My friends, welcome to chapter three of my autobiography, where I tell you my life's most meaningful stories. One of the biggest stories in my life is how I got sober, because I went from being a chronic, relapsing alcoholic who could not get sober no matter what else happened, to now, where I've been sober almost 10 years, and I love it in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've helped a lot of other people get sober, and there's no going back to drinking for me. I don't want to go back to drinking, and it seems crazy to me that I got tricked into drinking in the first place.
So I want to cover my whole sobriety journey and keep it big-picture here, and then go into more detail on certain parts in future episodes.
Growing up with my dad's drinking
My dad was an alcoholic, and I remember him getting sober when I was six years old. I never drank when I lived at home before I went to college, because I saw my dad's drinking, and it was ugly, and I didn't want it. As long as I knew I had my parents to come home to, and I lived in a sober house, I had no desire to drink. It purely looked unappealing and unnecessary.
When I went off to college, I would go to parties where people were drinking, and I remember telling people, you don't need alcohol to have fun. I remember feeling far superior to everyone else there. Like, I don't need alcohol to have fun, and all of you guys are losers for needing alcohol to have fun. I remember being like that with everybody.
How I got sold on drinking
And then something happened. I got sold on drinking. After seeing enough people get drunk and seeing people have fun, I forgot about where I came from, and I got tricked into believing the lie that alcohol makes life fun, that drinking is cool. I especially drank for the first time hoping it would help me relax and get with a girl. After tens of thousands of beer commercials, where they show you drink beer and these hot girls appear, and all these movies, I was programmed that alcohol is something that is great, that makes life better, that you use it to cope with life. Being away from my parents, I finally forgot what I've come to believe is the truth: that alcohol is a poison. It's unnecessary, and it holds you back. It makes you worse.
When I first drank, my life was going pretty well. I was in pretty good health. I was at a healthy weight. I certainly had a few little issues from childhood and stuff, but I was mostly a whole person who loved myself and was pretty effective in life. I got good grades. I got along decently with people. I had friends.
Fast forward 11 years later, and I'd gotten to be lonely, full of self-hatred, full of all these memories of guilt and shame and remorse about mostly things I'd done drinking.
Losing my dream job as a police officer
I had this career as a police officer, which was my vision in college for what I wanted. Drinking and smoking weed made it take years extra before I could become a police officer. Instead of graduating with my bachelor's and becoming a police officer, I had to work in corrections for a year, which was brutal, because I'd smoked weed — I was drunk when I first smoked weed and tried it. And police departments did not want someone who'd smoked weed within the last year, and preferably not within the last three years. So I finally got my dream job as a police officer when it had been three years since I'd smoked weed. And within a year and a half, I had lost that job from drinking.
All the problems they stated when they sat me down were all problems that happened drinking. My dad asked me at that time — he'd been sober for 19 years — he asked if I thought drinking had anything to do with losing my job and my career and blowing my life up and having to move home or be homeless. And I told my dad, no, it wasn't my drinking. It was the police department, and they didn't treat me fairly. I was so delusional.
That's what makes your life difficult with alcohol: it contributes to this delusional, self-centered, self-pitying thinking, which often exists before drinking, but then becomes greatly exaggerated, more and more, as you drink.
Living at home and hiding it
Living at home with my parents was very healthy. I did not drink when I lived at home, except when they were gone for a couple of days. They almost kicked me out when I drank while they were gone, because they said no drinking in the house. They said, one more time like that, and you're going to be out here on the street. And I believed them. So I would date girls and go drink at their houses. I'd go to the casino and drink at the casino — anything so I could drink and keep living at home. But I got way healthier, even just drinking less, living at home.
Then I moved and went to grad school, University of South Florida in Tampa. And I met my wife. As soon as I met my wife, I had to start hiding my drinking from her. I lied on my profile on Match and said I was a social drinker — which, to me, my wife's the social drinker. She might have a drink or two with her friends once or twice a month. I was a binge drinker, an alcoholic that would drink a half gallon of liquor or more every week, and would drink a 12-pack of beer like it was water between liquor drinks.
Once I even took the first drink, I often couldn't control what I drank next. I remember buying these margaritas and being like, all right, I'm not just going to drink vodka and Dr. Thunder tonight, I'm going to have a margarita. But then I'd have the liquor drink first and wake up the next day and regret it. I'm like, man, once I started that vodka, I couldn't even stop for a moment to have a margarita. How out of control are you when you can't even control which drinks you drink? I'd often start drinking whatever I wanted to kind of enjoy and drink differently — I'd have to have that as the first drink, otherwise it was straight vodka and Dr. Thunder and video games and drinking all night.
