Why Getting Sober Wasn’t the End of the Work

I knew how to use. I didn’t know how to live sober.

When I got sober, I thought the biggest challenge was going to be not using drugs.

I was wrong.

Stopping was only the beginning for me. What I wasn’t prepared for was realizing that I really didn’t know how to live sober.

Normal life felt foreign to me.

I lost my father when I was 18 years old, and he had been in active addiction for most of my childhood. Then addiction became a huge part of my own life. Instead of learning how to become a responsible adult, build relationships, raise a family and deal with life as it came, I was running the streets.

So when I finally got sober at 30 years old, I didn’t suddenly know how to live differently just because the drugs were gone.

I had a lot to learn.

Becoming a Father While Learning How to Live

My daughter Samantha was born when I was only about three months sober.

I was trying to learn how to live sober at the same time I was learning how to be somebody’s father—and I didn’t feel like I had much of a blueprint for either one.

As Samantha got older, I started finding myself in situations that probably seemed completely normal to everyone else but felt incredibly awkward to me.

I remember bringing her to her first Little League practice.

I had never played a sport in my life. Quite the opposite—I was running the streets. Sports, Little League, sitting around talking with other parents... none of that had been part of my world.

And there I was.

A father at his daughter’s Little League practice.

I can still remember sitting there watching everybody.

Someone would smile at me, and I’d smile back.

That sounds like such a small thing now, but at the time even that felt like something I was learning to do.

I watched how the other parents interacted. I listened to how they talked. A lot of the time, I behaved the way I saw other people behaving because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do.

From the outside, I probably looked perfectly normal.

Inside, I felt completely out of place.

“Have Fun. Play Hard.”

The other parents knew softball.

They could give their daughters advice about hitting, throwing, fielding and all kinds of things I knew absolutely nothing about.

I couldn’t give Samantha much softball advice.

So I told her what I did know:

Have fun. Play hard.

Looking back, maybe not knowing much about the sport turned out to be a blessing.

I didn’t put pressure on her. I wasn’t trying to coach her from the sidelines or turn every game into something bigger than it needed to be. I supported her and let her enjoy playing.

And she kept playing.

As the years went on, I became more and more involved. Practices, games, travel ball—I was there for all of it.

And as crazy as this sounds, at one point the other parents actually voted me “Team Mom.”

Think about that.

I went from being the guy sitting at that first Little League practice feeling completely out of place, watching the other parents and trying to figure out how I was supposed to act, to being voted Team Mom by those same kinds of parents.

Somewhere along the way, without even realizing it, I had stopped trying to fit into that world. I had become part of it.

Years later, that little girl I brought to Little League went on to attend a wonderful college and play Division II softball.

And here’s the interesting part.

Even college was foreign to me.

I hadn’t gone to college. Being on a college campus, interacting with people whose lives and backgrounds were different from mine—that could still bring back some of those old feelings.

But by then, something was very different.

I knew how to show up.

The Uncomfortable Eventually Became Comfortable

That’s something I really want people in early recovery to understand.

I didn’t suddenly become comfortable living sober.

It happened little by little.

Every time I did something sober that made me uncomfortable, the next time became a little easier.

Going somewhere with my daughter.

Talking with another parent.

Returning someone’s smile.

Showing up at a school function.

Going to work.

Having conversations.

Being present instead of escaping.

The first few times something might feel completely foreign. But I kept doing it.

And the more I did things sober, the less uncomfortable they became.

Eventually, I wasn’t watching everybody else and wondering how I was supposed to act anymore.

I was just living.

That’s a huge difference.

Recovery Gave Me People to Learn From

I didn’t figure all of this out by myself.

Recovery programs put people into my life who showed me another way to live.

I met people who were sober, raising families, going to work, keeping commitments, helping other people and dealing with life’s problems without running away from them.

I watched them.

I listened.

I asked questions.

And slowly, I started incorporating those principles into my own life.

