Alcoholism and addiction: How do you know you’ve hit bottom?

Early on in sobriety, after going public with my struggles, I had several friends and acquaintances approach me to admit that they too thought that they may have a problem with alcoholism and addiction.  After they chronicled for me their stories of their own individual struggles, my reaction was to ask:  Where do you think your bottom is?

This Crown Royal bag carried the last fifth of whiskey that I purchased more than four years ago.  Today, as a memento, I carry it with me as my Garmin/Heart Rate monitor bag.  It’s a constant reminder for me to respect the progress I’ve made since getting sober.

Many alcoholic/addicts have to reach their personal bottoms on their own.  Before I made the decision to get sober no one could have told me that I had a problem with drinking.  Even though I hid most of my addictive tendencies from family or friends, if someone had the instinct to call me out on drinking too much I, and my ego, would have simply said to “fuck off.”  I wouldn’t have been ready to hear it.

Today I see many people still flirting with the edge of making the “big mistake.”  By mistake I mean a range of things including a DUI, an overdose, killing someone else, or flat-out killing themselves.  Miraculously I was able to avoid these types of repercussions, which still doesn’t make sense considering how often I’d drink and drive or stay up for days on a cocaine binge.  My bottom, relative to other people’s bottoms, was pretty PG.  I simply locked myself into my apartment and drank Crown Royal and IPA’s for three straight days.  Luckily, it wasn’t worse, because it very well could have been.

My intention in asking others where they think their bottom might be is only out of love and care. Even though it’s largely out of my control I just hate to see bad things happen to good people, especially when they are struggling.  Perhaps the question is just a way to help my acquaintances understand the severity of alcoholism and addiction if it goes unchecked. In my four-plus years of sobriety I have heard countless stories about how people wish their bottom had come sooner, before the shit really hit the fan.  And for the folks I know who have 20-30+ (and beyond) years of sobriety?  They’ve got entire novels of these types of stories.  The “bottom” story is not unique, it may just look a little different from person to person.

So, what happened after my bottom came?  I was pretty confident that when I hit mine I immediately knew that I needed to seek help from others in recovery and beyond, I just couldn’t handle it on my own, even though my ego was telling me otherwise.  Do I think that was indeed my final bottom?  I don’t know, I’d like to think so, but the disease of alcoholism and addiction can come back to haunt you in an instant if you’re not careful.  The important part for me early on was that I had a very solid team behind me in Corvallis who could help me stay accountable.  Now that I’m back in Bend after a seven-year hiatus, I am simply adding to my accountability team.  Surprisingly, it turns out,  I actually have quite a few sober friends in Central Oregon.

The other bottom that exists, above and beyond drinking and drugs, is the emotional bottom.  This one is a little trickier to reconcile with, and many times, as it did for me, the emotional bottom coincides with the physical bottom.  When I quit drinking I realized that, developmentally as a person, I was sent back in time to when I was 18, right around the time I started drinking on a regular basis, to restart my own learning process to find out who I really was. In early sobriety, my friends who weren’t in recovery had a hard time understanding this idea, which is totally normal.  Because I spent so many years masking my fears, insecurities, and resentments with drugs and alcohol, when I got sober I was faced with the stark truth that I needed to revisit pieces of my own development that just didn’t happen because I was distracted in my addiction.

So, how DO you know if you’ve hit a bottom?  All I can speak to is from my own experience, as well as stories from other people in recovery. There’s really no way to predict it. For me, it was a gut feeling, knowing that I just couldn’t live in a completely unmanageable state for any longer.  For others, hitting bottom could be standing in front of a judge, going to jail, a DUI, or, heaven forbid, severely endangering another persons life.  Maybe the real question worth asking is:  Is it really worth it to even get to the point of realizing your bottom?  Maybe it is, but maybe not.  Everyone has their own individual path that they must take to figure this out.  I’d just hate to see someone reach their bottom after it’s too late.

 

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The Power of Mentors, Part 3: Ed Hamel

In 1991, cross-country skiing became my new athletic passion, eclipsing baseball.  When I began skiing I still played a little on the diamond, but the majority of my athletic focus switched to being on snow when I met a guy named Ed Hamel.

