Who were you 5 years ago?

Thoughts on my 5th soberversary

There’s something extra sad about crying before the sun comes up. To me it feels way more lonely than crying at night, before bed, after a hard day. And there I was, sitting at my desk, looking out my window at the dark morning sky with tears streaming down both cheeks.

The day before I listened to a moving podcast, and it really got to me. How dumb, crying about a podcast, but I did. It was the episode of Dax Shepard’s podcast where he confessed to his audience that he had relapsed after sixteen years of sobriety. Sixteen years! I had 59 days.

Sixty days is a bit of a milestone in recovery, and I felt good about the routines I put into place as I stood at the precipice of crossing it. Working out, eating better, calling my friends, and writing (especially writing) had me feeling good. But so did Dax. He had tremendous confidence in his sobriety, but then it slipped away. And when it did, he went from rock solid to illegally buying pills within weeks.

During my peak addiction, I had moments where getting sober came up. Sometimes it came of my own volition, but only in my mind, and other times those conversations were forced upon me. In either case, never once did I believe I would actually do it. My drinking had enveloped my life completely; I couldn’t fathom living without it.

Then it became clear that I didn’t have a choice. And maybe that’s selling myself short. Technically I did have a choice. I could’ve continued down the destructive path I had taken, but I would have done so at the expense of a life I had spent a decade and a half building with a woman I loved and kids I adored. The stakes had become too high, so I didn’t have a choice.

Normally I overthink things, but not that time. It only took me a couple hours to flip my life upside down, consequences be damned. Fifty-nine days into it, I had no reason to second guess myself, but the size and weight of the quick decision started feeling enormous. I didn’t realize it fifty-nine days before, but I had committed myself to thousands of decisions.

Mountains of mantras

Recovery is built on more mantras than I can count, but perhaps the most salient is “one day at a time.” The prospect of completely changing the things you do, the places you go, and the people you spend time with for the entirety of whatever life you have left is daunting. 24 hours feels manageable.

To hear somebody who made that choice every day for 16 years share an incredibly raw story of resetting his clock, zero days since last use…holy shit. Terrifying.

Now I have more sobriety under my belt, and I’ve heard more stories like Dax’s. They all get me. People cleanup, change their lives, and have to reset impressive clocks back for all kinds of reasons.

Some of them make sense to me. No, actually all of them make sense to me. Perhaps some make more sense to others. Crashing economies, lost jobs, failed relationships, death coming to our loved ones, or any number of other burdens so heavy they crack the foundations of even the steadiest recoveries. But I’ve heard just as many stories of people who willingly let sobriety slip because they felt so good. They felt more mature and in control than they had during their peak addiction, “went back out,” as they say.

It’s always precarious

The most precarious time in the first year of sobriety sits between sixty days and nine months in my experience. Panic and urgency have usually settled down, and people start to feel pretty good. The routines they put into place start to take over, and people gain confidence. It sounds something like this: “I’m feeling good, so I don’t need to do [thing they’ve been doing] anymore.” In reality, the thing they’ve been doing is the only reason they feel so good, and letting it go puts their sobriety at risk. Then they risk it by stopping a routine that took them from broken to mending.

I still feel that way today.

Today marks my five year soberversary. As I look back on the last 1,811 days, I feel more mature. I feel more in control. I feel like I understand myself, the world, and the people around me so much better than I did five years ago. Which is why this particular ugly, early morning cry comes to me now. Five years is an important milestone, and one to celebrate, but not to be taken for granted because people just as determined, disciplined, thoughtful, and steadfast have made it this far (and farther…sometimes three times farther) and slipped up.

It’s the basis of my belief that there’s no single decision or moment that changes everything. As much as we think we live in the age of technology, our lives are anything but digital. We can only see the watershed moments in our lives because things continue to flow in a different direction afterwards. Otherwise, they’d turn into a dried up streambed of something that didn’t quite work out, and we all have plenty of those.

For me, it’s a lesson to maintain my discipline, to remember that I’ve gotten this far because of the tools I use, the routines I do on a daily basis, and the continued support of my friends and family. If I want to make it to five years plus a day, or two days, and beyond, I have to repeatedly make the decision to keep them all because because there are No Silver Bullets for the biggest challenges we face, and the ramifications of those decisions reach beyond me.

It takes a team

As unfair as it is, sobriety is a team sport. It requires strength in numbers. Few people make it on their own, which is why I’m overcome with gratitude today. I know the hardships, tears, and strain that I put on loved ones around me for years before I chose to stop. I’m humbled by their belief in me and their decisions to stick by me. I know not everyone gets that support on their journey. I’m fortunate.

My smart, good-looking, funny, and wise wife has a great question she likes to ask people: As an adult, do you think you are the same person you were as a kid, or are you completely different?

And today, on April 20th, 2026, I believe I am more like I was as a kid. Five, six, or seven years ago I would’ve said the opposite. A lot of people, me included, fight sobriety because they fear it will change them. In my case, it was the other way around. Drinking changed me and sobriety allowed me to become myself again. And I’m grateful for the opportunity.

So thank you to everyone in my support system. It means the world to me, and I honestly believe it has given me another chance at life. That sounds trite, but I think it’s true.

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For plenty more thoughts, research, stories, and jokes about managing our lives instead of always looking to fix them, read my book.

For one with pages, go here.

Or listen to me read it here.