When I got sober in 2010, I was 39. From the outside, my life seemed pretty perfect—a beautiful family, a successful business, a popular blog, a nice house, two cars, and, for God’s sake, over 3,000 Facebook friends. But on the inside, I was unraveling like a sweater from Temu.
My anxiety and depression were off the charts. Work felt suffocating, and my wife was fed up with my drinking, saying she never knew which version of me would walk through the door at the end of the day. I thought my drinking was only hurting me, but it had seeped into every corner of my life, especially my family.
At that time, my wife and I were in marriage counseling. Eventually, I asked to meet with our therapist one-on-one. I felt like I was hanging on by a thread. I was desperate. When I sat down with her, it all came pouring out. I was miserable. I told her I couldn’t stop drinking and that I didn’t want to live that way anymore. For the first time in my life, I was brutally honest with a therapist. I admitted I was scared, ashamed, and didn’t know what to do next.
She listened, then suggested two things: seeing a psychiatrist for my depression and attending an AA meeting. She said I didn’t have to keep self-medicating with alcohol and that maybe medication could help. And maybe AA could give me the tools I needed. That conversation was the first step toward my recovery. I did both the next day. I haven’t had a drink since.
But getting sober didn’t mean life stopped being hard. I learned that life still happens—good, bad, and everything in between. There are things I can’t control. But there are things I can do about it. After about five years sober, my attitude towards certain aspects of my life started to change. I was working around 70 hours a week. The pressure and the stress of my job were affecting both my mental and physical health. My brain was always on the verge of imploding, and my stomach was twisted up from the pressure of it all. I was spending very little time with my family, and taking a day off, let alone a vacation, seemed impossible. I wanted to leave, but I felt trapped.
Fear is a powerful emotion. It can paralyze you. It has a way of creeping into your mind and slowly eating away at your self-esteem, self-worth, and sense of reality. It rewrites your story into a version where you’re stuck, where the plot never changes. I was terrified of the unknown, afraid I’d fail, that I wouldn’t be able to support my family, and that people would think I was crazy for walking away from a career I’d spent decades building. I was writing my narrative, and it was all fiction. The storyline always ended in the apocalypse. Zombies, people eating people, the whole fucking thing.
But staying in the same chapter wasn’t an option anymore. I didn’t get sober to be miserable. I got sober to live.
The pandemic changed everything. Suddenly, I was working from home and enjoying a balanced life. I was having dinners with my wife, binging every shitty show on Netflix, driving my daughter to school, and just living in a way that felt good. And I realized—I could never go back to the grind.
I discussed the possibility of switching careers with my wife, and she was nothing but supportive. She told me she wanted me to be happy and that we would figure it out.
Now, what the hell was I going to do? After a lot of soul-searching and playing a shit ton of Fortnite, I decided I wanted my next career to have purpose and meaning. If I was going to put in the time and give of myself, I wanted to feel fulfilled at the end of the day. I wanted to help people.
I started researching new careers that aligned with my passions, listing all those non-transferable skills I had convinced myself I didn’t possess. The narrative I had been telling myself started to change. I wasn’t feeling stuck anymore. I had options. I wasn’t too old to start a new chapter.
The more I explored, the more I saw how my experiences—both personal and professional—gave me tools I could use for a new career. Then I came across Peer Advocacy, a job where someone in recovery helps others navigate challenges related to mental health and substance use disorder. Who would have guessed that all of the fucked up shit I had been through was a very transferrable skill?
Peer Advocacy checked every box on my wishlist. For the first time in my career, I saw a future aligned with who I had become in recovery. I took all the required training, got certified, and found my dream job. I’ve never been happier.
Suck on that, fear!
Here’s the thing about life: it’s like a book filled with chapters. Some chapters are long, like Atlas Shrugged, while others are short, like a Charles Bukowski poem. Some are confusing, like Nabokov, and others are as simple as Curious George. Some are terrifying, like a Stephen King novel, and others bring the comfort of the Dalai Lama’s teachings.
The key is this: you can’t start a new chapter if you’re too afraid to turn the page.
And like my old therapist used to say, “Nothing changes if nothing changes.”
So, if you’re feeling stuck like it’s too late to make a change—lick that finger and turn the damn page. A new chapter is always waiting, but only if you’re willing to start writing it.
Meet Sober Curator Contributor Jason Mayo, Founder of the “Sober Not Subtle” blog. Jason Mayo lives in New York with his wife and two daughters. He got sober in March 2010. He is a certified recovery peer advocate at a not-for-profit community center on Long Island. He does outreach and helps organize free sober events for people with substance use disorders and their families. Jason is passionate about advocating for people living with substance use disorder and mental health issues. His goal is to use humor, creativity, and lived experience to impact the world positively.
Sober Curator Fun Fact about Jason: In his spare time, his alter ego, DoeSlayer, streams on Twitch. With a community of over 6,000 followers, he is a partnered streamer and an official content creator for Expansive Worlds and Ubisoft.
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