Six Years Sober: Coming Out as Sober, Staying Honest, and Six Truths I’ve Learned

A few days ago I turned six years sober. Six fucking years! No field trips, no take-backs, no “let me just have one” intermissions. To celebrate, I—and yes, this took months of mental rehearsal—went public. Instagram post, caption, small chest-thump, and then a weird mix of terror and relief. I felt like I was coming out all over again.

Coming out as gay was never a giant, traumatic reveal for me; it was mostly a quietly mutual understanding with people who knew me. But coming out as sober? That felt like a whole new kind of exposure. Who would judge me? Would someone Google me and discover my history of guzzling wine? What if a future employer found my meth era on a sketchy forum? This wasn’t a secret I could tuck back in my pocket.

And the other thing—the more honest, more tender thing—was the spiritual anxiety. For me, anonymity has always been one of my greatest spiritual practices. I’ve long been drawn to the Sufi way of spirituality: be in this world, but not of this world. That’s what recovery felt like to me in the beginning. Sacred. Untouchable. I was terrified that if I started naming it, documenting it, making it public, I’d lose the essence of what made it holy in the first place. I loved the privacy of those quiet hours between me, myself, and God. I loved that recovery could live off-grid, away from applause or algorithms. I didn’t want to become some “sobriety influencer” with platitudes, soft filters, or thirty-day selfies staged like fashion campaigns. That felt like desecration.

But there’s a line I kept hearing in meetings and whispers—recover out loud. At first it sounded like an order to perform, to strip my journey of its sacredness. But over time, my heart started to hear it differently; not as a command, but as an invitation. To recover out loud doesn’t mean blasting every detail of your story for clout; it means embodying recovery so fully that others can see a path they didn’t know was possible. It means being visible without being performative. Boundaried, but available. Courageous, but humble.

When I finally came out about my sobriety, it wasn’t ego that pushed me, but rather a quiet sense of responsibility. If one lonely man scrolling at 2 a.m. sees my story and decides to hold on for one more day, then breaking my anonymity was worth the risk.

How to Celebrate Without Wearing Sobriety Like a Trophy

Going public with my sobriety didn’t mean I’d plaster it across billboards. I wanted to be useful, not performative. So my guidelines were:

• Tell people who mattered first (friends, family) — those who love me even when I’m ugly.

• Share publicly with humility and a clear reason: to destigmatize and to offer hope.

• Keep sacred things sacred; not every meeting, not every feeling, needs an audience.

It felt good to celebrate with that balance. I posted a picture, a few honest lines, and then let it be. People messaged with love. A few made weird jokes. Mostly, it felt like gravity finding its proper center again.

So here are six truths I’ve learned; one for each year of this messy, gorgeous, unadulterated recovery. They’re ugly, funny, holy, and true. Read them, steal them, argue with them, just don’t do nothing. And if you’re new to sobriety, take them slow like they’re hot coals: you walk, you don’t run.

Truth One: It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better

People don’t talk about this enough: sobriety is often harder than active addiction! At least at first. When I put down the drugs and alcohol, I expected relief. What I got was bloody hell.

The first 30 days were just my brain thawing out after years of frying itself. Then the real shitstorm began. I was like a newborn being birthed into a too-bright world, raw and slimy, blinded by fluorescent hospital lights. I hated the sound of my own voice. Every nerve ending was electric.

And then the mental wreckage hit. All the things I’d been running from came back with a vengeance. I started processing a breakup with an ex from two years earlier for the first time. I realized I’d walked out on jobs—or was I fired? I couldn’t even remember. I was thousands of dollars in debt. I was in fucking Idaho. How did I even get to Idaho?

I was a baby, flailing and screaming, with no idea how to live. I wanted alcohol more than anything in the world, just to make it stop. My body didn’t experience a full night of sleep for eight damn months. My brain was still in fragments from the psychosis I’d fallen into in the final months of my using... hallucinations so complex and deep they blurred into reality.

It took nine months (an entire pregnancy) to feel even a glimpse of integration. Nine months before I could say, “Guys, I think I’m back.” I literally shared in a meeting for my 9-month celebration that it felt like my brain and body were in the same place at the same time, for the first time ever. I still ask myself how I even made it through those first 9 months, how I managed to stay. The answer is, I stayed because I chose to trust blindly that one day I’d build a life so unrecognizable this pain would be worth it.

Truth Two: Most People Don’t Make It (So Stick With the Winners)

This one hurts, but it’s true: most people don’t stay sober. I’ve seen more relapses than I can count. In early recovery, I gravitated toward the loud, wild personalities, the fun ones, the edgy ones. They made sobriety feel so colorful and exciting! And nearly every single one them relapsed.

It took me years to understand “principles before personalities.” The people I needed to stick with weren’t always the most entertaining. They were the steady ones. The quiet ones. The ones whose lives reflected what I wanted: stability, peace, authenticity.

That’s who I stay close to now. Those are the people who show up for me, no matter what. Sober or not, in the rooms or outside, these are the friendships that last.

