Freak-quently Asked Questions part. 1

Let's Go! It started as a blog. Now it's a non-profit. But, I have so many people ask me questions, and if you have met me you know I love to tell a story. There are no simple answers. A lot of times a question will lead me to memory that feels paramount to share in that moment, more than answers. Often times I'll leave a lunch or outing with a new friend or potential business associate and be like huh, I didn't even answer that... or, I'll regret not diving into something more pertinent.

Time is our most precious resource. So, I hope by me blogging we can save us all some time. Maybe I won't feel compelled by spirit to tell every story that comes across my frontal lobe when we go get a tea.

Why did you stop drinking?

I stopped drinking because of my mental health. So to really answer that question, we should be asking why did alcohol feel so good?

I had my first beer at 14. It was right after I had moved out of my mother's and step-father's house in Raleigh to the coast of North Carolina. My dad wasn't exactly sure where we were going to live yet. We were staying with some friends of his from college who had rented a beach house on the crystal coast for a week. In Southern culture, it was not abnormal to give teenagers a can of Bud on a family vacation. Also, trauma had aged me and even now when I look back at the pictures of me at that age, I looked like an adult and I remember feeling like an adult. I wasn't. I was a child. But, I also had been raising myself (and my little half- brother) for the last couple years. That first beer was the first time I had felt care-free. I could finally relax.

I played asshole, won. People I respected were laughing at my jokes, a high that I will always chase. I had four beers that night. The next time I drank would be a couple months later at homecoming weekend. I went with a friend to her sister's college party. They found out I had only had beer and I was presented with a shot of 151. It was awful... I only really remember throwing up later that night and right after begging to go to go get cheeseburgers.

At first, drinking was like rolling a 20 sided DnD dice. 1/20 shot I would have a bad night and cry or do something I would regret. As I got old and experienced more of the trauma life has to offer, it became like rolling a regular die. 1/6 chance I would have a bad time. I hurt my knee really badly. I hurt some people really badly. I didn't like who I was. I was lost. I left the country and became a SCUBA diving instructor. (Did you know: SCUBA stands for self contained underwater breathing apparatus?)

My aunt died from suicide when I was in the Cook Islands. The way I started drinking to process her death was ridiculous, especially on a island that size. I was drinking a 12 pack of Heineken a night and then going diving the next morning at 7 am. I had no idea how I was sustaining the habit, especially with the cigarettes. A pack of smokes was like $22. I was only making like $300 a week as a dive instructor. My boss saw the pain (and danger). She insisted I start therapy or she wouldn't let me work. I met a really good man unlike anyone I had ever been with, and oh I fucked it all up with my drinking. He ran the SPCA and one night I picked a fight, had a panic attack, and told him to let me sleep in the dog kennels. (wtf... was wrong with me?!?! I cringe!)

I started doing Muy Thai. I would wake up every morning at 6 am. My drinking had gone way down... but when I did drink I could NOT stop. I started dating one of the fighters... I woke up one morning with a note on piece of paper saying, "Please never call me again." I still don't know what happened. I knew I had a problem. At the time, there were no AA on the island. The advice of my therapist was to find hobbies. So in addition to Muy Thai, I started walking with the rotary club and joined a painting class. I had taken good reprieve from drinking and my life was getting better. I was dating this girl from the Philippines who was obsessed with Hanson. She had posters of them all over her bungalow and it was super cute. She would play guitar at the speakeasy underneath the post office where I would bartend on Monday nights. Bartending was great for me I was able to be social without feeling weird for not drinking. After a couple months, my students convinced me to come out on The Party Bus (once a week a bus would go around the island to all the resorts and pick up young travelers and take them to the disco's and bars in town. Big stamp of approval from me! Drinking should be fun! But drinking and driving never is.)

We were at the 2nd bar. I was "controlling" my drinking. Things were good. I was having so much fun. I started dancing, and next thing I know I am on my way to the hospital. I had torn my left leg's meniscus. I had already torn my right 6 years prior (very drunk... that actually a funny story. It's better to tell in person because of the physicality. I am a clown after all.) I was coming up on one year in the Cook Islands and the dive shop was going to extend my visa another year. My family was coming to visit next week and I was suppose to teach my half-brother how to SCUBA. Instead, I ended up on a plane with them back to the United States, broken physically and mentally. I barely remember my last two weeks in the Cook Islands I was so drunk.

When I got back to America I moved in with my Mimi in the mountains of North Carolina to heal in a small town called Fleetwood outside of Boone. I didn't really leave the house for two months, and when I did it was to take my Dad's car to visit Asheville to be with people who wanted to drink the same way I did. It was a dark time that makes me uncomfortable to dig into. I knew I was losing my light fast. I entered into a co-dependent relationship with an old friend. One night while high on cocaine and drunk on whiskey, he proposed to me in a Motel 6. Surrounded by cigarette smoke and shame, I said yes. We moved to Key Largo.