When I moved in with my wife, we had this huge fight because I was drunk and screaming at Call of Duty Black Ops zombies at three in the morning when she needed to get up for work. She understandably was upset. So I told her I would stop drinking. I swore to God I wouldn't drink. And what happened? I stayed sober and felt sorry for myself for two months. Then I relapsed when I was out of town visiting my friends, and then I was wallowing, pissy, crying on the phone to my wife, feeling so bad. I stayed sober five more months, and then I managed to talk myself into why I should be able to drink, because clearly I'm not an alcoholic — if I could stay sober five months, a real alcoholic couldn't do that. I'll just drink out of town so I won't fight with my wife.
The real problem wasn't the drinking
That's what I started to realize when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and got sober: it wasn't my drinking that was the real problem. My drinking was a symptom of the real problem. The real problem was that my sober thinking was so insane that I could be sober for five months, and then sober for seven months except for one single relapse, and then decide to drink again, even though everybody — including my wife, who was not in favor of it, and my father, who was very hurt and scared — tried to talk me out of it, and I wouldn't have any of it.
That's the real nature of the disease, in my experience: your sober thinking is so warped, so self-centered, so sick, that you can't see it, but everybody else sees it — unless they're as sick and insane as you are. And sometimes they see it and they just don't want to say anything, because of how it reflects on them. But everybody else can see how sick you are. Even if you're hiding it, people are very aware of it.
After going back to drinking out of town, I eventually got back to binge drinking again, back to the half gallon of vodka. I'd throw some rum in there too and drink like 12 or 18 Dr. Thunders in the night, drink from 2 in the afternoon to 8 in the morning. My wife would be going off to work, and I'd be hungover all day.
Finally, I realized that my drinking was hopeless. My wife said she was going to leave, and I realized it doesn't matter if she leaves — I have to drink anyway. And if she leaves, drinking will just be an excuse. Like, well, my wife left, of course I drink. I realized that was going to be the end of my life. I had this perfect, beautiful, wonderful wife, everything I'd ever hoped for, and my drinking was pushing her away, and I couldn't stop it. In fact, I told her, go ahead and leave, I don't need you. And then I was drinking, and I woke up the next day and I'm like, remember what I said?
My last drink: April 21, 2014
I threw up blood. That was the last time I had a hangover. The last thing I drank was April 21st, 2014. The last hangover and the first day I committed to being sober was April 22nd.
I realized I was completely hopeless. It didn't matter if I wanted to stop drinking. It didn't matter if I tried to stay sober. It didn't matter if I read books. It didn't matter if I promised everybody — I would always go back to drinking at some point. There would always be some BS reason, there would be some excuse, I would forget the pain I was in. This is the same kind of morning I've written about before, when I hit rock bottom and a single thought about AA gave me hope.
In that state, I prayed desperately to God. I'm like, please. And I didn't even believe in God. I'm like, please, I'll do anything to get sober. And the thought came that, well, going to Alcoholics Anonymous might be a part of the anything you just offered. And then I felt hope. I'm like, wow, that doesn't seem so bad, and that might work. I knew staying at home trying to be sober wouldn't work. I knew promising people I'd be sober wouldn't work. But I thought maybe AA will help.
When I went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, it was after a week of staying sober and going to my father's memorial. I knew that I would either have to drink the day after my father's memorial, or I would have to go to an AA meeting. I went to an AA meeting. I felt miserable.
Walking into a room full of happy people
I felt like a failure. And I walked in and I found a room full of people who were happy. It felt like some family barbecue. I was so confused. I was like, why are they all happy? I'm miserable and scared, and these people are happy, joyous, and free. And then I thought, I want to be like them. I want what they have.
I introduced myself when they said, is anybody coming back? I shared a little bit of my story. And I refused to get phone numbers, because I was so delusional — I'm thinking, oh, people calling me trying to sell stuff and et cetera. I wouldn't get any phone numbers, but I got in my car and I cried, because I felt so much love, and I felt so good for the first time in a long time. My dad had passed away three months before, and I felt like that was the first time I could really feel my dad's presence since he passed away. And that's the presence of love. It's the people at the AA meeting who loved me and cared about me.
I knew, I've got to go back. That meeting left me feeling — I felt like crap when I went there, and I felt great when I left. I've got to keep doing that. If you want the full picture of how I came to love these rooms, I go deeper on it in the truth about AA: meetings, the 12 steps, the Big Book, and sponsors.
