What Really Leads To Addiction And How It Hijacks A Life

We ask what truly leads to addiction and map how early sips, bullying, and bored small-town habits can turn relief into reliance. We share ten months of sobriety, why one drink flips a switch, and practical ways to stay out of the spiral.

• framing the core question of what fuels addiction
• first exposures from Baby Duck to a blackout at fourteen
• bullying, shame, and using intoxication to numb feelings
• small-town access, weak supervision, and bored routines
• adult denial, hidden drinking at work, and job loss
• genetics versus environment and how risks stack
• the “first drink switch” and strict boundaries
• coping tactics with non-alcoholic options and routines
• choosing curiosity over shame to break patterns

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Transcript

Framing The Question: What Fuels Addiction

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Pure Chaos, the life and death of an alcoholic. Thank you for tuning in and checking it out for this week. Today's episode is brought to you by Coffee and the letter W as in what leads up to addiction? What age were you when you had your first drink? Or, you know, if you're if your drugs are more your thing, you know, when did you first try drugs? What age were you? Uh, but more importantly, what leads up to addiction? You know, is it something that is, you know, predisposed genetically? Maybe you had a grandpa or a father who uh you know struggled with addiction, alcoholism, big one that runs genetically, right? So you could be predisposed to have it. Uh, you know, but really what leads up to addiction? You know, is it you know family life? Is it, you know, like I said, is there addiction that runs in your family? Um, you know, stress, stuff like that, right? What leads up to it? And, you know, of course, when we talk about addiction, we talk about, you know, how it's, you know, how it's affecting your life, you know, is it controllable? You know, does it control you? Um for a lot of us, me included, you know, addiction, you know, takes over our lives because for me, you know, being a full-blown alcoholic, I know it controlled every facet of my life. It kind of just took hold. And uh, you know, if you give in to it, you know, it doesn't take long before your entire life is just, you know, just completely pulled in by it, right?

New To Podcasting And Schedule Plans

SPEAKER_00 1:47

So so for this uh episode number two, um, this is the first one that I've had with an actual video. Uh episode one was my very first one, obviously. Uh, first time I've ever done a podcast brand new at this. So for those of you who are just tuning in now to the first video, this is episode two, but we're we're just gonna keep rolling, moving forward with this. Um, I'm gonna start posting all my podcasts on Sunday. I like it to have it kind of after a weekend, right? A lot of us are gonna be struggling with uh stuff over the weekends uh when it comes to addiction, you know, family work, all that. So I like having something there for Sunday before we start another freaking week, you know, just have something there to listen to. And then maybe as this podcast grows and you know becomes more um out there, uh, you know, maybe I'd like to start making one that kind of goes for Friday and one for Sunday. But for now, I think Sunday's a good day.

Personal Milestone: Ten Months Sober

SPEAKER_00 2:48

So, what leads up to addiction? You know, obviously I'm gonna be talking more about my personal experiences. Um, I'm a recovering alcoholic. Uh, 10 months sober now. Uh for me that's that's a fucking milestone. Um, you know, but like, do you remember how old you were when you had your first drink? You know, when you tried your first drug? Uh I know for me, uh I remember it well, my very first drink. And of course, when we talk about first drinks and, you know, when we had our first sip of drink, you know, for a lot of you, when you were a kid,

Early Sips And Baby Duck Memories

SPEAKER_00 3:24

right? I'm in my late 40s. So for a lot of us as kids, right, at Christmas time with our family, uh, you know, we'd be excited about Christmas. You know, the moms and dads would be, you know, enjoying a little bit of Christmas alcohol. Uh, and there was this one little champagne that was uh called baby duck. I'm not sure if a lot of you remember baby duck, but I remember at Christmas for something special, um, my parents would pour us each a you know a little tiny glass of baby duck, you know, probably like a sh, you know, a little half a shot worth. But we just felt so special, you know. Here we were kids, getting to enjoy, you know, this adult drink with our parents, right? It was very cool. So I guess technically, uh for my first drink, yeah, I would have probably been, you know, at that time, I don't know, 10, 11, 12 years old, uh, maybe

