Sober for 1 Year - Why I Quit Drinking

So it's different. I want to start this video by simply saying that this is not an easy thing to do. It takes a lot to talk about these really personal things and post them on the Internet like this. It's not a normal video that I make and it's about to get very personal, so please have mercy on my mistakes and mishaps and if I have to cut the clip, I'll try to watch it until the end. without editing this video at all because I don't feel like this is the type of video it is, it's just real and it's also a happy moment.

I mean, I'm a

year

sober

. In fact, I am one

year

and 24 days old and this video is very difficult to make. I put it off for almost a month because I almost didn't even want to do it, but maybe someone can learn from it or get something out of it, so I feel like it's necessary. Share this and you'll know what this is, let's dive into it. I'll talk about the beginning of my

drinking

career. I got drunk for the first time when I was 16, like when I really set out to get drunk and see what alcohol was. all about and I didn't know much about alcohol or the things that I've seen, you know, I see people in front of bars, you meet adults and see if they're having a great time or at parties and stuff and I wanted to know what that felt like. , so a friend of mine and I went to his brother's house and proceeded to get up with all purpose and I think we were

drinking

tequila.

I'm not 100% sure if it was a long time ago, but you know, we were drinking tequila trying to get up as much as possible and we were looking at each other like, hey man, like I didn't feel anything, you know, and we were also taking loads of bong and drinking beers and we were trying so hard to get up and then we did, it was really hard and it hit me and I don't even remember anything, it just happened like that and I woke up the next day. I know with this random dog in this garage on this dirty couch and the bong was broken and everyone was really mad and his brother was overheated, you know what we did that night and he can only imagine it and now that was my first experience . with alcohol and that I was probably a red flag right there or maybe that was normal, I'm not really sure, but what wasn't normal is what I did a week later, you know, I thought, oh, I'll never do that again.

I don't like alcohol, it's not for me that was crazy, well a week later I decided to do the same thing again, only it's not as intense, maybe a little more controlled this time and you know that little by little that It became my thing. That became my mom. He was 16 years old. He had a car, you know, he's mobile and some friends and I would go on these epic beer runs. Basically, we just robbed Von's, ran there and some guy ran out. bottles and another guy would come running I was 30 blocks away and you know we took turns doing that and we had alcohol and you know it was a riot, no that was terribly bad and it was bad news but you know it was about to get even worse and I had to share these kinds of critical details to get to the point of what it's like to be

sober

for a year because there's definitely a push to get to the point where it was a serious problem, so you know, when I turned 18, I got a fake ID of this guy at my job and that was a pivotal moment where I thought he was so cool that I thought he was like the kind of super bad guy who can get the golden Schlag. or whatever I thought, I thought I was him and you know, it was pretty bad, it was like the beginning of almost drinking every day where there's always beers, there's always beers around and I thought everyone thought I was cool because of this and you know, that's definitely not the case, but this is just another pivotal moment in my mind where I thought alcohol was making me cold for some reason and you know it, it went on and on and proceeded to get worse and worse and I remember that on my 21st birthday the first thing I did when I woke up was to State Herb Rose and I had my real ID and I was excited and feeling so hot that I actually bought everything legally so I bought 230 blocks I came back to the platform with 60 beers in actually not that far from where I am now.

I was living in Long Beach at the time and my roommate woke up and yeah, we went full blast and those beers and we didn't really do it. do a lot of things all day besides just shooting and crushing beers, but you know who does that, who just sits around on their 21st birthday crushing beers mercilessly and that was me, that's what I did and that was kind of a foreshadowing of what was about to happen. later, but you know, and then of course that night we went out and all the friends came over and we did it big and you know it was the typical 21st birthday where it was, you know, it was like the movie The Hangover, in Not really, but that's how it was.

It was a typical 21st birthday and after that I started dabbling in hard alcohol and for some reason my vice was vodka. I found that I can drink this and it gave me less hangover most of the time. it was the cheapest and most cost effective way to get up and yes I started perfecting the science of drinking and you know it's going to advance quickly because you know it just got worse and worse and I couldn't even go out anymore. under the impression that you know no one can drink like me whenever I drank in a social setting with Ana, something really bad would happen.

