Adapted from a personal letter written in April 2024, with later context added.
To explain how I found myself in rehab, we have to go back a ways. There were a couple of turning points, and a few things about myself I had to come to understand.
When I find something I can latch onto, especially something I can excel at, I become laser focused. I want to learn everything about it. Coffee was like that. Work could be like that. Being knowledgeable felt like something I could offer people, a reason they might want me around.
Looking back, I can see how much validation I was looking for in other people.
I didn't really start drinking until I was 21. Sure, I'd tasted alcohol before, but I hadn't been drinking to feel something. I was married to my first wife then. We were “good” Christians, and she wasn't much for the taste of alcohol. But I was 21 now, felt entitled to drink, and quickly found that I enjoyed it.
I liked the craft of cocktails. In that way, it felt familiar to coffee. There was something to learn, something to get good at.
Oddly enough, cannabis became a turning point in my own story. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't very accessible to me, and my wife was opposed to it. Spending time with certain friends became an opportunity to smoke, and alcohol was often around too. I also had this constant feeling that I was missing out on things with friends.
Hiding the smoking became part of the routine. Hiding the drinking followed.
While I was in rehab, I wrote something that encompasses a lot of it:
When I began to drink, it was to fit in. When I began to feel lonely, I wanted to be around people who also drank as a means to not feel lonely. When I was alone, I drank to make the time pass. But now, when people wanted to hang out, I was too drunk to join.
After my first marriage ended, I felt free to do whatever I wanted. My drinking progressed. I still preferred weed, but alcohol was easier to get. When I felt depressed, drinking to feel better seemed like the easiest solution.
At the beginning of 2015, I got my first DUI. I fell asleep at the wheel coming home from a date. Even that wasn't enough for me to recognize the problem. I could still explain it away to myself: I had only been drinking that much because I couldn't get any weed.
Jump forward to 2020. I was with my second wife, living downtown, and working from home for Apple. I was good at my job, and I convinced myself that being able to do it while drinking meant I could keep doing both.
So I began drinking while I worked. I became more brazen with leadership, and we began butting heads.
When I lost that job, I spiraled. So much of who I thought I was had been wrapped up in being an Apple employee. Losing the job meant losing something I had been using to define myself.
In December 2020, my mom, stepdad, and wife sat me down for an intervention. They wanted me to stop drinking and go to rehab. Between COVID and not having the insurance to cover treatment, getting there was difficult.
I stopped drinking for two or three months. Then I started again and got better at hiding it.
That was the pattern for most of the next three years. I was drinking somewhere between a pint and a liter of whiskey a day. There were periods when I drank less or seemed more in control, often after my wife found a bottle. But I was still drinking every day.
I could hold a job. I used that as reassurance. I also told myself I knew when I could and couldn't drive. Being able to get behind a wheel didn't mean I should have been there.
After losing another job at the beginning of 2023, my drinking became more constant. The amount didn't change much. It was more of a casual drip of booze all day, every day. If I went more than eight hours without it, I would start having withdrawal symptoms.
On December 14, 2023, I knew I needed to make changes for my health and my marriage. I decided to start by changing my routines.
But the whole day I was making those changes, I was also drinking.
Eventually, I knew I couldn't drive anymore. I pulled into a McDonald's parking lot and decided I would sleep it off for a while.
The next thing I knew, a cop was knocking on my window. He could see and smell that I was drunk. There were empty alcohol containers in the car. I didn't argue. I knew the drill. I was booked and taken to jail for the night.
My wife had no idea where I was. I was certain she was going to be livid when she picked me up the next morning.
Instead, she gave me a hug and said we were going to get through this.
I looked her in the eyes and said, “All I want for Christmas is rehab.”
That night, December 15, 2023, I was at New Start Recovery Solutions in Concord. I planned to stay for 30 days.
I stayed for 97 days, all at the Concord facility. I left on March 22, 2024.
As the weeks went by, I felt better. I could see things improving, and I kept asking for extensions. This time, going was my choice. We also had insurance that would cover the treatment, and my wife encouraged me to take the time I could.
So I did.
I had finally thrown in the towel and admitted that I didn't know how to stop drinking and change my way of life on my own.
While I was there, I got healthier, mentally and physically. I returned to reading the Bible, taking it a chapter at a time and writing about what I was finding. I also discovered that I was good at helping others.
When I wrote the original letter in April 2024, I believed rehab had saved my marriage. In October of that year, my wife asked me for a divorce. That came later. The care she showed me when I asked for help is still part of this story.
Coming home wasn't going to mean smooth sailing, and life wasn't going to be exactly what it had been before. I knew that much.
There is a lot more I could say. But that's how I got there: I finally admitted I didn't know how to do this on my own, and I accepted the help.
Related reading: The Greatest and the Lamb