First Drunk At Fourteen

SPEAKER_00 4:20

younger. I don't know. But uh my first actual drink where I, you know, got drunk, um, I was 14, right? Living in a very small town up north uh Alberta. So, you know, small town up north Alberta. Uh house parties right back then were huge. So I remember uh first time I ever got drunk and really had drinks to the point where I couldn't control it. Uh I was 14 and it was polar ice vodka. To this day, I still I still can't drink polar ice vodka. Um, but that was that's what I remember was 14. The black polar ice bottle, it just looked so classy, right? We were, you know, 14. Of course, you know, we had some older friends that were able to uh get us alcohol and uh had a house party and yeah, just uh, you know, I was drinking and I probably polished off, I'm gonna probably a full bottle, a two-six of polar ice at 14. Uh, you know, we were all having a good time. And and from what I remember or don't remember, uh, I just remember, you know, it started off great. You know, you start drinking, you're with friends, you're having a house party, everything's great. Uh, but then, you know, it the night just kind of goes, it just kind of gets, you know, just forgotten. Um, but what uh what happened with me uh was apparently I ended up uh getting completely annihilated. Uh my friends had to uh help carry me downstairs. So my my room was in the basement of our house. And uh so my friends basically carried me, you know, one on each short, one on each, I was two of them, and you know, propping me downstairs. Uh ended up uh pissing my pants um when I was blacked out. Uh woke up the next morning, and uh that would have been my very first hangover. Uh I'm not gonna lie, I don't remember it. Uh except that, you know, it just yeah, I felt like shit. I remember that. And went

Blackout, Shame, And The Hook

SPEAKER_00 6:35

up, I remember waking up and just feeling like I was damp. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, did somebody spill a drink? Did I, you know, spill water in here? What is going on? And uh turned out I pissed my pants uh from being so intoxicated and blacking out. Uh my friends told me that I got to the point where I couldn't even speak, uh, you know, slurring, uh kind of almost passing out. Uh so they had uh, you know, brought me downstairs, kind of tucked me in, and uh yeah, so I pissed myself. And that was my very first introduction to alcohol. Now, for most of us, that would be enough. That would be enough to be like, you know what? Yeah, I I'm not gonna fucking do that again because that was a terrible idea. But that did not happen with me. It simply became something that I would use to, you know, numb anything going on.

Bullying, Numbing, And School Avoidance

SPEAKER_00 7:31

So, you know, a lot of addiction, right, can maybe be summed up, you know, some people experience trauma, right? They use drinking or they use drugs to kind of cope with that. Um, you know, or you know, if you're older already, you know, maybe you're in your at you know, 20s, 30s, work, work stress, family stress, right? You have that drink to help get you through that day, right? To give you that little bump that you need. Uh so for me, you know, in my when I was 14, that that was a start of uh a very fucking vicious cycle. Um but the weird thing was I liked it. I liked feeling fucked up. I liked feeling numb. And so it just made it, you know, more of a more of something where I looked forward to it. I looked forward to that buzz. I looked forward to not giving a shit, right? So, you know, I was I was bullied a lot as well, you know, in in school, you know, grade five, six, seven, bullied a lot. So I mean, for me, school was never fun. I I never enjoyed school, uh, you know, a lot of it. Uh unfortunately with my mom, so when I was young, parents were separated for a while. So I lived, like I said, in a small little town in northern Alberta. Um, but before that, we had lived uh just basically as to say Calgary. So we lived in Calgary, and uh my parents were separated, so my mom looked after us. But uh my mom wasn't uh the best at housework and at, let's just say, you know, doing her motherly stuff, right? So she used to do all our laundry. Now I had a sister and two brothers, so there were four of us, right? I know it's a lot, right? When you think about how much laundry four people, you know, have it's it's a fucking lot. But I remember my mom used to wash the clothes and dry the clothes, but then she wouldn't fold it, so it would just go into this like pile, this fucking mountain of clothes in her room. And of course, you know, so it gets wrinkly and shit. And every morning, you know, me and my sisters and brothers, it would be our little routine that we'd, you know, she'd be sleeping. So we go into her room, dig through this fucking pile of clothes, find clothes to wear. And of course, you know, unlucky me, all my clothes would all be wrinkly as shit, right? So I would wear that, and of course, that was just a target for bullies. So I got bullied for, you know, you know, being poor, for you know, not being having clothes that was like wrinkly as hell. And I mean, kids are kids are freaking assholes, you know what I mean? So it doesn't take much for them to latch onto something and really just make your life a living hell. And then that, you know, that's what happened with me. So I never enjoyed school. Um, and then as I got up into my you know junior high years, it just got worse, right? Where you know, the typical thing you see in the movies, the smokers in the back of the school. Well, I was hanging out with them, you know, that was me. And, you know, just drinking. We go to our friends' houses during our lunch hours, and you know, we'd raid their liquors' parents' liquor cabinets on a good day. We could make it back to school after lunch, no problem, continue. But for the most part, we'd go back to school pretty drunk. And, you know, teachers, for the most part, back then, really they just thought that maybe we're just, you know, being being

