Sobriety

I drafted this post yesterday evening but was unsure about posting, but this morning having my coffee I finally got to the point of clarity. Earlier this week I got the intuition to post this post about getting zero’d. It was sort of last test of the fear that my ego holds on being “successful.“ Hitting different forms of zero has been part of a long process which I mostly associate with my journey with sobriety which started a little over a year and a half ago.

Life is starting to get better again after this significant period of resetting but one thing I realized this week is how the online version of me has diverged from the old version of me and that I have some fear about showing up differently in different contexts. The person I was online three years ago is very different than the person I am now. When I was facing that, I realized the reality is that it’s just an opportunity for who I am now to be open and honest.

To understand that intro though I wanted to write a little bit about this story in case it helps someone either close to me or far away make a change that impacts their life like it impacted mine - life is too short to be as miserable as I was and if I can save even one person from that reality, then saying something is worth it. At this point everyone in my life who matters knows about my sobriety, so saying out loud really isn’t that big of a deal.

Drinking

My drinking went through this progression where it morphed slowly from something that was exciting, to a necessity, to something that almost killed me and I think sharing that might help other people in the same place feel less alone. I started when I was 24, which is late for most people. In my childhood drinking had been stigmatized and throughout college I largely stayed away from parties because I was pretty nerdy and thought that it would just hinder me professionally.

In early 2021 the first company I worked for went public and I had more money than any 24 year old should have reasonably had at the time (and had no idea what to do). My first thought was to move to NYC and “be a 20-something“ which meant that I started going out with friends and drinking. I got my first serious girlfriend and I felt like I had an avenue to be social. I had arrived and finally thought I could be myself

Then a bunch of bad things happened. I invested ~80% of my money in altcoins and risky startups in early 2022, which by the end of 2024 had basically vanished. The startup I started running that same year was failing hard, with investors I deeply respected onboard, and I had to lay off a core group of friends I had recruited to join me. I wasn’t ready to admit that failure. That year, 2023, was probably the worst of my life, and slowly that solution to being social became my solution to the fear I had of the failure I was experiencing. After this I kept trying to prove it wasn’t me and while building a few solid products and failing at a couple more shots on goal, staying in the arena until I hit the floor. I went from going out a couple of days a week to having a habit that became at least every night but started to bleed into lunches, random outings, plane rides, and wherever I could squeeze it in - my life became about the next time I could put some substance in my body to change the insecurity I felt inside.

I avoided that problem for a long time until things got pretty bad, worse than I would ever like to admit, but it was clear I needed to change something but I avoided that for a long time. In the meantime I kept prolonging that slow bottom because my solution was still working.

Real Solutions

On September 6th, 2024 I took the first real action towards getting sober which was getting dry. This is the date I took that daily habit to zero (although I slipped close to 9 months later briefly which I consider the last time I used anything to change my mind). I had told myself a bunch of times that I was “done“ but something on the night of the 5th really shifted something inside me and I decided I was done. In hindsight I think it was seeing someone else who was in a similar situation really trying and making some progress that inspired me to get there.

This started a whole process of not just willing myself not to use substances, but actually to begin a process of introspection that I can only describe as a spiritual experience that would lead me to change my attitude so dramatically towards life that I see myself as a wholly different person (much of this process has been published on this blog is about that under different wording!). It made me rethink and correct the record with whoever would listen, and to this day it makes the current version of myself willing to clean up the mistakes that the old me made and face the judgement that I thought others might have of me. For that I’m extremely grateful.

My solution was to self medicate my problem of the constant deep inadequacy I felt about myself. The places that led me caused me to hurt the people I was closest to which required a host of corrections over a long period of time. At this point I’m proud to say that I don’t hold any resentment and I don’t have anyone I’d be afraid to run into on the street because I went to everyone in my life and corrected those records - that in of itself is a miracle. Every day I wake up with some sense of gratitude for the small things in life and I don’t have the same desires for the things I was “chasing“ to try to fix my problem. Most of all I don’t think about substances ever anymore and because everyone in my life knows it’s virtually impossible to go back. It’s also why I’m not worried about talking about it here, because it’s not a secret.

The funny part of it is that life has changed a lot too - I don’t really care about status (that was more of an ego thing) and more important to me than anything has been helping other men going through the same thing which I spend time every week doing. In some ways “losing” that old life was the key to gaining a lot of peace that I probably would have spent a lifetime trying to get otherwise. I’ve worked to clear my side of the street, and while I know I can’t reach everyone I’m committed to listening if someone still feels like I owe them an explanation (if you’re reading this and still want something clarified I can always be reached at carl@carlcortright.com and I’m willing to talk). I still care about having a good life, but what I discovered was building that on the wrong foundation was the wrong path and in many ways I’m grateful to have had a clean slate to build on, even if that meant wiping some rubble away.

What I’ve found the deeper I get into it is that people don’t really make these changes unless they see examples of them working. I don’t have secrets anymore in life, and this has become an easy one for me just to give away so maybe if I’m lucky someone else can find something similar. For me all it took was a little openness and the willingness to be honest with myself. After that, things got a lot better, but it took me finding space to surrender what I couldn’t face for a very long time. I’d encourage anyone who wants that to make the decision to go find it and I’m always happy to talk with folks who will listen.

For this post - it’s one of many I’ve written. If you think it might be useful to someone in your life I’d love for you to share it with them directly but as with most things I write I don’t expect a ton of attention - somehow though it tends to get to the places that matter.