I had not talked to Scott in the almost-two years since we spent a month together at Parker Valley Hope rehab. However I have thought about him almost every day. While there, I learned that he was a handyman. But it also came out that he was a fine-arts major at college. It being my “job” while at rehab was organizing the arts and crafts area housed in the laundry room, a lot of patients started grabbing the beautiful landscaping river rocks and painting them. “Scott, do you want to paint a picture of Fiona on a rock?” I asked him? He kindly obliged. So the rock and the sketch he did on scrap paper beforehand are now favorite items in my house.

I called Scott to come over to do a bunch of projects. But I didn’t know until he was here whether or not he was still sober. So many people in our group have not been successful. But thankfully, Scott has been. And he kindly agreed to letting me share his story.

Scott had been a casual drinker. But in his late thirties, that changed, and he started drinking increased quantities more regularly. “It just escalated,” he says. It didn’t help that he hung out with people who also drank all the time.

Scott is a handyman-extraordinairre, in that he does electrical, plumbing, carpentry…you name it. “I consider myself a home problem solver. If a homeowner is having an issue, I come in and fix it.” As such, he’s his own boss. His day starts early, and ends early. That’s when he would end up in the bars with other tradesmen, his “friends,” and drink. And then there were the years that his wife, Heidi, went to school to become a dental hygienist. “She was either in classes or studying, so I had a lot of alone time,” says Scott. So there was even more alone time to drink. Scott estimates that he was drinking the equivalent of a quart of vodka every day.

He hid the extent of his drinking from Heidi because he knew it was so out of control.  This went on for about a few years, he says, before trouble set in. First there was the DUI.

He was at the bar at closing, 2AM. This was pre-Uber, and no taxis were available. He figured he knew the route home well so he would drive. Alas, the police stopped him, saying that he was swerving. “I didn’t think I was, of course,” says Scott. While the legal limit is .08, Scott blew a 2.0, so hard that even though it was a first offense he  received a harsh sentence: for a year he would attend weekly classes and would have to use an interlock, the device you blow into to start your car. During this time he stopped drinking  but once the interlock was removed, Scott started drinking again. “I wasn’t rehabilitated so it didn’t stick,” he says. “It wasn’t my choice to quit. I thought the whole DUI was unfair and not my fault,” he says.

Then, he says, he became a smarter drinker. He stuck to a neighborhood, walking-distance bar, drank at home and he started using a breathalyzer.  By then he had developed such a high physical tolerance that he would wake up still “drunk” from the night before. “I had to wait to go to work in the morning,” he says.

He tried to stop but the alcohol withdrawals would be so horrible. “I would get the shakes and a lot of anxiety, so I’d pick it right back up,” he says. One time he quit cold turkey he remembers his skin turning red and having the shakes. Then, at one point, he started seeing stars. “The next thing I knew I woke up in the hospital,” he says. Scott suffered from alcohol withdrawal seizures. Thankfully his wife, who suddenly became aware of the extent of his issues, was home at the time and called 911. After 2 days of detox at the hospital he came home and he went three weeks without drinking. “It scared me, but obviously not enough,” he says. “I reasoned I could drink moderately.” But instead his it got exponentially worse and he was drinking more than he ever was.

By then he was pretty desperate for help. “It took me a long time to figure out that I needed a more long-term solution. After all, I had a DUI, withdrawal seizures and a hospitalization. I was a slow learner,” he says. His fear of having another seizure is finally what led him to check himself in for detox and rehab, both a Parker Valley Hope, in Parker, Colorado. 

Scott doesn’t remember his first days there in detox well. “I was in detox 3-4 days. I was just really uncomfortable, laying in that back dorm room with the other patients. They give you Librium and Lorazapam because your nerves are so fried, and that’s what got me through it,” he says.

Afterward, he spent the full 28 days at rehab. “The time there with counseling made me understand, in hindsight, my whole lifetime of addictive behavior, even going back to my teenage years,” he says. “I had never recognized it before.”

While some of the classes were helpful, what he found most beneficial was connecting with other patients. “There were so many different people, and you felt a sense of strength with numbers” he says. “Before I always thought I’m not one of ‘those’ people [who go to rehab] and then I recognized there are not ‘those’ people. They’re just people who are addicted, like me.” Scott says it was important for him to be there the full month. “My habit didn’t evolve overnight so I couldn’t expect it to miraculously disappear in the matter of days. I’m glad I stayed the course.”

After leaving Parker Valley Hope, Scott participated in a follow-up Intensive Outpatient program (IOP) three times a week for 8 weeks.

Scott faced challenges post-programs. Sleeping wasn’t great, and still isn’t, he says. And everywhere he turned there were triggers: bars, liquor stores, watching TV shows or movies. And though his wife and Dad did a sweep of his house to rid it of alcohol, he was still finding his well-hidden stashes all over.

“There were a lot of ‘white knuckle’ moments,” he says. Plus, while the physical aspects of alcohol dependence were gone after 28 days, Scott says it was tough to deal with the mental shame. “I have constantly questioned why and how this happened.”

Scott found idle time was hard, so he immersed himself into his own home remodel. And while he tried AA meetings, he found they just didn’t work for him. Instead he checked in with fellow patients from PVH and started listening to daily podcasts by comedian Marc Moran and actor Russell Brand, both former addicts, something he continues to today. This has obviously worked for Scott, who is now almost 2-years sober.

Scott also credits his wife for his success. “Heidi stuck with me always,” he says. “She had the attitude that ‘this is your problem, I do not know what is going on in your head. So you deal with it.” Scott says his recovery has been easier since his wife doesn’t drink, so that there is not the temptation of alcohol around the house.

Scott says he respects the fragility of sobriety and considers it a daily challenge to stay clean. Since he is an addict, there’s no going back to being a ‘casual’ drinker.’  “I have so much regret about my drinking days that I know it’s a life I can’t return to,” he says. “Instead he’s happy to show his best self, and live his best life.

The sketch Scott drew pre-rock drawing…I love this too!