Adult Functioning And Hidden Drinking

SPEAKER_00 10:57

goofy or just didn't want to be there. But for the most part, we we were fucking hammered. Uh, and so the days that we did make it back to school, we didn't learn anything. We were just there to get through the day, get through that, you know, hangover we could already feel creeping up on us. And that was a lot of my junior high. That was, you know, wake up, go to school, wait for lunch to go to your friend's house to, you know, drink alcohol or you know, do hot knives with hash on their stove. You gotta remember like the old stove with the coil burners, you know, the butter knives. So we would do that during lunch and then go back to school just plastered. So my school never never enjoyed it. And for me, it was just a reason to try to numb myself. So I wouldn't have to really experience that. But that's really when my addiction and problem with drinking started was at 14, and it just kind of progressed from there. But as an adult, you know, taking that drinking uh crutch, let's call it, and you know, trying to be a be a fully functional adult with a you know drinking problem, I've lost so many jobs. I can't even I can't even begin to count them. But you know, at that point, when you're drinking, uh, you know, even when you have a job and stuff, you you're finding ways to hide it. You're finding ways to to basically, you know, be like, it's okay, it's not a problem. I don't have a problem. Look, I'm at work, I don't have a problem, right? Meanwhile, you're feeling like fucking shit, and you're just waiting till you can finally get home again to, you know, have a drink to calm your nerves, you know, stop the shaking a bit. And that's basically that was my adult life, really, was just drinking. And then when when we really think about our drinking and how it's affected our life, you know, I I can't remember a time when I wasn't at, let's say, a social gathering, you know, a work gathering, anything where I wasn't drinking.

Denial, Decades Lost, And Realization

SPEAKER_00 13:18

And then I started looking at all these, you know, events in my life that I've been to, right? My sister's wedding, you know, birthdays, everything. And I was drunk and drinking, actively drinking for all of it. And you start adding up those months that turn into years, that turn into decades. And for me, I I didn't realize I had a problem. I mean, I didn't want to realize, and I didn't want to admit that I had a problem. Everybody else around me could see it and would say stuff, but they were wrong. They did, you know, they didn't know what they were talking about. I've got a handle on this, this isn't affecting me. It's totally fine. And that was my life for so, so long. And maybe that was maybe that's uh, you know, something that you can really relate to. Maybe it's something you can't relate to, either way. Uh, for me, because you know, this episode is all about you know what leads up to addiction. For me personally, I think it was just being in a small town surrounded by people, friends that also were just getting into that experimenting with drinking, drugs, and really having, I guess, nothing to do and really not having that parent kind of guardian, right? That would keep an eye and be like, you know what, Chris? Hey, I noticed, you know, this, this, this. When you don't have that as a kid, you just keep progressing, right? There's nothing there to rein you back. And I'm not blaming this, you know, on my mom. I'm not blaming this on like family because, you know, I'm my own person. I made those decisions. And at the time, I enjoy drinking, right? I haven't drank in 10 months. I miss it. But at the same time, whenever I start to think, you know, I really want to drink, I have to take a step back and just be like, do I need a drink right now? Because I know if I have

