Nobody Had Me Going Sober on Their Bingo Card
Nobody Had Me Going Sober on Their Bingo Card
Recently I passed one year without alcohol.
Even typing that feels weird.
If you had asked my friends, family, coworkers, old college roommates, neighbors, or just about anyone who knew me over the last 25 years whether I’d quit drinking someday, I don’t think many people would’ve picked it.
Trust me.
Take a poll.
Nobody had me going sober on their bingo card.
Including me.
What’s funny is that I almost didn’t write this blog.
Not because I’m ashamed of quitting drinking.
But because part of me still worries what people will think.
“Oh great, Kevin’s the sober guy now.”
“He thinks he’s got life figured out.”
“He’s changed.”
The truth?
I don’t have life figured out.
And yes, I’ve changed.
That’s kind of the point.
Before I go any further, I should probably admit something.
Trying to fit this story into a blog is almost impossible.
There are parts I’m leaving out.
There are lessons I haven’t fully figured out yet.
There are stories that deserve their own chapter.
Honestly, if I ever release the full version one day as a book…
Holy %$#@.
Buckle up.
Because this journey wasn’t nearly as clean and polished as a blog makes it look.
There were doubts.
Failures.
Embarrassing moments.
Questions I didn’t want to answer.
Conversations I didn’t want to have.
And more than a few mornings where I wondered if I was completely out of my mind.
This blog isn’t the whole story.
It’s just the version that fits on a website without crashing your browser.
This Isn’t an Anti-Alcohol Blog
Let’s get this out of the way immediately.
I don’t think alcohol is evil.
I don’t think everyone should quit drinking.
I don’t think having a beer at a cookout means you’re doing life wrong.
Many people drink responsibly and enjoy it.
This blog isn’t about judging anyone.
It’s simply about sharing what happened when I stopped.
Because if even one person is quietly struggling with the same questions I had, maybe this helps.
I Wasn’t Falling Apart
This wasn’t some dramatic rock-bottom story.
No DUI.
No intervention.
No life-altering disaster.
In many ways, that made quitting harder. Because from the outside, everything looked normal.
I was working.
Parenting.
Coaching.
Exercising.
Showing up.
Living life.
And everyone around me drank.
Most people encouraged it.
Even when I started questioning my relationship with alcohol, some of the people closest to me would say:
“You’re fine.”
“You don’t need to quit.”
“Just have a few.”
And honestly?
I don’t blame them one bit.
They weren’t trying to hold me back.
They cared about me.
If anything, those conversations forced me to answer a harder question:
What did I actually want?
Not what was normal.
Not what everyone else was doing.
What did I want?
“Bad Enough” Might Be The Hardest Place To Be
I recently heard Steve-O from Jackass talking about addiction and recovery.
One thing he said really stuck with me.
He talked about how sometimes “having it bad enough” can actually be the hardest place to be.
Not rock bottom.
Not disaster.
Just uncomfortable enough to know something isn’t right.
But comfortable enough to keep doing it.
That hit me like a ton of bricks.
Because that was me.
My life wasn’t falling apart.
In many ways, things were going well.
Which meant I could always justify another weekend.
Another drink.
Another excuse.
Another year.
The hardest changes aren’t always made when life is at its worst.
Sometimes they’re made when life is good enough—but you know deep down it could be better.
The Why Got Bigger Than The Beer
Part of it was health.
I have a family history that gets your attention.
My dad had heart attacks at a young age.
I’ve battled high cholesterol.
High triglycerides.
Blood pressure concerns.
Enough warning lights had flashed on the dashboard that I knew I couldn’t ignore them forever.
But health wasn’t the whole story.
I wanted more.
More energy.
More consistency.
More confidence.
More clarity.
More control over my own decisions.
I wanted to stop wondering what life looked like without alcohol and actually find out.
Looking Back, Alcohol Was Always There
One of the strangest realizations I’ve had is that alcohol wasn’t just part of my adult life.
It had been part of my story for a very long time.
In many ways, alcohol gave me confidence when I was younger.
Or at least I thought it did.
It helped me feel more social.
More outgoing.
More comfortable.
Less worried about what other people thought.
For a while, it felt like a superpower.
But somewhere along the way, that relationship changed.
Alcohol gave me confidence when I was younger.
Eventually it became the thing that took confidence away.
The confidence it once seemed to provide slowly became confidence I felt like I couldn’t access without it.
Looking back now, alcohol seemed to be sitting in the front row of a lot of my high school and college mistakes.
Not all of them.
Let’s be honest—I was perfectly capable of making bad decisions all by myself.
But alcohol was often there.
Like an enthusiastic assistant helping turn a bad idea into a worse one.
The funny thing is I spent years believing alcohol was helping me become more confident.
Today I believe the opposite.
The confidence was always mine.
Alcohol was simply borrowing it and charging interest.
Rebuilding My Brain
This is where people like to laugh.
Because I went all in.
That Sober Guy podcast.
The I Am Sober app.
Books.
Journaling.
Long walks.
The gym.
Beach walks.
Reading.
Thinking.
Writing.
Questioning everything.
Love him or hate him, Joe Rogan played a role too.
Not because he told me to quit drinking.
But because he constantly exposed me to successful people who challenged what I believed was normal.
Athletes.
Entrepreneurs.
Military operators.
Authors.
Doctors.
People I respected.
Many of them had either quit drinking, reduced drinking, or seriously questioned their relationship with alcohol.
That forced me to ask questions I had never really asked before.
Why do I drink?
What am I actually getting from it?
Is it helping me become the person I want to become?
Or is it simply what I’ve always done?