In the 1990’s cross-country skiing was in its heyday in Western Massachusetts.  The Bill Koch Youth Ski League, which operated out of Hickory Hill Ski Touring Center at the time, was just a few miles up the road from my home in Worthington.  Bill Koch was famous for being the first Olympic medalist in cross-country skiing, which is why the league was named after him (he now shares that distinction with Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall after they won the gold medal in the team sprint in Pyeongchang earlier this year).  After Matt Whitcomb, Matt Molyneux, and I formed our brotherly bond, they both convinced me, along with the help of one of my classmates, Jason Lemieux, to join the BKYSL group that met at Hickory Hill on Saturday afternoons.   The group I joined, donned the “fast group,” happened to be coached by Ed.  Little did I know how much of an impact our training group would have on me for decades to come.

Ed had a pretty straight forward and simple approach to coaching.  Work hard, have fun always, and keep an open mind when it comes to adventure.  He was also extremely impressionable to me because of his unrelenting care for the skiers he coached.  I felt as if I was an extension of his family, always keeping an open ear to any advice he might drop on the group.  Within just a couple of years of being a part of his training crew Ed became my first mentor.

Ed coaching Jason Lemieux and I at the New England Junior 2 Championships in 1995 at Holderness Academy

Hard work, as it relates to athletics, was not a virtue that I was born with.  Before I started skiing I had no endurance engine to speak of.  As the work with Ed started to accumulate I began to come into my own amongst my peers.  Matt, Matt, and Jason were the fastest guys in our group, all of whom I deeply admired. However, within five years of training with Ed, I became ranked in the top ten in my age group in New England, a far cry from when I picked up my first pair of Fischer RCS skate skis in 1991.  The adventure, fun, and success I enjoyed during those years launched a love for endurance sports that, to this day, continues to persist.

One workout in particular that Ed put on, which set the bar for working hard, was his weekly Bust-Butt Wednesday sessions.  Never before these workouts did I understand what going hard meant.  Today, as I train with my coach Michael Larsen, I harken back to the days when I first puked going hard in a workout (Mike has a way of encouraging and pushing me to the point of total exhaustion on occasion).  It was also routine to fall down gasping for air after a hard interval set with Ed, seeing my heart rate skyrocket into the 190’s.  These workouts also taught me what it meant to pace myself, something that I continue to work on to this day, not just in sport, but in life.

I always felt Ed believed in me.  Being so green to the endurance world, with his guidance I was able to establish a new lifestyle.  In Peggy Shinn’s new book, World Class (Peggy Shinn’s World Class on Amazon), while describing the U.S. Ski Team World Cup Coach Matt Whitcomb’s development as a leader, she talks about an adventure that our group had after a BKYSL festival in Jackson, NH.  Ed led us on an expedition up the chairlift at Wildcat Mountain, only to plunge ourselves through endless trees and powder for what seemingly felt like hours.  Somehow, by my recollection, we ended back at our hotel in Jackson largely unscathed, except for a few broken skis and poles.  The adventure in and of itself marked a distinct change for my idea of venturing beyond the bounds of comfort to seek the treasure that was the unknown.

It’s safe to say that if I hadn’t been influenced so much by Ed in my early teens my life  today would look very different.  When I think about sobriety, it is, in a sense, an adventure that requires very hard work and persistence day in and day out.  It was Ed’s infectious sense of adventure that provoked Matt, Matt, and I to go on our own yearly great adventures, which ultimately led me to have the courage to get in a car in 1998 with my best friend to drive all of the way across the country, to a place I had never been, the little old mill town called Bend, OR, to set up a new life on the West Coast.  This sense of adventure has led me to experience so many countless memories, make friends abound, and thrive in a healthy lifestyle.

As I pursue my own athletic endeavors, some 25+ years after being introduced to the world of endurance sports, I often think back and give credit to the man who helped start this whole crazy lifestyle for me.  As an athlete, I continue to work my ass off to be the best that I can be, with the hopes of fulfilling a childhood dream.  Ed helped guide me early on to this point that I sit today.  I have an absolute love affair with endurance sports, which has led me to experience things that I would have never dreamed possible when I got on nordic skis for first time way back when.  Apart from my work ethic in sport, the skill of working hard, that I learned under Ed’s tutelage, has also carried me for years in business, sobriety, writing, and life.  I will be forever thankful for our relationship as mentor-coach / athlete.  Quite literally, Ed, with his relentless enthusiasm and charm, helped steer me to appreciate virtues that, as a kid, I never thought possible.  I’m honored to say that Ed was such a big influence on me.