I was fighting. I would let you know that I would hurt myself or do something that would just be terribly embarrassing for me or anyone else who was around or I would do something really shady or yeah, it's really really bad and a lot of people didn't want to drink with me because you know there was bound to be some kind of chaos. manic that you would know would subside if they drank, you know, with me, so while our guys are isolating and you know, after work every day for the last two years, every day I would get a Smirnoff attack proof 80, the red one. one and drank a fifth.

I just crushed a fifth in my dome every night, it became almost a regular thing and maybe it wasn't even nice, it was something I did, it was like it was something really bad. habit and I would lock myself and my notebook away and just start, you know, devouring this bottle and at that point I started to notice some changes, you know, in myself and how people would interact with me and me. I ended up, you know, starting to feel the devastation and you know things were starting to tell what this life was going to be like and I met Lexie and I was pretty into it when I met her and it hit me.

I was very good at hiding it, many alcoholics are very good at hiding it. I would like to take out the trash strategically because I had bottles everywhere and just beers, constant beer cans everywhere and they were piling up and you know. You'd have to purge all the cr-v you're building up, so I'd do it strategically and hide the alcohol in strange places so it wouldn't look like he was drinking as much as me and you. I can only guess what happened. Lexie left me and that's something that got very, very, very bad. I also lost my job, which I didn't.

I still don't think it was necessarily, you know, one hundred percent due to the alcohol. Drinking alcohol was definitely priority number one no, nothing beat it. I just wanted to get up. I had my bottle date every night and you know, that was my thing, so I lost my job. You just know from there that some weird things were happening. but that's not what this video is about and I started to, you know, start to crush my bank account, you know, the funds that they were receiving dwindled and I was running out of money. I was about to lose my notebook.

It was not. I'll be able to pay the rent very soon. I was missing car payments on my suburban at the time and you know, it was getting pretty serious, pretty quickly and I had these moments where you know I was suicidal too like I didn't even do it. I care if I lived or died, I didn't care. I remember this time, it's a particular time. I took a cutter and was determined to find out what it was like. I don't even want to live anymore. I took this cutter and I ran it over my arm and I cut myself and you could see, maybe that's right here.

I didn't go on the right path and in the right direction and I bled, it was a big mess, but it wasn't enough to cause any serious damage, you know, and I, you know, I burst into tears, I started crying and it was pretty bad, but that wasn't my bottom, but you know it was going to get worse and I did. some things, some fun things like this more than once where I tried to, you know, fantasize and plan my own death and it was pretty bad and towards the end, in the last six months or whatever, all I did was sleep in my bed wake up take injections go back to sleep and I was, you know, I was urinating

quit

e regularly at times I was throwing up on myself and it was just, it was a sad, sad situation, it was a poor time.

Terrible quality of life and just thinking about it makes me feel really weird. I can't even imagine what he was putting me through and why just because of this bottle it doesn't make sense, but that's how powerful and sneaky and just baffling this addiction is, you know, it's mind-blowing, it doesn't make any sense and I think my moment lowest was in one of these states where I was, you know, lying on my pad just got completely hit, my dad came unannounced and I pushed them away too. I alienated practically all my friends. I had no romantic relationships at the time.

After Lex, he dumped me and it was just me that I pushed. my family away I didn't want to have anything to do with anyone just me and my four walls and my bottle and I would make sure I had enough alcohol to keep me going and I would stumble into a liquor store and I would get more and I would prepare meals and plan them around this experience and it was and it was bad, but then my dad came and for some reason he was a little excited, you know, to have a visitor and I opened the door. and I just don't remember, but I'm sure the look on my dad's face was like, oh my God, what is it Nick, what are you doing? because I knew it was bad, but I don't think I really knew. how bad he was and he brought his friend with him;

My dad's friend, Ellie, was there and you know her plan after seeing this was that they quickly came up with a planet, they were going to take me to rehab that day and I wasn't there. having that and I got really angry and you know, I had these episodes where I was a little violent or I wouldn't really like to not do anything physically violent, but I just get very talkative and nice. I mean, I would talk about a big guy game, but it wasn't really about, you know, falling into something, so you know, I threw it out and I think that was my bottom, just the fact that I would throw mine out. father to hang out with a glass bottle of liquid that controlled me and consumed my entire life my life was about this Smirnoff clear liquid vodka only I still see it in the store sometimes when I like it I browse byuk on the way to the cheese aisle or something and I just look at it and think, wow, how is this so powerful?

