Almost Paradise – Part VII “Into The Deep”
I ran away from you, yet here you are
Post Introduction:
When I complete a Substack post, I go to my newsfeeds to search for the next topic of interest. As my readers and subscribers have come to expect, my topics vary widely from business and politics to religion and philosophy. If the topic captures my imagination enough to warrant 1500 words, I develop it into a future post. Recently, I stumbled upon an article talking about the "suicide belt" of the American Rocky Mountains. Specifically, the article described how suicide rates had quadrupled in America's mountain towns. My research on this topic led me to a recent documentary titled, The Paradise Paradox produced by Podium Pictures and Hall of Fame skier Bode Miller. It is available on Amazon Prime for a nominal fee.
As a lifelong, visitor to many of those resort towns in the "suicide belt" and a recovering alcoholic, I relate to the mental health struggles that many in America's resort towns experience. I feel compelled to share my recovery journey, not because it is ever pleasant recounting the low dark crevices of my past, but in the hopes that my story may help someone who is struggling with depression, anxiety or addiction find hope and recovery. My work on this topic will span multiple posts. If you connect with any part of my story, please sign up for a free or paid subscription. Moreover, if my story compels you into further action, consider donating to one of the mountain town organizations working to expand mental health services and stem the tide of suicides.
What happened next in my life after leaving the mud-hut "Land of Enchantment" I term “the quickening.” Not the realization that I exist but the time when I realized my addiction was an alien being, living inside me and kicking at my innards with greater frequency each day. Heretofore, I was just a guy raised in a hard-working, hard-living, hard-drinking part of the Midwest. I knew few others, save the wealthy vacation landowners, that didn't behave the way I did. Work hard during the day, play hard at dusk, sleep it off overnight - repeat. So, as I journeyed home from Santa Fe, with stops in Durango, CO, Jackson Hole, WY, Bozeman, MT, I plotted my next move.
That move was back to St. Paul, MN, and a new job, new house, and new bride. Although I did not realize it at the time, restless discontent and codependent were destined to wed, and that was no minor event. What felt like an extended weekend of traveling drunken debauchery (Memphis to SoCal to Santa Fe) I codified into a union with the purpose of adding child rearing to the daily cocktail of work hard, play hard, drink hard and sleep little.
For a few years, I settled into St. Paul. I was the general manager of a popular restaurant, purchased a fixer-upper home one block off Summit Avenue and put forth to child production and home remodeling. Though I fell into domesticated routine, the same zeitgeist haunted me each evening. I worked long hours at the restaurant, retired each evening with stiff cocktails and began dreaming about a better place to live – a place worthy of an individual as unique as I was.
However, as became a growing case, after less than three years of that sedentary life, I once again grew restless. This sensation, along with greater amounts of evening alcohol compelled me to conclude the owner of the restaurant I worked for was the problem, he did not respect my talents and my dedication. One day, upon arriving at work extremely hungover and getting into a minor tiff with my boss, I abruptly resigned with no thought of what my next move ought to be. Incidentally, that stupid move coincided with the birth of my first child. As fate would have it, I found another, and more prestigious, general manager position within about six months, and began living the "high life” commuting to downtown Minneapolis to operate the suite level at Target Center. This was during the Kevin Garnett years of that youthful Timberwolves organization. But, working long hours, covering over eighty sporting events per year and heavy drinking, again took its toll and once again I found myself working for an owner who did not appreciate my sacrifices. At that point, I got the brilliant idea that I should become my own boss. I purchased lakeshore property and set out to build my own restaurant back where it all started in Detroit Lakes, MN. Restless discontent was going to show his hometown and the world how to build and operate a restaurant.
This move proved two axioms correct, first, that I make bad decisions when I drink. Case and point, I thought moving back to the small town, the one that I could not wait to escape, to build a restaurant was a clever idea. And second, all bosses are unappreciative assholes. Definitively proven correct once I became my own boss. What happened with that bold move back home to open a restaurant is well documented in my book, "Restaurant Management, the Myth, the Magic, the Math." That return trip home was the beginning of where I realized I had a drinking problem, subsequently found God and the power of mathematics. For more details on that hazy-dazy part of my life, I refer my readers to the above-mentioned book. It is available on Amazon, Kindle or Audible.