Thank you Ed, for who you are and everything that you do and stand for.

Also, be sure to check out:

The Power of Mentors:  Michael Larsen – The Power of Mentors, Part 1: Michael Larsen

The Power of Mentors:  Davis Smith – The Power of Mentors, Part 2: Davis Smith

To purchase a copy of my memoir, Appetite for Addiction, please visit:  Appetite for Addiction on Amazon

The “I Should” Game

Have you ever begun a sentence with “I should…”?  Yeah, I know, I’ve done it too.

“Should” is a funny word.  Here are some recent examples of how I’ve used the word over the last several of years and where the “should” thinking landed me.

– In reference to drinking: “I should be able to handle just one cocktail.”  Right.  Time and time again I would flirt with this “should” and ultimately end up drunk.  It’s no secret that, with time, this experiment ended with a complete emotional breakdown and the decision that I just couldn’t handle alcohol any longer without massive repercussion.  By figuring out this simple equation  I am, indeed, grateful.    

– In reference to ultra-running/racing: “I should be training as much as Bob did when in 2014 he won Pine to Palm 100.  So, if I train like Bob, I should be able to do well at Pine to Palm in 2017.”  I followed this “should” thread, trained well above my means at the time, got obsessed with STRAVA data, and ultimately experienced a severe bout of over-training and burnout, almost compromising my love for a ridiculously fun sport.  

– In reference to “living the dream”:  “I should get married, buy a house, and work seventy hour work weeks, so I can make a ton of money and get my piece of the American dream.”  Really, is this the American dream?  Who is saying that if I were to achieve all of these things then I would be living the dream?  Well, because I relentlessly chased this “should” thread at whatever the cost, I ended up with a dysfunctional relationship, a house that I couldn’t afford, cars that I couldn’t afford, and a lifestyle that ultimately led to me losing everything financially, physically, and mentally.

– In reference to body weight: “After reading Matt Fitzgerald’s book, Racing Weight, given my height I should be below 150lbs.”  This experiment went to hell, as, after several months of obsessing about food and my weight I ultimately got down to 149lbs (I’m close to 6’2″).  At first I took pride in being this light, until, I started to look emaciated and my body started to break down with injuries.  No disrespect to Matt’s book as I know it has helped many folks.  For me, at the time I read it, I was firmly steeped in transferring my addictions, so it didn’t really help me.  

– On being 38 without a steady paycheck: “I should be making $X because all of my friends are making lots of money, contributing to their 401k’s, buying houses, investing in the stock market, etc.”  When I get into this mindset I quickly lose the momentum that I am riding in pursuing my own individual passions. In reality, my current pursuits require long-term processes.  If I put my heart into every fabric of my pursuits the universe might just happen to conspire to make my dreams become a reality. 

So, who is telling me that I should be doing all of these things.  Is someone else putting these ideas into my head?  Are Facebook and Instagram making me compare myself to others which provoke the should mentality? Is someone else creating expectations for me to meet?  Maybe, but maybe not.  Ultimately, I have the power to control my own reality.  So, why would I continue to let someone else dictate how I should feel?  The answer is, I don’t have to if I don’t want to.

I wonder how many people have made life-altering decisions based on a simple “I should” thread that started out innocently and grew into a monster.  When I was so focused on living the dream and making money, which I based on someone else’s definition of living the dream, I became hell-bent on turning that “should” into a reality.  I ended up sacrificing everything to say that I got my piece of the dream, just so I could match up to some of my friends who had already achieved that notion. 

Currently, I am in a prime place to play the “should” game once again.  Luckily, I have fought against the temptation.   With the release of Appetite of Addiction I could very well have started comparing myself to other authors.  One of the ultimate benchmarks for success in self-publishing is E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey.  In a previous world I would have dared to compare myself to the immense success that E.L.’s book has experienced.  Today it’s just not even a conversation I need to have with myself because it really doesn’t matter.  My mission in writing AFA wasn’t to sell millions of copies.  It was to write a book that people, who are experiencing their own struggles, can relate with and know, that whatever the demon, they are not alone.  

So, what are the drivers that help me fall into the “should” mindset?: 

One – Lack of self-confidence.   

