the truth I was afraid to admit

Finally admitting out loud that I was an alcoholic was the first step in the journey. Watch this video to learn what doubts are most common with addiction and what to ask yourself to really get to the truth.

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Morning, happy Friday. Hope you had a fantastic Halloween. There is a question that I get asked a lot so I thought I would come on and address it and that question is how did I know I was an alcoholic? And so I’m going to share that moment right now, but then I’ll also come on in another time and talk about what I did about it. In the spring of 2014 my drinking was at an all time high, had gotten progressively worse. My little men were five turning six. I was a marketing exec, traveled a lot and so there was a lot of pressure at home and at work. I was drinking daily and I was blacking out often and my behavior was off the charts. There was a longer business trip that I had in the beginning of June and it was five or six days. I would sit in the meetings every single day and I would make a promise to myself only to be broken later. But that promise was tonight it’s going to be different.

Speaker 1: (01:24)
Tonight I’m going to control it. I’m going to go to bed early and I’m going to feel fine sitting in a meeting tomorrow. I’m not going to feel like I do right now. And every day it’s like that promise laughed in my face because every day it would be worse. And so I was driving home from the Philadelphia airport and it’s about 45 minutes, an hour and it was there in the safety and silence of my Toyota minivan that I said out, loud words that I had thought in my head for a while. And what I said was, I don’t know how to control it. I’m an alcoholic. And then I just started to cry. Um, the whole, the whole rest of the way home, I cried because I didn’t want to be, I didn’t want to be an alcoholic. I didn’t want to look at a life that where I couldn’t drink, I was using for everything. At that point, my life revolved around drinking. I mean it wasn’t even going to be possible.

Speaker 1: (02:48)
There are really three points that I want to hone in on from that moment. The first is, I did say that day in the car that I’m an alcoholic. However, I would go on to question that word with myself over and over ad nauseam. I was in rehab and I’d hear other people’s stories and I’m like, I’m not like that person. I don’t belong here. I totally belonged there. You know, I did my own outrageous things. And just like everything else in life, there’s going to be better alcoholics and worse alcoholics, right? Comparison. When you compare the behaviors, it’s, it’s pointless to do it. You need to focus on my next point, which is what the first sentence that I said that day in that car is, I don’t know how to control it. I can’t control it. And that’s that the critical piece of this.

Speaker 1: (03:59)
That day I realized that when I, (or maybe I acknowledge would be a better word) but when I take my first sip, when I start drinking, all bets are off, whatever comes will come. It’s like, it’s like I’m just handing over, you know, the next couple of hours because it’s I lose control. It’s like this, it’s like I was in a tug of war and I’m on one side of the rope and alcohol is on the other and there’s a big pit of mud in the middle. And every time I’d get on that rope and I’d be pulling, pulling, pulling, pulling and on the other side is the alcohol and it just pulls once and I’m in the mud. Here’s the thing, this is what I do. I get up out of the mud, I go in and shower, maybe do a couple of bench presses, a couple of pushups, and then go right back out only to get on the rope again, only to lose again.

(05:09)
That happened hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. And it’s like that day in the car I finally realized I can’t win. I’m not going to be able to win. I can’t control it. And that is the question that, you know, if you are having these thoughts that you need to ask yourself. And then the third piece of this is alcohol was the main thing, on the other end of my tug of war. But there are plenty of other things on the other side of ropes. I don’t know what’s on the other side of your rope. It may be food, it may be sugar, it may be, sex, it may be gambling, it may be, whatever but is there something that you go to battle with every freaking day only to end up in the mud, only to not win. Because I do know also that when I took away the alcohol, I was in a battle with other things too. Something was there to take its place. So

Speaker 1: (06:20)
if you find that you are in this battle and this tug of war and you are tired of playing the game, there is plenty of help. You can always reach out to me if you have more questions. There’s plenty of help. And I would also add that, you know, this video, you may not, um, this may not resonate with you at all. You may not be in a tug of war. And honestly, I hope it, I hope that’s the case. I really do. But chances are you may know somebody who is. So I would encourage you to consider sharing it,

Speaker 1: (07:07)
because you or they need to know that life can get a lot better if you or they learn to stay away from the rope. Learn to stay away from the war.

Speaker 1: (07:20)
So on that lighthearted note, I hope you have a fantastic weekend.