90. One Year Later: A Letter to the Man I Used to Be

One year. 365 days of complete abstinence from any mood- or mind-altering substances. It hasn’t been easy, but I made it. This milestone means more to me than any birthday I’ve ever celebrated.

A year ago, I was trapped in the relentless grip of addiction.

Today, I stand free.

This is a letter I wrote to myself—a reflection on the challenges, growth, and transformation of the past year. It hasn’t been easy, by any means, but I did it. Here’s to the future.

May 22, 2025

Dear Me—
The broken version of me.  The version who stood in the mirror this exact day one year ago, hollow-eyed, sunken, and desperate.  The version who had just walked into Bon Secours Hospital, more ghost than man.  This letter is for you, from the version of us who lived to tell the story.

We made it.  One year clean.  Three hundred and sixty-five consecutive days.

I can already feel your disbelief.  I know you can’t imagine a world without numbing yourself first.  I know you feel like you’ve let down every single person who ever believed in you.  You’re standing at the edge of yourself, thinking, “There’s no way back.”  But there is.  And I’m here to prove it.

The first thing I want you to know is that recovery wasn’t magic—it was war.  A war you fought in silence, in sleepless nights, in group therapy rooms with flickering lights and folding chairs.  I remember the pain in detox, the shaking, the vomiting, and the waking up in a fog so thick I didn’t know where I was or who I was anymore.  But each day, even when you wanted to walk out, you stayed.  Not because you felt strong, but because something fragile and trembling inside you still wanted to live.

It’s been a year now, and you wouldn’t believe the things we’ve reclaimed.

Do you remember soccer?  How much it meant to us? Well, I’m back on the field.  Coach again.  I was terrified to return, worried that the kids would see through me—see the addict, the failure.  But they just saw Coach Kyle.  They saw someone who believes in them, someone who shows up for them, and someone who knows what a second chance looks like.  I taught them about the game, sure—but they taught me how to laugh again and how to be present.  There’s something holy in the way they run without fear.  I forgot what that felt like.  Until I remembered.

And then—there’s family.

You were so sure they’d given up on you.  I remember the way you avoided your family’s calls, the guilt in their voice when they tried to talk to you about the weather instead of the elephant in the room.  But slowly—beautifully—they came back.  No, we came back.  We sat in the hard conversations.  We listened.  We cried.  We rebuilt trust, brick by brick.  This past Christmas, we all sat at the same table, not pretending, but real.

Of course, it hasn’t all been healing.  There were days when the weight of it nearly crushed me.

There’s no easy way to say this—but we lost people.  People we went to meetings with.  People we swapped stories with.  People who, just like us, wanted to get better.  They didn’t make it.  I stood in the back of more than one funeral home this year, hands clenched, jaw locked, screaming on the inside: Why not me?  Survivor’s guilt is a cruel companion.  It tries to rob the living of their peace.  But I carry their names with me.  I wear their memory like armor.  I owe it to them to keep going.

The cravings didn’t vanish, either.  There were nights when the pull of the bottle came roaring back like a storm through the window.  Nights when loneliness wrapped around me like a second skin, but I didn’t pick up.  I picked up the phone instead.  I called someone.  I told on myself.  I cried.  I told the truth, even when it was messy.  That’s what saved me—telling the truth out loud.

And speaking of telling the truth, writing has been part of my redemption.

The columns I get to write every week for the Independent Republican have become a kind of spiritual practice.  Every sentence I put out into the world carries a piece of my recovery.  Some of them are hard to write.  Some of them made me feel exposed.  But I’ve also gotten letters back from people who said, “Your words helped me hold on one more day.”  That’s when I realized—this isn’t just my story.  It belongs to everyone who’s ever felt broken and dared to hope anyway.

I owe so much to the people who believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.

To my family, you gave me space to heal, but never stopped reminding me where home was.  To my friends who stuck around, who kept inviting me out even when I said no a dozen times—thank you for not giving up.  To Wendy—thank you for letting me write, for giving me a voice when I thought I had none.  You didn’t just print my words.  You helped me find them.  You reminded me that sharing my story wasn’t selfish—it was survival.

This year wasn’t just about staying clean—it was about building a life that makes staying clean worth it.

I still miss the old version of me sometimes.  Not the addict, but the dreamer.  The hopeful kid who believed in second chances before he ever needed one.  I’ve found him again, in pieces—in the laughter of my players, in the late-night talks with my family, in the way my hands shake not from withdrawal, but from writing something that matters.

So here we are.  One year sober.  One year free.  One year alive.

And if you’re reading this somewhere in your own day one, thinking you can’t possibly make it to Day 365—let me tell you something from the other side: You can.  You will.  Just keep showing up.

Because if someone like me can change, then so can you.

With all the grace in the world,
—Me

And remember, if you’re struggling or know someone who is struggling, please don’t lose hope.  If that had happened to me, I wouldn’t be able to help spread awareness today.