Episode 15 : Embracing Sobriety & Identity: Eamon Kearney's 'Long Way Home'.

What happens when you realise alcohol has become your “home”… and you decide to burn that version of home to the ground?

In this episode of The Next Chapter, I’m joined by Eamon Kearney —Irish immigrant living in Massachusetts, father, sober runner, and author of the upcoming memoir 'The Long Way Home.' We get into the real stuff: adoption, early trauma, Irish drinking culture, and how learned behaviour can quietly wire addiction into your identity.

Eamon shares the moment he hit a low point, what finally made him choose sobriety, and why running became the anchor that helped him rebuild discipline, clarity, and self-respect. We also talk about redefining what 'home' actually means when you’re sober—and how fatherhood can become the reason you break the cycle for good.

If you’re questioning your relationship with alcohol, struggling with identity, or trying to become the dad your kids deserve—this one will hit.

Chapters...

00:00 Intro – Eamon’s Kearney story in a sentence
01:12 Who is Eamon ? (father, sober runner, immigrant, author)
03:05 Adoption, early trauma, and the search for belonging
06:10 Growing up around alcohol: “learned behaviour” and Irish culture
09:25 When drinking becomes identity (and why it’s so hard to quit)
12:40 The turning point: hitting a new low
15:30 Choosing sobriety in 2022 – what changed?
18:10 Running as an anchor: discipline, routine, mental clarity
22:05 The mind in recovery: self-reflection and healing
25:30 Fatherhood after sobriety: showing up and breaking the cycle
29:10 Redefining “home” — from a place to a feeling
33:20 Building a life that supports sobriety (people, environment, habits)
37:05 Eamon’s memoir “The Long Way Home” — what it’s really about
40:10 Practical takeaways for anyone trying to quit drinking
43:00 Final words + where to find Eamon

Find Eamon on TikTok below...

https://www.tiktok.com/@irish_sober_strider

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Share this with a mate who needs the truth, leave a review, and remember: change doesn’t happen by accident. 

It happens when you get honest, do the work, and show up for yourself and your family.

Stay real, stay relentless, and keep building your legacy—one choice at a time.

For more hard-hitting stories and practical tools, follow, subscribe, and join the conversation.

Let’s be real: your next chapter starts now...

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode. Today I'm joined by Imon Carane, an Irish immigrant living in Massachusetts. He's a father, a sober runner, and an author of the up-and-coming book The Long Way Home, an Irish memoir of grit, sobriety, and starting over in America. Imon's story goes way deeper than just quitting drinking. We're talking adoption, identity, the Irish bar scene in Boston, immigrant life, then the moment in 2021 where he hit a new level of darkness that he'd never known before, and the full rebuild, getting sober in 2022. Returning to running after nearly 30 years, and building a life that actually feels like home. So in this chat, we're gonna go deep on how alcohol can quietly become the culture, the coping tool, and the identity. Adoption, belonging, and the hidden stuff that follows you into your adulthood. The turning point in 2021 and what changed in 2022. How running becomes anchor for discipline, mental health and stability. Fatherhood, starting over, and what home really means. So let's dive in. So take me back. What was your childhood like in Ireland and what kind of of environment did you grow up in?

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Um yeah, so my my upbringing was very similar to um a lot of my friends. The only difference was that I was adopted. I was adopted at a year old, I spent the first year of my life in a mother and baby's home. My adopted parents and my dad happened to be an alcoholic. So growing up with him, drink always came first for him. Um very angry man in a sense, not on the street. If you met him in the public or whatever, like you'd you'd think he's the nicest guy in the world, very friendly. Typical to a lot of the men around that time, you know, in the 70s and 80s, they're typical Irish, English males, you know, they're quiet, they're hard, they're closed off. You know, there's no talk of emotion or anything like that. So a lot of the anger he took out was behind our four walls. I seemed to get the brunt of it. Um he verbally, more verbally abusive to my mom than anything else. Like I saw him hit her a few times, um, but he took a lot of it out on me because I was the older kid, hit me with a belt a lot, um stuff like that. So other than that, uh, playing on the street, playing football and all that kind of stuff, and hanging out with my friends and doing the normal stuff, that wasn't a lot different. It was really what happened in the house that that was a lot different to my friends, I think.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

That was you think so. You think your relationship with your father played into uh that addictive personality, would you say, looking back?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

It's more learned behaviour, I think. I think there's everybody kind of thinks that uh there's genetics and stuff involved, and there is a certain amount of it, but I think there's still that learned behaviour too as well, like monkey see what monkey do kind of thing or whatever. So I kind of grew up in that environment and I saw what drink could do. Um I just it was normalized in that sense, right? Like, but I read a book in early sobriety by Dr. Gabriel Mate, and he wrote a book, it's called In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, and it goes back to speak speaking about trauma as a child, and you know, we think of trauma as something detrimental that happens, or you know, it's something out shattering or something like that, and it's not always it's not always that. And he he talks about adoption specifically as well, where things that happen to a baby, like if you think about when you were a kid, your mom would have picked you up when you cried, she would have fed you, she would have changed your nappy, whatever it is, right? Like there's that sort of sort of stuff that you get nurtured, like when you're when you're at home. But in a in a mother and baby's home, the first year of your life, even though you don't know what's going on, you're probably left there to cry, you have nobody to pick you up, you're fed on a schedule, you're changed on a schedule, um, you're not held and you know, you're probably crying yourself to sleep, there's nobody to pick you up and Rocky to sleep. Um and it was run by by the n by nuns as well. So it wasn't um there wasn't any of that. So I think it's a combination of both, look. I don't think it's just anything, you know, just watching his behavior and thinking that drink was normal. And you know, like Ireland's the same as England in that sense. Like alcoholism is alcoholism is normalized, right? It's it's uh binge drinking is normalized and getting fucked up at the weekend is normalized and all that, and it's we don't think sec we don't second guess it, right? You just that's the way it is. It's yeah, you make your you make your you make your money, you pay your bills, and you go out and party at the weekend, and that's it. And that and that's it's it has that that's the cycle, really. It is, it's just an endless cycle. It's um Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Yeah, we you've mentioned adoption quite a few times. How early did you understand that and how did it shape you as a kid?

SPEAKER_01 5:43

It's a good question. Uh my my mother always told us we were adopted from an early age. So I have a brother who was born in 1977. He was adopted two years after me from different parents as well. So we grew up in the same house. Our mum always told us we were adopted, made it very clear. It wasn't like it was all it wasn't something that was always an open discussion or anything like that. It was if we asked questions, she answered them honestly or whatever. She had told us, made us aware. Um in the sense of growing up, I think I did feel a little bit different to my friends. And I I don't know if that was subconsciously to a certain extent, too, as well. Like I something just never seemed right. I wasn't the same as them because you know they had their parents that had them, do you know what I mean? And and stuff like that. So I always felt a little bit different. Um I got flagged at school for being adopted, do you know what I mean? And you know crawling out of the abortion book at jokes and all that stuff as well. And um, you know, you you get a you got a lot of that. So I think you try to to brush it off and pretend that it doesn't bother you at some point. I don't think it was consciously on my mind all the time that this is bothering me. I think it's like when I look back later in life and I start to retrace like from the beginning, when you get to sobriety or whatever, it's you kind of go back, you have to unpack everything. And that's when I started to unpack some of that stuff then as well that I probably wasn't even aware of at the time, like the damage it was doing or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Yeah, that's right. You can only you can only connect the dots when you look back, that's what they say. And when you go into sobriety and you start to unpack all these things, you realize all of these subconscious patterns that have been running on autopilot for decades and decades. But it's only when you've got the self-awareness that you get in sobriety where you can go back and it's tough, you've got to re revisit um a lot of uh a lot of m mess from the past, but you can you can paint the picture and and uh you can make a lot of sense of it, I think.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Absolutely, I think it's part of doing the work, isn't it, really?

