Quick Sips: Overcoming Addiction & Embracing Failure

I failed at getting sober. A lot.

We always tell people, "Don't be afraid to fail," but we rarely talk about what failure actually looks like in practice. On a recent episode of The Leaders' Arena Podcast, I sat down with someone who has seen my failures and successes firsthand: Coach Rick Hendrickson.

I’ve known Coach since I was seven years old in Berkeley Springs, WV. He was my high school wrestling coach, later my boss for many years and ultimately, family.

During this episode, we talked about my journey to hitting three years of sobriety. The reality is, getting to this point required a massive amount of "shedding." Shedding old mindsets, old habits and sometimes, shedding people. Not to place blame, I own my decisions, but because resetting your life requires absolute accountability.

It also required doing the hard, uncomfortable work. After going through five different therapists, I finally found one who was a recovering alcoholic. We did immersion therapy. I would go sit at a bar, order a beer, stare at it and actively force myself to confront every negative thing it had caused in my life.

It rewired my brain so completely that recently, when I had to taste a single drop of a cocktail recipe for a client, my brain registered it as rubbing alcohol.

Sobriety isn't just about stopping. It's about completely clicking your mind into a different place.

I am incredibly grateful to Coach for being a mentor through the years of false starts, so I could finally get to the finish line.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

you have stepped into um in this purity that you have that you had to get to a place where uh you were gonna hold yourself accountable for who you wanted to be and who you wanted to be to others and so you got to that point and you know some valiant efforts actually which ultimately then veered off right and many times tried many times tried yeah you know and and I think that's the other thing about it um my son-in-law talks about being a an expert at failure he's a scientist and you know he's in a field where you failed 19 times and succeeded on the 20th and we always talk to young people in particular and even you know older adults it's like you know don't be afraid of failure but we never we never actually embrace what that looks like and what that means in terms of what failing can be and then what you can learn from that failure and then be able to move on from it. You know it's like well don't be afraid of failure but we need you to get this project done um you know that type of thing with what every time you had that good intent and it was very good intent, very strong intent there was evidently something that just wasn't clicked in the right place. You know, and you have to get to that point where it's got to be clicked into the right place and people will give up and and succumb to yeah I can't do it you know versus what you did which was at a certain point you clicked in the right place and now here you are three years later.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yeah it's um it's a it's a lot of a lot of things and a lot of um a lot of shedding and I'll tell everybody just so they're like anybody that wants to take any lessons from it it's it's a lot of shedding and that's the unfortunate part is shedding mentality shedding mindset and most importantly it was sometimes shedding people and and that's not anything about anybody or anybody blamed or anything like that. And I want to always say this is my decisions and my decisions. And um and I don't have anything on anybody else but as I learned a lot more through therapy and very intensive therapy um I had I actually never told you this I'll tell you this real quick and then we'll jump into your story was I ended up doing an immersion therapy which was I I went through five therapists and on the fifth one I finally got one that was also a recovering alcoholic. And then that's what happened was then the safe the safe stopped sounded right and actually clicked in and we opened up and unlocked some things. And he literally had me go to a bar and if I had a craving I went to a bar sat at the bar had ordered a beer and stared at the beer and just told myself all the negative things that that affected me in my life and I did it a couple times I would at different days and stuff like that. It's to the point now I don't I'm not gonna you know that your your son uh son-in-law is a better scientist than me but I had uh when I was making a cocktail with with uh with some some clients I grabbed a little dropper and I was like I'm just gonna do one dropper to make sure the recipe's done it tasted like rubbing alcohol and he told me you a year ago he said he's like you're gonna psychologically convince yourself that that it's gonna go into your sensory and it's gonna match that taste and it sure as hell it did. And um and that's one of those things where I don't I don't use it as a crutch you know what I mean or anything like that. But it was one of those things where even though I wasn't craving at that moment and it wasn't in my mentality that moment it was just for actual business it tasted like rubbing and everybody else is around drinking full glasses like this is incredible. This is incredible I'm like I was like I'm horrible at this