“If a group of scientists got together, and they wanted to build a situation that would guarantee somebody to come out of it an alcoholic, they would’ve created my life.”
For Will M., all of his major milestones were traumatic. The oldest of three, with a mother diagnosed with a narcissistic borderline personality disorder, he and his siblings grew up in a tight-knit unit. If for no other reason than to fact-check their mother. Or in Will’s own words: “reality check is more accurate.”
He attended a school in Boston until his parents separated, and he found himself at a school in the inner city. Seeing a teacher get punched was a punch of reality for Will. He had gone from the soft by side of private school to the dark side of public school. He wasn’t sure where he fit in or where he belonged, but the dialogue was already established—he was unsafe, different, and out of place. He even believed he was a failure because he hadn’t written a book by the time he was eight. “My family saw it as a moral failing if you didn’t succeed at something.”
The first time Will drank, he was eleven. He found wine in the fridge and drank half the bottle. Suddenly, life didn’t seem so bad. No stress, no worries. He tried to repeat the experience but ran out of wine. His mom put him in his first treatment center at twelve. Private pay. He quickly learned the ins and outs of addiction. “I had gotten a PhD in addiction from this place.”
He decided to have fun instead of being the perfect kid. “If I was gonna be punished, I might as well have fun.” He went from public school to catholic school to boarding school. All of which he was “strongly suggested to leave”. From 18 to 20, he went travelling to get away from where he didn’t want to be.
Will got involved with things that weren’t technically legal. He clarifies, “it wasn’t that what I was getting involved with was ‘technically legal.’ It was extremely illegal. No judge would ever say, ‘this is the grey area of drug dealing.’” He returned state side. He had gotten work in the restaurant industry during his travels, so upon returning home, he continued to sell drugs. As his career progressed and grew, he found himself drinking and partying more. Under the guise, of course, of “networking”
After graduating, Will went to work with the JFCS (Jewish Family and Children Service). It enabled him to build lives for people and gave him a sense of purpose. It kept him at the desk…where he started to get restless. He found himself infatuated with the industry once again. “The guys who came up through culinary school were covered in tattoos, smoked cigarettes, drank beers after work—they didn’t give a fuck, they were bad asses. Not the people who came through the schools wore those dorky hats.” Quickly, he started to identify the restaurants where he could thrive. He kept getting bumped up through the ranks.
Living in Boston, he began going on a series of dates. A self-proclaimed “serial monogamist,” He eventually met the woman who would become his wife. After travelling, they decided to move to sunny Los Angeles. For a while, his alcoholism took a backseat, but seeing where it was heading, he decided to move to Texas with his wife. However, he found himself progressively drinking more and more. A car accident wasn’t even enough to warrant a change.
But still, Will wound up going to treatment. Age 40, and at a fairly nice facility, he was told by a staff member, “You might just be a heavy drinker.” He took this statement and chased it into more years of imbibing. He got on Naltrexone but learned how to work the dosage so that he could uphold the appearance of “having it all together.”
Will’s then-wife started to go to Al-Anon, and it caused them to decide to separate. He started to outgrow the spaces his life and alcoholism were taking him. They got into a huge fight, and Will ended up going to Seattle. After a month in an intensive outpatient program, his wife filed for divorce. “There was so much self-righteousness on my part. I was just getting sober, she called me a month into my sobriety. It was just an excuse to relapse.”
Will went to a detox in Ohio—another fancy facility. Drinking so much, he passed out while waiting to get picked up, he found himself coming to in the hospital. From there to the detox and eventually to a rehab in Prescott, Arizona. He would leave that treatment center and drive back down to Dallas following the booze. He traveled around the country and landed wherever he could. Picking up small patches of sobriety here and there. He got involved with a sober living, but thought he had his drinking under control. “I felt like I had found the magic solution that would allow me to do everything I wanted.” The end result being another relapse.
Within moments of his resumed drinking, Will found himself arrested for a DUI. He didn’t have the right parameters on his addiction. He found himself being drawn to Beit T’Shuvah. Through connections, despite his Irish Catholic upbringing, he was put in contact with BTS. “What BTS does that no one else does is it’s not just about getting you sober. It’s about teaching you a way of living.” He acknowledges that many places could get him sober, but Beit T’Shuvah has designs on how to stay sober.
Here, Will has become someone who stands tall—with a straight back and a smile on his face. He is a devoted intern of the Development Department, helping to raise money to help people who can’t afford treatment get the same help he was given. He has just begun training for the LA Marathon. And you would be hard pressed not to get a genuine smile and greeting from him—a greeting of “how are you?” that makes you feel like he really wants to know. He means it.
And maybe that’s the real miracle—not that Will survived the recipe life handed him, but that he’s turned it into something nourishing for others. The same man who once measured his days in drinks now measures them in miles, in dollars raised, in conversations that matter. He carries his past the way a craftsman carries old tools—not to use them for harm again, but because they remind him of what it takes to build something worth keeping. At Beit T’Shuvah, Will isn’t just living sober; he’s living proof that no matter how a story starts, there’s still time to rewrite the ending.
So, even if a team of scientists really did set out to design a life destined for alcoholism, they would never be able to account for the most important variable: hope. And that’s what Will has found at Beit T’Shuvah and, on top of that, what Beit T’Shuvah’s found in Will.