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Yeah, it is 100%. So when did America enter the picture and what was the pull to leave Ireland and start over across the Atlantic?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

So America didn't actually it started out as uh I was actually when I when I grew up I wanted to initially I wanted to be a professional footballer. Um that was always the goal. I played football up till I was probably 18 or whatever. Um and then I liked to write, uh, which kind of didn't fit in with the teenage years or whatever. Um there was a lot of partying then and drinking and stuff like that. But um I I initially started writing for local newspapers. I I did sports journalism for a while where they let me write news reports on the matches and stuff like that. So I I thought either if I couldn't be a footballer, I was going to be a journalist. That didn't work out because the way Ireland worked back then is I don't know, is it G H G S G C S E's in England or whatever it is? I don't know. Yeah, so in Ireland it's it's the leaving cert, and the way it works is you get a certain amount of points, you apply for your college course, and you get a certain amount of points and you get in and you pick whatever course. Part of the uh it was mandatory in Ireland back then to have the Irish language. So you had to be able to speak that and you had to take it in the final exams to be able to enter col to be able to enter college. So I didn't um I didn't speak it very well, I didn't like it, I wasn't good at it, so I gave it up. So that meant then when I applied for journalism, I couldn't get in because I didn't have the Irish language. I had the points, the rest of the points to get in, but I couldn't do it. So I ended up joining the army. And uh I spent I ended spent five years in the army. My dad had been in the army. Sorry, six years in the army, and I did three tour tours of duty to Lebanon. So after the second tour of duty, I came back and I went to culinary school in the army, so I ended up being a chef. So the last time I went to Lebanon, I was cooking for everybody and all that, and then I came back and I was working in hotels and all that. So I had money saved up from the three tours of duty, and I initially had planned to open my own restaurant, and I was dating a girl at the time. So I was working kind of three jobs. I was in the army during the day, I'd work in hotels in the evening, go and cook, and then I worked in a nightclub at night, like bartending. So um I was dating a girl that I met uh behind the bar or whatever, I'd worked with her for a while, and uh we were dating and ended up becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. So initially, when I tried to open the restaurant, I was looking for a five-year lease to come up with a business plan and all that stuff, and um the guy would only offer me a two-year lease. So I was like, that's not really a a good start, right? So I was like, fuck that, the money I've saved, I'm gonna travel. So uh I said to her, um, I'm planning on going on a round the world trip for a year, I'm gonna apply for a year's leave of absence from the army. You know, would you be willing to come? And she was like, Yeah, no problem. So I ended up applying for a year's leave of absence from the army, that was granted, and then we went to the travel agents and then booked our round the world trip. So you get six, six stops, started off in India and gone to Thailand, Cambodia, and all that, like Australia. And our last stop was Boston. That was that was the plan, right? Because I had a cousin that was living here, uh, and one of my best friends had lived here, um, and I had another cousin that was living in Boston too, as well. Um so I was like, I'll stop off and see them on the way home. That was gonna be the last three months, because at that time you can apply for or you you can just come into America and stay 90 days. Uh so I was like, fuck it, we'll go, we'll work for 90 days, we'll get a bar job, or we'll get like do waitering or something like that, make a few pounds on the way home, um, make up for some some of the money that we had spent. And uh we got here, really, really liked it, got bar jobs, uh, started working and we loved it, and then we ended up overstaying our visas. So uh um I applied then for another year's leave of absence from the army. So the the maximum you could get at the time was two years. So uh they granted the two years, a second year, they gave it to me, and then during that second year, um she got pregnant. So we were having a baby and she didn't want to go home. So she wanted to stay in America, she was loving it too much, and we were both enjoying it at that point. So it wasn't a conscious decision to stay in America. I was left with a choice at that point to either go home and not see your kid again, potentially, or stay here and live illegally or whatever, or undocumented and leave the army. So it was I was left with that choice.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

And how old were you at this time?

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Um I was twenty-five. No, it was uh it was twenty-six when we got here. Uh so I've been twenty-five years here in May, but uh I was twenty-nine when she got pregnant. We've been uh no, sorry, uh twenty-eight when she got pregnant, so it was two years, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Left with the choice at that point, like what do we Okay, so you're so you're left with that decision, and obviously you stayed. So so what happened?

SPEAKER_01 13:14

We ended up she was working in a bar as well. I was working in a bar. We had a son, uh he's 22, he was born, uh, we just the normal version of parenthood, I guess, or whatever. It was hard because both our families were back in Ireland. We didn't have green cards, so we couldn't travel, we couldn't go to see them, so they would come out and see us. Eventually, then we broke up when he was two and a half, three years old, maybe. Uh we broke up. Uh I was drinking a lot at that time, especially in the bar business. Um when you move up, when I when we moved over here first, it was just a party scene. Like it was um there was five of us living in a in an apartment. Everybody got paid on a Friday, everybody bought an eight ball that was just left on the table for the weekend on the ordered more or whatever. And then when I when we had a kid then as well, I don't think some of that didn't stop. I didn't mature fast enough. I wasn't ready for parenthood, to be honest. If I'm you know, in hindsight is a wonderful thing. I take a lot of blame for our breakup to a certain extent. We fell out of love. We shouldn't, you know, we were never going to be together forever or anything like that. We were drifting apart for a long time, but then I think I drank myself out of it in the end too as well. And I think part of that was conscious too as well. I just didn't want to be in the relationship, but I didn't know how to to to verbalize that or to to to maybe explain that honestly, like or whatever. So I drank my way out of it too as well. I was drinking a lot, uh working in bars, coming home at three or four in the morning. So that didn't help. Um and that didn't help my son in his early first few years either. Like I wasn't the best dad, to be honest. Um looking back, that kills me now when I when I when you do all the unpacking, but it's just who I was at the time. It's just there's nothing I can do to change it now.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

You know, you can't close the can't close the So for how many years were you working in bars and obviously you were just drinking more and more and more before you started your your current role in what you do now then?