The podcast made me think.
The app made me accountable.
The books challenged my assumptions.
The journal forced honesty.
The gym gave me purpose.
The outdoors gave me peace.
All of it mattered.
The People Who Carried Me
Another thing I don’t talk about enough is how important other people were during this process.
Ironically, when I first started thinking about quitting, I wasn’t exactly announcing it to the world.
I would call people.
Text people.
Ask questions.
Bring up sobriety.
Ask how they did it.
Ask what changed.
Ask if it was worth it.
But I never fully admitted what I was thinking.
Because if I said it out loud and failed…
Then what?
I’d be embarrassed.
I’d disappoint myself.
I’d feel like I let those people down.
So I danced around it.
Looking back, I’m sure some of them knew exactly what I was doing.
And thankfully they answered anyway.
They took my calls.
They replied to my texts.
They shared their stories.
They listened.
They encouraged.
To every person who had one of those conversations with me back then—and even the people I still lean on today—thank you!
You probably have no idea how much those conversations mattered.
I love and appreciate you more than you’ll ever know.
And then there’s my family.
My wife.
My kids.
The truth is simple:
Zero change happens without them.
None.
Not the early mornings.
Not the workouts.
Not the walks.
Not the reading.
Not the growth.
Not the better version of me.
They supported me when I questioned myself.
They loved me through every stage of this journey.
They gave me a reason to keep going when motivation wasn’t enough.
The Biggest Surprise Wasn’t Weight Loss
Everyone assumes the biggest change was losing weight.
It wasn’t.
The biggest change was clarity.
The fog lifted.
I stopped negotiating with myself.
I stopped making excuses.
I started keeping promises.
The confidence didn’t come from the scale.
It came from trust.
When I said I was going to do something…
I actually did it.
That changed everything.
The Snake Story
This sounds ridiculous.
Because it is.
But it’s true.
Somewhere during this journey I realized I wasn’t nearly as afraid of snakes anymore.😂
No, alcohol wasn’t causing my fear of snakes.
But as my mind became calmer and clearer, I became less reactive.
Less fearful.
More curious.
More appreciative.
More present.
I wasn’t becoming fearless.
I was becoming clearer.
And somehow that changed how I looked at everything.
Even snakes.
Alcohol Wasn’t Just The Problem
Here’s the uncomfortable part. For me, alcohol wasn’t just the problem.
It was the igniter.
Then it became the multiplier.
Almost every negative habit in my life seemed to start there.
One drink became poor food choices.
Poor food choices became weight gain.
Weight gain became lower confidence.
Lower confidence became less activity.
Less activity became worse health.
Worse health became more frustration.
And somehow alcohol always seemed to be standing at the beginning of the chain reaction.
Not causing every problem.
But lighting the fuse.
When I removed alcohol, something unexpected happened.
The chain reaction started moving in the opposite direction.
I slept better.
I recovered better.
I exercised more.
I ate better.
I lost weight.
My cholesterol improved.
My confidence improved.
My mindset improved.
It wasn’t because quitting alcohol magically fixed my life.
It was because removing the igniter stopped setting off the same destructive cycle over and over again.
Instead, a different chain reaction began.
A chain reaction of positive momentum.
One workout led to another.
One walk led to another.
One healthy choice led to another.
One promise kept led to another.
Before I knew it, I was building a version of myself I hadn’t seen in years.
Not because I became someone new.
Because I finally got out of my own way.
My Second Half
Somewhere along the way, I stopped looking at this as quitting alcohol.
I started looking at it as my second chance.
Actually, that’s not quite right.
I don’t think it’s my second chance.
I think it’s my second half.
At 47 years old, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on the first half.
The wins.
The mistakes.
The lessons.
The near misses.
The goals I achieved.
And the goals that somehow always stayed just out of reach.
For years I found myself coming up short on things I genuinely wanted.
Not because I wasn’t capable.
Not because I wasn’t smart enough.
Not because I didn’t care.
But because I was constantly putting obstacles in my own path.
And when I started digging deeper, alcohol seemed to be sitting in the middle of many of those obstacles.
Not all of them.
But far more than I wanted to admit.
Today, I view life differently.
I’m not trying to survive my second half.
I’m trying to dominate every part of it that matters.
My health.
My fitness.
My relationships.
My family.
My business.
My mindset.
My purpose.
Not because I’m chasing perfection.
But because I finally understand how precious time really is.
I don’t know how many years I have left.
None of us do.
But I know this: Everything worth putting effort into is worth putting real effort into.
Maximum effort.
Not perfection.
Not burnout.
Not obsession.
But intentional effort toward becoming the best version of yourself.
That’s what this journey has become for me.
Not avoiding alcohol.
Pursuing excellence.
Building a life I’m proud of.
And making sure the second half is better than the first.
What I Believe Today
One year later, I don’t think everyone should quit drinking.
That’s not my message.
My message is this:
Question the things you’ve accepted as normal.
Question your habits.
Question your excuses.
Question your fears.
Question the stories you’ve told yourself for years.
Ask yourself what you actually want.
Not what your friends want.
Not what society says is normal.
Not what everyone else is doing.
What do YOU want?
Because that’s where change starts.
Final Thoughts
The longer I’m sober, the less I think this story is about alcohol.
I think it’s about becoming the person I was always capable of being.
And realizing I didn’t have to do it alone.
Removing alcohol didn’t make me perfect.
It didn’t solve all my problems.
It didn’t make life easy.
But it allowed the real me to finally show up.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last year, it’s this:
The life you want is usually sitting on the other side of the excuses you’ve convinced yourself are normal.
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