29 Years!

I repost this 13yo video every year with the hope that it lands for someone who needs to hear it.

https://youtu.be/OJOFSaj7euY?si=9NUWFDUgOU_qHE88

I’m posting with some  reflections this year too…

In a few hours, I’ll have 29 years of recovery. And it took me a long time to understand what I was actually recovering from.

Most people think this is a story about stopping drinking.

It’s not. Well, it is lol but it’s more than that.

It’s a story about understanding what was driving my suffering and slowly learning how to interrupt it.

My recovery started with support. It had to. Because my life had fallen apart. Not just on the outside. On the inside.

I didn’t trust myself to get through a single day without something (eventually A LOT of something) to take the edge off.

Not just to cope.

To function.

That wasn’t a thought I had. It was something I lived from.

And I didn’t question it.

From the outside, my life looked like it worked.

I was capable. Successful. High-functioning.

But underneath all of that was something quieter and more powerful.

I believed I needed something outside of myself just to be here.

And I didn’t experience that as a belief. I experienced it as truth.

I thought I was reacting “normally” to life.

To stress. To relationships. To trauma. To my sensitivity.

To what I was feeling in my own body.

And it made sense. Of course I needed relief. Of course I was overwhelmed.

But I wasn’t reacting to life. I was reacting to the story I told myself about what I was feeling in any given moment.

Something happens before the story kicks in. Before we make meaning out of experience.

Something in the body registers.

It feels good.

It feels off.

Or it barely registers at all.

And the system moves.

Toward it.

Away from it.

Or out of it entirely.

It’s fast. Automatic.

And if we don’t see it, it runs everything.

That’s what was happening to me. Unpleasant feeling in the body. Tension. Restlessness. Unease.

And immediately…I have to get away from this.

Change this. Take the edge off.

Numb out.

And that pattern didn’t just repeat. It shaped the decisions that unraveled my life.

Because over time, it became identity. “I can’t handle this.” “I need something to get through.” “This is just who I am.”

It didn’t feel like something I had learned.

It felt like who I was.

But it wasn’t who I was. It was a pattern. Built on reactions I didn’t yet know how to see clearly, let alone understand.

Over time, something else became possible.

I started to notice those small movements in my body and heart.

That first flicker, before the meaning-making took over.

Just noticing…this feels uncomfortable.

This feels good.

This feels neutral.

And staying, regardless. Even for a moment.

That changed everything.

Not overnight. But steadily.

Because in those small, everyday moments, I wasn’t completely on autopilot anymore.

There was space between the stimulus and the response. A little more clarity. A little less urgency to fix, escape, or numb. And over time, that space grew.

That’s what these 29 years have really been about. Not just staying sober.

Learning how suffering forms and how it releases.

Learning how quickly the mind and body move, and how to meet that movement with awareness and compassion instead of habit and self-judgment.

You’re not as fixed as you think you are.

A lot of what feels like “this is just who I am” is actually something that’s been practiced, repeated, reinforced.

And what’s been practiced can be seen.

And what can be seen can begin to loosen.

29 years. I love this life. I love the people I’m doing it with. And I love who I am as I’m doing it.

I’m deeply grateful for the support that held me, especially in the beginning.

And for the awareness that continues to transform how I live now…with more and more capacity to stay right here, in the moment, without abandoning myself.

I couldn’t have gotten here without my wife, my mother, and so many teachers, friends, therapists, healers, and mentors who have walked alongside me.

This is still an ongoing story.

One where I’m learning to hold every identity…every role, every label, every version of myself…as a loose garment.

Maybe something to explore for yourself…

What perception of yourself have you been living inside of that you’re now beginning to see clearly?

What identity are you reinforcing, moment by moment, without even realizing it?

May you be safe.

May you find the support you need.

May you trust that change is possible, even if you can’t feel it yet.

May you be free from the dusty belief that you are broken.

May you come to know yourself as more than the story your mind has been telling

With love.