Good morning Reader—

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And welcome to the fourteenth issue of The FAM.

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Today is my one-year anniversary, 365 days of not drinking. But there’s more to the story than abstinence. This isn’t about what I gave up. It’s about what I reclaimed.
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Because that’s what letting go really is. It’s not loss—it’s alignment. It’s asking: Does this habit, this pattern, this comfort reflect the man I was born to be? And then having the courage to answer honestly.

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For me, that moment of honesty began years ago on a drive through the Columbia River Gorge, heading west in the We Supply America RV. The sun was rising behind me, and for a few precious miles, the world felt untouched. Water, mountains, light—pure, unbridled beauty. It wasn’t just a good view. It was sacred. The kind that nearly takes your breath away.
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But then—without warning—it changed.

The Truth of Lost Potential

As I turned south toward Portland, the cliffs gave way to city blocks. The river disappeared. And mile after mile, I saw tent encampments lining the streets. People hunched over. Debris scattered. Struggle laid bare in front of me.

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Such a stark opposite to what I’d witnessed only moments ago.

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I felt it in my chest. The tension. The heartbreak. The ache of witnessing lives unraveling in plain sight. Just a few miles back, I was surrounded by the unlimited potential of nature. Now, I was looking at a different kind of truth—one shaped by limitation, disconnection, and survival.

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And truthfully… I felt anger bubble to the surface. Mile after mile, those tents screamed to me of lost potential. Of individuals existing, but not truly living. And while that contrast struck me in the moment, I’ve come to see it as a metaphor for life itself.

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There is beauty and potentiality all around us—yet when we’re not whole, when for one reason or another we’ve dulled our senses and become disconnected from the unlimited possibilities that life provides, we miss it. We miss the beauty outside our window… but maybe even more importantly, we miss the beauty within ourselves. The beauty of our own potential.

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I sure did!

The Drift Into Numbness

We all have access to this beautiful life full of potential and joy… but we also face drifts that pull us away from that potential. And mine consistently took one form: a cold double IPA. And then another. And another.

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The IPAs had become a habit. And worse, part of my identity. I loved those IPAs. The bitterness. The ritual. The way they marked the end of a long day. To me, it wasn’t reckless—it was ordinary. Comfortable. Familiar.

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But what I didn’t face is that comfort was costing me my life. Not as in my heart was about to stop kind of life, but certainly another form of death.

Those beers I loved weren’t just relaxing me. They were dulling me. Dulling the edges of reflection. Of clarity. Of presence. Of growth. I didn’t just take the edge off stress—I took the edge off aliveness.

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One year ago today, I realized something I can no longer unsee: I had been choosing numbness over potential. That realization became an awakening—it called me to act. To change. To move towards my potential, not away from it.

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And today marks one year since I made that choice.

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365 days since I took my last sip.
365 days of being alcohol-free.
365 days of not just letting go of a drink—but reclaiming my identity.

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We all have something that dulls us and takes us further away from our potential. But there is a way to reclaim yourself.

What’s one habit or pattern that feels comfortable, but leaves you less than yourself?

This realization that led me to a year of living without what I once sought out, followed a simple, powerful formula:

Confession → Clarity → Agency.

Confession required admitting what was really going on. Full Stop! So let me say that again—Admitting what was really going on.

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Confessing that those IPAs I loved weren’t harmless—they were costing me everything. They were dulling me. They were dimming my light. They were holding me back from becoming who I yearned to be.

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I learned that you can’t change the trajectory of your life without taking the time to reflect, recognize, and confess what is actually holding you back. And my truth, and maybe yours too, is that I—nothing else—I was the cause of being less than I could be.

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Clarity meant asking the deeper question. For me that question has been bubbling up in me since I held my father in my arms as he took his last breath of life over two years ago. I have come to “know” since then, that the question I will ask with my last breath is: “Did I become the person I was born to be?”

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Now there is a deep and sobering question that I have fully embraced. With crystal clarity.

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There’s a line from Søren Kierkegaard, a philosopher who spent much of his life wrestling with what it means to live authentically. He wrote: “The greatest hazard of all: losing one’s self… as if it were nothing.”

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That’s what clarity revealed for me—I was in danger of losing myself, not in a dramatic collapse, but in the quiet compromises that numbed my very being.

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Agency meant choosing to act. Not as a punishment, not as discipline for its own sake, but as an act of alignment. A love letter to my future self.

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I think often of Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist who wrote Man’s Search for Meaning. He said: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

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Frankl knew suffering intimately. But he also knew something deeper: that meaning isn’t something we wait to find—it’s something we choose to create. Right here. Right now. In how we respond.

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That’s what agency looked like for me: meaning through response. Letting go wasn’t loss—it was liberation.

The Universality

And here’s the thing: this isn’t just about me. It’s not just about alcohol. It’s about all of us.