SPEAKER_01 15:11

I was working in bars for uh thirteen years.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

So all through his early years as well. So I was drinking a lot in bars, is it but it was normalized too as well. Like it's one of the bars that I worked in, the owners were party animals. Like so like they would come over from Ireland all the time. You'd be drinking shots behind the bar when you're working, and it wasn't it wasn't just outside of work that you're drinking, you're drinking at work too, as well. Um so back then I got I got uh uh I got caught drink driving when my son was three years old as well. I crashed one night. I was lucky I didn't get deported as well. Um But I was just making a lot of mistakes and just just being dumb. And I remember my boss calling me aside at one point and just he said, Listen, like I think he was sober about ten years at that point, and he helped a lot of people go to meetings and stuff. And he said, Do you think you have a problem? And I said, No, I don't think so at all. Like I just it was a one-off. Do you know when I got caught drink driving? It was a one-off. He goes, Yeah, he goes, but you know, you're after losing your relationship, um, you're starting to become distant with your son, you're after getting caught drink driving, um, and it's affecting your job too, as well. And he goes, like, that's how I define a problem. He goes, when it's affecting other areas of your life. I was like, Yeah, I'll get it together, like, and you always think you will. But um, I guess to answer your question too, as well, is it's I I I kind of shut it off a little bit. Um, and before I got into my current role now in real estate, before I did that, I'd been single for quite a while trying to get it together or whatever, and then I met my wife. She used to come into the bar, she was going to Tufts University. She was studying for occupational therapy. She was a former professional ballet dancer and she got rheumatoid arthritis in her spine and then had to quit ballet. So she went back to college or whatever to get to become an occupational therapist. So she used to come into the bar and I hit it off with her, like we'd been friends for a while. And uh we were we're only dating a few months. She moved in and we got married after a year. Uh we're married about 15 years now or whatever, but uh so between my current role and that was when we decided we were gonna have kids. Uh she wanted to have kids and so did I. Like I she's an amazing woman. Um she wanted to have kids, so we decided we'd do that, but I couldn't stay working in a bar if we're gonna do that, coming home at three or four in the morning and all that kind of stuff, and her working days, it just logically, logistically, it just it didn't make sense. Um so I'm like it's it's gonna be too time consuming to go back and get a degree or something that's gonna take four years or whatever. So I needed something that was more imminent. I like houses, um, I like real estate in general, and our landlord at the time had a real estate company, so I used to go to his office all the time because I wanted to learn stuff. And I'd sit there listen to agents talk on the phone, what they were doing, and he trained me a little bit. So I ended up getting my real estate license and I got into that. So I've been I've been doing that for a while now. I I uh I worked for a pretty big corporation uh and got into a leadership role. So I've been managing a team of like 27 agents uh for the last eight years. So it's been good. It's I've I've been lucky uh that I got into that. But I still drank in the new role I drank, but I just didn't I just did it at home then afterwards, or I went to a pub. Professionally I never drank at work, or I wasn't waking up in the morning and having a drink or anything like that. I was functional. Uh I was very functional and and uh I my wife would describe me as type A at work, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

So late 2021 was your lowest point, your rock bottom. What was happening in your life then and in your head in that period?

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Wow, to get to that point, uh fuck. So it was a slow build-up. It wasn't you know the way like some like some people I talk to now that are sober or whatever, Luke, they'll they'll be like, oh, you know, I had this rock bottom. There was always this magic fucking moment that like, oh everything just crashed and that was it for me, and then I you know I crawl my way back out of this big hole and all this kind of stuff. And there wasn't really that in a sense. It was um it was uh it was very, very slow. It it it happened over 20 years, like it was just a real slow build-up. Um so I started drinking heavily, a little really, really heavily in like 2017, 2018. So I think what started it off was um I think my wife called it out as I was self-medicating. My mother that adopted me, my my my adopted mother uh who raised me uh died in 2016. And she had grown uh she had grown old. I had lived here undocumented for 12 years, so I couldn't go home and see her. Uh I couldn't go home and spend time with her and see her grow old or help her or whatever. And my brother uh uh became a martyr, and I mean that in the the best sense ever. Like he's just a great guy, really took care of my mother. Uh, she mentioned she went into a nursing home. He did everything, like he paid the bills, he brought her food, like he did all all the all the stuff that I wasn't there for. Um and I think there was a huge portion of guilt, the fact that I had seen my mother not seen my mother grow old, who wasn't there to help her. I'd lived undocumented, my dad was going through the same thing, he had dementia. He's he died then in 19. I had a huge blowout with my son uh at one point. Um we became estranged for a couple of years where we didn't talk. It was just all of that going on. It was just so much to unpack. And I I I think I I I didn't tell you this at the beginning, but I when I um when I joined the army first, one of my best friends from childhood that I had been friends with from when he was three years old, um, he committed suicide one night when I was in recruit training in the army, and um he drowned himself in a river, and two weeks before that I pulled him out of the river. And I didn't tell anybody about it. And I brought him home and I got him some of my clothes, and I took his clothes and I dried them and brought them to his house, and I didn't tell anybody that it happened. And two weeks later, then he did it. And I thought at that point, like, you think everything's finite, you think you know it's gonna go on forever, like it's just nothing to be concerned about in this aspect, right? He's not gonna do it, right? He's just looking for attention. Um But he did do it, and I think a big part of that I'd bottled up for years too as well. I bottled up my childhood, I bottled up that. And then everything that happened with my parents, living here and documented and all that, I bottled everything up. Like I just I just fucking buried it, like and my wife. Would tell you, like, I wasn't good at talking. I can talk about this now, but I could not like when I talk about my father at the beginning, it's like quiet and hard and closed off. I was the same. Like I just you my emo the only emo like you didn't see emotion. Like I didn't cry or I didn't talk about my feelings. Like that was for weak people, right? So I bottled all that up, and then I got to a point in 2021 where it was during COVID, my drinking had got really, really bad. And my wife called me out on it a few times that you're self-medicating. Uh and she used the word functional alcoholic for the first time as well. And when you hear that word, then you kind of get scared, right? It's like, and then you get defensive. It's like I'm not a fucking alcoholic. Like you get defensive, you know, and uh in hindsight, obviously she's right, but um you don't want to admit it because you know there's a problem, and yeah, the hardest part is admitting it to yourself, right? Like I think that's where it starts, and that's that was the hardest part, and I couldn't do that. And so in 20 in 2021, I decided I needed to reset again. Like I had done this a million times, like resetting, and I was like, I'm gonna take a break. I'm not gonna drink from October to December. Then I take three months off. I'll drink New Year's Eve, and then we'll come back in the new year, and I'll be a new person again, and we'll fucking, you know, I'll have a few drinks every couple of weekends, and I'll be like a normal person, right? Like I can drink like a normal human. And uh that was my that was my thought process. Because I'd done it enough times, and you do you're good for a couple of months. You go to the gym and you eat healthier and you're not drinking, and you're only having a few beers at weekends, and then it, you know, it does five drinks at weekends, then turn into another 50. And I I guess I would like I would liken myself to uh I used to say like it's I was like a like a Pringles advert, like once you pop you can't stop, and then so it got back to that stage again, and then so I was doing the reset in 2021 in October, and I knew I had to do this forever. Like I was like I knew I had to to give it up. And I was just telling Megan and uh and a couple of my friends, I was like, I just have to take a reset, man. I just gotta take three months out and and do October, November, December. But at the back of it all, I knew I three months was not gonna be enough. I knew it was gonna I knew what was gonna happen after the three months, right? Like I knew uh it was gonna progress again. And so I started thinking forever. So I'm like, I can't do this forever. When I was when so October came uh and went, and I had been a month sober at that point, and I was like, I can't I can't do this forever. I fucking can't do it. There's no way I can do it forever. Like, I can't go to a wedding, I can't meet my friends in the pub, I can't go on a date night with my wife. Yeah, what happens if I go home to Ireland and I meet up with all my friends? Like, like you're Irish, like you're expected to be drunk. Do you know what I mean? You're supposed to be out in the pub with your friends having fun. Like, I was like, I can't do any of that. Like, and I can't live like this. There's no way I can live like this. And I knew I had a serious problem. Um, and all the guilt and all the shit that I put my wife through, there's a lot of stuff I didn't even mention, like some of the stuff that I put her through with my drinking, the that guilt and all that, and I was just ashamed. And I got to the point then where I was like, I can't do this anymore. Like, I can't do forever, I'm an embarrassment. They my wife and kids would be better off without me. I can never get this together. So it's just easier, just end it. So that's where I got to. I was like, I'm I'm gonna end it. So I booked a hotel. Uh initially the plan was I like football, um, and I used to go over and watch Manchester United a lot when I was a kid. I used to go over and back to England, and um I got tickets for Man United Crystal Palace, and I got tickets to see James, you know the band James. Yeah. So I was like, I'll go and see them in Manchester, uh, and then I'll do it there. I'll I'll go out on a high, like I'll go and just do something that I like and have fun. And you know, it won't be anywhere near the wife for the kids or anything like that. And then I was like, it's COVID too. I'm like, fuck. I was like, logistically, how is she gonna get my body back to America? Like, I'm like, this is gonna be a nightmare. So I cancelled the trip. I ended up selling the tickets to the match or whatever, and I said to her, I was like, I'm just gonna go to Vermont for a weekend instead. I was like, I'm not gonna go to England. She was like, why? I was like, well, what happens if I get quarantined? I'm not gonna be back for Christmas for the kids and all. I knew I wasn't gonna come back anyway. Like, so um, but I was like, I'm not gonna be able to get back for Christmas or anything. I'm like, there's no, you know, there's no point going to England. She was like, Oh yeah, I was like, well, I'm going to there's a really cool mountain in uh Vermont called Camel Tomp. It's a great, beautiful peak, beautiful views when you get to the top. I was like, I'll just go for a couple of nights up to Vermont instead and just spend some time on my own and just go for a hike. At that point, I was probably six weeks sober, but everything was going great, she was happy. So I booked a hotel for the weekend with the intention of going there to do it. And uh I had everything set up, everything ready to go. And uh I hadn't drank in six weeks. So I'm like, why if I'm gonna end it, well you know that kind of death row thing where you what would you what would your last meal be? I was like, well, mine was gonna be ten IPAs and two bottles of wine. So I I went and I went out and had a got two bottles of wine, left them back in the hotel, and then I went out and had a shit ton of beers, went to see a show, um, and then I came back to do it, and I drank the two bottles of wine, and I woke up the next morning, Luke, with puke all over me, and everything that was set up on the bathroom door still there, and it didn't happen, and I didn't know where I was.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

