Why 'Think Sober' was Created

 

 

CHRIS’S STORY
Start Over. Think Sober.

 

Now I’m 57.
Almost eight years clean and sober.
My wife? Over seven.
My oldest daughter? Coming up on five.
My youngest? Just passed one.
And the ripple? Real.
Friends. Family. People I never expected.
They saw the shift. And they followed.
Even if just one person reads this and thinks, “Hey, I can do that too,”
It’s all worth it.

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I used to ask myself the same thing, over and over:
How the hell is this even possible?

Weed at twelve.
Booze at seventeen.
By the time I hit my late 40s, I wasn’t spiraling—I was thriving in the party.
Vegas. Super Bowl weekend.
Three days. 185 drinks.
Who knows what else.

And that’s when it clicked.

Am I an addict?
I didn’t feel like one. No arrests. No rock bottom. Just the occasional failed drug test and a foggy sense of self.
But when the question “Am I an addict?” starts turning into “Who am I without all this?”—
You either run from it.
Or face it.

I didn’t do rehab.
Didn’t go to AA.
Didn’t find religion.
What I found—was a thought.

I stopped thinking about alcohol.
Stopped planning my days around it.
And started thinking something else entirely.

Think Sober.

Sounds simple. But when your entire life is built around the buzz—simple is a lie.

Bike rides were just pub crawls in disguise.
Dinners were judged by their cocktail list.
Camping? A math equation: how many beers per person, per day?

So I rewired.
I wondered:
Would I lose my edge? My people? My relationship?

I didn’t. I gained a deeper version of all of it.

I kept showing up. Parties. Poker nights. Life.
Only now, I leave with a clear head, not a weeklong hangover.
Now I drive people home.
Now I remember the conversation.
Now, I live in it.

Sobriety didn’t make me boring. It made me better.

And while I’ll never knock AA, or religion, or rehab—
This was my way:
A decision. A thought. A shift.

How is this possible?

You already know the answer.
You just have to let it in.

Start Over. Think Sober.

Birthday 02/04/2018