09/02/2026
I’m coming up on 30 years sober.
At 27, I reached a crossroads.
Drinking had already pulled me away from university and from myself. I knew that if I wanted a different life, something had to change.
So I stopped.
It wasn’t easy. But without alcohol constantly distracting me, I went back to university, improved my grades and eventually earned the grades I needed to apply to McGill — and was accepted.
But sobriety taught me something much bigger:
We can remove one distraction and eventually find another.
Food. Work. Smoking. Exercise. Relationships. Staying endlessly busy. Achievement.
Sometimes we use things to avoid looking inward.
Because what happens if we stop long enough to feel the emotions we’ve swallowed, question the beliefs we’ve carried since childhood, or look at the experiences we’ve shoved into some dark corner hoping they’ll disappear?
They don’t always disappear.
Sometimes what we refuse to look at quietly starts making decisions for us.
I’ve spent almost 30 years succeeding, failing, building businesses, watching other ideas fail, returning to tennis, competing in finals, making mistakes and starting over.
Sobriety didn’t give me a perfect life.
It gave me almost 30 more years to participate in one.
And interestingly, I find myself at another crossroads today.
I’m asking different versions of the same questions I asked at 27:
What am I holding onto?
What am I distracting myself from?
What do I actually want?
And what needs to change if I want the next chapter of my life to look different from the last?
Maybe you’re at a crossroads too.
It might have nothing to do with alcohol.
Maybe it’s your career. Your relationship. Your health. Food. Fear. An old belief about yourself. Or something you’ve been avoiding for years.
You don’t need to have the next 30 years figured out.
Sometimes you just need enough courage to ask:
What am I distracting myself from — and what might become possible if I finally face it?