That was the role option then? Was that the moment you said that's it?

SPEAKER_01 28:21

That was it, yeah. I think uh that was it, yeah, in a sense, right? So I uh I ended up going to hike uh Camel Tom the next day.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

I was like, well fucking it. I was like, I'm not gonna lie to her now. And I was like, I better get a few pictures of a video at the top of it, right? So I was hung over as fuck.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

I was dying, and I hiked up to the top. It was a really, really bad snowy day. It was freezing, it was absolutely I wasn't equipped. I met people on the way up that had spikes and all that. I was in fucking hiking boots, I was slipping, and I was getting to the top, like slipped. This is gonna sound like crazy dramatic, and it's gonna sound like a fucking Hollywood movie, and I'm trying to create one. But it's when I I was about a quarter mile from the top, and I could see the peak, and I kept going, but I kept falling because it was so slippy, and I didn't have the equipment. So I kept falling, and my face would land in the snow. I get back up and I get another few steps and then I'd fall again, I'd land on my side, and I got to the top of the mountain, and I was like, fuck, if I can do that, if I can get to the top, then I can live for my kids. And I took the video at the top of the mountain, and I walked back down, and I was about half hour from the end, maybe, and my phone rang, I had signal, and it was my old boss from the bar that I worked in, who knew I was six weeks sober at that point, because I had talked to him about it, like whatever. I was like, I have to take a reset, and he was like and he had helped so many people get sober, and he called me, he was like, How's everything going? I was like, going great, just up in Vermont for a hike. He was like, Great, guys.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Like, how's sobriety going? I was like, six weeks in, I'm gonna keep going, like it's great, I'm loving it.

SPEAKER_03 30:07

You just went on a bend there.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

But it was six months after that before I got sober.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

Okay, so so that wasn't it then? You carried on trying to moderate, did you after that? What what happened in those six months after that hike?

SPEAKER_01 30:25

So I uh I came back down and I went home and Megan was like, how was the hike? I was like, it's a fucking great weekend. Saw a show, it was a really good band. It was two Harvard kids, actually, two Harvard kids who were brother and sister that had started a band. Justin and Chris were the name of really, really good indie kind of folk band or whatever. So I saw them and uh I was like, it was great. I was like, I went for a hike and I showed her the video from the top of the mountain. It's like it was death dramatic, like it was awful trying to get to the top. And she goes, I'm so proud of you, like whatever for doing it. And she goes, You had a good weekend, it's nice. And I was like, Yeah, and then I I didn't drink till New Year's Eve, like I had said. So she thought I was three months sober, and then New Year's Eve, she knew I was gonna have a drink again. So it was really kind of March or April again, I think, before it started to get bad, and then it got to June 2022, and I was like, I cannot do this anymore, I need help. So I just uh I stopped on the 16th of June 2022 and I have a look back.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

2022, yeah, that was it. That that that was the line in the sand then. Big time. So so when you were drinking, were you trying to escape? Was it yeah, was it doing it for a sense of belonging? Was it for confidence? Was it were you numbing out? What would you put it down to, or is it a mixture of all of these?

