Yesterday, I sat across a lunch table from a guy I hadn't seen in more than 40 years.
A guy I knew as Jimmy when we were kids.
And somehow, over the course of a few hours, he helped me see my entire life a little differently.
Jim and I grew up on the same street. My family moved there when I was nine, and we lived in that house all the way through high school. We played together constantly.
Little League baseball. Soccer. Stickball in the court, where Joey Cavender was basically the Babe Ruth of the neighborhood.
We played basketball, hung out, had sleepovers and birthday parties, and did all the things kids do when they grow up together.
Jim was a good athlete. I always thought he was a little stronger in soccer, although I admired his skills in both baseball and soccer. He was a great teammate, and my father loved coaching him in baseball.
Then high school happened.
We started hanging around different people and living somewhat different lives, but there was still a bond there. The kind of bond that comes from growing up together.
Four decades!
Jim recently reached out after seeing my podcast interview on YouTube, and we decided to meet for lunch in Monterey.
When we first saw each other, we both got emotional.
We recognized each other immediately.
Although I will admit, he was much taller than I remembered.
Six-foot-three.
He had four brothers, so I'm guessing he won the height lottery.
Yes, I was jealous.
We sat down and started catching up. There was a lifetime to talk about.
At one point, Jim started telling me how he remembered certain things from our childhood and how he had experienced them from his perspective.
That stopped me in my tracks.
It's fascinating to hear someone else's version of moments you thought you understood because you lived them.
Jim remembered what happened to me when I was 13, 14 and 15 years old.
He remembered my parents' divorce. He remembered watching me change.
I had been the kid who played whatever sport was in season and dedicated myself to becoming the best athlete I could be.
Then everything changed.
I stopped playing some sports. I started skating. I got into the punk scene. I started drinking. School became less and less important.
I'd made varsity baseball and soccer as a freshman, but I wasn't eligible to play because my grades had fallen apart. I started cutting school.
I'd take BART into Berkeley, San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area. I'd drink 40s, skate around, hang out with punk rockers and basically check out of the life I'd been living.
I wasn't getting into serious trouble. I just wasn't really participating in the life I had once cared so much about.
Then Jim said something that hit me harder than I expected.
He apologized.
He told me he was sorry he hadn't come to me back then and told me not to give up on sports.
He said he believed I had something special.
He said it would be a shame to watch me throw it away.
He wished he had said something.
That really got me.
I stopped him.
I told him we were kids. He was living his own teenage life. That wasn't his responsibility.
That should have been a conversation with a parent.
But I appreciated the thought more than he probably realized.
Then he said something else.
He pointed out that not everyone has the ability to turn things around the way I did.
I had eventually realized I needed to get back on track.
I finished high school by going to night classes to make up for the classes I'd missed. I ended up needing another semester at another school just to officially graduate.
Then, before I even started my college baseball days, I was coaching a group of high school juniors and seniors.
I had always looked back at those teenage years with shame.
I had thought about the sports I walked away from. The school experiences I missed. The opportunities I threw away.
I'd never really considered the other side.
I came back.
I had gotten myself back on track while I was still a teenager.
Jim helped me see something I'd never given myself credit for.
And on the drive home, another realization hit me.
Maybe that wasn't just something I did as a teenager.
Maybe it was a pattern throughout my entire life.
I would build something good. I'd make progress. I'd create opportunities.
Then something would happen.
I'd get hurt. I'd get lonely. I'd get sad. I'd get overwhelmed. I'd drink. I'd check out. I'd tear things apart.
And eventually, somehow, I'd rebuild.
I had been doing it for decades.
By my mid-forties, I'd built a pretty good life.
I'd had a successful career in technology. I'd cashed out when a company I worked for was acquired and had the opportunity to take what felt like a mini early retirement.
I'd been married. I'd bought homes. I'd developed professionally. I'd traveled the country playing high-level softball tournaments. I'd coached baseball. I'd trained people. I'd built relationships. I'd accomplished things.
And then my drinking became the beginning of another downfall.
I dislocated my left shoulder playing in a softball tournament in Washington, and because I'd been born with one arm, it changed my life dramatically.
I could no longer compete the way I had.