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We all have something that traps us in lesser versions of ourselves. Maybe it’s scrolling at midnight instead of resting. Maybe it’s the second glass of wine. Maybe it’s saying yes when you should say no. Maybe it’s overworking. Maybe it’s chasing validation. These aren’t always toxic behaviors—they’re simply patterns that have outlived their usefulness. They were once comforts, but now they come at a cost.

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When I shared my journey with a friend and mentor, Athens John, he shared something powerful: “Some of us don’t even know we’re in despair until we begin to wake up.”

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That was me. I didn’t even know how stuck I was until I started to question it. Waking up was the first step toward freedom.

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John also reminded me of an ancient Greek idea: within life itself, there’s a constant battle—love and construction on one side, power and deconstruction on the other. For me, alcohol was part of the deconstruction. It dissolved my clarity, my connection, my potential. Choosing to let it go was an act of love—a choice to build rather than erode.

Choosing to Embrace Identity

And this is where identity comes in.

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Because once you catch a glimpse of who you’re capable of becoming, it doesn’t let you go. It whispers to you. It nudges you. It shows up in the quiet moments—reminding you there’s more, and that you’re meant for it.

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For me, letting go of alcohol was an act of self-love. But more than that—it was a rebellion against mere existence. It was my way of saying: No more drift. No more dulling. No more delay.

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Become the person you were born to be.

Speaking of letting go…

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Several weeks ago, I got an email from Adriana. She had replied to one of our welcome notes about the human need to wake up to our lives again—with purpose, with presence, with fire.

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In her story I heard echoes of my own. She reminded me that we all face our own unique struggles—and that letting go takes many forms.

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Adriana told me she’s been at her work for decades. Long enough to build a business that, by most standards, looks successful. But behind the numbers and the reputation, she admitted something honest: she felt stuck.

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For her, the sticking point was scarcity. A mindset she’d carried since childhood. In many ways, it had been her fuel. It pushed her to work harder, build stronger, achieve more. Scarcity was her driver.

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But now? That same scarcity had become her chain. In her own words, it was “smacking me and keeping me half in, stuck between two worlds.”

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One part of her sees potential—the next chapter of her business and her life—waiting to unfold. The other part sees limitation still clinging to what’s familiar, even when it no longer serves her. And that’s the struggle so many of us face. What once protected us, propelled us, even defined us—eventually starts to hold us back.

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As I read Adriana’s words, I thought about how easy it is to mistake comfort for alignment. To keep doing what we’ve always done, even when something deep inside whispers: this isn’t it anymore.

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So let me ask you—have you ever felt that? That sense of being “half in, half out”? Of knowing there’s more waiting for you, but hesitating to step into it?

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Maybe, like Adriana, it’s a mindset. Maybe, like me, it’s a habit. Or maybe it’s simply a way of being that once carried you here—but won’t carry you where you’re meant to go next.

We’ve all got our version of an IPA. Adriana’s was scarcity. Yours might be something else. The details don’t matter as much as the truth behind it: when we hold on too tightly, we hold ourselves back. ​ This week’s tool is a guided reflection to help you name your struggle and take one small, meaningful step toward letting it go. It’s not about loss. It’s about alignment. About choosing to create space for the life that’s been waiting for you all along. If something stirred in you as you read today, don’t ignore it. Start here.

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In July of 2023, I read the book The Legend of Bagger Vance: A Novel of Golf and the Game of Life. It’s an inspiring story about becoming the person you were born to be.

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In my journal that day, I copied these words from the story:
​“…The deeper imperative of life. Life is action. Even choosing not to act, we act. We cannot do otherwise. Therefore act with vigor…Stand now and take your place. Do honor to yourself and to your station.”

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Pretty powerful words in my mind.

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They struck me deeply then, and they strike me now as I type them out again. Because beneath that entry, I scribbled my own reflection:

“Even when you want to quit life—you can’t. Walk away now, get drunk now, and tomorrow life is right in your face again. You can’t quit. Life is action. Even if you don’t act, you act. Therefore act with VIGOR!”

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That entry was about more than action—it was about agency. About realizing that even numbness is a choice. Even drift is an action. And that if I want to live fully alive, I must choose differently.

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That’s what letting go has been for me. Not an act of denial, but of alignment. Confession. Clarity. Agency. Choosing construction over deconstruction. Choosing identity over drift.

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You can’t quit life. But you can choose how you’ll meet it. With avoidance, or with vigor. With drift, or with presence. With half-volume living—or with the full aliveness that’s been waiting for you all along.

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Here’s to becoming the person you were born to be.

P.S. What’s your IPA? We all have something that quietly dulls our aliveness. If something came to mind while reading, I’d love to hear it—just hit reply and share. And if you know someone who’s been settling for half-volume living, forward this along. Sometimes a simple reminder can change everything.

We’re on a mission to empower one million people to live Fully Alive, and you’re one of them!