An Open Letter to My Children

Audio version now available.

I made my kids watch Beautiful Boy, the 2018 Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet movie about addiction. I also made my kids watch a CNN documentary about the internet-induced proliferation of pornography. My alcoholism was traumatizing to my wife and kids. I can’t erase the past, and I refuse to ignore it, so the only thing I can do is be a cycle breaker. But as my kids will tell you, the most traumatizing thing I have done to them might have been making family movie nights out of Beautiful Boy and a CNN porn documentary. To make matters worse, Chalamet’s character has the same name as my oldest son, and when my hair was shorter, I was constantly told how much I looked like Steve Carell. In fact, someone once brought me a life-sized cardboard cutout of Steve Carell promoting The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and I was once chased down a city street by a man screaming, “Hey The Office! You dat guy!” I have not shaved or had a respectable haircut since.

In spite of the trauma my insistence on confronting addiction with my kids has caused, I still feel like it was the right decision. We didn’t talk about this stuff when I was a kid – not in school and not at home. Nancy Reagan insisted that we, “Just say no,” to drugs, and there was a PSA where a fried egg represented my brain, but the only messaging around alcohol that I can remember was that we had to be sneaky until we were 21, so my friend, Brad, and I buried a styrofoam cooler in the woods behind his house and covered it with a piece of plywood with leaves glued to it.

Is talking about addiction with my children hard? Yes, absolutely, but it is also as important to unwanted-consequence prevention as talking about vegetables and condoms and exercise and seatbelts and identifying the arrogant stupidity of the sharp bulb.

Now I want to talk to my kids about something even harder to discuss. I want to move past addiction and talk about alcohol, and I want us all to understand the distinction. I might not seem a credible source to host this discussion. It might read like sour grapes from a self-proclaimed lover of alcohol who can no longer safely consume alcohol. This might read like the equivalent of a Catholic priest preaching about the sinfulness of sex. I can’t have it so nobody should. I will capitulate to that concern, but I ask you to read with an open mind anyway. While I might be making an argument for why other people should not do something I cannot do, please keep in mind that I am not only a reformed sufferer of alcoholism, but I am also a student of alcohol and addiction. I have researched case studies of people negatively impacted by alcohol – 513 people and counting. I am a leading expert on alcoholism and intimacy. And I’ve been sober for nearly a decade, so if you think I’m still sad that I had to stop drinking alcohol, I am afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. Sobriety was a prerequisite for enlightenment. Enlightenment rarely makes people sad.

While I think this conversation is incredibly important, I am also reluctant to engage because of the trauma of the Beautiful Boy and porn documentary family movie nights, and also because I don’t want to give my kids more ammunition over which to dismiss me as old and out of touch (they are in their late teens and early 20s, so most of what I say serves as ammunition to dismiss me as old and out of touch). So I have decided to write them a letter. Maybe it will spark conversation. Maybe it will be ingested quietly for now. Or maybe it will be rejected as the arrogant ramblings of a formerly unreliable and oblivious source as to the dangers of alcohol. I’m not sure. But I am sure that the message is important, and conversations like this are challenging, so I am publishing my words to my kids as an open letter so that other parents who want to be cycle breakers, but who struggle to find the words, might share it with their children as well. If you do share this letter with your kids, you can even take credit for the message as your own words because I don’t need your kids thinking I am old and out of touch, too.

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Dear Family:

As you step boldly and gracefully into adulthood, I could not be more proud of the people you have grown to become. There is a fixation in young adulthood on career and somehow knowing all the answers to the next 80 years or so of questions. It is one of my greatest wishes that I never add to your stress about who you are or who you will become. I love you just the way you are. Your career, lifestyle, and family choices will never impact the pride I feel for you.

As your choices become increasingly your own, with neither restrictions nor even influence from your parents, one thing worries me more than most. I am afraid that societal messaging about alcohol will inhibit your ability to reach your full potential. I am not talking about career or financial potential. I am talking about your potential to be free and peaceful and content, for there is no greater human success than the self-confidence and peace of mind of contentment.

Alcohol, cannabis, and so many other neurotoxins are the enemy of self-confidence and satisfaction. I am not talking about abusive alcohol consumption, like what you sometimes witnessed from me when you were younger. I am talking about any and all consumption of brain toxins. Think about what a buzz is for a second. A buzz is when your brain is not working at full capacity. A buzz is brain function inhibition. You wouldn’t feed one of Mom’s cats NyQuil so you could watch it wobble around and drool, would you? No. And not just because you would be afraid of what Mom would do to you. She loves you more than the cats, so you would not be in as much danger as I would be were I instigated in the plot. You wouldn’t feed her cats NyQuil because you wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt them. So I encourage you to respect yourselves and protect yourselves in the same way.

Dr. Anna Lembke is a psychiatrist and professor and the head of the  Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She taught me that there is an unavoidable balance between pleasure and pain. Our brains are in a constant battle to maintain equilibrium. When we experience pleasure, in an attempt to return to that homeostasis, our brains will induce feelings of pain. I have experienced this in dramatic ways. As a drinker, I often guzzled my way into a euphoric feeling from alcohol. That feeling was always followed in the subsequent days by feelings of depression, regret, and even shame. The emotional swings were wild because my alcohol consumption was sometimes abusive. Lots of pleasure necessitates enduring lots of pain.