SPEAKER_01 31:42

It was all of those things, but it started out when I was I started I had my first drink when I was uh I was 13. It was Linden Village Cider uh out of a flagon. I got a flagon of cider with my friends, and I drank enough of it, and I fucking shit my pants. And um, and I think that was one of the things that I not the shit my pants part wasn't the part that I remembered the most, but it was the warmth and the confidence that it gave me and it made the way it made me feel. And I was because I think because I was adopted to as well, and I had big ears, people my kids made fun of me at school, kind of bullied at school for a while or whatever. So this new thing, like this drink, gave me confidence that I didn't have. I was very uncomfortable in my own skin. I was an awkward person, like I will chat all day long, and I think part of that was a front to pretend that I was confident and to pretend that I was comfortable. It just ate me up inside, like I I I I I I wouldn't say I I don't know, like introverted, extrovert, I don't know if that works, but um I could chat all day, but I just never felt uncomfortable, I always felt different. But drink then kind of that gave me the confidence, and then I always wanted to prove something. Like, so you want to be mad, like or whatever it is, like doing drugs, like if I'm doing ease, I want to do more ease than my friends, I want to drink more than they drink. You know, you wanted people to think like, oh, you're mad. Because that way then I had a f I felt like I belonged and I was cool and I I was liked. And I I think that was the part, like I I played the class clown a lot in school. I always got in trouble, never to the point of getting extel expelled, but I was always always wanted to be liked, and I always always craving to be liked and try like always performing, right? Like trying to I wanted to be liked, I wanted to be the funny guy, I wanted to be I wanted to fit in. And I think drink, that's how drink started, and then it it then it became an identity at that point, then it started to become more of an identity, and then the latter stages of it then when I get into the 2015, 2016, like when my parents are getting sick and all that stuff as well, that's when it started to become numbing.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It changes, it evolves, the addiction evolves, and it and it becomes a different coping strategy.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Yeah, when Megan said it to me, like my work, my work, she's an occupational therapist, but she studied psychology when she was at Tufts as well. And she kind of she was the one that like you're self-medicating. I'm like, what the fuck does that even mean? She's because you're bottling up your feelings, you never talk. So I ended up after I got sober, I started doing therapy, you know, to talk it out, and which was always like as an Irish man or whatever, like that's therapy. Like, are you fucking joking me? Like, there's no way, there's no way I'm doing something like that. That's for crazy people. Like, there's so I ended up doing that, and it like you start to unpack it and you start to talk about it, and you kind of figure out where it all began then, and you realize then that you're not a cr you're not crazy, you're not broken, you're not a bad person that you know you kind of label yourself or whatever it is for a while, you kind of you kind of figure it out eventually that you know you did a lot of bad and shitty stuff, but it began somewhere, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:09

It's like in those early days of sobriety then, back in 2022, what were your loudest thoughts? What did your mind try and convince you of?

SPEAKER_03 35:24

You can have one.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Yeah, it was the hardest. It was it was so hard. I didn't know what to do in the beginning. It was therapy helps. Uh trying to stay busy, trying to drown out that like, oh, you can have one at the weekend. Like just you can reduce you can just have it, you have one on Saturdays, you'll be fine. That was the hardest thought. That was the hardest thing. And then the shame and the guilt of all the things that you did, because you're you're left alone with your thoughts, Luke, right? Like, you know that, right? Like you're left sitting with them going, now I've nothing to numb this with. Now I have to face them and I have to apologize to the people that I hurt, you know. I have to kind of like you're reliving a lot of the stuff you did, and it's it's cringeworthy, it's embarrassing, it's shameful, it's fucking horrible. Um, so I was left with a lot of that in the beginning, and I'm like, how do I how do I figure this out? And I I I ran a marathon when I was 19. Uh when I was in the army, I uh just when I joined or whatever, I'd run a marathon that year, and I stopped running then for 29 years. And my wife had run the Boston Marathon. She had been a runner for 20 years since she gave up since she had to give up ballet. Uh, she started running. And she had run the Boston Marathon in 2022. Uh so she and my oh yeah, I'll I'll tell you in a second. Yeah, so uh her and my half-brother got me into running. So when I was adopted, I didn't get into this at the beginning. When I was 23, I found my birth mother to an adoption agency. I ended up, she was with this guy for 17 years and uh he all well he always wanted to get married, and she didn't want to until she found me. She wanted me at her wedding. So I was there for her wedding and I gave her away at her wedding. So for years afterwards, then we have this relationship. This is before I moved to America or whatever, but we're building this relationship. So she always told me then who my biological father was, and I tried to go down that path, and he didn't want anything got to do with it, or whatever. So one drunken night, uh my wife was out uh out with friends or whatever, and I got fucking hammered at home. It was actually when I was with my daughter, which is embarrassing too, it was one of those shameful moments, like my daughter was probably one or two. I had a ton of gen and tonics, and then I started scrolling Facebook because I knew who my half-sister was. My mother had told me who my half-sister was. So I drunkenly sent her this message, Hey, how you doing? I think I'm your half-brother. So she got back to me and we ended up talking on the phone. It turns out she was, whatever, my half-sister. She didn't want to she didn't want to continue the relationship because she had a very, very close relationship with her father and you know, she didn't want to feel like she was lying to him or whatever. So um she said, I'm gonna put you in touch with your half-brother. So we started messaging each other, and when I was getting sober and going through all of that in 2021, I confided in him a lot because we we never talked on the phone, but we'd just text, right? Never did FaceTime, never did anything. It was just all true text, which is bizarre. Um, so I had confided in him a lot, and then when I got sober, he put me onto a buddy of his in Canada that was a runner, and he had the sober running group, and he had the sober meetings that he would do on Wednesday nights for guys. It was just guys only. So that was uh a help at the start. So I used to get on to those meetings and chat things through, and then my brother was saying to me, like, why don't you start running? Like maybe just go for a run. And then my wife was saying the same thing. She was like, you know, it'll help you process things, it'll give you something to look forward to, give you endorphins, the dopamine that you probably craved and missed when you were drinking. So I started running um and I'd run a mile, and then I couldn't run a mile without stopping, and then I finally got to a mile, and then I'd add a mile another quarter of a mile each week. My wife thought I was fucking nuts. She was like, dude, she goes, can you just run? Just go for a run, like two or three miles or whatever. I was like, no, I'm I I I want to like it. Like if I if I do too much too soon, I'm gonna hate it and I'm not gonna stick with it. So I was like, I'm only gonna add a quarter mile each week, and then I'll get up to like a 5k, and then I'll get up to whatever. So I ended up signing up for Half Marathon that November. After I ran the Half Marathon, uh, I was like, you know what, I'm I'm starting to like this. Like I think I'll sign up and do a full. So I signed up to do the Chicago Marathon in 2023. And I told my half brother, he was a runner, he was right, he started running a few years before. Really good runner, like sub-three hour marathoner. So I said, I'm gonna run the Chicago Marathon, and he was like, Oh wow. He goes, I'll qualify, I'll I'll run it with you. I said, What? He goes, Yeah, I'll I'll run it with you. I'm like fuck, okay. So he I got a charity bib, he qualifies, and then we logistically then I was like, all right, we're all in. So we booked a hotel in Chicago, and I met him the night before the marathon for the first time. And then we ran the marathon together.

SPEAKER_03 40:33

Wow. And he ran at my pace. It was nuts. What was your pace back then?

