Almost Paradise – Part X
What is my life like now?
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.
Interestingly, once I rid myself of the compulsion to drink, my core upbringing reemerged. The things I enjoyed prior to when alcohol ruled my life returned. I got my strong work ethic back along with a sincere desire to serve others. Spirituality returned as well as taking on the mantle of the study of philosophy. How did that manifest?
Within the first three months of my sobriety, I joined a fraternal organization and returned to the church of my youth. In both endeavors, I have no idea why I felt compelled to do them at that time. I walked away from the church when I went off to college and nary stepped foot in one, save the occasional wedding or funeral, for 25 years. I had also vowed that I would never join a fraternal organization, neither one on a college campus or one that my father and grandfathers belong to as I was convinced these organizations were cults. The reality is, and many of my readers may have picked this up by now, I abhor authority and am leery of any organization or institution that has rules for membership. Besides, I never desired to wear funny hats.
Despite that, I wandered into a neighborhood church early in sobriety and found an inviting congregation. The church saw me through my divorce and gave me and my children a spiritual home and a connection with God. As I had liturgical church experience growing up, I was pleased to find a church where I could impart the same exposure to my children. Significantly, what I found was, when the dark veil of alcohol was lifted from my life, the healthy living patterns my parents provided me in youth, returned. My hope is that if my children ever end up in such darkness, that the light of the church and their relationship with God will guide them towards their reformation as well.
Another thing that happened was a return to my youthful work ethic. Prior to alcohol, I worked hard. Whether it was starting at the age of 12 mowing yards and babysitting or washing dishes in our family restaurant, I put in more hours at work than any of my peers. The same was true with sports. I put extra time in the weight room or on the court to perfect my skills. It was the type of dedication that earned me my first varsity letter in seventh grade as a pole vaulter on the track team and also led to two more letters and starting positions on both the football and basketball squads. Early on, I learned that hard work does indeed separate one from the pack and leads to opportunities others miss. It was hard work running a summer catering company during college that led to the opportunity of purchasing a restaurant 45 days prior to my college graduation. It was hard work, donning a tie and jacket three times a week to attend an unpaid internship during my junior year of college while all my buddies were "sleeping it off," that led to my first real "corporate" job in my mid-20s.
It's not that I didn't work all the way through my addiction. Most addicts do as the one thing we need to continue our addled confusion is money. That's why the job is usually the last thing an addict loses. They may lose their car, either by lack of payments or a court order. They will even lose their family because the addiction proves stronger than that connection. But the job is the one thing that provides the necessary funding for addictive behavior and is often the last to go. I certainly was no exception to this rule. As you will recall, it was not the lack of concern from codependent or the fear of losing my children that led me to attempt suicide by drinking but the reality that I had been fired three times in less than a year. It was economic fear not familial loss that drove me to the brink.
But as the veil of addiction was lifted, I found that I returned to that pre-drinking work ethic. I worked hard and, as my early experience taught me, my hard work paid off by ever-growing and improving career opportunities. In my first year of sobriety, I drove a hotel shuttle bus and sold POS systems on a commission basis. That led to a consulting position with a fledgling restaurant group. That led to a full-time controller position and ultimately to a C-suite role as CFO. Throughout that progression, I know it was my hard work and reliability, along with my innate desire to ever be learning, that yielded my work success in recovery.
Along with returning to church, I rekindled my love of philosophy. Like in college, I was drawn to religion and philosophy, something my late mentor Joseph Uemura insisted were 100% intertwined. I returned to examining my life and its purpose through the lens of Plato, Aristotle Augustine, Anselm, and Spinoza. As a result of my return to a love of learning, I applied a practical and biblical worldview to my work, my parenting and myself. Long time readers should have no problem spotting those influences in my work.
My degree with distinctions in philosophy has never been something I have shied away from; in fact, I wear it as a badge of honor, and it is listed as part of my bio in most of my endeavors. Honestly, I don’t see how I could be successful in business without my well-rounded and grounded liberal arts education with emphasis on both religion and philosophy. Without giving in to some nameless and faceless “spirit of the age” concept, I do not know how one measures their own agency in this world without filtering it through grounded moral and philosophically inspired values. Plus, I find it entertaining, at least to myself, that I abandoned a business management degree in favor of a philosophy degree yet spent my entire career in the business of running restaurants. As I’ve often said before, nothing prepares you for a career in the restaurant industry better than a philosophy degree. Because on any given shift, restaurant workers experience the best and the worst of humanity and understanding how to relate to both is something no MBA program ever dares teach. Which is why I have concluded one of the great disappointments of 21st century education is the complete compartmentalization of the university. With the exception of DEI, which wraps its tentacles around every college discipline, the individual departments themselves stay in their own lanes, robbing students from the notion that God‘s hand is the primary mover in each discipline, save the psychology department. There they teach a different form of interpersonal deity.