Two – Ego. 

Three – Lack of mindfulness and appreciation of where I’m at, right here, right now.  

I’ve especially noticed the effect of mindfulness piece lately.  It seems that when I have a consistent practice of meditation the urge to play the “should” game dissipates.  In fact, there’s a very clear shift in my mentality when mindfulness sinks in.  Curiously, I focus less on the past as well as the future.  In reality, I have no idea where this new life of mine is going to take me.  So why bother stressing about what could or could not happen based on very little factual information.

I know I’m in a good place with the “should” game when I hear others say the word and I immediately cue in to if I am also in the “should” mindset.  

I’m curious, how have you been affected by playing the should game?  Have you followed a thread of “shoulds” that led to something more immense than you could have possibly imagined? 

Hypothyroidism, TSH, and a really bad night in January

In May of 2017, after hitting a physical wall and going over the edge with overtraining, I got my first blood test done in years.  My doctor had a suspicion that part of my problem could be uncovered by checking my testosterone and TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) levels.  Along with extreme physical distress from training, the basis of the flat and apathetic feeling I was overcome by could be largely explained by a taxed adrenal system, if that were the case. Well, my tests proved that chemically and physically I was indeed taxed, and this doesn’t even account for the mental side of the equation.

Hypothyroidism is basically defined as an abnormally low activity of the thyroid gland, resulting in retardation of growth and mental development in adults.  My remedial understanding of the condition was that if the thyroid is not properly functioning, then the body doesn’t get enough natural hormone, among other things, to repair itself, as well as aiding in elevated states of depression.  Given the amount of miles I was putting in back then it was no wonder that my body hit the wall.  My system was not getting what it needed to properly repair itself.  Hence, my body shut down and rejected any further training until my system had a chance to recover.

A graph of my TSH levels over the past year

When I first got tested in May my TSH levels were normal, it was my testosterone  (T) levels that dipped well below normal.  My T levels measured at 144 nanograms per deciliter (normal range for guys my age is 300 – 600 ng/Dl).  Luckily those levels rebounded throughout the summer, mostly due to a significant decrease in training volume coupled with a litany of herbal remedies.  Eventually the levels got back into a normal range, although it was still a bit on the low side.  I was just grateful that something was balancing out. However, my TSH levels were going in another direction.  By December I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, which meant that my thyroid was operating at a small percentage of  its capacity.  It was at this point where I began to seek help by way of some sort of treatment plan, under a doctor’s consent and supervision of course.  Partly because of the condition of my thyroid, coupled with my predisposition for depression, I entered into two prolonged and severe month-long bouts of staying in bed.

A graph of my testosterone levels over the past year

The confusing part to these bouts was that I had never gone through a period of “gray,” for more than just a few days, in my life.  Then, all of the sudden, there I was, in bed for an entire month, twice, wondering what the hell was going on.  They were very dark times, scary enough that I was willing to do whatever it took to understand the why behind their severity.

Thankfully, I finally got in with an Endocrinologist at OHSU.  The work that my local Corvallis doctor and I were doing to figure out what the hell was going on just wasn’t enough to really understand the affects and the details of my hormonal and adrenal situation, hence the depression. During the appointment, after the doctor took a look at my TSH levels over the last several months, he made a very point blank comment: “Spence, you have a problem that needs to be fixed.”  It was at this time that I began a medical treatment plan to get me back to baseline.

*****

The following story captures the apex of one of the more acute depressive circumstances that I’ve ever witnessed in myself. I have not shared this story in a public forum yet.  Just a  few friends and family members know about this chain of events.

January 18th, 2018

The sun was just setting on the west coast when, out of nowhere, the urge swept over me to get in bed. It was 5:30 p.m. in the afternoon.  I had no idea where this urge was coming from.  As I lay by myself, with the shades drawn, staring at the ceiling, the overwhelmingly dark thoughts began to pour into my already-swirling mind.  I had no way of controlling their persistence.  I had become accustomed to “wading through the gray,” as I call it, but this episode was very different, more poignant.  For one hour, while gazing at my colorless surroundings, I began to develop a plan and fantasize about how I would take my life.  The plan involved me just casually and nonchalantly walking into the forest, with a suitable means, to end it. 