SPEAKER_01 40:40

I ran the marathon in like four and a half hours, so I don't know, about ten, ten, thirty pace or whatever it was.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So slow I was slow, I'm still am slow, but no, well that's not a bad time. I ran a few marathons and uh I managed to get a sub four in the end, but yeah, my first I think my first one was uh just under five hours or four yeah, about four and a half, five hours. But yeah, it took me four or five attempts to get a sub four. But um yeah, it's a long distance, it's hard, it's tough. You go through some you go to some dark places during that run.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

Oh, absolutely, absolutely, and that was the thing too, as well, because I I was like, ah, I thought I could run a four-hour marathon. My wife had run like 350 or something in Boston the year before, like and her her watch died at mile eight, her music died at mile twelve, and she just like plowed along and like happy out. I'm like, ah, she can do it, I can do it. Um but I hit the wall at mile eighteen. Um but he he dragged me to the finish, like he he did it with me, and it was I it was emotional too as well, because like it's emotional running a marathon anyway, you know, when you when it gets hard and it gets tough, you get to those dark places, and then I'm like I'm I'm looking beside me, going like doing this with my half brother, like this is nuts like um and he dragged me to the finish line. So uh I've been running ever since.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

So would you say running has been your best coping mechanism, especially in those early days of sobriety? A thousand percent.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

A thousand percent. I think once I I built it up and just the way it made me feel every day, uh it made me feel confident, it made me feel like I did something. So I started getting up early in the morning, I get my run in, and it just gave me that sense of you know, some people are still in bed and I'm home from my run, getting the kids up for school, and I feel like it gave me something uh outside of work and outside of my family to focus on, and it it just gave me that sense of accomplishment too. So I I already felt good about myself going into the day then. Do you know what I mean? Like I already felt like, all right, one major task is done, right? So like I've already done my run, like I've taken care of myself, and I think when you think you go on an airplane, right, and the the the flight attendants give their spiel, and the first thing they tell you is in the event of an emergency, put on your own oxygen mask first before you help others, right? And I thought it was a great analogy because that's what I felt like I was doing. Like I was taking care of myself. So if I felt good about myself and I felt confident, I felt like happy and bubbly and whatever, then that transcended onto the kids and my wife brought joy to my relationships, it made me a better father, it made me a better employee, it made me um it it just it it was a great way to start the day. So I've been doing it ever since. It'd be four years in June, actually.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

So did your run-in help with those cravings? Did it help with anxiety? Did it help you with your mood?

SPEAKER_01 43:49

Helped me with my mood. I was a lot more positive. Uh it gave me uh it gave me self-confidence. Uh it gave me uh I think it gave me the the coping mechanisms to pull through, like to push through when something's bad, right? If you get to mile ten and a half marathon or whatever it is, and you learn to push through it, right? Like you're gonna go through pain. And I think it's a great Metaphor for life. Like you're gonna go through pain in your life, you're gonna have tough moments, but you don't give up, right? You yeah and like when I go back to 2021, I'm like, I got through that. So I can get through a race. And then when I when I when I start to push through races now, I'm like, no matter how bad things get in my life, there's no problem that can't be solved, I don't think, right? Like it no problem is big enough for me to to tie her up to a door and be ready to go there again. I I I know how to talk to somebody now. It gives me the confidence to to be able to sit with my feelings. Like I can process my feelings on a run, I can talk them through with talk about them here. Like I would never have been able to do this a few years ago. I can talk to my wife, hey, listen, I'm not feeling good, I'm not, I'm feeling down, or I'm feeling whatever. It gives me a place to process that as well. It's been an an amazing coping coping mechanism, and not just in in a mental it's just for mental health, but physically I lost about 30 pounds, I eat healthier, my mood's better. It's just changed everything. It's changed, yeah. Running's yeah, I'm addicted to it now. In a good way, right?

SPEAKER_02 45:29

Yeah, I many people say, don't they, that um when you go sober, you start going walking. Like me and my wife walk out in nature all the time now, and many people transfer that addiction into exercise. Um, and a big one is running. I think it's it's really, really popular in the sobriety community.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

I think endurance sports in general, like long distance. Like you see a lot of people that are sober running long distance because they they've gone through pain, right? They've like this is nothing to me, like in a sense, right? You might meet a quickest, but you're not gonna quit. And when I when I did the the half marathon, I met a a sober group actually that were running. They're called the Boston Bulldogs, they have a sober running group. I uh I met them at the half marathon and I was chatting with them and they were like, keep it up, like keep keep coming, keep showing up, the same as they would like at a meeting or whatever. It's like, you know, keep showing up, keep keep keep keep running, keep showing up for yourself every day is like is one of the things that they had said to me, and they were like, they swapped their phone numbers with me. Uh, you know, if you ever want to come for a run with us, if you ever want to talk, if you're ever feeling down, we're here for you. Like, and I was like it's fantastic. The community itself, like there's a lot of sober runners, which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 46:48

When you don't feel like running, what gets you out of the door? I have to do some for some sort of exercise every day. Is that every day? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

I'll do something every day, whether it's the bike, uh light weight session at the gym. I don't really like doing that weights or anything. I'll go for a swim, I'll do something. I have to do something pretty much every day. Like there's maybe a day once a month where I'll take a full day off and not do anything, but that's only if I'm too busy at work or something like that, or the kids have something on early in the morning that I I gotta get them to or whatever. I think movement, like we go for walks with the dog, we go on hikes, we spend a lot of time together, like we've a a a trail right behind our house. It's a five-mile trail that leads up to a mountain. It's fantastic. So we spend a lot of time on that too, as well, and in in the warmer weather and when it's not snowy. Um I just have to do something to keep me moving. And uh I think exercise creates those endorphins, it puts me in a good mood. So it's exercise that gets me out the door.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

Movement is medicine. That's why I always say you've got to keep moving your body. It makes a big, big difference in my mood, for sure. Definitely. That the release of those endorphins and the dopamine hit that I get from all different types of exercise, I really don't know what I do about it now.

SPEAKER_03 48:07

Yeah, it's it's uh it's important for mental health. Big time.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Big time. I think you know, anybody that's struggling with whatever, you know, you go to a doctor or whatever, they're gonna give you depression pills or anxiety pills or whatever. It's funny that they don't tell you to move.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

Like just get out there and move because I think in the bar scene, especially the Irish bar scene, it's not just all about the drinking, it's about that connection as well. So, how do you navigate this sober? You've already mentioned the connection that you get through your running groups, but is there anything else that that helps you connect now, or is it just exercising these groups you spoke of?

SPEAKER_01 48:49

Um so I my best friend Gary is from uh he's from Ireland. We met, we played football together on an over 30s team over here and an over 40s team. Great guy. I still go to the pub with him. So yeah, yeah. I like going to the pub. Me and my wife go out like every couple of weeks on date night. Um, we get a babysitter or whatever, we'll go out for for a sit at the bar. I should have a few glasses of wine, I'll have my few non-alcoholic beers. Um when I go to the Irish Public Gary, there's a guy from my hometown that we go and see. I'll have my Guinness Zero. So I still love the atmosphere. I don't go that much, right? But I'll go once a month with Gary, but I go out once a cover every couple of weeks with my wife and we sit at the bar and I just drink my non-alcoholic beer, but it's great because I can drive.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

You know, I'll Yeah, it's it is it's definitely one of the pluses of being sober, you can drive everywhere and you can leave when you want as well. It's nice, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 49:43

Yeah, absolutely. And and that's the thing too, as well, that you don't realize the bullshit people are talking onto your like you're four hours into it going, fuck, I've heard this story three times already. But if you're drinking, you're like you're laughing your head off, it's the best story ever. But it gets repetitive, and then I usually just sneak out. I leave, but most people don't even know I left. You know, what time do you leave at last night? They'll tell me I see the next morning. I'm like, I stayed till midnight. Like, really? Yeah, yeah. I was like, were you there when this happened?

