5 Years
Today I realized it was my 5th year of sobriety from alcohol while having to write down the date for an assessment I was sitting for in a beautiful Georgian revivalist-styled lecture hall at Columbia University. It’s still a very odd and surreal experience every time I step onto campus after the last 4 years in the military. While by comparison to others, my experience in the service was short-lived, and by all accounts unremarkable never having completed SEAL training or deploying overseas, I feel confident that many of my experiences in the service provided a potent microcosm that thrust me into confronting myself, my values, and most importantly a thirst for living a life of purpose. The reason I am sharing this is publicly is rather selfish, I hope to create the illusion of accountability after writing this. Whomever is the recipient you are now a passive observer to my truth.
While sobriety from alcohol 5 years ago seemed an impossible step it is now a distant obstacle I have overcome and one I take for granted every day. Now I am preoccupied with other obstacles that loom large on the horizon. Questions of where to invest my passion for helping others, how can I continue to grow and adapt so that I can have a life that I desire, and what is it that I desire? These questions, I will not answer this evening…
What I can answer is how to address the little things, and with hope, those larger questions just fall into place. Idk… I think that’s what some old wise man might tell me (or my therapist). So then, let this entry be a testimony of what I will work on for the next five years:
1. I promise to myself that I will be present in the world around me. No more staring into the future and ruminating on the past. To accomplish these things I will need to reconnect my mind with my body. As corny as that may sound, non-Western societies have been doing this for thousands of years with dance, meditation, breathwork, storytelling, music, and plant medicine. To truly be in one’s body is a task that is so foreign to us in the Western world. It is talked about, trending on Twitter, and even being published as a viable treatment for clinical issues in Universities. But we neglect to take their advice and follow the tried and true methods. These next five years I will go on this journey and continue to understand myself and the world that I exist within. It is time to tune in and unplug.
2. I promise to myself that I will find peace with the unknown and with being who I am. I have a true north, but I struggle with self-doubt. Thoughts creep into my mind daily questioning everything that I do. Over these next five years, I will strive to unpack the insecurities and find true grounded peace with being Griffin and accepting there are things out of my control. To execute this I have found that minimalism applies quite nicely. If I take inventory of the things that are my “anchors” keeping me from really loving and believing in myself, remove them, and double down on the things that make me feel secure I will find success. An example of an anchor that I have is a negative coping mechanism of self-isolation. Ever wanted to just run away to the mountains to never speak to another human again? Well I have, and Instagram knows me very well too (I still love mountain off-grid videos so pls keep them coming). But in all seriousness, doubling down on the people who will not only love and be there for you, but continue to pull you into the person or life that you envision for yourself is what matters most. Instead of finding the deep dark crevasse of your fluffy pillow, when things are bad call someone and meet up with them. Take a walk outside, and remove your headphones.
3. I promise to myself that I will lean into discomfort. Growth isn’t born from comfort, and the things I want most for myself—clarity, purpose, connection—require that I step into the unknown again and again. I’ve done this before. The decision to get sober was a leap into uncertainty, one that at the time felt like a freefall with no parachute. But here I am, five years later, standing firmly on the ground I once thought I’d never reach. The lesson in that isn’t lost on me. If I could endure those first months, those nights staring at the ceiling wondering if I’d ever feel whole without it, then I can endure whatever comes next. I know discomfort won’t kill me, but avoidance will erode everything I care about. So I will embrace it. I will make friends with it. I will walk toward the things that make me uneasy—conversations I don’t want to have, challenges that make my hands sweat, and moments where my instinct is to retreat. I will lean in and keep going.
4. I promise to myself that I will remain open. To new ideas, to new ways of thinking, to new people. The world is vast, and my mind is still unlearning the rigidity I once used as a shield. There is beauty in structure, in discipline, but there is also beauty in surrendering to the unknown and allowing life to unfold without trying to dictate every step. I don’t need to have all the answers today. I don’t even need to have them five years from now. What I do need is to remain curious, to approach life with the kind of humility that allows for change and the kind of openness that welcomes it. I want to learn from the people who have walked paths I have yet to tread. I want to listen more than I speak. I want to remain teachable.
At the core of all of this is a simple truth: I want to live fully. I don’t mean that in the cliché, “live your best life” kind of way. I mean I want to be here—in my body, in my choices, in my relationships, in the small, mundane moments that make up a life. I want to stop searching for meaning in some distant future and recognize that it exists in the here and now. I want to be awake to my own existence.
So, to whoever has made it this far, consider yourself my unwitting witness. Five years from now, if you happen to cross my path, ask me if I’ve held true to these promises. Maybe I’ll have answers to the questions I’ve left open-ended tonight, or maybe I’ll have entirely new ones. Either way, I hope to meet that future version of myself with the same curiosity and grace I’m trying to cultivate now.
For tonight and the next 5 years, that’s enough.