After playing the scenario out in my head I began to ask the then-tantalizing questions:  Who will be at my funeral?  What would they say? Who would find me in the woods?  Would I finally feel loved enough to garner attention and admiration?  I was soaking up the long and sought after attention that I had always wanted. Certainly, the negative self-talk was rearing its ugly head.  

Scenarios like this are not a common occurrence for me.  One time in particular stands out. The last time I had had a suicidal tendency was back in 2007, when I was drunk and steeped in a destructive relationship.  Before Brian found me in the stairwell of my home, I was ready to end my life with a bottle of Percoset and a gallon of wine.  Immediately he put me in his car and brought me to a psychiatric center so that I could receive proper help.  

This time, the feelings of desperation, vulnerability, and utter shame reached a climax when the vision started to look and feel like a genuine act of sorrow, anger, and selfishness, a true need to feel love.  After stewing in a pot of darkness I slowly began to dig out and decipher what was reality versus what was just an illusion.  Logic eventually took over and I lay in shock because of what had just happened and the road I imagined that I had just gone down.  For the next few hours, maintaining my fixated stare on the bland white ceiling, I couldn’t come to grips and understand where this rush of depression and anxiety came from.  It was a dark and lonely place.

The next morning, after conversations with two of my closest friends detailing the events that had occurred the evening before, things began to sort themselves out.  Why did this happen?  What triggered these emotions?  I had work to do to figure it out.  Time to do some digging. 

Just a day before this episode, a particular event took place that I believe set the stage for  my potentially disastrous situation.  Mike Parker and Jon Warren, the hosts of the Joe Beaver Show, KEJO 1240AM in Corvallis, were discussing the suicide of a PAC 12 Conference freshmen quarterback that tragically happened.  The radio show serves as the sports beat for the Oregon State University Beavers.  Being as though the suicide happened within the PAC 12 Conference Mike and Jon brought the discussion to the table to talk about suicide and depression throughout the NCAA athletic world.  Having a friendship with Mike, I felt compelled to call the show and tell my story of depression.  

After being on hold for just a couple of minutes Mike patched me into the show to ask me what was on my mind.  For the next ten minutes, in front of their expansive audience,  I spoke explicitly about my history and experience as it relates to depression, even going into a bit of a description of what had happened to me back in 2007 when I first considered suicide.  The conversation was good, pertinent to the discussion of athletes that suffer depression.  Once I hung up with Mike I felt good about what I had just shared over the radio airwaves.  My hope, in calling into the show, was to let others in the community know that they were not alone with their own individual struggles.  I felt that by sharing I had also lifted a veil from the dark cloud that had recently been following me around.  However, the experience of me telling my story in an open and honest forum, proved to be the dagger that took my already-persistent vulnerability into overdrive.  My phone call into the radio show set the tone for me to collapse in bed the following evening and begin down a dark road. 

Karen, my therapist, said it best:  tales of suicide can sometimes be evocative for people that live in a depressive state.  I had not thought of it that way before.  Her position on the subject seemed to make perfect and clear sense.  

*****

A few weeks ago I had my blood retested to see how the medication for hypothyroidism was taking affect in my body.  Even though it took a couple of months for my body to metabolize the meds I was taking to help repair things and get back to baseline, I still had some anxiety around how the numbers would look.  Thankfully, once I got back my test results the numbers revealed that I was entirely back to even with both my TSH (measured at 2.6 ng/dL) and Testosterone levels (519 ng/dL). Everything checked out as normal.  Hearing this news was a huge relief.  I am thankful that today I am finally operating at a normal functioning level, adrenally speaking.  Perhaps, now that I’m balanced out, the prolonged and overly-acute depressive episodes might just be a thing of the past.  Certainly, I’m not immune to the fact that anything can happen, however my team of medical professionals is pretty confident that if I keep up the due diligence on my end then I’ve got a good chance at not experiencing a year like I had in the last year with depression.

During my acute bout in January I truly believe that I would have never actually done the unthinkable.  As bad as it gets I really do know that I have so much in this world to live for.  I also tell this story to reveal that this type of thinking is not uncommon for folks who deal with depression as I do.  So, if there is anyone out there that reads this post who feels that by sharing it with someone else who may be fighting their own battle with depression, please do so.  And if they ever want to reach out to me, just call, 541-207-7199.

