectly, and she said it like that. She need to learn how to love and live with an alcoholic. And again, going back to saying, I thought my drinking was only impacting me. And that was just such an eye-opener. And the fact that it was impacted the person I care about most in such a profound way,

that was it. I knew right then and there had to do something about it. Now, it wasn't easy. It never is. And everybody's experience is different. Some people, quitting, quitting drinking is easier for some people than it is for others. For me, it was really hard. And I may have made it harder than it had to be because, like I said, my sobriety was very private. I didn't reach out for the help that I probably should have because it probably goes back to that shame and guilt that I constantly feel. I have a hard time opening up that part of my heart and mind people. But I heard somewhere that staying sober is easy unless anything happens, right?

For me, that's true. While the physical act of drinking is nearly impossible, like we just said, the act of learning to live sober is just as difficult. You remember that you have real emotions and real responsibilities. You start to feel those things again. And keeping those emotions in check while allowing yourself to find yourself, self-endom is really difficult, but it's also really beautiful. It's also, it's great. One of the things that I've really taken for granted, a lot of people don't really think about it is self-awareness. I was

never self-aware. And I know who I am now. And I know how I react in situations. And what part of what I learned in therapy was what was CBT and playing that tape, right? So the self-awareness and, okay, if you have that drink, what's going to have to play that tape? What's, what's going to happen. I'm rolling out all the cliches, but these cliches exist for a reason. The easiest strength to say no to is that first one. So anyway, again, it's knowing yourself. It's being self-aware and being able to make those decisions based on that awareness and knowing what's going to happen. So educating yourself on who you are and what you need to do to live a happy and a life that makes those you love happy. Yeah. Even going back there a little bit too,

I love all the cliches, by the way. But even going back there, too, about first starting it out, right, getting started on this journey for your wife in a sense, right, for the relationship with your wife and your daughter too, maybe as well. Getting started on that and then kind of that transferring over to yourself. I think there's a lot of people who start out there. And I know in my story, I didn't feel worthy. Like, who am I to? I didn't really care about myself. So it's like, well, everybody's like, well, you got to get sober for yourself.

It's like, yeah, that's great. but I don't really care about myself. So it was a lot of the stuff about having that understanding of how this impacts everybody else around us. And I think that's an incredible way to start. And I think if you do start there, eventually when we sober up a little bit, we start to see things a lot more clear. We start to kind of understand and unpack things a little bit and can really start to work on coming home to ourselves, loving ourselves, which was that was like, I was like, what are you guys talking about? Love yourself.

Oh, come on, who are you kidding here with this stuff? There's no way. I hated who I was. I would avoid the mirror. And you hear a lot of people share a story like that. And if I did ever catch a glimpse, it was just like, what? I had a hard time getting over the thought and the idea that the way I grew up, that I had ended up where I ended up. I mean, how was this possible?

How in the heck was this possible that it got here from that first year? I did a lot of drugs, too. so that first drug, how did I get here? It was such innocent fun. And all my friends who were there the first time I did this or first time I did that, they moved on with their life. Like what was so weird and so strange? What was I weak?

Was I not able to figure this out? Was something just wrong with me? These questions constantly go through our minds, right? Like, why am I so different? Why can't I figure this out? And it just beats us up. And then we seem to just keep the cycle going. Yeah, you're 100% correct. I've had that exact same conversation in my mind a hundred times.

Yeah. So you make this decision. I mean, to get out of this, dude, I mean, you got to crack a smile here. This is incredible. It was a painful journey for you, but now here you are. When you message me the first time, 1661 days, there's more sense than. I mean, what's changed in your life, right? Since a couple months into this thing and up till now. Yeah. Oh, boy. Everything. Everything. Honestly. I'm not a deeply religious person. I'm open to the fact that there is a higher power at work. But the fact that I quit when I did is the timing is not lost on me. It was December 2019. The pandemic happened in March 2020, which is when we all went home. I got a good three or four months of sobriety under my belt before we all went home.

