Andrew Zimmern: To a sobriety sherpa from your friend Andrew Zimmern
Andrew Zimmern is an Emmy- and four-time James Beard Award-winning TV personality, chef and author. Thirty years sober, he’s also an advocate for those recovering from and struggling with addiction.
Here, he writes to a friend, who he refers to by a pseudonym out of respect for his privacy. September is National Recovery Month.
Dear Larry,
I didn’t always know what I know now. In fact, during the first 32 years of my life, I thought I knew everything. I was a self-centered, self-assured, ego-driven schmuck.
The truth was, when left to my own devices and managing my own life, I was almost guaranteed to mess it up. Making my own decisions — the real ones, not the “should I have a toasted or plain bagel this morning” decisions — got me into trouble. I made decisions based on self that would either lead to me hurting myself or other people. During my first week at the treatment center in Minnesota, they gave me a notebook and like a deranged Jack Nicholson in “The Shining,” I remember writing over and over again that I felt hopeless and didn’t want to hurt people anymore.
At Hazelden (now Hazelden-Betty Ford), they tell you that the most important thing to maintaining lasting sobriety is to form a relationship with something bigger than yourself. For a guy who at that point had only really had a meaningful relationship with myself, the mere idea of finding something else, anything else, was a new and intimidating prospect. For some people, that relationship leans into one with an established God of your own understanding or some sort of religious practice. I was a Jewish kid from New York City, I didn’t pray on my knees, I had no faith in anything except my chemicals and that was deeply misplaced. I’ve never looked up to the sky and seen the clouds part and heard the voice of a man who looks like Santa Claus’s brother whisper in my ear. I thought I was doomed.
In a way, I was jealous of those whose higher power looked like the pictures in the Sistine Chapel – a grey beard with all the answers. As I went to the groups and the lectures, it seemed to be a running thread. Everyone who had gotten sober and maintained sobriety, all of them eventually formed a relationship with a higher power and had the gift of a spiritual awakening.