Enough with the injuries….switching gears (pun intended)

Since the release of Appetite for Addiction I’ve been in funk with writing, not feeling inclined to put pen to paper as much as I have in the past.  Perhaps it’s a hangover effect from AFA. However, I’ve recently met someone that inspired me to pick it back up and get writing again.  My friend Tracey, who keeps a blog of her own was also in a funk.  Interestingly, after we shared our funks together we both picked it back up.  So, here we go! Thanks Tracey 🙂

Several weeks ago, in February, the flu bug got to me which forced me to stay in bed, like everyone else who caught it around the country.  Luckily the bug passed on a Friday and I was able to get out and hit the trails over that weekend.  The runs were uneventful, easy, and relatively benign.  I felt no twinges or tweaks over the two easy efforts.  Then, the following Monday morning I woke up to my left foot being the size of a softball.  I have no idea what happened and I blew up with tumult. I had fucking had it with injuries.

Over the last two years, while I’ve keenly focused on training for ultra-marathons, I’ve had sixteen different injuries that forced me to sit out from training:  Left quad strain, right quad strain (twice), strained achilles, banged up right calf (twice), banged up left calf (twice), left hip strain, strained lower back, sprained left ankle, a dysfunctional thyroid, etc., etc., etc.  When I woke up that Monday with a swollen foot, after freaking out for a bit, I began to laugh and say out loud: “even when I’m not injured I get injured!”

Injuries are very common in our crazy sport.  The mileage we run in training for ultra- marathons from 50 kilometers to 100 milers and beyond tends to provoke certain common injuries.  Largely, I’ve been relatively patient in dealing with these injuries as I began to look at them as challenges to figure out what happened and how to fix it.  But with this new injury, one that I have no idea how it happened?  I’d had enough and threw my hands up in the air in disbelief.  My patience was lost, and I was no longer in the mood to find the silver lining with this latest episode.  Enough was enough.

After I calmed down, I took the next few days to reflect on what the sport of ultra-running means to me.  Look, I love it and will always have a passion for running long distances in the woods!  However, this time, the mysterious injury brought out another consideration for me to ponder:  my mental stability.  No longer was running helping me wade through the mental challenges I face from time to time.

Running is a way for me to express myself, to push myself, and to explore my mental and physical boundaries.  I’ve learned so much about myself by pushing the limits to states of mind that I’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing in other ventures.  But, with the constant interruptions in my ability to run, my mental stability began to wane.  No longer was it about loving a sport that I’ve grown into over seven solid years.  Now, it was about strictly maintaining my sanity, the consistency of being healthy had become fleeting.

For me, fear is not necessarily an effective motivator for doing anything.  However, the few months leading up to the latest injury, I found myself in an utter state of fear, wondering when the next injury would occur.  It was awful, having fun while running was elusive.  One of my friends and mentors, Ian Torrence, gave me a simple formula to the fun factor in running.  His sentiment was that 90% of running should be fun; admittedly my fun factor was a tiny fraction of his 90% rule.

Given the personal issues that I’ve been through, especially with depression over the last couple of years, running was largely my way to cope, until it wasn’t.  What I hadn’t realized was that running, along with the accumulation of the incessant injuries, was adding to the depression simply because I couldn’t stay healthy.

Today, a couple of months removed, I’m really bummed that I let it get to this point.  I mean, it took about 6 weeks for me to not look up into the forest without a feeling of disdain for the trails.  Ridiculous right?  Maybe not.  Now I can safely admit that before the last injury I had once again become consumed with pace, Strava, and results, constantly comparing myself to other runners.  That formula had not worked in the past when I began training full time;  unfortunately I had let those external drivers take over again.

So, now what?  Well, fortunately my foot healed after taking a month off from running so I can start up again although this go-around will look a little different.  Enter a swim cap, a dusted off time trial bike and a pair of road shoes. I still want to be the best athlete I can be and compete at a high level.  I won’t stop the pursuit of a child dream just because I am putting aside the sole focus on ultra-marathons.  At this point in my life I believe that swimming and biking will help add to the sustainability of my athletic endeavors.  I’m willing to try it, for I absolutely love competing and training for endurance sports.  My first triathlon is in just a few weeks, the Blue Lake Olympic just outside of Portland.  I’m excited to see what happens!