And I'm convinced if I was still drunk by the time the pandemic. pandemic hit, I would not be sitting here talking to you today. So again, I don't know if it's a higher power at work. I'm open to that notion, but I'm convinced that God opened that door for me at that time. The first couple of months, like I said, were really difficult. I couldn't sleep. I had those shigs. I wanted to drink every single day, and I still do, by the way. A lot of people say I'm disgusted by it. No, I don't want to know. It makes me sick. And it kind of does, but it kind of doesn't. I'm not going to away from it. I love being drunk. I love feeling that feeling. I'm not going to lie about it. And now it does simultaneously make me want to puke because it does cause that shame and I don't

want to do it. And I feel shameful saying that, but I'm also not going to lie to myself because I've spent way too many years lying to myself and that only gets me in trouble. So anyway, so those first couple of months were hard, real hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. And I'm convinced it'll be the hardest thing I ever do. But I had to find something. something to replace that because we put so much energy into drinking and lying about drinking and convincing ourselves that it's okay and hiding from others. I honestly started just walking. I just walked.

And so I spent time doing that. And it just started that simple. And that's when I started listening to your podcast, to be honest with you. I would just start listening to podcasts and I came across yours and started listening to other people's stories and that that kept me motivated. And from that, things started to get better, not easy. It never got easy. It's still not easier. It just gets a little less hard, right?

But that helped me realize that you have to replace drinking with something. So I kind of threw myself into fitness, which it took me 40 years of my life to, get fit. And I've never been that guy. I've never been a fitness guy. And I don't do it because of some desire to be a physically fit guy. I do it because that's how I calm my mind. So instead of the alcohol calming my brain and my anxiety, it's the physical activity. And so I've since stepped that up and I continue to do it to this day. I have to do it every day to replace that. So anyway, I'm a lot healthier. Every time I go for a physical now, my numbers come back almost perfect.

I've lost a ton of weight. I'm healthier than I've been since since I've been in high school. So physically, I'm healthier. Clearly mentally, I'm a healthier. I'm a better father. My daughter probably knows more about drinking than at 10 years old now than she ever should. Thankfully, I got sober when she was five, and hopefully she doesn't remember all that much,

but enough to know that she's proud of me. And she knows how present I am now. So that has changed. She's my best friend. I tell her all the time, you're my best friend. You're my best friend, Deb. I know I'm a much better father. I know I'm a much better partner to my wife.

We work together now. We have a fantastic marriage. So everything is better. My career is better. I feel smarter. I don't know if I am, but I feel smarter. So I'm at least sharper. I feel like I can do what I used to do at work now.

I'm not in that constant haze or fog. I've always considered myself a relatively intelligent person, but I was holding myself back with booze, and now I've not held back. So literally every facet of my life is better. So yeah, you ask what's changed. Yeah. Literally everything. Yeah.

Yeah, everything. How do you find your relationship with yourself internally? How do you find that looks, you know, where you're at now? Yeah, that's a good question because on the surface, it's all a lot better, but I still start with it. Again, I'm not going to lie about it. I still feel that shame and guilt. I still am looking at ways to deal with it. But I mentioned it before. I'm much more self-aware. I know myself better, which makes me better equipped to handle life. I'm able to make better decisions about what life throws at me. And that's empowering, right? I like myself better. Not all the time because I do feel shame. I constantly have dreams. about drinking. And I wake up, shameful about it. I'm, you know, logging myself mentally. Let's think what the hell's around with you. So I'm working on it. But it's a damn site better than it was four years ago, even two years ago. So. Yeah, that's beautiful. And I think that's what sobriety allows us to do, right? It gives us that space and maybe that willingness as well to say,

like, hey, everything's not where I wanted to be, but willing to maybe chip away at the block to maybe move forward and see where we land. And I think alcohol, what it does is just keeps us in the same place. I mean, I was the same person probably from my first drink to when I quit and when I was doing other stuff. I probably, yeah, I would be the same person as far as maturity, as far as what I was doing in my life and as far as poor me, poor me. That's the way it was. Like, I was just a victim to so many circumstances in life. And then when you sober up, I think you mentioned it there too in a roundabout way. I think that confidence especially speaks in the work that you're doing and in those relationships. It really opens the door for like maybe that vulnerability too. I noticed

that a lot in my relationships as I, the longer I was sober now, not the first year, probably not the second year. I wasn't really ready to go there. But maybe the third year, I was able to open up a little bit more and actually create meaningful connections with people as before I was so scared. I was so scared like, am I just going to let them down as I previously did? And I think it would just really kind of change things to maybe let me kind of grow into my own shoes. I felt like for so long, I was like a size nine, but I was wearing size 20. Yeah. Well, I've heard you say this many times before, and it's something that's really stuck with me.