Two meetings a week
So in my backwards thinking, I rationalized that going to two AA meetings a week was about the same as binge drinking for 30 or 40 hours a week. And thankfully, for a couple months, that worked. I went to a meeting every Tuesday and every Thursday at the same group. Eventually people got me to leave them my numbers, somewhat forcibly sometimes.
The first couple of months, I was in fear. I was scared for my life. By going to AA, I knew I was really doing something about my drinking. Then, after a couple of months, I was feeling restless, irritable, and discontent. I was not enjoying being sober. I was having trouble sleeping. My mind was racing constantly. I'm like, this is why I drink, this sucks. This is why I drink, because this is what happens when I'm sober — I progressively get more crazy and more aggravated, and there's nothing to take the edge off.
Then I was mean to my wife. I didn't want to spend July 4th with her, and I said her family was not being nice to me, which was crap — her family had been very nice to me. I didn't even realize how much they had encouraged my wife to not give up on me and to support me. I had screamed at their dog, told their dog to shut up because he kept barking, and then I rationalized after that that her family wasn't treating me well — even though her family had seen how crazy I was. So instead of admitting that and doing something about it, I made this story up that seemed perfectly honest to me at the time: that I don't like them and I don't like how they're treating me. So I told my wife I didn't want to be around her family. She said, fine, spend July 4th by yourself, and she went to spend the day with her family.
The breakthrough: sober, I am insane
And then the obsession to drink landed on me. I'd had two months off of the obsession to drink. The obsession to drink is where all you think about and want to do all day is drink — yes, there may be momentary distractions, work, the gym, a phone call, but as soon as those stop, it's right back to my mind thinking about drinking. For weeks, all I could think about, all day, every day, was drinking.
That's when I had the big breakthrough. I realized: sober, I am insane. And that's so much bigger of a problem than drinking. My sober thinking, totally without a drink or a drug or any medication — that's sober — I'm insane, and I should be locked up. That's what I was thinking. I'm like, oh my God, this is really hopeless.
So I shared about that in a meeting. I said one day that I hated being sober, and that I barely made it to the AA meeting without drinking, and the next day I was planning on drinking. Because in AA they're like, don't drink today, just stay sober for today, you can drink tomorrow. After two weeks of every day being like, I'm going to stay sober today and drink tomorrow, I'm like, it is tomorrow. It is tomorrow. I'm like, dude, I'm so sick. I'm in here trying to rationalize why I should drink myself to death, sober. I'm so sick, I'm so screwed.
And that got me out of that desperation. I started taking suggestions.
One suggestion that changed everything
This one lady, who'd been sober 20 years, talked about how relaxing massage was, and I latched onto that. I'm like, I'm desperate to relax. So I went and got a massage. I was scared to get a massage — my mind was making up all this crazy stuff about what was going to happen getting a massage, how expensive it was. I got a massage, and I felt fantastic.
Then I realized, wow, this lady who has 20 years sober gave me one single suggestion, and it was extremely effective. If that's possible, then there are a bunch of other things like that that are possible, and if I'll open my mind and learn and try some new things, I can really enjoy being sober.
From there, I latched onto AA. I've loved AA, and I've progressively gotten better and better and better, healthier and healthier and happier. I've taken so many suggestions. Some people give crazy suggestions that should be ignored, and the way you tell the difference is just to ask a bunch of other people whatever you're thinking about and get everybody's feedback.
I've been able to do everything else in my life that I couldn't do drinking. Sober, I've finally been able to make some serious money, do work I love, lose weight and keep it off, and get my body so healthy that, in my experience, I haven't had any significant illness in over a year now. My life just keeps getting better and better being sober, and I keep helping more and more people. I love it. This kind of long-haul change is what I mean when I talk about long-term emotional sobriety in action.
Why I tell this story as often as I can
This is why I tell the story of getting sober as often as I can, because this is where the miracle happened in my life. My life's trajectory was going toward tragedy for quite a while, until I desperately prayed to do anything to stay sober, and I went to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I committed to living this way of life and being sober. Now my life is just on a trajectory of inspiration, of joy, of teaching other people how to live and turn their life around. I keep telling these stories in my Life playlist if you want to follow the whole journey.
So I hope this has been useful for you to know that if I could get sober, as messed up as I was, you absolutely can too — and that you might not even be able to imagine how good it will be for you, but I hope you'll start trying. I share the daily reality of this life with people inside the Jerry Banfield Family, where we keep these conversations going and support each other one day at a time.