The same equation holds true even when the consumption of the neurotoxin is in a smaller quantity. Having a few beers, smoking a little weed, or eating a gummy – these are all examples of pleasure-inducing shortcuts. When we rely on a substance to induce an emotion, we are not doing the work to earn those good vibes and pleasurable experiences. If we don’t do the work up front, the pain comes as an unavoidable consequence. If you just catch a buzz, and don’t get blackout drunk or incoherently stoned, you might think you are avoiding damage. But you are not.

Both the World Health Organization and the U.S. National Institutes of Health have changed their messaging in recent years to acknowledge that there is no safe quantity of alcohol consumption. Alcohol is a carcinogen and leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Maybe I can fry an egg and tell you it is my brain to convince you. The research is clear and conclusive, and gone are the days of citing “medical” studies funded by Big Beverage that claim alcohol as a treatment for anxiety. Did you know doctors used to recommend cigarette smoking to aid in food digestion? Follow the money if you want to know who supported that research. Someday the notion that there is a safe amount of alcohol will sound as ridiculous as smoking to alleviate indigestion.

Maybe you believe me about the health risks of consuming alcohol and other neurotoxins. But what about the balance between pleasure and pain? What about the part where I said neurotoxins don’t require us to experience the pain up front to earn the pleasure, so the pain has to come as a result of the chemically induced pleasure experience? Are you curious about that?

There are very rewarding ways to earn our pleasure by embracing pain. The most tangible example is exercise. If you want muscle gain, you have to put in the work in the weight room. If you want the stamina to outlast your opponent on the field or court, you have to do the cardio work in advance. That simple, direct message holds true in so many aspects of life.

I get great pleasure from accomplishing a task, finishing a project, honoring a commitment, or thinking about a problem from a creative perspective. As I type this letter, I know I have already made most of my points, and I am giggling at my own jokes, so I am starting to feel lighter and more at peace. I don’t know if any of the four of you will read it, but since I know I can’t control other humans, just delivering this message is the accomplishment of this mission.

As you are all well aware, there are natural sources of pleasure. I have seen you all accomplish so much already. I know you understand that we can earn great feelings of joy and pride through hard work and perseverance. Take double tubing, for example. Since only one of you is under 18, my risk of being prosecuted for child abuse or neglect is getting lower, and I’m willing to write this for public consumption. We pull two tubes designed for one or two riders each behind a boat swerving across wakes at unnecessary speeds. We have found that five riders is the perfect number to effectuate jumping back and forth between tubes while trying not to land knee first on the spine of a sibling or cousin. I feel like while my legal exposure is low, I have risked bad mojo karma by admitting to such a reckless pastime. But double tubing makes my point precisely. It is hard to hold on. It is painful to have a cousin or sibling or father or uncle land on your kidney. The bumps are brutal and the wake spray is blinding. It sounds like a third-world torture technique. But you love it. All four of you spend hours every summer defying death while your mother and I pray no one suffers a concussion.

Double tubing is pleasure earned by pain.

I run for my mental health. Your mom and I work hard rather than take government handouts for our mental health. I mow the lawn rather than pay for it to be done, not because I am cheap (although most of what I do makes me seem cheap (OK, I am cheap, but that’s not why I mow the lawn)), but for my mental health. The list of intentional pain we endure in pursuit of pleasure is endless, but I already feel like a bragger, and I am sure you got my point a couple of paragraphs ago (I am not only cheap, but I have never been accused of being too concise), so I won’t continue to list examples. If you remember nothing else from this letter, please remember this.

Pleasure is never free. We can earn it, or we can regret it. One way or another, we pay for our pleasure.

I don’t want this letter to drive you into hiding. As you reach the legal age of consumption, your choice about your relationship with alcohol is entirely yours. Well, almost entirely. My heart cannot bear to see you intoxicated. But if you choose to drink moderately, please don’t feel compelled to hide that from me because of this letter. My love and pride for you is far too strong and unconditional to be diminished by you making a well-informed, responsible adult choice.

I just ask you to keep challenging yourself to be honest with not just Mom and me, but with yourself, too. If you do drink moderately (or consume cannabis or any other neurotoxin), please be alert for signs of pain. Are you groggy or grumpy the next day? Do you feel regret or remorse? Are you missing out on a productive morning or a beautiful sunrise or a conversation that requires clarity, and are you cool with the tradeoff? For you, there might be multiple right answers. My only request is that you don’t ignore the question. This isn’t about alcoholism, it is about alcohol. I pray that you don’t think that as long as you avoid addiction, alcohol is harmless.

And remember, in case you are ever questioned by the authorities, double tubing was your grandfather’s idea.

If you are eager for the pleasure pre-earned by pain, and want to leave the pain of alcohol behind, please consider joining us in SHOUT Sobriety.

SHOUT Sobriety