FlUSHED
FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT. PHOTO: STEVE ROGERS
A SOBERING TRUTH BY ANONYMOUS
Eighteen months ago, I shattered six vertebrae after one bad stroke off the lip of a 40-foot drop in the Royal Gorge. One month later, I at- tended the funeral of my paddling hero and role model, Boyce Greer. In September, my close friend and accomplished paddler, Alan Panebaker, drowned on a rapid on the Pemigewasset that we often bombed without a second thought. I’m left wondering why I kayak. Do the rewards justify the risks? Have I simply replaced my addiction to alcohol with an addic- tion to whitewater? Before kayaking, I spent 10 years of my life pursuing alcohol. I was
secretly proud when my girlfriend told me that I had been hospitalized with a blood-alcohol level significantly above the normal fatal level yet still managed to get to work the next day.
Like most, when I was drinking, I only thought about myself. I claimed I
was only hurting myself, ignoring the concerns of my family and friends. I was living in the moment and when the drinking got worse, I said I wanted to escape reality. When my friends died in drunk driving and from suicidal drinking, I came up with excuses about how they were different from me. Then I drank to celebrate their lives. I stopped drinking a little over six years ago. Not knowing how to enjoy life, I started kayaking, another escape from the doldrums of the daily grind.
82 RAPID SPRING 2013
Again, I find myself risking my life. I’m telling myself that it is my life to do with what I want, once again setting aside the concerns of my family and loved ones. I think about kayaking when I get up in the morning and while I am at work. Almost every fight I get into with my girlfriend is cen- tered on boating. My friends are dead and she and I have no reason to be- lieve that the exact same thing will not happen to me the next time it rains. But I still go—sometimes to celebrate the life of another lost paddler. In my drinking days, I was a recluse, leaving home only to buy more al- cohol. Since, I have developed an undeniable love of life that is infectious to those around me. I have spent summers kayaking down the spring- fed rivers of the Sierra Nevada. I have paddled down giant, blind class V rapids on Tatlow Creek in British Columbia, using a piece of scrap paper in a Ziploc for directions. I have surfed from state to state, introducing myself as a friend of so-and-so, meeting up with strangers to go paddle. I have driven 10 hours to Quebec to face the isolation of the Taureau and then drove back home through the night. Boyce once said, “I had more fun on Saturday than most people have all year.” I strive to live these words every time I paddle. The addiction of kayaking for me is about living life, and though I do not feel any rapid is worth dying over, I am not willing to give up the adventure, friendships or exhilaration that has been my life since I got sober and started paddling. If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, visit the Nation- al Institute of Health website for alcohol treatment at
www.niaaa.nih.gov.
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