{"id":1419,"date":"2010-03-28T17:15:08","date_gmt":"2010-03-28T22:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/?p=1419"},"modified":"2019-06-07T13:42:04","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T17:42:04","slug":"h-t-riekels-the-alcoholic-is-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/h-t-riekels-the-alcoholic-is-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"H.T. Riekels the alcoholic is dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
H.T. stopped drinking and smoking, but still likes a good cigar once in a while.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nToday H.T. Riekels is a vegetarian Buddhist working 60 hours a week as a restaurant manager, spending his rare spare time blogging, biking and deepening his spiritual studies.
\nQuite a contrast from a few years ago, when he went to jail for crashing his mother\u2019s car while drunk and ended up broke and homeless.
\n\u201cThe guy I used to be is dead,\u201d H.T. says with cool detachment. He didn\u2019t just stop drinking after decades of alcoholism, he transformed his entire life.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to just beat the substance abuse,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a totally different thing to go to the root of what\u2019s wrong.\u201d
\nWhat was wrong for him, as with many addicts, was a potent combination of being an egomaniac with a massive inferiority complex.
\nH.T. is one of my husband\u2019s oldest friends. They met in preschool in North Muskegon, Mich. and have stayed close for four decades, though for a time John nearly wrote H.T. off. John felt he\u2019d lost his friend to drinking and found it painful to try to maintain the friendship.
\nH.T. started drinking in high school but says, \u201cI wasn\u2019t one of those wastoids.\u201d It was when he got to Michigan State University and joined a fraternity that he feels he began to get in trouble.
\n
\"\"<\/a>
H.T. at a party circa senior year in high school.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nHe recalls his desperate desire to belong, and an atmosphere where it felt cool to drink and smoke pot. He suffered a couple of panic attacks at MSU, which he thinks were related to his drinking, and his drinking had interfered with work and with his relationship with a girlfriend, yet he convinced himself it was just a typical college phase.
\nHe even quit drinking for a month to try to convince himself he was in control.
\n
\"\"
H.T. thinks his real trouble with drinking started in college, when the fraternity scene fostered getting drunk and high.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nH.T. dropped out without graduating and moved to Chicago, becoming a roommate in an apartment John got after finishing at Michigan.
\nHe realized then he had a problem, \u201cbut we were young guys living in Chicago.
\n\u201cI thought, \u2018I do drink a lot but I\u2019m a functional alcoholic,\u2019\u201d H.T. remembers. He held a job, paid his rent, had friends.
\nHe met his wife, Robin, in a bar. They were married for three years.
\nHe describes gravitating toward other drinkers who validated his lifestyle, and says he and Robin had little in common besides drinking and sex.
\n\u201cWere either of us doing this for the right reasons?\u201d he asks, adding that alcoholics often make choices so their lifestyle reinforces that their behavior is normal. Everyone around them drinks so they\u2019re just fine, right?
\nWhen their marriage ended, he acknowledged he was an alcoholic, but didn\u2019t care.
\n\u201c I thought, \u2018I don\u2019t care if I have a problem. Fuck it, I deserve this.\u2019\u201d He said. \u201cI pretty much had a death wish but I was too wimpy to go through with it.\u201d
\nH.T. lived many more years this way, sometimes hoping his life might magically get better or looking for outward things like women or jobs to rescue him, embracing the knowledge that he drank too much.
\nHe moved back to Muskegon, living on his own for a while, but ending up living with his parents because he couldn\u2019t keep a place.
\nThen came the day when he took his mother\u2019s car, drunk, without permission, and crashed it. He didn\u2019t have a license at the time.
\nThe jail time meant he had to sober up for the first time in a very long time.
\n\u201cI had no reason to hold on to my previous life,\u201d H.T. said. \u201cThe freedom of that allowed me to get there.\u201d
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t have anything to lose,\u201d he said. He was broke before the crash, and not wanting to go back to his parents, he was homeless.
