Portrait 7: Some sobering thoughts

I’m an alcoholic. I remember somebody saying once that his girlfriend’s father is an alcoholic who’s been sober for 20 years. I immediately dismissed it because I didn’t understand how you can be an alcoholic when you haven’t had a drink for that long. I get it now. It’s always there. It’s always lurking. It’s dangerous.

When I started the PCT, I vowed that I wouldn’t have a drink until Oregon. I didn’t even come close. I have no regrets about that. I got to know the tramily - and other hikers - largely through drinking together in town. It wasn’t problematic drinking. It was social drinking. I wasn’t giving in to a need; I was satisfying a want. Those are things that addicts say, but I told myself I was in control.

I toed the dangerous line of being a social drinker. I’d allow myself to have a few cocktails with a friend. But then I’d follow that with an entire bottle of whiskey in my bedroom. I’ll be taking a trip into the forest for a few days this weekend. Like a lot of people, I find myself getting off-kilter from time to time. When I feel it, I go play in the wilderness. It doesn’t matter if it’s 10 miles at a county park or 100 miles in a national forest. I know that I need to be outside. When I started hiking, I quit obsessing over the next time I could be drunk. I don’t obsess about anything. I just hike. I’m present in the moment, and that moment is beautiful.