Honesty.

Accountability.

Showing up.

Keeping your word.

Making amends when you’re wrong.

Helping somebody when they need you.

Being grateful for what you have.

Understanding that you can’t control everything that happens, but you can control what you do next.

Those weren’t just things I heard people talk about in recovery.

They became principles I tried to live by.

Then Christian Came Along

Two years after Samantha was born, my son Christian was born.

By then, I had more time in recovery and something else that mattered just as much: I had experience being a father.

So much of what I was learning for the first time with Samantha, I was able to carry into my relationship with Christian.

I was still learning, of course. I probably always will be. But I wasn’t starting from scratch anymore.

With Samantha, so many experiences were firsts for both of us. I was learning how to be present, how to participate in my child’s life, how to interact with other parents and, really, how to be a father while I was still learning how to live sober myself.

What I was learning with Samantha, I got to more fully enjoy with Christian.

I wasn’t as consumed with wondering whether I was doing everything right or whether I fit in. I could be more present and actually enjoy being his dad.

And I adore that kid.

The principles I was learning in recovery came home with me to both of my children—honesty, accountability, gratitude, helping others, keeping your word, admitting when you’re wrong and showing up for the people you love.

I didn’t have all of those tools when Samantha was born. I was learning them.

By the time Christian came along, I had started becoming the man and father recovery was teaching me how to be.

And that’s something I don’t ever want to take for granted.

I didn’t grow up knowing how to live by those principles.

Other people taught them to me.

Then I got to bring them home and teach them to my children.

Sobriety has given me a lot of gifts.

That’s one of the biggest.

From the “Bad Guy” to Someone People Called for Help

There was another change that I never could have imagined when I first got sober.

For a long time, I had basically been the outcast.

The “bad guy.”

I certainly wasn’t the person people were looking for when something went wrong.

Recovery changed that too.

One of the things I learned was that when somebody asks for help, you show up.

So when parents reached out to me because they were scared about what was happening with their son or daughter, I never wanted to say no.

Sometimes it was somebody I knew.

Sometimes it was a friend of a friend.

Sometimes it was a parent who simply didn’t know what to do.

If I could help, I tried.

Somewhere along the way, I went from being the guy people might have stayed away from to the guy people looked for when they needed help.

I don’t take that lightly.

My past didn’t disappear.

Instead, recovery gave me an opportunity to use some of the things I had lived through to hopefully help somebody else.

If You’re New to Recovery, Trust the Process

If you’re in early recovery right now and normal life feels uncomfortable, I understand.

I’ve been there.

You may look around and feel like everybody else received an instruction manual for life that somehow you never got.

You may feel awkward.

You may feel behind.

You may wonder whether you’re ever going to feel comfortable in your own skin without drugs or alcohol.

Give it time.

Trust the process and keep showing up.

Do the uncomfortable things sober.

Go to the family function.

Take your kid to practice.

Go to work.

Talk to people.

Return the smile.

Ask for help.

Stay around people who are living the kind of life you want to live.

Then get up tomorrow and do it again.

Little by little, what feels foreign starts becoming familiar.

What feels uncomfortable starts becoming normal.

And eventually, you may look around and realize you’re not trying to figure out how to live sober anymore.

You’re just living.

And this isn’t something that only happened to me.

I’ve watched it happen to so many other people in recovery.

I’ve watched people come in lost, uncomfortable and unsure of themselves. Then, over time, I’ve watched their lives change.

Mine did too.

Recovery didn’t just teach me how to stop using.

It taught me how to live.

It taught me how to be a father. It gave me principles I could bring home to Samantha and Christian. And eventually, it gave me the opportunity to take some of the darkest parts of my past and use them to help someone else.

For someone in early recovery who feels completely lost right now, that’s what I want you to know:

Keep showing up. Trust the process. Give yourself time.

The life that feels so foreign today may one day simply feel like your life.

Rise. Recover. Thrive.