When my eyes creaked open and tried to find focus, I didn’t know where I was. The room was dim, my wrists were tied to the bed rail, and the dull ache of a needle in my hand throbbed through the fog. Motionless and silent, I lay staring at the ceiling until everything started coming back to me—the hallucinations, my teeth were melting, the menacing trolls teetering around the bedroom; uncontrollable shaking while my wife, Robin, helped me take a shower; and the catatonic ride to the emergency department of Meriter Hospital. After being ushered into an exam room, my memory was a void until this silent, dim awakening moment.

Alcohol withdrawal can kill you, and I would have been a statistic had I not made it to the ER. I drank almost every day for nearly two decades and an obscene amount for a few years leading to this point. This is my story. Now twenty-nine years sober, I’m one of the lucky ones who lived to fight another day. Join me as I chronicle my journey through coming of age, rock and roll debauchery, a downward spiral into the depths of substance abuse, and then like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, the joy and accomplishments in my ongoing recovery.

If I can help encourage just one of those among you who are struggling or someone you love to see that it’s possible to make the change, to find your way out of that rabbit hole of alcoholism, and feel how beautiful life can be above ground, it will all have been worth it.