It leaves me speechless at how you can control a liquid. You know, I would do other things too, like smoke weed, and you know. If I could get some cocaine, I didn't have a solid connection, but I would take a hit and you know that was always a recipe for disaster too, but you know this went on for

quit

e a while and finally you know I had an epiphany. I thought, "This isn't me?" I need to make a change and so I did. I went and checked into Hoag Hospital, which has a really good rehab program.

What is your detox center? They take your cell phone and check it. your stuff you don't have to have like a certain amount of stuff and you know basically you like going to jail, but it's like you know they make it a little comfortable for you and you're all medicated and they have these pills to keep you from having seizures and They have these pills to make you feel like you're high for seven days. I was high on these pills and it was really interesting at this detox center. I know this because I was surrounded by people who were like me, people who had just arrived in this horrible, horrible place and were so desperate to overcome their addictions and there were drug addicts there and there was a guy who was almost my roommate. trying to put him in the same room as me and I can tell it was like I don't want this to do this in my room like it's so slow we could all have our own room and I don't know what his strategy was to try to put this together , but I was almost scared of this guy, he was a heroin addict, he was there for the heroin, but for some reason he also really liked alcohol, which is not normal, usually heroin addicts are something like that .

His thing, but this guy would just do any drug under the sun at any time and in any quantity and it was almost like he was a little afraid of it, so they didn't join us, which was, you know, kind of cool. but then I ended up talking to this guy and we got close and we shared some stories, not in the panel rooms but outside in the courtyard and we talked and it was really interesting and I still talk to him from time to time I haven't talked to him in like four months sort of, but you know, it's weird how he became kind of friends and you know, after seven days after this whole thing about being a lab rat or taking blood, they're monitoring you, you know, they're putting you in these Forced rooms we talk about things and their feet andjust certain things and it was a strange experience, but after that you had the option to do an inpatient or outpatient program for 30 days and most people did it. the inpatient because well it was safer to live in the hospital and it was almost like it was that show Big Brother almost only you know all these people were drug addicts and you know the alcoholics so it was a weird dynamic and I did something daring .

I chose the outpatient program, which meant I had to go home every day, which was, you know, definitely a bold move because I could have easily gone to get some vodka on the way home and no one was going to stop me I was still You know, I was free, but for some reason I didn't and I think the biggest reason is that I was just curious who might be sober, like I didn't even know who it was. I had lost all feelings and it was just me. I was a robot, I was just a numb person walking around who didn't even really exist and I desperately wanted to see who could be sober, what kind of things they could accomplish and how they were.

I'm still curious to know which is the best version of me. So, I think beyond anything that has kept me sober up to this point, so you know, I resisted the urge. The biggest boost is when you go to a liquor store, they have those little 99 banana shots or Jack Daniels or Those little shot bottles in the kachoris get so bad so many times that I want to buy three or four of those and smash it in my car and, like you know, get this sober thing over with, but I didn't and I moved on and you know it was a pain in the ass to have to go to these meetings and people were crying and you heard the craziest stories, just go to a meeting and just listen and you will listen. crazy in this rehab center during those 30 days I heard some crazy stories like a lot of these people had as families and children and you know the whole deal and you would hear stories about some of these people like trying to plan the death of their family like they literally chose alcohol over their children over the wives they had, they came up with these plans now that their entire family was going to be murdered.

You look at this guy and you're like, man, this guy here is like 50 years old and he's wearing a Sperry t-shirt. Siders looks like they're together wearing short shorts, salmon shorts, and they're like, man, what is it, it didn't even seem like it blew me away, but at the same time, you know, I had violent thoughts too, so it was like it was hand and it was definitely necessary to sit in these rooms and listen to these stories and you know, at first I thought it was some kind of cult. I thought, oh man, what is this cult that you have to have higher? power and you will go around the room and say who you are and your condition.

I'm Nick and I'm an alcoholic and you went around the room and you went and yeah, I didn't like it at first and I don't know. little by little it has been growing on me. I still don't go to meetings much, which is not recommended. It's working for me, but I don't think it will work for everyone. I just say and go. I go to meetings, but I don't like it. Religiously, some people make it to three meetings a day and I just don't know how these people have time for this because I barely have time to go to two or three meetings a month, but anyway, let's talk about change the subject and just talk about what it's like to be sober, you know at first it was weird, like everyone was so proud of me and you know you got the facts, man, that guy you know, and it almost felt a little fake at first. like you know why these people push me to get sober being sober is a weird thing it can be boring sometimes it can be awkward and you have painful conversations with people and you can't just get drunk you have to have these very boring sober conversations with people in the ones where you squirm because you don't have the support of alcohol to get you through difficult times, so that's how it was.