At that point, I thought being an athlete was my identity.
Then I met a woman.
We hit it off.
We had a daughter.
I moved my entire life to a new county to build a life with her.
At first, things were good.
I had stopped drinking and was about a year into that sobriety when I met her.
But I didn't really understand recovery.
I thought I did.
I thought I could figure it out because I was me.
I couldn't.
She could drink normally.
I couldn't.
But I tried anyway.
Slowly the wheels began to come off.
I embarrassed her. I brought chaos into her life. I wasn't the man I knew I was capable of being.
Eventually, I went into treatment.
At first, if I'm being completely honest, I mostly wanted everyone to stop worrying about me and leave me alone.
While I was there, I learned she had begun seeing someone else.
When I returned home, we lived separate lives until eventually we couldn't live together anymore.
The years that followed were difficult.
I bounced around Northern California trying to put my life back together.
Opportunity after opportunity appeared, and either it wasn't what I thought it was or I eventually threw in the towel and drank.
The hole just kept getting deeper.
And then came the last time.
I'd started a new career in a new city and county.
I had around three years of sobriety.
Things were going better than they had in a long time.
I was fighting in court to get back into my daughter's life, and the process took everything out of me.
Eventually, everything felt like it was landing on me at once.
I felt completely alone.
I stood on an overpass looking down at Highway 1.
I didn't want to live with the pain anymore.
I called my brother crying and left him a voicemail because I was trying desperately not to completely lose my mind.
Then I walked down the street and decided I'd drink instead.
I drank several strong IPAs.
I got a Lyft.
I had the driver take me to a liquor store.
I bought enough alcohol for that night and the next few days.
I told myself that throwing away three years of sobriety was better than killing myself.
I'd turn it around again.
I'd always done that before.
Except this time was different.
Alcoholism is progressive.
I wasn't able to simply put it back together.
I moved my things into storage and lived in my car in Santa Cruz for part of that summer.
I had a safe place near the harbor.
I wasn't driving much.
Eventually, I made a decision to drink as much as I could and hope I didn't wake up.
I did.
But I woke up to two people I'd worked with at a treatment center a year earlier.
They found me.
They pulled me to safety.
They helped me through the next few days.
And I haven't had a drink since.
It's been about two and a half years.
Today, I understand something I didn't understand back then.
I can't keep rebuilding my life the same way.
I can't keep tearing everything down and expecting God to help me put it back together.
I have to do my part.
And today, I do.
I've made the adjustments I needed to make.
I took a new job with a new company.
I moved to the county where my daughter lives.
I coach high school baseball.
I work with athletes and help them become better.
I've had three major surgeries in one year—two planned and one from an accident.
I've built a pretty good life.
I have friends who have become family.
I help people whenever and however I can.
I'm trying to build a business around helping people move forward.
I've had to humble myself.
I've had to level my pride.
I've had to learn things I should have learned a long time ago.
And yes, I'm still lonely sometimes.
I'm still sad sometimes.
There is still pain.
My life isn't perfect.
It isn't always awesome.
But it's mine.
And today, I know what to do with it.
I have the tools.
I have my recovery.
I have my spiritual life.
I have people.
I have purpose.
I have learned that what we call a sufficient substitute isn't about replacing the life I once wanted.
It's about learning to live the life I actually have—and being grateful for it.
God has worked double time lifting me out of the holes I repeatedly dug for myself.
And maybe that's the biggest realization Jim gave me.
All those years, I looked at my life and saw the things I destroyed.
He looked at my life and saw something different.
He saw someone who always found a way back.
Someone who could land on his feet.
Someone who could get knocked down, get lost, screw things up, and somehow find his way back toward something good.
Jim, thank you.
Thank you for seeing something in me when we were kids.
Thank you for caring enough to tell me what you wished you'd told me forty years ago.
And thank you for unknowingly helping me see something about myself that I'd never acknowledged.
I've always had the ability to land on my feet.
The difference now is that I don't want to keep falling.
I want to stay here.
I want to keep growing.
I want to keep moving forward.
I want to use everything I've been through to help somebody else understand that there really is a way out.
That's my purpose now.
And I'm grateful—more grateful than I can put into words—to finally embrace it.