The two best things that came out of my time in Detroit Lakes were the birth of my third child and the realization that I was an alcoholic. Although I did not come to appreciate the latter thing until seven years later. However, neither proved good enough to keep me grounded in one place. After closing that beautiful restaurant, the dream I worked a year and a half to build and thirteen months to operate, restless discontent wandered next to Raleigh, NC. With codependent and three children ages one, three and five years in tow, I took a position as a general contractor on a major house restoration project. That forgettable stint as a construction manager only reinforced the certitude of my first and second axioms. But, as I was my own boss, I was not about to tell myself that an eye-opening drink in the morning was outside the rules of common practice, not to mention construction safety.
As I struggled finding sobriety and meaning in my life, I longed for the geographical location that would solve my problems. You see, at this stage of my life, a failed restauranteur, a failed General contractor and very quickly becoming a failed husband and father, I needed to find the location that would solve my restlessness. I was convinced it was out there, I just needed to search harder to find it. This is where having an equally alcohol induced codependent comes in handy. A normie would have put an end to this restless flittering about nonsense years ago. But I did not select one of those partners, in fact, I passed on several such candidates as I drank and worked my way through my 20's.
Raleigh was a bust and I needed to reset my charted course. With viable job prospects lacking anywhere else, I moved my family back to St. Paul and back to working for that popular restaurant that I abruptly quit 10 years prior. I bought a non-descript, tiny house in St. Paul, one that I paid too much for thanks to the lacks "stated vs. actual" income lending practices in the build up to the housing crash of '08. But the daily and relentless nagging from codependent to get my shit together intensified. Now, it is important to note, though by this stage in my life I knew that I was an alcoholic, and that sobriety was the solution to my problem, co-dependent’s ire was not directed at that issue. Quite the opposite, she was the first to pour me a drink the moment I walked into the house each evening. No, codependent had grown tired of the lack of consistent income. The daily barrage of “get your shit together you f***ing loser,” targeted my inability to get a better job and stay there. As I numbed myself to the daily verbal tirades, I secretly searched for the paradise that would make me happy, quiet the not-so-cheerful and unforgiving codependent and to ultimately relieve my alcoholism. Yes, I know the recovery people out there are rolling their eyes at my "wishful" thinking, but they are also nodding along, because they understand the delusional hoops addicts jump through to justify their lack of recovery success.
While being my own "bigshot" boss in Detroit Lakes, I did discover I had a drinking problem. I did not know what it was, but I became aware of a condition of once I started drinking each day, I could not stop. And since the first drink was around 10AM, completing a day's task became quite problematic. I did a 28-day stint in a residential treatment facility where those quacks diagnosed me as a perfectionist with low self-esteem as well as chronic alcoholism. When I broke free of that nuthouse, I was going to set them, and all their cult-like acolytes straight. I was going to prove that my "alcoholism" was a figment of their exaggerated imagination and that mind over matter was the solution. I was going to prove to the recovery world that I could, through sheer willpower, stop drinking. Of course, with the caveat that I would do so when I was ready to give up the bottle.
What that booze-soaked seven-year period in my life, when I lived in my hometown, Raleigh, and St. Paul, unveiled to me was the quickening – the time when I realized I was more than “a little pregnant” with alcoholism. However, I would need to go full-term to realize that the alcoholic being within me needed to be birthed and that I would subsequently be required to dedicate my life to raising that alien being to maturity. My readers are learning, through this “Almost Paradise” series, how I took my disease of alcoholism from the bottle-feeding stage all the way through to its PhD. What I wish to impart to the individuals that may find hope in my story is that the location is not the problem - it is never the problem. Though I had not yet realized that reality, so I must tell you what happened next on an island paradise.