SPEAKER_00 50:13

I was like, I must have just left after that. But most people don't remember.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Yeah, exactly. When you first stopped, did you lose many friends? Because that's a lot of the men that I coach, that's one of the biggest worries for them. People are sober curious, they're very worried about losing their group of friends. And if you did, how did you deal with that?

SPEAKER_01 50:33

I didn't. I didn't. Not that I didn't deal with it, I didn't lose any friends because I I I have a very close circle anyway, and especially uh Megan and I, like with the kids and all that, we we've we have just a small group of friends anyway. I think I had stopped playing football when I was 42. It would have been a problem then because we would have gone to the pub after a game every Sunday, right? And I would have you wouldn't have fit in as much then, right? But Gary I met through football, so I stayed friends with him. He accepted it. He knew where I was, he knew, you know, I confided in him, told him what was going on, what I had planned on doing, and all that kind of stuff. He fully supported everything I was going to do. My friends, like we have a few families that like husband and wives and stuff that we hang out with. They were so accommodating. So accommodating. They were did buy non-alcoholic bears when I got to that point where I could have those again. Uh they didn't get hammered, they didn't try not to get too drunk around me. Like they just, you know, they they kept it to a to a minimum. They were so uh so accommodating to my situation, never made me feel like I was out of the loop, never made me feel uncomfortable. Uh it just it made me feel like it just really fit in. And same with Gary, he's like, look, I'll understand if you don't want to go sit at the pub. Let's so for the first year he said to me, instead of going to the pub, why don't we meet for lunch every, you know, once a month, we meet for lunch. And we'd take off in the middle of the day at work or whatever, and we'd meet for lunch, we'd have lunch, and that'll be it, we'd have our chat. And same thing as sitting at a bar, only for we're we're both sober, right? And well, I'd still go to concerts, still I love music, like I go to concerts all the time, I'd still go to sporting events. So I was worried about that in the beginning, but I think once you do it once, I wasn't fearful after that. I just continued on as normal. So my life is the exact same now, except for running and the fact that I'm sober. So I still do the same things. Like I still I'm driving into Boston in a couple of weeks for a concert. Only for I just go to the concert and I drive home and I can remember the concert and listen to the music. But I'll do all the same things that I did before. So nothing has changed in that aspect.

SPEAKER_02 52:53

So for anyone who's scared about sobriety, they're super curious and they're listening to us now, what would you say to them when they're thinking I'm gonna become boring, they're worried about maybe being isolated and losing their friends? What would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Well, here's the thing, right? If I had friends that were going to abandon me because I made a choice that was saving my life or to make me a better person, they're not my friends then. I don't I don't want you in my life. You're just an acquaintance and you're just somebody that I hung out with. Your true friends that really care about you and love you, they'll support you. And they're the ones that you want by your side going forward. And you only meet a few of those people in your life anyway. So like take a close look, first of all, who your real friends are, right? And and narrow that down first. And the ones that that are by your side and support you, stick with them, and the ones that don't want to be with you anymore, let them go because they were never they were never your friend to begin with.

SPEAKER_02 53:52

Um okay, so you've just said that people shouldn't be scared of being sober.

SPEAKER_03 54:00

What has sobriety given you? Um it's given me myself back.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

Um and I never thought about I never realized that before. Um as crazy as this uh probably sounds, I'm glad I went through everything that I went through to be able to experience how amazing sobriety is. So I've no regrets about I have some I've no regrets about like all the drinking or whatever. There's some stuff that I'm at peace with now, I've made peace with that I had regrets about. I've made peace with that and I've made peace with the people involved and all that stuff. But being sober, it's just you I heard at the beginning a sobriety a quote, and it's don't quit before the magic happens. And it takes a while. It's just you just have to stick with it, you know, give it a few months or whatever. And it just it it's what it's the most amazing thing I think that's ever happened to me. I think in terms of it gave me my life back, it gave me my confidence back, it gave it gave me myself back. Uh, all the things that I wanted to do before that I never did because of drink. You know, getting up in a Sunday morning and going for a run or whatever, and that feeling when I get home, and I'm not lying in bed in a Sunday morning and cringing under the covers, looking at the text, like what text did I send, or you know, feeling like shit, like for days, spending money that I didn't have, and you know, embarrassing myself and all that stuff as well. It's just it's it's just absolutely amazing. Um, and it's it's it's scary, right? It's a really scary decision to have to make. Nobody can make it for you. You have to do it for yourself. You have to want it. And you'll get to a point like where you want it bad enough, um, then do it. Don't be afraid of it. Just go all in. And it's gonna be hard at the beginning, it's gonna be tough, but you're stronger than that, and once you get through it, the magic does happen. Because I've life opens up in so many different ways than it has for me in the last couple of years or whatever. It's changed completely. It's changed, it's it's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 56:23

How long was that tipping point for you then? I mean, would you say was it months or was it years before things really started to change and you had to push through that resistance?

SPEAKER_01 56:33

I was only a few months. It was really only a few months in the beginning. Like it it took a few months to kind of sit with it. Like, because you you still have that at the back of your mind, Luke, where you're thinking it's forever. Like I'm still I'm still thinking about forever. But I think you have to you have to realize that you just you gotta take it day by day. I didn't do AA or anything like that. I I just went my own way. And some people do AA, whatever works for you, you do that. Um, but I heard a a great quote in the beginning. Like there's that, I guess that quote in AA, like it's one day at a time, right? Or whatever, but I heard a great quote in the beginning. Um, it's like you're not gonna master your life in one day, but just get up, master the day, and just keep doing that every day. And if I make the most of it, like I'm so positive now. I get up, I want to make the most of life. Like I might have only 24 hours, right? So I'm gonna do everything I can with this day to make it the best day that I can that I can, and I just do that every day. You can't do that when you're when you're hungover or when you're anxious and embarrassed about everything that you did, and you're worried about getting money for the weekend so you can buy your drink and your drugs or whatever it is. Like it's just you can't live, you're living in a different mindset and a different mind frame. So uh yeah, it's it's uh it's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

I say to my wife now that uh I I can't wait to wake up. I'll be going to bed and I just wanna, you know, I hate sleeping because I want to get up and I want to seize the day, I want to make the most of the day. Whereas two, three years ago, my God, yeah, yeah, those horrible hungover mornings and the anxiety that I used to suffer with. Yeah, it's just completely different. And you're really grateful as well because you because like you've mentioned a couple of times during the podcast, you're you go to those real lows, those depths. So you really appreciate the highs, and you're you're really grateful for every day, I think, in sobriety as well.

SPEAKER_01 58:38

You are because you you've got a second chance. Like you you you've been given a second chance and you don't want to mess it up. Um and I never I never want to go back there again, ever. Like I never want to have one drink to see what it's like. Like I I just you know, I take that day by day, but um, you know, I don't envision ever drinking again. Like I I I just my life is too good at the moment. My relationship with my wife, my relationship with my kids, my relationship with my my friends. I'm just a different person. And it's uh I don't want to lose that. I don't want to lose who I've become or who I'm becoming.