It's never good to think you are better than someone. It's downright terrible to date someone you think you are better than. And it's fucked up to agree to marry someone you think you are better than. So, I fucked up. I agreed to marry someone I thought I was better than. Also, I was straight up delusional to think that I was saving them by moving them to the south of Florida.

After a year and some change in the keys, all of our friends could see that we were in a toxic relationship. We were heading out west to go trim weed on a farm and I had a couple of people tell me that I should come back alone, for both of our sakes. Instead, we started the journey out west. The Honda Accord his dad had sold us for $1 broke down in Jacksonville. I abandoned it a block away from a Carmax. We bought a minivan and I would go on to live in it for the next couple months. I don't really remember the drive out west. We went to Vegas. We went to the Grand Canyon. I have a pictures. Our stop in LA was particularly embarrassing, because we were visiting family that I still see to this day.

When we got to northern California, I was to work on a different farm. To be clear: I am not good at trimming weed. I asked the guys who were running the farm why I was there, and they told me it was because I was good for moral. They have about 10 people in those rooms and they want them to stay put for at least 10 hours a day. We would listen to podcasts, standup comedy specials, and tell each-other stories. They were a great audience and I really found my love for story-telling.

There were a couple people on the farms that were "Cali" sober. Meaning they didn't drink but still smoked pot and would do mushrooms. I knew my drinking was a problem since I was in high school. I actually went to AA for my first time in Cozumel. I got a sponsor and everything! I didn't feel judgement from her when after a month I told her I wasn't ready to stop partying. I was 23 and living in Mexico... I had more memories to create I that I would vaguely remember and people to meet who's stories I needed to share.

I was so curious about their sobriety and how it worked for them. They came out the bars and I remember them micro-dosing on Thanksgiving. To know this version of navigating through the world was an option was exciting. It didn't have to be all or nothing. I could just not drink. The cali sober folks were the happiest and most stable people there. One of them was a rapper and was having a show in San Fransisco. It had been a particularly cold and rainy season. I was feeling very lonely and depressed. I was drinking a lot. We offered up our van to drive everyone to the show. I remember stopping in a gas station and buying two airplane bottles of Hornitos tequila. I blacked out half-way into the drive but vaguely remember obnoxiously singing Bad Guy by Billie Eilish and trying to jump off a bridge while we were stuck in traffic. 5 years later and I still can't really listen to that song but can't bring myself to take it off my Spotify because its such a banger.

The next day came. I hadn't really slept. I was filled with a sense of dread. I needed a cheeseburger. I remember being in the back of that van, so uncomfortable and just wishing I could go to sleep. But I didn't want to die. I wanted to live. I was embarrassed I had tried to kill myself, but I didn't wish I had succeeded. Was it shame that got me to stop drinking? To be honest, it was the fear of shame that stopped me from drinking and driving. I didn't care about hurting myself. I was scared of the social stigma of a DUI or of hurting someone else. Finally, the shame of continuing to drink outweighed the social shame of being sober.

The biggest reason I stopped drinking was because of Susan's suicide. I didn't want to hurt my family. Her death destroyed everyone. The thought of what my death would do, especially to my father. Even now writing this, I just straight up start crying with guilt of what could have been. I was so close. And I don't even really remember. After I stopped drinking I found out that 1/4 suicides the person has alcohol in their system. 6 months after being sober, a colleague committed suicide surrounded by bottles of wine. If I kept drinking or started drinking again, that could be my fate.

A lot of people say weed is a gateway drug and that just is not true. I have never tired anything new or dangerous when I was on THC. I did however try a lot of new and dangerous things when I was drinking. Drinking was the common denominator in every bad thing that had ever happened in my life, whether it was my fault or not. At that point in my life it controlled every aspect of my decision making. Y'all, I couldn't go hiking with-out bringing a bottle of Prosecco.

There is a saying, "Not everyone who has trauma is an addict, but everyone who is an addict has some sort of trauma." The emotions I was feeling were clear, undeniable, and confusing. It was the same clarity I had after getting glasses when I was nine. Tree's have leaves? I am the cause of all of my problems?

It's been a intense journey since that December in 2019. I moved back home and connected with a friend from high school. We went to Cozumel after being sober from alcohol for a year (we actually stayed in my old sponsors house!) and went to Ecuador and the Galapagos for our honeymoon. We now have a daughter and live in the mountains of North Carolina. We are building a life we don't want to escape from. A life with-out shame and fear where we can feel safe to be ourselves.

So, to answer the question, I stopped drinking so I could start living.