At first and then I got to this point where they called it the pink cloud effect where you're, you're in this cloud and everything is like carefree and you know, you think everything is so cool and oh. Thank you, I felt like I had found Jesus, but you know, I didn't, it was like I just found this pink cloud and it was kind of a strange thing, but that will definitely go away, it went away about three or four months later it was gone. On that pink cloud and she became real. She needed to find a way to make money and she no longer had money.

She was in this new sober realm where she had met a lot of people like me, but no. one was really funding me just walking around being a sober guy. I needed to make money, so a guy you've seen these videos, Kyle Lint, gave me a job, he's a good guy, he's a good friend and I worked with his mechanic. buy a little bit and you know that helped me, it was fun, I loved it, those were good times and this was like at the beginning and Kyle and his friendship too, you know, this was huge, Kyle yeah. you're watching this, thank you so much man, that was me, I was big, but you know I was craving more money, another friend got me into this, this office demolition job, this was construction ripping out drywall and you know, ripping out offices of people. and then another team would come in and remodel it to be like, you know, some kind of modern office with polished concrete floors and never mind, this job sucked, it was a shitty job waking up at 3 in the afternoon.

In the morning, coming in before the tenants arrived and just showing off the offices, just trashing the place, it sounds like fun, but it wasn't and it was very hard work and everyone there hated their job and a lot of them drank during the day. Lunch time and it was this. It was a bad job so I quit and I was free for a while, you know, I pulled some strings and did some pathetic things asking for money and it was bad, I can't. live like that, so what I did, I mean I had to do it, I would have a choice, but then another friend connected me to the current job that I have now, which is that this video is pretty much about being real, it will be real about The current job I have now sucks, it's not fun, it's hard work and it's a lot of hours and you know it keeps me sober so I'm very grateful and in its construction we do a lot of refinery work, but also recently I started to get into the mining aspect, like I just got back from a hobby this week to work and I didn't make a video alone at work and they mostly understood me like I drive a truck most of the time. deliver materials so I have a lot of time to sit and think and I listen to a lot of podcasts and I listen to people who are more sober than me and that helps, that definitely helps and that's another thing that I've noticed about sobriety.

It's just that I see other people who are like ghosts from my past, like the other day I saw a guy at the gas station at the soda fountain and he was doing this act trying to, you know, get some Coke, Coca Cola, and he was like doing this, I thought, yeah, like he used to do that too, like man, this guy is having major withdrawals right now and already eating French fries like he has Parkinson's disease. I thought, because you already know. Another thing is that I had panic attacks - in the last few years I had random panic attacks and I would do this.

I would do something out of nowhere and I could feel it coming and there was nothing I could do. do to reverse it the calmest thoughts in the world we are not going to turn this around. I was going into a panic attack and I would stay locked in and all my muscles would tense up as tight as possible. I would get lockjaw and You know, this was scary and it was really scary because it happened a few times while I wasn't driving. I was going on the highway and I felt something approaching and I couldn't control my car anymore and I was trying to pull it away. over and over again, for about 15 minutes, I was like absolutely, yeah, it was just very twisted and you know, I see things like this periodically, not quite like this, these panic attacks that I've never seen before, you want to have something like this and If you've had panic attacks like this, one is the same because even though it's scary, it's really scary, but I see things like this and I see people at the liquor store, you know, counting change trying to buy like a three-pack, tall cans Model.

I'm like, wow, this guy is really desperate to get drunk right now. I see things like that and I feel bad, but I never say anything because it's just not my place, maybe I should. Don't know. I just got the key to move and another thing about sobriety is that you don't really realize how many sober people there are. Don't get me wrong, being sober isn't normal, you know, it's normal, you know, drinking like a normal person. what the obsession is, but you realize what a secret society there is of sober people, they come out of nowhere and you're like, oh, and then I'm done.

I'm 13 years old and I'm your neighbor and you. you're like this is like how is this? You're 13 like you would never have thought or you just like some random guy you follow on Instagram it's like oh yeah man I'm 5 and you're like this guy it's like how is that possible? It doesn't seem like it, but you know you can't judge someone because I don't drink. There are many people who are sober. It's not even something you don't even realize. They are sober. I don't know, maybe they've been sober for so long that they don't rely on alcohol and maybe they're not as awkward as I am.