Another bonus to sobriety was a return to leisure activities I enjoyed in my youth. I started playing tennis again and joined a club that had indoor facilities so I could continue playing year-round when the snow blanketed the courts in Minnesota. Most significantly, I returned to my love of downhill skiing. Though I had made a point to teach all three of my children how to ski when they were about five years old, the late stages of my addiction superseded my ability financially and physically to get them out onto the slopes. The first winter I was sober, I reversed that priority by purchasing new ski gear and getting the family back out skiing. That also started a 15-year trend of spring break skiing in the western mountains. I looked forward to those annual tracks to the Rockies and the family memories they provided. We skied Red Lodge, Bridger Bowl, Big Sky, Whitefish and Lost Trail in Montana. We also hit Alta, Snowbird, Solitude and Brighton in Utah. Multiple trips to Colorado had us skiing Winter Park, Aspen and Snowmass. We took one trip to Idaho to test our skills on the wet, snow laden slopes of Schweitzer. One of my great joys of sobriety was rekindling my love of skiing and sharing that with my family on those special annual adventures out West.
Finally, one of the most fulfilling activities to come out of my sobriety was writing. Prior to my abstinence, I lived a type of Groundhog’s Day inspired hell. I would imbibe each evening and concoct, along with multiple cocktails, “brilliant” essays in my head. I would stumble off to bed each night vowing that I would wake up in the morning to jot down these “spirited” inspired thoughts. In my inebriated state, I knew that I was a writer of great importance, and the world would be a better place if I would just release those thoughts on paper for them to see. But, like the inevitable wake up tune to “I Got You Babe,” my hungover mornings began with a headache, a vague memory of last night’s musings and no capacity to formulate those thoughts into anything resembling a coherent thesis. I merely started each day as I did the prior, with Tylenol, four cups of coffee and a stoic survival mentality to get through the day and to the inevitable drink that would begin the creative cycle all over again.
But that changed after about 6 years of sobriety in 2015. I started a weekly blog on some non-descript website. I posted my thoughts on business, philosophy, and religion as I saw it at the time. My readership was few, but I did not care. I was writing for the first time in my life, developing my voice and building a daily discipline for the task. In 2018, I penned the manuscript for my first published work, Restaurant Management, the Myth, the Magic, the Math. That led to moving my weekly blog to Substack and nearly weekly posting on Sunday mornings ever since spring of 2022.
Addiction is misery. Those afflicted become a slave to the substance and happiness itself becomes a distorted reality. So perverse a notion that the addicted truly opts for unhealthy and destructive behavior over good and wholesome relationships. Addiction is a spiritual deficiency, one where the soul is forsaken or discarded. The addict expects each shot “drawn” will be the Ace of Spades and that winning hand will finally produce their soul-abandoned happiness. But it never does and the happiness an addict seeks is always just over the horizon. Thus, no matter where the addict resides, it is always “almost paradise.”
Breaking the cycle of addiction requires the recovery of the soul. Despite common lore, it cannot be traded, bartered, or sold. The soul is unique to every individual, and it begs for connection every day. An addict knows the feeling of a neglected soul, they feel it with every drink consumed, especially once they have the knowledge of their addiction and that there is a solution to their misery. Long-term sobriety occurs when the recovered addict reconnects with that which is unique to them.
Maintaining the soul connection becomes my task. For that, I rely on grounding myself daily, starting with prayer and meditation. In my ritual, I focus on forming healthy habits that reflect favorably upon my soul. I take my cue from Hua-Ching Ni:
“Achieved ones like to maintain the natural calmness of the mind and in this way receive a clear and appropriate energy response. Too much chatter weakens one’s mind and confuses the energy response. There are five aspects of one’s daily activities which need careful attention and selection. These are one’s thoughts, speech, company, environment, and one’s work or service to the world.”[1]
I believe that care for the soul is no trifle matter and if it is immortal, as Plato contends, “But my friends, … we ought to bear in mind, that, if the soul is immortal, we must care for it, not only in respect to this time, which we call life, but in respect to all time, and if we neglect it, the danger now appears to be terrible.[2] then I owe it to myself to treat it with respect and I do so by living my best self. I take solace in believing that I do indeed, as Leibniz surmised, “live in the best of all possible worlds,” and as such I am already living in paradise!
[1] Tao, “The Subtle Universal Law & The Integral Way Of Life,”, Page 116
[2] Phaedo, Plato, 107c