As of today, now 15 years have passed since I quit drinking alcohol. Before you toast to my last 15 years, let’s talk about those last 6 weeks before I quit.
In hindsight, I knew something was wrong. I stretched work happy hours until after midnight and drove home drunk. I’d wake up hungover and still wearing my suit. I embarrassed friends, family, and colleagues with my actions. They repeatedly pulled me aside with well-intended words of caution. After drinking out of control, I would spend the next week sober, alone, and ashamed.
Ashamed, I asked for help. Suggestions included prayer. Alcoholics Anonymous,** and getting my shit together. Thankfully, I was convinced to meet with a mental health professional available through my employee benefits plan. The counselor agreed with my physician that my problematic drinking was a symptom of depression rather than the problem itself. I apparently had been self medicating. Until then, I could not differentiate between depression, a mental health issue, and being depressed, a feeling. In fact, 1 in 4 Americans experience a mental health issue each year. My physician prescribed for me the same antidepressant which had recently helped him bounce back from his divorce and I was pleased with its positive impact.
Buoyed by the support of countless people, I kept trying to dial down my drinking but, after my 4th beer with clients at a Phillies game, I knew that my time was up. That was June 30, 2005.
I consider myself incredibly lucky. Vincent Van Gogh, Kurt Cobain, Robin Williams, and Anthony Bourdain each faced mental health challenges like I did. Each managed their mental health through substance abuse like I did. Each died by suicide. I did not.
I consiser myself incredibly lucky. I have a team of loved ones, including a gifted mental health professional. I’m especially lucky that we met the Movember team through Team I Hate Cancer. Movember has taught me how to talk about my mental health and how to talk with other men about theirs. Having started as a month-long moustache journey, Movember is now a $1,000,000.000 (billion) global effort to improve men’s mental and physical health and to save men’s lives from cancer and suicide.
These months of self-isolation and financial instability are hard on all of us. They are especially hard on men facing a mental health challenge. Is someone in your life ignoring texts and calls? Is he drinking too much these days? Is he saying that he’s not himself these days? He’s not alone.
Whether virtual, telemedicine, or via Movember.com, there are resources for those who are socially distant and / or worried about themselves or a loved one. At the very least, you or that person can call me. My number’s 484.437.8409. I already have spoken with 3 people this week. I’d gladly speak with 30 more this month.
Finally, if you’re able to safely do so, please have a drink for me tonight. There’s a diet root beer in my koozie.
**A very successful bar and restaurant owner, with decades of sobriety, encouraged me NOT to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, as we’re both too independent for its 12 step program.