The Forty Year Bender

I am living proof a man can spend four decades wrecking himself and still crawl back into daylight. If that isn't hope, it's at least better odds than I ever had.

Don't drink? I drank like a drought. Don't take drugs? I ran a pharmacy. Get healthy? I stayed awake until dawn, smoked like wreckage, doubled the cocaine and treated water as folklore.

Seven rehabs. Two accidental overdoses. Arrests here and overseas. Car wrecks, courtrooms, lost businesses, a broken marriage, financial ruin, and years of creative self-annihilation. There's nothing noble about that list.

But here's why this book exists: if I could survive it, you can survive your version of it. I rebuilt myself. Changed careers. Developed discipline. Brought movement into my life. Ate food that wasn't poison. And most shocking of all, I found clarity of mind.

Not a resurrection in fire. Just a man digging himself out of a hole he spent years tunnelling. Still bruised. Still ridiculous. But finally standing.