Evolving into Sobriety

There. It’s done. I just decided that I’m done drinking alcohol. I’m sober now. There’s just too much pain, deceit and insanity. End of discussion. It’s over.

I had those very thoughts, full of determination and resolve, more times than I could count. It seemed so simple to me – severe and punitive – but simple just the same. I am strong and definitive. I’ve made thousands of decisions over the first half of my lifetime, and I have a very good track record of follow through. I don’t waiver or vacillate. I analyze, decide and execute. No analysis paralysis for me. Let’s go.

And that’s why my relationship with alcohol was so diabolical and transfixing to me. I couldn’t leave it behind no matter how determined I was, and no matter how good my track record for decision making otherwise was. Alcohol was like a permanent fixture, an irreversible commitment tattooed on my soul.

What I didn’t understand at the time was that alcohol isn’t a decision, at least not once we’ve crossed that invisible line into addiction. Once we’ve trained our neurotransmitters to depend on alcohol to stimulate the release of dopamine, serotonin, gaba and endorphins, the lesson is not easily unlearned. And once our subconscious minds incorporate alcohol into our daily or weekly patterns, the reprogramming required to replace booze in our lives is daunting and takes months or years to accomplish.

There. It’s done. I’m sober now. Determined commitment like that was no match for the power of alcohol. It didn’t matter what I had decided, because I wasn’t the one making the decisions.

I suffered through sincere declarations and eventual relapses for ten years before I found permanent sobriety. It wasn’t a matter of wanting to quit. It wasn’t about willpower or desire. It wasn’t even a fear of the alcoholic label at the end. I knew I was an alcoholic, yet permanent sobriety was a baffling concept to me – until I put all the pieces together.

Alcoholics Anonymous wasn’t a solution for me. Neither was a 30 day inpatient rehab. When I got sober a few years ago, those were the only options (at least the only options I could find). So I struggled, and failed, and scraped, and clawed, and tried over and over again.

And then something miraculous happened. I made it. I found permanent sobriety. For me, alcoholism wasn’t a spiritual deficiency. I was a highly spiritual person – I always have been. Alcoholism is a neurological disease. In my case, it was brought on by years of “innocent,” but consistent and abusive, consumption of alcohol. I drank like everyone else, and it made me an alcoholic. The cure wasn’t about giving up or letting go. The solution was about taking back control.

I learned about the brain chemistry of addiction. I read the stories of the alcoholics in recovery who had come before me and were willing to openly tell their stories for the benefit of a booze-soaked society. I learned about Addiction Nutrition and how what we eat can cure our neurotransmitter dysfunction. I found deep and meaningful connection, I learned to reject the notion of harm reduction, I discovered waves of emotions and learned the power of patience. None of it was easy. None of it was obvious. And very little of what I learned is incorporated in traditional methods of recovery.

So, I wrote it all down. At first, my journaling was for my own benefit – so I would never forget, and so I could build on what I learned along the way. Eventually, I turned my experiences into the SHOUT Sobriety program for people suffering the same impossible challenges of early recovery that I faced for a decade of debilitating struggle.

And now, I’ve taken all of my research, experiences, pain and challenges overcome and put it into a book. It’s called, soberevolution: Evolve into Sobriety and Recover Your Alcoholic Marriage, and it will be released on September 23rd by Stone Soup Publishing.

Soberevolution is a book in three distinct parts. In the first part, I tell the story of how this normal, mediocre, loved, advantaged, All-American kid became a high-functioning alcoholic living on the verge of utter disaster. In the third part of the book, I describe the monumental task of saving a marriage that has suffered the destruction of love and trust that alcoholism relentlessly delivers to a relationship. But the middle part of the book, the second section, that’s what I’m talking about here in this blog post.

The second section of soberevolution is a roadmap of all the things I did to recover from my high-functioning alcoholism. All of the information in the book is contained here in this blog with well over a hundred posts spanning several years. It’s all here, but it is quite spread out. This book is the first time I’ve brought it all together.

If you resonate with my story, this book is for you. If you’ve tried and failed, and can’t find the solution, this book is for you. If AA is not an option in your life, if you have a neurological disease instead of a spiritual deficiency, this book is for you. If you’ve found a way to stay sober only to find your marriage crumbling around you, this book is for you. If you love an alcoholic, and you cling desperately to hope for your future, soberevolution is most definitely for you.

We are recruiting people who have suffered and are searching for the solution to join our soberevolution book launch team. All we ask from you is an honest review of our book in exchange for an advanced copy, pre-release, that our publisher has authorized us to send to a limited number of book release team members. For all the details, to join the team and start reading right away, please click the button below:

soberevolution Book Launch Team

You might read this as a greedy snake oil salesman preying on the pain of suffering alcoholics. You might think the elaborate ruse is just about me trying to sell books. If that’s what you think, I’m not going to try to change your mind. That just means we aren’t meant to lead the soberevolution together.

But if you get it – if you’ve been with Sheri and me for a while, and you know how passionate we are about this mission – then we hope you’ll help us launch this book. Yes, we are asking you to buy the book as part of the deal, because keeping this mission alive depends on charging money for our work, and we make no apologies. If you’ve been with us for a while, we know you understand. We know you are a soberevolutionary just like us, and we are in this together.

Because if we want the change, we’ve got to be the change. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and impacting the way society views alcohol is a gargantuan effort. Let’s keep going together!