I Climbed the Wrong Mountain
Sobriety is an Inside Job
It’s easier to tackle a mountain than it is an ego.
In the photograph on my desk, I’m standing triumphantly on the summit of Mt. Hood, filled with pride at having reached the top a mere month after finally getting sober at age 42. Climbing that 11,249 ft. peak marked a symbolic new direction after too many years lost to the grips of alcoholic drinking and drug abuse. “Look what I did,” the photo seemed to proclaim, at least to me at the time. The mountain was a powerful metaphor for all the internal obstacles I had overcome.
But in reality, I was as naive and inexperienced in mountain climbing as I was in sobriety.
Unlike my fellow climbers who were properly outfitted with sunglasses and sunscreen, I was blinded by the bright glare off the snow, squinting toward the camera. My lack of preparation stemmed from the same kind of ego-driven inexperience that had followed me into the rooms of recovery. Despite having achieved a relatively successful business married to a loving wife and partner, I remained utterly full of myself, blind to the destructive truths and patterns that had accompanied me to the bottom.
Initially, I thought the program’s core principles boiled down to a simple formula: “Don’t drink and go to meetings.” Armed with this defensive…