The truth? Recovery rates are grim. Studies show that about 40–60% of people relapse within the first year. Long-term sobriety is rare. That’s why who you surround yourself with matters so fucking much. Stay close to the winners.

Truth Three: You Can Forgive, and You Can Be Forgiven

I never thought I was worthy of forgiveness. My transgressions were too dark, too damaging. I genuinely believed I was the one exception! The addict who could never make amends, never get right with the wreckage of his past. That belief kept me sick.

What I didn’t understand then is that making amends too quickly can be dangerous. A lot of work has to happen internally before you ever utter the words “I’m sorry.” If you don’t have a spiritual practice to keep you grounded, or if you haven’t done the internal repair work first, a rejection can send you spiraling right back into relapse.

Forgiveness isn’t something you can rush, and it’s a process that begins with yourself. Thank God I didn’t try to do it alone. I worked through this under the care of a sponsor in a 12-step program. There was a roadmap to follow, one that thousands had walked before me. It wasn’t the only way, but it gave me structure, accountability, and a hand to hold when I didn’t trust myself to walk this path.

Through that process, I discovered that forgiveness was possible—not just from others, but for myself. I also learned that resentments, no matter how justified they felt, were nothing but poison coursing through me. Some of my hate was earned, some wasn’t, but all of it kept me shackled to the past.

When I finally let go and cultivated the capacity to forgive, and experienced forgiveness, I for the first time ever, began to believe I was capable of being loved. And that I could in return love back. I was set free completely.

Today, I make amends quickly. I communicate clearly when I’ve been wronged. I try to keep a clean conscience, because carrying the opposite nearly killed me. Forgiveness is not weakness; it’s survival.

Truth Four: Life Is Harder Sober (And That’s the Point)

Life was easier when I could blame everything on the drugs. I wasn’t responsible. I was just a passenger, dragged along by the next high, with substances making every decision for me.

Sobriety flipped that on its head. Suddenly, I was the one in the driver’s seat. Every choice, every mistake, every reaction, tt was all mine. Umm, terrifying!

And the awareness? Brutal. My brain snapped back online like a vengeful god. I went from sleepwalking through life on reptilian instincts to hyper-consciousness, aware of every detail, every consequence. Everything felt harder. More complicated.

But here’s the thing: I also became the architect of my own life. I get to decide what happens. Who I engage with. Where I go. What I build. It’s heavier, yes, but it’s freedom. Sobriety is not the easy road, but it’s the only one worth walking.

Truth Five: Being Sober Is Sexy as Hell

You know what’s actually sexy? Alignment and Integration.

Someone who has faced every skeleton in the closet, dragged every demon into the light, and integrated all of it—that’s sexy. Someone who’s the same person every time you meet them, whose words and actions match, who does what they say they’ll do—that’s sexy.

Sobriety is sexy because it breeds authenticity. Confidence. Comfort in your own skin. Spiritual depth. A sober man can sit with himself in silence, meditate for ten minutes, and not run from what he finds. That kind of intimacy with self? Woof.

Sobriety strips away the masks and leaves you with the raw, real human underneath. And that is the sexiest thing on earth.

Truth Six: Remembering the Scared Little Boy in Your Final Use Keeps You Humble

Six years sober doesn’t make me an expert. It makes me a witness.

When I’m coming up on a milestone, when life is moving fast, or when I catch my ego starting to inflate, I pause and remember that night where I spent my last withdrawal on a living room floor. The night I was shaking, sweating, and screaming out for God to help me survive one more round of withdrawal. I also remember it when I see a newcomer walk through the door, raw and desperate, carrying the same terror I once carried.

That boy—scared and broken—is still a part of me. And I keep him close on purpose. Not to wallow in shame, but to stay right-sized. Because the truth is, one bottle of wine could put me right back there in six weeks. Remembering who I was protects me from the illusion that I’m cured. It keeps me humble enough to know that recovery isn’t guaranteed, but rather something I choose every day.

Remembrance, for me, is a spiritual practice. It keeps me grounded in the truth that I’m still capable of becoming that broken version of myself again. And by remembering who I was, I can more humbly embrace who I’m becoming.

Final Words

This next chapter is about letting that pain of my past become a platform from which others can benefit: a hellish love story I tell so somebody else doesn’t have to stay silent. I’ve been given a second life and if my messy honesty, my stupid jokes, my horrifying confessions, or my small triumphs help one man believe he can get to morning without drinking, then I’ve done my job.

So here’s to six years. Here’s to the scared boy who cried out for God. Here’s to the man who keeps showing up. And here’s to you, wherever you are in this story. You don’t have to do it alone. And if you ever need someone to witness your scream for help, I’ll be here, loud, imperfect, and sober as hell.

Extra: Small Exercises You Can Do This Week

1. Inventory the last 7 days. Where did you feel triggered? Who was present? What thought pattern returned? Write it down.

2. Three gratitude calls. Call three people and thank them for one small thing. Not a text. A voice. Real connection.

3. Role play the future you. For one minute a day, visualize the version of you that’s 3 years sober. What do they do differently? Act as if.

6 years sober, shirtless running around the jungles of Colombia per usual.