The journey of life has a knack for leading the temporary passengers of the slowly rotating planet Earth astray. Many of us can see the illuminated path of safety and security, and yet, through our evolution from adolescence to adulthood we fill the shoes of life experiences which beckon exploration—this exploration, when infused with the mighty spirit of the addict (or leading to the discovery of it), more often than not, come at the cost of a heavy burden.
In Chris M’s case, something was missing—ostracized for his uniqueness from a young age, he naturally gravitated toward trouble. This feeling is something I think we can all relate to. The pull of chaos is real amidst the juxtaposition of self and other that drives the insatiable search for something more, or a way to fit in. This lack, one of changing form, piloted a unique yet ever-understood uncertainty—an uncertainty quelled by the illusion of substance as answer—a solution that only worked for so long, before what was once the answer further induced and enhanced the problem. For Chris, alcohol and weed are no longer remedies he’s willing to accept.
Chris was born in Arizona and raised by parents who valued education and culture deeply. English wasn’t his first language: “I always felt like my heart or my soul was Mexican.” His mom packed tamales for lunch, taught Spanish at school, and instead of pride, it became a point of isolation. He remembers the bullying vividly. Early on, he learned what it felt like to stand slightly outside the circle.
Charter schools intensified that separation. Strict rules, uniforms, shaved faces, hair policed (they literally cut his hair in the bathroom). So, he did what so many do when belonging feels impossible: he found the outcasts. The class clowns. The disruptive kids. The ones the system already expected less from. It wasn’t drugs yet—it was identity. He rebelled before he ever touched a substance.
Underneath the behavior was something quieter and more dangerous: comparison, alienation, a constant internal narrative of not quite belonging. Public school gave him his first taste of empowerment. He felt capable—chosen. “For the first time, I felt smart…I joined honors and AP classes and did well…I felt empowered.” But the deeper longing—to feel connected—was still humming. That’s when alcohol entered the picture. “We went to a party…a bottle of Smirnoff…I took my first sip and immediately felt warm. It was like the guardrails shut down…I was social. Approachable…I kissed a girl at that party…‘If this is what drinking leads to, this is the Chris that’s been missing.’” One sip and something shifted.
Then weed entered like a second language—another way to disappear into something that felt like belonging. “The first time…grinding up a nug and loading a pipe…’What is this ritual?’….After a few times, I finally got stoned. Time slowed down. Music sounded incredible…Sublime, drums, everything.” That’s the trap: the substance doesn’t feel like a drug at first. It feels like a key. A bridge. A solution. Something that makes you more lovable, more alive, more “you.” “People would say, ‘Chris, you’re in the best mood ever. What changed?’…‘I love this Chris.’”
Then Europe at eighteen—legal drinking, spliffs, women, bars in the daylight. “I was captivated.” For a young man who felt chronically outside, alcohol and drugs were not rebellion—they were translation. They made him fluent in rooms that once intimidated him.
MDMA took it further. At a rave, it was connection without insecurity, “It was the happiest I’d ever been.” That sentence carries weight because once the brain learns that kind of chemical joy, ordinary life can feel intolerably flat. “I knew I couldn’t do that often because it felt too good…but now I knew something existed that could make me feel a thousand times better than alcohol.”
Living at ASU escalated everything. Morning drinking. “My roommate was pressing MDMA pills in the room…I was selling it around campus. Taking it daily for weeks. Flunking classes.” Then there were the blackouts. Breaking into someone else’s apartment, trying on their clothes, stealing their bicycle. Waking up to the police, “‘Where did that pink bicycle come from?’” the cops asked…he had no idea. The first arrest didn’t stop him. The second one stuck harder—crystal meth in his pocket, probation violation, jail time. Another blacked out robbery…in the same district. By then, the pattern was locked: consequences, brief compliance, relapse, chaos.
Through it all, there was one constant—drums. “It was my one thing.” Church bands. Lessons. Writing music. Even at his lowest, he could sit behind a kit and feel aligned. Music didn’t save him, but it kept something intact.