Even just a few weeks ago I was in no frame of mind to even consider being around an ultra-marathon, even just as a spectator.  However, things have improved and today I find myself in a better place, having gone through the grieving process of not being able to compete this year like I had hoped. Plus, my buddy Andrew is heading back to Western States 100 this year for the follow-up to his victory in 2016.  There’s no way I’m going to miss out seeing him race in the Super Bowl of ultra-running next month.

My take-away from this bout of injuries:  listen to your body because when it speaks, it speaks for a reason.

 

 

Appetite For Addiction: The Backstory

Early last week, before Appetite for Addiction was published, I had a conversation about the impending release with my boy Brian.  He asked how I was doing, knowing that my entire life was about to be available for the world to see (he put it more mildly).  “I’m fucking scared dude,” was my response.  The previous couple of weeks I had been wrought with insecurity.  Even though I’ve shared quite a bit of my story on this blog, it doesn’t tell the whole story. I was terrified about what the reaction might be once people actually started reading it and finding out that I was a pretty big jackass for so long (which is a judgement that I reluctantly place on myself from time to time, still working on those).

This was the first time I saw someone else holding a book that I actually wrote.  It was a surreal feeling!

Curiously, as the release day got closer, the anxiety began to somehow subside.  Then, last Thursday, went Appetite was released, I felt this huge weight come off of my shoulders.  I hadn’t felt that light in some time.  Even today, as the book is slowly getting out there, I feel somewhat grounded and relaxed.  Perhaps having all of these crazy stories and narratives persist in my mindframe before the books release was doing more harm than good.  Or, perhaps, it is just a part of the process that writers experience when they cultivate their own memoirs.

Right after I resigned from the Hilton, in June of 2015, I started to write.  I had this idea that it might be fun and therapeutic to put my entire story down on paper.  I didn’t necessarily know that I was about to start a three year project of intensive self-reflection on my history. In fact, I began writing chronologically, beginning with my upbringing as a child, gradually progressing to present day.  Looking back to some of the writing I was doing back then was kinda embarrassing.  But then, I received a valuable piece of advice from my good friend and author, Buffy.  All he said, loosely, was just write.  That’s it.  Just write.  I carried that knowledge with me until the day I submitted my first final draft to my copy editor last fall.  Thank you Buffy.

At first I was going to name the book Renovatio, latin for re-birth.  My reasoning was because of a tattoo I had to cover up (the initials of my ex-fiancee, I can’t believe I actually did that) with a new word.  Right around the time I wanted to get the tat redone I saw an Ewan McGregor movie that featured the word Renovatio.  It had a nice ring to it.  I though it might be cool to replace LMC with a word that signified re-birth, regeneration.

After I nixed that idea for whatever reason I wanted to name the book Eat, Sleep, Run, Repeat.  After a day of thinking about it, and a few suggestions from friends to keep working on the title, I quickly nixed that as well.  Plus, I didn’t want to come off writing a “running” book and the title was just silly and irrelevant given the content of my story.

Then, one afternoon while driving to the gym I was blaring the Guns N’ Roses album Appetite for Destruction. BAM!  THAT’S IT.  Thus, Appetite for Addiction was born.

Ultimately I wrote Appetite for two reasons.  One, to help me understand the construct of my life, especially as it relates to addiction and sobriety. Two, to help other people know, who might suffer in silence from their own demons, that they are not alone.  The reason I had my mom be the main editor, other than the fact that she’s a very good editor, was because it was the best way for me to express what I had gone through in life.  Up until I started writing I just didn’t know how to properly help her understand the anxiety, stress, and depression that I seemed to be relentlessly steeped in.

In my previous work-life experience in the corporate world it was all about producing results, quickly, my paycheck depended on it.  Other than training athletically I was always reluctant to enter into multi-year projects, mainly because of the fear that I wouldn’t see it through.  Trust me, there were times where I wanted to scrap the whole project, simply because I wasn’t getting any immediate results.  Fortunately, with the help and encouragement from several friends, I didn’t stop.  I am very thankful for this.  Plus, during those times of frustation, I was still firmly of the belief that results were everything.  Thankfully, part of that thinking has subsided and transformed into a sense of patience, something that always seemed to elude me in the past.

