It’s been just over 3 years since my last drink.

I don’t know the exact day I stopped drinking, and I don’t celebrate or mark the occasion.

This is strange to me because I wasn’t a casual drinker who decided to stop.

But every so often, I catch myself thinking that I’m “X” amount of time into sobriety, and I feel strange when I call myself sober.

The words never feel right when they come out of my mouth or even whispered to no one except in my mind.

Maybe it’s just a matter of semantics, but I consider myself someone who chose not to have a drink one day and has continued with that choice for just over three years.

I could backtrack and create a guestimate of when I made that choice, but it’s unimportant.

What is important to me is whether or not I choose to drink today.

And right now, where I sit, that’s one of the easiest choices I can make.

It’s not a struggle; it’s not a battle.

Man, I could never have guessed this.

There was a time I would have never even considered not drinking. Drinking was an inextricable component of my identity, I started in the sixth grade, and I was off to the races.

The idea of finding out who I was without alcohol scared the hell out of me.

I was scared of what people would say. I was scared I’d never find the courage I found when I drank. I was scared I wouldn’t be creative, and share that creativity, something I loved to do.

Worst of all, I was scared not drinking meant I’d have to live in my own skin, in my level of consciousness, and experience myself without altering my mind.

I, and so many do, drank to escape. I don’t think I drank to necessarily escape life; I drank to escape myself.

All my addictive behaviors, spending, porn, and drugs when I was in my twenties, choosing fantasy over reality, were all escapes.

I see now, and it makes me sad, how little I liked myself.

And I see, with the crystal clear clarity of age and visions of my past screaming into my brain, how little regard I had for myself.

The verbal and physical self-abuse poured out of my self-loathing. The constant need to escape.

Nothing would dissuade me, almost getting arrested for driving drunk, crashing my car more than once while drunk, more close calls than I can fathom while driving drunk, coughing up blood from years of abusing alcohol, blacking out and shaking when too much time passed between drinks.

Eating cereal the day after a big night out was an act of futility; my hands would shake so much that there would be nothing on the spoon by the time it reached my mouth.

Eventually, I’d use two hands just so I could eat.

I remember watching as my brain, something I actually did like about myself, deteriorated, and my cognitive functioning declined.

I remember feeling like I could see my grey matter diminishing as everyday, routine activities became difficult.

I struggled to find words when I spoke, and loading the dishwasher stumped me.

No aspect of my life was immune from my drinking.

And it didn’t matter; I needed my escape, and I found it in the bottom of a bottle.

Until the day I didn’t.

Maybe I was lucky; sobriety was thrust upon me in the form of a federal prison sentence. Sure, I could have found alcohol somewhere, but random piss tests and losing even more freedom wasn’t worth it.

Without alcohol, there was no escape.

Prison forced me to stare the worst version of myself in the eyes and confront him. At first, I wanted to kill him, which, of course, meant killing myself.

I planned how I could take my life, maybe hanging myself in the gym or in the woods; I ultimately decided blowing my brains out when I was released from prison was the best option.

But the universe saw fit to ensure that didn’t happen, for which I’m very grateful.

I returned to drinking when I returned to the real world and its freedom. But without the same tenacity, prison and my circumstances were a blessing again.

I was financially ruined.

I couldn’t afford to drink the way I used to drink.

But when I could drink, I found that drinking had changed; hindsight tells me it was me that changed.  

First, the hangovers were unreal.

When you’re hungover every single day for years, it becomes a baseline, and you learn to function within that baseline.

A three-day hangover doesn’t exist when every day is a hangover.

I was working on my first book, “Blank Canvas” and learning to love the process.

I’d formulated a morning routine that would enable me to reach a flow state when I typed.

I’d work for 2 hours every day, and the other 22 hours felt like they were in preparation for those 2.

I had a mission, and it was joyful, purposeful, and meaningful.

But when I was hungover, I couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t find flow.

I couldn’t fulfill my purpose.

I hated that.

And, when I would drink, I experienced something completely foreign to me.

Back when I was drinking heavily, I loved the moment the alcohol hit my lips, and my escape began. It was as if a switch had been flipped, and my body knew what was going to happen.

I craved that moment; it was working, and in no time, I’d be free.

But, when I started feeling the feeling I used to crave, I became sad and scared, I didn’t want to leave myself behind. I desperately wished I could reverse the process and extract the alcohol from my blood.

I wanted to return home to the comfort of my own skin. Skin, that not that long ago, I’d spend my sober moments wanting to rip off.

The last time I felt comfortable in my skin was when I was very young, probably before I was 6 or 7.

I hadn’t yet picked up the burden of beliefs, unworthiness, inadequacy, and self-loathing. I hadn’t found the reason(s) to be anyone other than who I was.

But there I was, a forty-something-year-old man who once again found himself comfortable in his own skin.

I didn’t possess all the things I thought I needed to be worthy, enough and accepted.

I was financially ruined, a felon; I worked the front desk at a gym, making twelve bucks an hour, and found myself unclogging toilets more than I cared to.

I was awash in shame for my choices and damage is done; I still struggled with (and still to this day) unworthiness and inadequacy.

I was still haunted by ghosts of the past and yet I didn’t need to escape them.

I discovered comfort in my reality, even if it was uncomfortable.

Because I had a purpose and was living in alignment with who I was always meant to be.

I’m going to speak out of both sides of my mouth right now. I dislike content creators who say, “I’m scared to share this,” because I believe this is engineered authenticity designed to pull readers in.

But the fact is, I’ve been hesitant to share my journey of not drinking. I didn’t follow the “normal” path; I went to one AA meeting, and it wasn’t for me.

I didn’t seek outside help or counsel.

I realized I no longer needed the escape, and I found something more important than drinking.

I discovered my life calling, my purpose -expressing ideas through writing and speaking.  

I’ve been hesitant to share because I walked away from a lifetime of addiction and alcohol abuse, and it was one of the easiest choices I’ve ever made.

My hesitancy flows from the struggles and battles I know people face; I know there are way too many people waging internal wars and losing.

I sometimes feel guilty for walking away easily, for achieving something others struggle to achieve. But I’m also aware that I could fall off the wagon at any given moment.

However, one of my paths to not drinking is hidden in the fear of sharing what I just expressed.

Drinking was an escape. I chased a different feeling while desperately wanting to run from whatever I was feeling.

I was afraid to experience myself in the life I was living.

The sheer fact that I feel a twinge of fear about sharing this story means I have to share it.

It’s a conscious choice to explore my fears and imprisoning beliefs and share them in the hopes of helping someone who feels right now how I once felt.

I no longer run away; I move (I hope) closer and closer to my personal truth, no matter how painful it may be.

Life is too short and too precious to escape.

📣 New Offering! Check out the Reinvention Reset.

It’s a highly focused, tactical, 60-minute call designed to get you unstuck, reinvigorate, and build momentum.