After jail, Chris cycled through rehabs and sober livings. Burned bridges. Eventually, he moved to LA following his family, hoping geography would solve what addiction had carved. It didn’t. Instead, he found the same theme in a new zip code: alcohol dissolved the barrier between him and other people, “It let me socialize instantly.” That ease came at a cost—Xanax runs, tequila outside grocery stores, reckless stunts, blackouts, toxic relationships riddled with debauchery and thievery—and skating hills like a madman.
Strangers began confronting him. A woman yelled from her house after watching him flying down a hill drunk: “People have died [skating] that hill,” she said. Another man grabbed him by the shirt, “If you were my fuckng brother, I’d beat your ass right now, what are you doing? Go home.” Chris says it now almost reverently—the universe was speaking. “Get your shit together,” he just couldn’t.
Chris flirted with recovery before committing to it. A skate-park AA meeting filled with young guys who had real sobriety, “These guys have their shit together.” He admired them, but kept showing up high, “I had eight sponsors from that one meeting.” Eight men trying to help him. Chris wasn’t ready.
Then something shifted. A sponsor named Tommy. Eleven months sober. Meetings. Service. Newcomers calling him for help, “Okay, I can do this.” For the first time, he wasn’t just attending recovery—he was participating in it.
The relapse came quietly, in an airport in Amsterdam. He called his mom. “God, just get me through these three hours.” Then he saw a Heineken, “I couldn’t stop myself.” Three beers. Back to square one. Within days, he was using again, trust shattered, sponsor strained.
The next descent was darker—drunk driving, domestic violence, delusion. He married someone, believing he was “clearing karma.” He now calls it plainly: “Clearly delusional.” The marriage became a war zone. The breaking point came in a car, sober but unraveling. He poured cold brew over his own head and screamed, “I need you out of my fucking life or one of us is going to die.” It was less drama and more desperation.
A therapist later told him the truth: this ends in jail or death.
Sober living followed. Yoga teacher training. A woman named Kyla, who saw him clearly. Chris started building something real—and then relapsed again. Teaching yoga drunk and high (amazingly). Preaching peace while internally collapsing. A massive bender. Waking up with no memory, 150 missed calls from Kyla, another 30 or so from his mother already on the way. He laid back down and projectile vomited all over himself in bed. “Dude, I shouldn’t be here.”
That’s when Beit T’Shuvah became an option. Chris called. Interviewed. Waited two weeks to walk up those steps. He says something subtle but important happened: “I kind of immediately went to work.”
Chris restarted step work with Tyler. Something felt different this time, “I see the willingness.” He describes a hyper-focused spiritual current that happens when two alcoholics sit in truth long enough for ego to dissolve. For the first time, it wasn’t about escaping consequences—it was about building something sustainable.
Drums returned in a new way— Saturday Shabbat, community, rhythm without intoxication. His bandmates showed up one day and cried when he told them he had to step away, “It was the first time I felt like they actually cared about me.” That moment solidified something deeper than fear—it gave him permission to choose life over identity.
Now he’s in the middle stretch: amends, therapy, sponsorship on the horizon. He knows his warning signs. “When I start resenting everything, I know something’s off.” Chris understands a principle many people miss: staying sober isn’t the hardest part. “It’s hard to stay joyous in sobriety and not be dry.” For Chris, connection remains the medicine—but now it’s earned, not manufactured.
Chris’s story isn’t about a single bottom. It’s about a long education in what belonging really costs. For years, he found connection chemically. Today, he builds it deliberately—through service, through music, through honesty, through community.
The kid who once said, “This is the Chris that’s been missing,” no longer needs alcohol to find peace within himself. The yoga, the drums, the relationships—these are all powerful and meaningful extensions of Chris that truly power his sobriety. It’s no longer Chris against the world. He knows on a deep and intrinsic level that alcohol and drugs are not an answer that provides any kind of security or self-assurance. Chris acknowledges that it is a day-to-day, beat-for-beat pursuit in the name of long-term sobriety. The rhythm of recovery.