\nHaving a clear head, he began to think differently. H.T. realized his expectations of life were phony, and he was using them as crutches.
\n\u201cI went, \u2018That\u2019s all bullshit. There\u2019s no script. There is no way it\u2019s supposed to be.\u2019\u201d
\nIf he continued to believe things were supposed to be a certain way, and he wasn\u2019t living up to those plans, \u201cyou\u2019re doomed to failure every time.\u201d
\nHe resolved to stop drinking. But first, he tested himself. His first day out of jail after three months in, he went and bought a bottle.
\nHe got drunk and slept outside that night. Hating it. \u201cI couldn\u2019t wait for it to be over. Everything I found appealing about it before wasn\u2019t there.\u201d
\nHe knows he was playing with fire. He hasn\u2019t told many friends he drank that night and he certainly doesn\u2019t recommend it for others who\u2019ve dried out. But for him, it put a period on the end of the sentence. He felt freed from alcohol for good.
\n
\"\"<\/a>
After H.T. sobered up, he biked from Muskegon to Ann Arbor to celebrate his birthday at Ann Arbor Art Fair. Here he is with me, permanent John and the portajohns.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nH.T. didn\u2019t feel a sense of urgency about rebuilding his life. He was staying at a homeless shelter, didn\u2019t have a job or money, but his days felt full. He was applying for jobs, but also just walking around feeling grateful. He read at the library. He meditated in the park.
\n\u201cI\u2019d never been happier in my life,\u201d he said.
\nH.T. said he learned from Deepak Chopra<\/a> that people battling addiction often suffer a fundamental lack of joy in living. Substances dull the pain of life without pleasure. When H.T. first began rehab, his counselors offered him antidepressants to cope.
\n\u201cI just thought, \u2018How about I figure out what\u2019s wrong and fix that?\u2019\u201d
\nWith that, he set out to find satisfaction in his life, beginning with simply enjoying being alive.
\nAfter landing a waiter job, he saved up to buy a bike for transportation, the first time he\u2019d ever saved for a major purchase. He got a small apartment, the first time he\u2019d ever lived alone.
\nHe bought a computer and began adding to his music collection, then combined the two when he started blogging about prog rock, first for Progressive Archives<\/a>, then on his own blog, <\/span><\/a>The Bodhisattva Beat.<\/a>
\n\u201cWriting about the music I love has taken over a large part of my existence,\u201d H.T. said. That\u2019s been part of building a new life, letting it unfold in new directions, rather than trying to regain what was lost.
\nMoving to Ann Arbor, a more cultured city than Muskegon, gave him the opportunity to study Buddhism at a temple instead of from books and to wait tables at better restaurants. After establishing himself locally, he got promoted into management at Mediterrano<\/a> in Ann Arbor.
\nHe\u2019s gotten his driver\u2019s license back and bought a car, but continues to bike for transportation and pleasure when he can.
\n\u201cIt would be unnatural not to regret, but honestly I really don\u2019t feel I could have done it any other way,\u201d H.T. said. \u201cI wish I could have burned my life to the ground earlier.
\n\u201cWish as I may, the road I traveled was of my own making. It couldn’t have happened any other way. Oddly enough, I am also grateful. Had I not gone through that hell, would I have been driven to the same revelations?\u201d
\nIf you think you might have a drinking problem, or you know you do, check out Alcoholics Anonymous<\/a>. AA has some questions<\/a> to help you decide if you might have a problem.<\/strong>
\n—–
\n<\/strong>
\nDid you like this post? <\/strong>
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Today H.T. Riekels is a vegetarian Buddhist working 60 hours a week as a restaurant manager, spending his rare spare time blogging, biking and deepening his spiritual studies. Quite a contrast from a few years ago, when he went to jail for crashing his mother\u2019s car while drunk and ended up broke and homeless. \u201cThe guy I used to be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[56],"tags":[74,144,145,318,323,455,734,1107,1339,1558,2130,2154,2280,2293,2456],"yoast_head":"\nH.T. 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