SPEAKER_02 59:17

You've mentioned your kids quite a few times during the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 59:22

What do you want them to learn from your story? I think when they're old enough they're gonna read about it in the book.

SPEAKER_01 59:32

Um so what do I want them to learn? Um so the the the one thing like my daughter now is is turning ten next week, um, and my other daughter's seven. Uh they don't remember drunk me. They don't remember uh they don't remember me in my in my prime. Um but what they do see is they see me get up every day and go for a run or go work out and eat healthier, be positive and try and inspire them. And I think we said it at the beginning with my dad, monkey see, monkey do, right? Like it's they see what I'm doing. They see my me and my wife get up and run every day. So that's what they want to do. Like my daughter is she's a really good gymnast. She ranks really high in the in the state and in the country at our level. She's resilient, she pushes through. One of the things my wife came up with during the marathon training when she was training training for a marathon, was she get up in the morning at four o'clock and go running and do her training and all that. She was injured one day, like, and she wanted to take a few days off, whatever. So she did, and then somebody had said to her, like, why don't you just give up on the training for a while or whatever? And she was like, you know, Kierney's don't quit. So that became her mantra thrown the marathon, and the kids like have picked that up now, where it's like, my daughter's going through gymnastics, things are tough. She was like, Well, Kierney's don't quit. Like, we're not we don't give up, like we we keep going, and that's what I want them to learn from. Like, it's it's not any big speech or or lecture you're giving them or an inspirational TED talk or something. It's just they see by by me doing and by my wife doing, like you I don't need to give them a speech. Like they see me get up every morning, they see me come back from my runs, they see me doing all these different things, and then they in turn want to do the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:29

I think our kids they don't do as uh they didn't do as they're told, but they it's what people say, right? They um you've gotta lead by example, you've got to be that role model, and I think like you say, monkey see, monkey do, they w they will follow. Uh especially I've got two teenagers now and trust me, I I can't tell them to do anything. But yeah, if you but when you lead by example and you set that good and yeah, and you when you set a good example, then they will Yeah. Because they're watching all the time. This is why I always say to people, they are watching, and and a lot of the time we don't think they are, but they are, and they're picking up on everything, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:08

Oh, you're you're a product of your environment, really, like you are, like at the end of the day, like especially as a kid. Um like if I was coming home and drinking 32 ounce gin and tonics like I was years ago, my daughter would be looking at me. The first thing he does when he gets in from work or comes upstairs from work is pours himself a 32 ounce gin and tonic and he sculls that back and then he's in a pissed off mood about four days later. Uh, you know, he's he's taking his anger out of me, he's shouting at me, he's annoyed, he's you know, he's always in a bad mood. Like that that that's a that's their new normal then, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:41

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:43

What would you say then if you could go back and give your younger self some advice and then what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:59

That you're not a bad guy, you're not you're not a bad you're not a bad person, you're not an idiot, you're not any different to your friends. Um that self-talk, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:10

I think uh the advice I give myself is don't believe the self-talk that you you told yourself you were all these things all the all those years Yeah Wolf What would if you could give one book, one podcast, one resource that that's helped you on your journey since 2021, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:35

There's a couple of books that come to mind. I read It's a Glenn Beck's Alcohol Lied to Me. I read Annie Grace The Naked Mind, and then I think the one that I got the most from myself was um Dr. Gabor Matez in the realm of hungry ghosts. I think that was the one that resonated the most for me because addiction and alcoholism and any kind of addiction, it could be cell phone addiction or gambling or whatever it is, there's always a root cause, and I think you have to kind of trace back to um where it all began. Uh realize that you're not broken, um, that something happened to you earlier in life that led to this, or something that led you to those things. And it's you're the that's I think that's um that's the book that resonated with me the most. And I've listened to him on a lot of podcasts too, as well, speaking about addiction and speaking about you know his findings with it too, as well. And and uh, you know, I I I I think that was the one. If I could re recommend one out of those three, it would be definitely that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:39

Yeah, it's ahead of a book. I I always recommend it to clients actually. We were we were speaking about that very book um just the other night. Talking of books, your own book, your own memoir, The Long Way Home, when is it out and who is it for?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:56

So it's for uh Megan and my son and the two girls, and for myself to a certain extent, because it was quite cathartic doing it. Um it was nice to be able to sit down, put stuff on paper. I've been doing it, it's been in two and a half years or nearly three years in the process, uh in the works or whatever. Um it's also for somebody that's struggling or has struggled, if one person reads it and it resonates with them, if somebody is going through what I went through in 2021 and you're on the verge of checking out, if you read that chapter and you're like, right, I'm gonna go and get counseling tomorrow, I'm gonna talk to somebody about my feelings, I'm gonna get help, or I'm gonna start running, or I'm gonna start, you know, the process of getting sober or whatever. It's for all of those people. Um and if it just resonates with one person, I don't think I'm not gonna make money out of it or anything like that. That's not what I'm trying to do. I think if even 500 people read it and it read resonated with one person, then it's achieved its goal. That's that's what it's all about. It's like I worked in the service industry, I was in the army, that was kind of service oriented as well. And I think this kind of comes from a place of service in a sense as well. If you can help or change one person's life, then it's just all been worth it, right? Like that's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:22

about like if we can help each other um somebody help somebody see a little bit of light where there's darkness then um then you've achieved there's nothing like giving back and getting that sense of fulfillment that is is it's the best feeling I always tell people helping people reaching out giving value and yes just service that I think I think as people we are here to serve each other and help each other and the feeling that we get from that it you know is second to none it really is yeah it's uh uh someday it's all gonna be over right so make the most of it while they can but I think the the book is gonna come out in November I just got an email before we got on I have an editor in Ireland that's uh starting to work on it in the next couple of weeks so um wow so so my next question was gonna be what does the next chapter look like for you and where can people connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:19

Um I have the TikTok page the Irish sober strider for strider page I started that a couple of years ago for the same reason and I've got a ton of like uh private messages where people are like oh I just want to let you know that I saw your video about when you talked about taking your own life or you know when you started running or when you got sober or whatever and I I started running or I got therapy or I you know I I stopped drinking because I saw one of your videos and I started following you on TikTok.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:48

I'm like that's what it's all about but you can find me there you can find me on TikTok the next chapter is just keep going uh get the book out see what happens after that I'll keep doing the TikToks for fun yeah I love the TikToks mate thank you so much for coming on today and giving up your time Emo it's but it's been brilliant and thank you for those TikTok videos I'm so grateful that you come on and sharing your story. That honesty is so rare and it really really matters because like we've said your story is going to resonate with so many people and that is what this podcast is all about. Yeah it it's about identity it's about belonging it's about not staying stuck and choosing to start over again so thank you so much Jamon it's been it's been brilliant thank you no and thank you so much for having me Luke as well and you're doing great work so keep up the good work and keep spreading the good word you're helping people and that's and that's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:45

So thank you so much for for having me on. I appreciate it. No worries mate I look forward to the book.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:51

Excellent cheers buddy thank you