I’m grateful to have gone through this process, it has been so very rewarding.  Plus, I found out that I have somewhat of a knack for writing!  Funny, because I failed my writing class at St. Lawrence University.  With the revelation of this new hobby I am proud to say that I’m already half-way through the follow-up book to Appetite for Addiction.  A Comeback from Addiction, My Story, will be out soon!

A huge thank you to everyone who helped keep my head above water through the writing process.

P.S. – for those who read Appetite I would enjoy hearing your constructive feedback.

Sober Date: February 11th, 2014…Four Years In

Today, February 11th, 2018, is my four year sober birthday.  To celebrate, like I’ve done in the past, I’m heading out into the McDonald –  Dunn Forest for a long run, one hour for every month in the last year that I’ve been able to maintain continuous sobriety.  These twelve hour adventures have been a few of my favorite runs (including races) that I have experienced since becoming sober.  They are a time to appreciate and honor the fact that sobriety is a gift as well as a chance to remember what I’m made of.

With another year of sobriety comes another year of learning.  Last year I found myself reflecting upon the people that inspire me the most ( 3 Years Sober ) as well as what the journey had been like so far.  The same goes for this year as the reflective side is still as prevalent as it has been in the past, perhaps in a different vein.  Part of this, I believe, is because of the composition of my memoir, Appetite for Addiction.  For most of this past year, while writing and editing, I was finding myself entrenched in the narratives and stories of my past.  Basically,  I felt like I was reliving, over and over, the worst and most devastating parts of my story, which is a default setting of mine.  My question to authors who have written addiction memoirs is:  is this common?  To be steeped in these stories is my own doing.  Luckily, with the help of my accountability team, I am slowly shifting the narrative from living in the past to coming into the present and appreciating what is unveiled at my door step today.  Not yesterday, nor tomorrow, but today.  I also believe that by releasing Appetite for Addiction I will be able to keep letting go and continue moving from my past in many ways….the process of writing has proven to be very cathartic.

 It’s always interesting to compare what I’m working on now to what I was working on a year ago.  Last year at this time I was on a high.  Having recovered from an injury, I was attacking training full steam, writing like a banshee, unaware of the consequences that I’d face by going 110%.  This year, however, is very different.  Immersed in ambiguity about what is going to happen with the ventures that I am pursuing, I find myself reverting to a past and comfortable behavior of dwelling on results.  Results for training, results for a long awaited move, results for writing, and results for my business.  In essence I’ve been future-tripping about what may, or may not, happen.  For instance, a few days ago I texted Matt to say good luck and to go get a medal in PyeongChang.  The minute I sent the text I immediately knew what his response would be: “We’ll give it our best!”  It’s inspiring to have people in my life that are truly invested in the process of improvement, much like Matt is.  Cues such as this help snap me back into the present and be involved and engaged in today.

Largely, my focus on results goes hand in hand with unrealistic expectations that I have the penchant for setting up for myself.  However, in sobriety, this tends to look different.  Something that I keyed in on this morning, while sharing with some other folks in recovery, is that when I stopped drinking I never really had ANY expectations of what might happen if I got sober.  I suppose I imagined that my body would feel better, but I never thought that I’d have the courage to resign from the corporate lifestyle I was living to pursue writing, training, and owning a successful health and wellness company, full time.

The other prevalent item of personal work that I’m engaged in is set around managing my depression.  Last year at this time I was pretty secure in the fact that I was in a good place with it as I hadn’t had too many episodes over the preceding year.  This year looks very different, as I’ve mentioned and recalled with frequency lately.   The good news is that, more than ever, I embrace the fact that depression is a thread in my life rather than dismiss it.  Plus, by uncovering certain hormonal deficiencies, my hope is that my depression will become more manageable with time.

It isn’t so much about not drinking anymore, it’s about everything else.  The compulsion to drink isn’t there like it used to be.  I can’t claim to say that this will always be that way, but today I feel pretty secure in knowing that, even in the hardest moments, the chances that I’ll drink are very slim.  That’s pretty cool.

Apart from drinking, I always forget that the 11th of February is also the anniversary of quitting chewing tobacco, three years ago.  Being my obsessive self I had to make both anniversary dates on the same day.  It’s just easier to remember that way.

With that, I’m going to grab my headlamp, an iPod full of Gareth and Armin sets, and my running shoes to begin the most important celebration of the year.  The one that reminds me that I’m still alive, kicking, fighting, surviving, and moving forward.