Meet John "Living With" Alcoholism!
He's awesome...
Hi, I’m John. To date I’ve run 127 marathons and ultra
marathons. I’m also an alcoholic and drug addict.
I was born in 1960 and had a happy, normal childhood, so
it’s a bit of a mystery as to why I suddenly and powerfully became addicted to
alcohol when I started drinking as a student at Ohio State University. Looking
back, I guess I realized from the get-go that my reaction to booze was
different from that of my partying friends. I always wanted more and I didn’t
seem to know when to quit, but in those days it didn’t really matter; I was
having too much fun.
Or at least happily for the next 11 years. With sobriety my
life completely turned around. I had returned to Ohio State, completed my degree
and began working as a computer programmer. Eventually a friend and I started what
turned out to be a successful consulting company. My health returned and I took
up cycling. I even ran a few marathons and might have enjoyed the races had I
trained properly.
But then life, as it does for everyone at some point, got
bumpy. The business struggled in the post 9/11 recession and I struggled with a
long distance relationship – like really long distance, she lived in Russia. I
found myself under a lot of stress and this anxiety awoke a long dormant demon
that I had more or less forgotten about. One day in early 2004 I found myself
staring at a common piece of junk email that advertised a variety of
anti-anxiety medicines that could be ordered from an overseas pharmacy without
a prescription. I placed the first of what would be dozens and dozens of orders
for a drug called alprazolam, a.k.a. Xanax.
Thus I relapsed and in the next 2 years I managed to wipe
out everything that I had built during my 11 years of sobriety. In March 2006 I
found myself again in treatment, this time for 3 months at a facility called
Shepherd Hill in Newark, Ohio.
I credit Shepherd Hill and my parents, who got me there,
with saving my life. Shepherd Hill had a fantastic program with a wonderful
staff. Along with counseling, group
sessions and educational classes, we were obliged to spend one hour every
afternoon exercising at a nearby fitness center. I always headed straight to
the treadmill. At first I could only handle 10 or 15 minutes at a slow, painful
pace, but each drop of sweat I generated felt like a drop of poison leaving my
body. The running also distracted me from my withdrawal pains, from the rebound
anxiety and from the guilt over the things I had done the last two years. So I
kept it up, and three months later I was able to run 6 miles on that treadmill
in an hour.
After I finished the program I stayed in Newark, where I
live to this day. I remember that first year of recovery as a tough and
sometimes dark one. In the beginning it felt great just to feel healthy, to be
able to sleep and to greet the morning sunlight instead of cringing from it. But
gradually this elation began to wear off and I had to deal with the consequences
of the previous two years. One of these consequences was the loss of my
driver's license as the result of a DUI. What I then thought of as a curse, I
now regard as a great gift from the State of Ohio for it forced me to bicycle for
an entire year – and my body grew stronger.
Towards the end of 2006 (and remembering my time on the
treadmill while in treatment), I began wondering if I could possibly run a
marathon. I downloaded a marathon training schedule and followed it rigorously
for the next 4 months. Thirteen months after I had checked into rehab and in
celebration of my first year of recovery, I ran the 2007 Cincinnati Flying Pig
Marathon. And two weeks after that, I ran the Cleveland Marathon.
On January 15th, 2012, at the Louisiana Marathon
in Baton Rouge, I ran my 52nd marathon in 365 days, earning my 10th
Marathon Maniac star. I had achieved what I once thought was impossible. Two
months later, on March 22nd, 2012, I again celebrated what I not
long ago thought was impossible: 6 years clean and sober. I guess it’s natural
to try and draw a comparison between the two, to ask which one was more
difficult, but the truth is there really isn’t much of a comparison to be made.
Running 52 marathons in a year was easier than getting and staying sober. A whole
lot easier.
-John-