I was miserable working for that old restaurant, I was miserable trying to juggle finances and family, but mostly I was miserable because ever since that trip to rehab, I knew that I was an alcoholic, and I knew that there was a solution to my misery. Prior to treatment, at least I was ignorant of my problem. Going to treatment is the worst thing someone can do if they want to maintain a loving relationship with their addiction. But these miseries and my knowledge that I was indeed an alcoholic, did not stop me from believing that all could be solved if I could just find the right location. I was convinced that where I lived was the reason I could not stop drinking. As the song goes:
It's those changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Nothing remains quite the same
With all of our running and all of our cunning
If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane
Gen Z'ers have no concept of what it was like to search for jobs in the "old days" when troglodytes searched the local newspaper for the "help wanted" job postings. But at this point, the Internet had arrived and job searching could be performed via strokes on the keyboard. Armed with this internet search engine technology, I set out to find the location that would solve all my woes. The beauty of internet job searching is that one can apply the "anywhere but here" filter for desirable work locations. Those efforts led me to take a position as Food & Beverage manager for an operator on the island of Bermuda.
At last, I solved the location problem. I spent two prior vacations in the Caribbean, and like many who are fortunate enough to do so, I became enamored with the warm weather, carefree lifestyle, and perceived "chill" attitude of the Islanders. I was convinced that in this environment, I could find sobriety and happiness. Even though I had read Herman Wouk’s novel, “Don’t Stop the Carnival,” I utterly failed to draw the parallel between myself and the hapless Norman Paperman, the protagonist who failed in his pursuit of finding happiness while operating a resort in a tropical paradise. However, at that time, I was still operating in the “fog of war,” I was in a full-tilt battle with my addiction and, as is often the case in war, mistakes get made.
I took the position in Bermuda, which had stringent immigration policies. Technically, I was a guest of the government, via my employer sponsor, to work in that country for a maximum of two years. That guest worker status did not apply to my family, where they were only allowed to visit the island for a maximum of three months. Undeterred by this reality, I flew to Bermuda with the idea that I would be charming enough to convince their government to make an exception for my family to join me on a permanent basis.
So, alone, I traveled to the island of Bermuda and alone, I worked for a company that operated a chain of pizza restaurants. There I was, living the dream on an island in paradise. I drove my little scooter to and from work on the wrong side of the road and sent my paychecks and my love back home to my codependent and my three children via the Internet. Alas, I had done my sobriety research poorly as I quickly came to realize that Bermuda, a 22-mile-long island with about 60,000 inhabitants, was a drinking Mecca. Living in Bermuda was like, "Ground Hog's Day" where each seventy-two-degree day was the same. It was the same weather day in and day out, the same people standing on the same street corners on my morning and evening commute. And the same daily routine where the businessmen knocked off work around 4 PM and headed to the bars where the real "wheeling and dealing" occurred. I did find a kind of paradise. Bermuda was a drinking paradise, a paradise I had been in training for my entire adult life!
As the months drew on, the frequency of sending funds and greetings to my family lessened. Maintaining a healthy drinking habit in Bermuda does not come cheaply. The short money transfers, along with bearing 100% of the child-rearing duties, did not improve the mood of codependent back home. I also genuinely missed my children and fell into a lonely state of melancholy. That was a dangerous condition for an alcoholic on an Island home to Bacardi rum and early happy hours.
I was coming up the Christmas, and I knew for the first time, I would not be home to celebrate with my family. As a distraction, I cooked a Christmas dinner for my housemates and about twenty other friends and associates. The meal was served Christmas day, and like other countries associated with the UK, Boxing Day followed Christmas day. I had started drinking heavy Christmas eve, that spilled over into Christmas day and the following Boxing Day. That two-day bout of inebriation turned into a five-day binge. I missed several days of work including a VIP catering events that I was specifically tasked to oversee. My none too pleased employer summoned me to his office, once I sobered up, and subsequently fired me.
Now, when one is a guest in a country by virtue of employment, that invitation can quickly be revoked once that employment ends. I was given seven days to secure passage home, or the government of Bermuda would perform that "honor" for me. Unlike the timid immigration policies in my home country, the Bermudian government was dead serious about my removal. Drunk, dejected and returning home to the entirely unimpressed codependent in St. Paul, MN in the dead of winter was getting pretty close to my bottom. I was not quite there yet, but I could see the rock. I was living in a hell of my own making after personally experiencing my own epic of "Paradise Lost!"