It's wherever you go there you are. And so you mentioned the willingness to learn and open up. And you're right. I don't think I've ever been had the honesty or the willingness to do that. So being, you know, whatever circumstance in life that you're going through, you still have to deal with your problems. So being willing to open yourself up and to deal with those issues in a constructive way, even though it's hard, even though it's going to be difficult to get through, you have to do it. Because if you don't, it's not going to end well. Yeah, it just eats us up.

Dave, wrapping up here, somebody's listened to the show and they're in that cycle. of maybe I'll figure this out, maybe I'll cut back, maybe I'll moderate, not being honest with themselves about where they're at sneaking around. It gets heavy to carry, right? What would you mention to them? Yeah, this is my favorite part. I love this part when you wrap it up like this. So number one, for an alcoholic, moderation is a myth.

Can't do it. We said it, the only drink you can possibly say no to is the first one. And even that's a herculean effort. Get moderation out of your brain. you're going to waste so many years and so much effort and so much time and you'll just waste so much energy thinking moderation is the answer and so if you're going to commit to get sober you do have to learn to do it for yourself but if that's not the first step start by doing it for the ones you love the ones you can't live life without and that'll help you grow into it one thing that

personally i've learned is don't suffer in silence your suffering is worth telling somewhat about it's not inconsequential don't let yourself die inside people innately want to help you if you need help talk to someone there's any the you'd be surprised who will be willing to help you if you fail which you're going to keep trying the only thing we have power over is the ability to keep trying it's like knocking over a refrigerator right you don't push it over in one push you rock it back and forth rock it back and forth and finally it gives way so then another one is like i mentioned before you got to replace drinking with something else you can't just quit drinking and go about your day you got to redirect that energy and that time into something

else i don't care what it is write a novel become a professional juggler do whatever but you have to redirect that energy somewhere else and just remember to work from within take on those challenges here and now, defuse those landmines now or you'll forget where you bury them in the future. And that's about it. Yeah. Great stuff, Dave. Well, quite the journey, man. And again, thank you so much for sharing it with us.

Yeah, I think it's so interesting, that moderation thing, right? Like, it's just, for me, it's a fascinating topic. Because part of me is like, we have to go through it and figure out it doesn't work. But the other question to that is, how long do we? We need to go through it to figure out it doesn't work. Yeah. And I think if we can shorten that cycle, if somebody out there is in that process, if you can shorten that cycle, then you can get to the other side a lot sooner.

Because you hear time and time again, we spend 10, 20 years trying to figure it out, switching from liquor to beer and from this beer to light beer and from that and this day of time and make sure we're eating before and asking other people to hold us accountable. It never works out for a duration. One of the most confusing things about it is sometimes it will work out for a night or maybe two nights. Maybe if we're really lucky, three nights. But on the fourth night, for me anyway, I'm going to be right back to where I was because I didn't drink for the taste of alcohol. I didn't drink at the end to fit in with people.

I drank because there was something inside of me that I was not content with. And I kept going back to what once worked, but not. no longer worked and struggled to find a way out. So yeah, great stuff, man. Yeah, thank you. Well, there it is everyone. Another incredible episode. Huge shout out to Dave.

Incredible, incredible job from a place of being unsure about sharing his story to finishing up the episode. It was a moving one for sure. Thank you so much, Dave. Also, just wanted to let everybody know. Check the show notes down below. I'll share the link for you to get plugged into the sober motivation community. community. My motivation and inspiration for doing this is because I know that the change

that community can make in someone's life. The most beautiful thing about watching people get and stay sober to give up the booze, to live their best life, is that they start to love themselves again, but also the impact on the people around them. It is a beautiful thing to witness. I hope you guys are going to join. I'll see you on the inside.