Beyond the Buzz: My Transition to an Alcohol-Free Stage

Alright, pull up a chair, or find your patch of grass. We’re diving a bit deeper today. I want to talk about something that’s a huge part of my story: transitioning from the musician who lived for the social buzz of bars and gigs – a scene soaked in alcohol – to the guy I am now, still a musician, still with the same dreams, but navigating it all alcohol-free.

It wasn’t a conscious choice, not at first. There was no gentle easing into a “sober curious” lifestyle for me. My wake-up call came with a liver disease diagnosis, a brutal confrontation with the reality that my body was failing. One minute, I was living that life, and the next, I woke up in a hospital, a week and a half of my life just gone, my liver and kidneys giving out, my mind reeling from toxins and the hell of withdrawals – hallucinations and all.

Suddenly, alcohol wasn't just off the table; it was yanked away. And that change, that abrupt halt to what had become a crutch for navigating social settings, for breaking down barriers, or just for existing in the music world, was unsettling. Unnerving. It left a void, a hell of a void, especially when you’re already wrestling with depression and the kind of boredom that, for an alcoholic, often leads right back to the bottle.

In those early days, nearly four years ago now, the silence was deafening. I didn’t have much of a support system. Friends might reply to a text, but getting someone to actually show up, to sit in that void with me, wasn’t easy. Family? Communicating with them was tough; maybe they didn’t know how to reach me, the real me, buried under everything else. I felt incredibly alone. And it strikes me now, looking back, that no one – not one person – ever mentioned rehab, treatment programs, or any formal kind of help. It just wasn't part of the conversation.

So here I am, a musician, still playing in bars, still surrounded by people drinking. And you know what? You have to learn to find the true fabric of happiness woven into the everyday things. It’s not always easy. When you lose a lot – and believe me, I lost a lot when all this went down, things I’m still not quite ready to talk about – when you hit that rock bottom, you’ve got two choices: find a way to see the beauty in the simplest of things, or let the darkness consume you.

I couldn’t let it consume me. My son needs me. There are people around me who need me.

And I feel like a lot of you reading this, maybe even listening if this ever becomes an audio piece or watching if it turns into a video, need to know you’re not alone. That was a massive deal for me. I felt alone. I was alone for a long time. But as I got better, as I started to heal, I found myself in a position to actually help others. And I’ll go above and beyond, every single time. I believe in putting out the energy into the universe that you want to receive back. If even a fraction of the energy I’ve put out for others these last few years comes back to me, I’ll be an even luckier man than I already am.

And I am lucky. I’m incredibly lucky to have my son, Connor, to look after, to have him look up to me. I’m fortunate to be here for him, to be his dad. And I’m fortunate to be able to be here for a lot of you, in whatever way I can.

This idea of finding beauty in the simplest things, it reminds me so much of my mother. Towards the end, as her cancer progressed, she wasn't able to get outside much. She loved the outdoors. She was mostly confined to her recliner or her bed. My dad had got her one of those Jazzy scooters. The ones you sit in and drive yourself around. It was expensive, and he knew she might only use it for a month or two, but he got it for her.

I remember she called me one morning, real early. It was hard for her to call then, so I answered quick. She told me, with this quiet joy in her voice, that Dad had helped her onto that scooter that morning, and she’d gone out onto the porch to watch the sunrise. She said, "Deep down, I love to see that sunrise.” I didn’t know that. Ever since I could remember, she slept through the morning and would be up all hours of the night. She went on to tell me how she always liked to sit and listen, to be still and pay attention to nature waking up around her – the animals, the bugs, the trees, the plants starting to bloom again. It was in that moment, for the first time, I understood the basis of the connection between my mother and me. We shared a passion for the beauty of life.

And then she laid probably the best piece of wisdom on me she ever did. She said, “Don’t you ever lose the ability to appreciate and enjoy the magic that it takes for us to be fortunate enough to be able to sit and witness it, even one time. It is such an incredible thing."

My mother was my rock, my best friend. I protected her as much as I could, but I couldn’t protect her from that cancer. And that’ll make a grown man feel absolutely useless, powerless. I know she wouldn’t want me to keep living a life that was destroying me. She supported any and every dream I ever had, including a life filled with making music.

So now, my goal is to live in a way that honors her, that leads by example. Hopefully, it inspires those around me to find their own moments of specialness, something as intangible and beautiful as that sunrise was for my mother.

Thank you for reading, sincerely. Stay tuned for the next one.

For now… I’m out here. Peace.

Jeremy