Andy grew up searching for a place to fit in and find acceptance. As a Minister’s son, kids were often brought to his house against their will in order for his morality to rub off on them. In high school he found a new persona when he got blackout drunk at a college party. Suddenly people were talking about how funny he was when he was drunk, how he was just like Will Ferrell, and he liked the attention. So he leaned into it. In college he found more acceptance by blacking out and doing wild things people could laugh about the next day.

But as college went on, he found people were growing tired of the persona. He found the phone was ringing less and less often. By the end of college, the phone wasn’t ringing at all. 

When he graduated, all the places where he’d defined himself went away and the drinking got worse. He began getting fired from jobs, racking up consequences from fights, illegal fireworks and DUIs. It wasn’t until his fifth serious consequence from drinking, shortly after his 25th birthday, that things began to change.

Andy’s story shows something at the heart of everyone who struggles with addiction, the need for something that they can’t get through other means. The substance becomes the solution to the pain until it becomes the cause of it, often stealing the very thing it gave us in the first place.

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