Roots: Small Town, Supervision, And Genetics

SPEAKER_00 15:19

one, it's gonna turn into 100. Um, so it's easier to just say no and not have that first drink than it is to to uh you know try to convince yourself that you can just have one or two and stop. I know I can't. The second I have one drink and it touches my lips, man, a switch flips, and that's it. I don't stop until I'm like blacked out, till I literally can't drink. Um, so yeah, so for me, that that was my uh first memory of uh drinking was 14 polar ice vodka to this day. I still cannot drink it. And uh yeah, everything just kind of went downhill from there. Uh so for any of you, you know, who are struggling with addiction still, or maybe you're in recovery, you know, think about when you're drinking, or you know, if you it's more drugs, when your drug usage started, think about where you were, how old you were. What were the circumstances surrounding it? You know, was it was it family stuff? Was it, you know, maybe you just got bullied a lot and you just wanted to kind of retreat and kind of isolate yourself and drinking kind of helped numb all that pain and fear you feel. You know, or maybe it was just that, you know, your maybe one of your parents or grandparents were alcoholics and you were just born where you just couldn't, right? You were fucked from the start. Um I said I do have uh alcoholism that runs in my family on my on my uh you know, my grandpa was an alcoholic. Uh lucky for me, however, my parents uh weren't you know into drugs. My parents weren't big drinkers. You

Cravings, The First-Drink Switch, And Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 17:04

know, you'd see them have a glass or two of you know champagne or you know, a rum and eggnog at Christmas, but that was it. So for me, my immediately my immediate household, like my my mom and dad, even when we were together, they didn't drink. My mom, when she was separated and we were living with her, you know, she did start to drink a little more, I guess, at that time, but nothing that would have been an a problem, I guess, looking back. Um, I think for me, it was just I liked to numb myself. And yeah, if you can uh, you know, relate to that, that's you know, something that I think a lot of us, you know, we're we're basically drinking or doing drugs to forget something, to numb something that we don't want to deal with. And, you know, for me now, I'm I'm in a place in my life, finally, you know, in my late 40s, where I'm ready to deal with my addiction, you know, to try to find, you know, the root cause. It took me a long time to be able to admit that, you know, I am an alcoholic and I cannot have a drink. And, you know, when you go and sit at a restaurant, you watch people, you know, have a drink or two and leave, you know, I always wonder, like, are they gonna go home and keep drinking? Like, how the fuck did I just turn that off? How do they just stop? Right? I was so like just angry about that for a while. Like, why can't I? Why can't I? Right? Why did I get the shit end of the stick here? But um, you know, I finally, and you know, as we as I, you know, do this podcast and talk, you know, I'll go a lot into my experiences in my life, but I have had one fucking hell of a life. But at the same time, addiction has been there at every turn. Um, so for me to be 10 months sober is you know quite amazing for me. Uh, because you know, there's been times where yeah, I've wanted to drink again, but you know, instead of having that drink, you know, worst case, you know, I, you know, I'll take a CBD or something, you know, just have a cup of coffee, glass of water, a non-alcoholic drink, which is really good now, like the uh, you know, the undone rum, uh, which is zero alcohol, you know, a sunbrew by Corona,

Coping Now: NA Options And Routine

SPEAKER_00 19:06

which is zero alcohol. Just having that taste, right? It really does something to my brain, anyways, where I just I don't crave it. So, you know, I just want to say thank you for tuning in to uh this week's uh pure chaos podcast, uh before the chaos. And yeah, thank you guys. And you know, please uh if you if you enjoy this, like and subscribe. Um, as I get going with this and as I kind of learn more about how to use the app and how to do this, you know, I'm hoping the podcast will get a little more uh top nut, but for now, this is what I got. So like it, love it, hate it. Choice is yours. But uh, just want to say thank you if you are watching it. Thank you. And uh, you know, it is a little out of my comfort zone to be, you know, putting myself out there, but at

Closing Thanks And Subscribe Request

SPEAKER_00 19:54

the same time, I think I thought it was about time. So thanks and uh tune in next time. Thanks, guys.