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My 5-Year Journey on the Highway to Hell
And a note on how I found a way out
I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to become addicted to alcohol.
I didn’t even realize I was becoming addicted. Not for a long time. Not until I was pretty far in.
I’m now five years into a journey of recovery.
That first year? 2020? Bumpy as hell. It was actually the worst because I was making some attempts to stop, but I was doing it all on my own.
The four years since I stopped drinking (with help) have been on a steady, upward trajectory.
But, back to the five year journey to hell. The hell of addiction.
It was not a road I explicitly chose to take.
I’ll start here. On my 40th birthday. In 2015.
By all appearances, my life then was pretty great.
Solid income from work, great family, thriving kid, beautiful house.
At that point in time, I’d just begun to drink.
Starting at about the age of 37, I would have 1 or 2 drinks on a Friday evening about every other month.
Never more than 2. At that time, I didn’t like feeling out of control.
I liked bourbon. It’s the official drink of Kentucky, where I grew up.
So, on my 40th birthday at a wonderful surprise party, I was gifted a bottle of bourbon — a collector’s edition bottle with a Kentucky Derby theme.
And I started collecting more bourbon.
Drinking just a bit more regularly.
Still, that bottle — given to me in May — lasted until Christmas.
I recall being at a work event — a fundraiser — and feeling a bit tense. A colleague brought me a drink. And I quickly had a second.
The event went amazingly well- I was relaxed and louder than usual and talked with just about everyone in the room (unusual for me).
At another event — this one out of town — I repeated the process. Got to the event, had a drink, took a second one shortly after, and for about an hour, was a different person — one who connected with everyone and whose social anxiety had…