I have some really awkward encounters with people just because maybe you, as a mom, might. I don't realize this, but in real life if you know me in person or we've ever gone out or something, I'm a bit of an awkward man, especially now in this state of sobriety and you know that at night I'm weak. some thoughts at night and sometimes I get a little emotional and you know that's just part of it is getting all your feelings back and you know I'm sure you're thinking like man our killers are getting a little soft here man This is It's getting a little fruity and all, but uh no, it's exciting.

You know I'm getting an epic, epic high now. You know someone will let me get on the freeway and I'll be excited. I bet you the world. It's a great place and I get really excited and then, you know, twenty minutes later I'll be PMSing about some text messages I got or something, it's weird how they have these rushes of emotions and it's exciting, it can be uncomfortable. but it's great to just be able to feel again. I'm no longer just a numb corpse going through life drunk. It's pretty amazing and you know, I know this video is getting pretty long, what's it like 20 minutes or something?

So far I think, but I don't care. You know, if you made it this far in this video, you're a saint or maybe you might have a problem and you know you're going to try to gain some knowledge from this video. I was just sharing my experiences and I also used to cry a lot. I haven't cried a little bit, but in the beginning of sobriety, I cried and cried a little bit about things that maybe weren't even that important and you. I know I might be getting too personal here, but I don't care, you know, this is this is real and it's special, it's real, it's really special and if I can be a sober person, I think anyone can. you just know, and if you don't want to come back, go back and go to the store, pick up your bottle and your beers and you can come back and your misery will be refunded to you.

Someone told me that and it's true. I know and I'm not trying to be sober forever because I don't know what's going to happen even in a week. I don't know, but I know that tonight, when I hit my head on the pillow, I'll be sober. person all day and tomorrow I will try to do the same. You know, it could be kind of a repetitive cycle and it's kind of a chore, it's a little bit heavy to think too far ahead, so I learned this in a you try to keep it really simple and I just go day by day and you know, the moments where I have difficulties are at night, like I said, camping trips.

I realized that camping trips are hard and I see everyone drinking beers. You know, I tried to do it. this front like I'm strong, I'm like a tough guy, I guess maybe I really am not, but recently he knew about my sobriety, but he desperately wanted to take some Jameson photos with me and I like it. I looked at this from afar now and I think about it and this guy you probably already know it's not a dark place like a secret place behind closed doors and he wanted to take me to this dark evil death where maybe he's fighting something that's like Oh, you know this guy is sober, if I can drink with him, then you know we can be one and just dwell in this puddle that this guy is probably cooking in and you know, just thinking, thinking, this line of thought makes me It helped to say no.

You know, I had to say no a lot of times to this guy, it was pretty ridiculous. But you know, it's powerful, there's something powerful about being sober in a crowd, there's just something I don't even know the word for, that's right, that's how powerful it is. es, so you know and you will find out who your friends are. This is probably the last thing I'll say here before I end this because it's getting long and if I keep talking too much about this I'll have too many thoughts and you know I might shed a little man tear, so I'm going to have to try to end this, butYou find out who your friends are.

You had drinking buddies. I had drinking buddies. They don't hit me. They never call me. They are not interested in anything. I'm plotting. We were just drinking buddies and yeah, you know, right now I'm going to have to tell them that I hope you have a good life because it's mutual. I'm on my way to being the best possible version of myself and I don't want anything. to do with someone stopping me from doing it, so anyway next week we'll get back to some fun stuff. I like to make funny videos. I like hanging out. I like to do fun things, but you know, this is something I felt like I had to share. because you were able to see the videos from a year ago and you will see me drinking Coors Light all day, but what you don't see is when I go out, but the strong alcohol at night and you don't see the darkness. the bad, just the bad things, that really took control of me and yeah, I'm going to be right there, thanks for watching like I said, if you've made it this far in this video, I st. because if I watched a video, even if I watched a video that was like 30 minutes long, I usually don't watch it, so thanks for watching guys, I really appreciate it and I'll see you next week to watch a video, not a video.

A deep look at alcoholism, we're going to do something fun as usual, so yeah, I hope you have a blessed week and I'll link my email below if you want to have a personal chat about this. We will set aside some time to be able to talk about this, this disease, the addiction, it is serious and I sympathize with anyone who has done it and who is harmed by this. See you next week.