The Ripple Effect

I used to think sobriety was a personal decision.
A private one.
Something that only really affected me.

Turns out, that’s not true at all.

Sobriety changes rooms.
It changes conversations.
It changes friendships, families, dating, work, creativity, and the way people feel around you.

The wild part is most of it happens quietly.

Nobody tells you that when you stop drinking, other people start looking at themselves differently too. Your honesty gives people permission to be honest. Your consistency makes people feel safe. Your presence becomes noticeable because you’re actually there now.

Not performing.
Not numbing.
Not escaping.

Just there.

I’ve had people open up to me about anxiety, depression, loneliness, addiction, heartbreak, burnout, things they’ve apparently been carrying for years. Not because I had answers, but because sobriety changed the energy I brought into conversations. It made me more available. More grounded. More willing to sit in reality with someone instead of trying to outrun it.

That’s the ripple effect.

It’s showing a friend they can come to a concert sober and still feel alive.
It’s proving vulnerability and masculinity can exist together.
It’s becoming dependable again.
It’s inspiring someone else to question their own relationship with alcohol without ever preaching to them.

And honestly? Sometimes the ripple effect is smaller and more personal.

Being more patient with your dog.
Calling your parents more often.
Showing up emotionally in relationships.
Creating instead of consuming.
Remembering conversations.
Feeling music deeper.
Actually being present for your own life.

Sobriety doesn’t make life perfect. If anything, it makes you feel everything more clearly. But over time, those feelings become connection instead of chaos.

That’s something I think about a lot with Friend of the Devil.

Maybe this community isn’t really about sobriety alone. Maybe it’s about what becomes possible when people stop running from themselves. The friendships that form. The art that gets made. The conversations that happen after a show. The morning hikes. The late-night honesty. The version of yourself that slowly reappears.

One person getting sober affects more people than they’ll ever fully realize.

That’s the ripple effect.

MY FIRST SOBER SHOW

There’s a moment that sticks with me from 2022.

I was standing in a crowd at a Goose show at First Bank, people dancing, the lights bouncing off faces that looked just as alive as the sound coming from the stage. Normally, that scene would have included a drink in my hand. For years, that’s how concerts worked for me.

But this time was different.

It was my first show sober.

I had stopped drinking on March 13, 2022. At that point, sobriety was still new territory. Everything felt a little uncertain. I knew I needed the change, but I also wondered what it meant for the things I loved most.

Music was one of them.

Live music had always been a place where I felt at home. The kind of place where strangers become friends for a few hours and everyone seems to understand something that’s hard to explain. But alcohol had always been part of that ritual.

So walking into that show sober felt like stepping into the unknown.

I remember the moment the band started playing. The room filled with sound and the crowd surged forward. People were cheering, dancing, raising their drinks. And I stood there for a second thinking…

Is this going to feel different?

And it did.

But not in the way I expected.

Instead of feeling disconnected, I felt more present than I had in years. I heard every note more clearly. I noticed the small moments—the guitar player locking into a groove, the crowd singing back a chorus, the feeling of being surrounded by people who were all there for the same reason.

The music.

For the first time in a long time, I realized that the thing I loved about concerts had never actually been the drinking.

It was the connection.

It was the shared experience.

It was the feeling of being alive in the middle of a song that seemed to stop time for a few minutes.

That night changed something for me.

It showed me that sobriety didn’t mean giving up the parts of life that made me feel most like myself. If anything, it meant getting closer to them.

The music didn’t go away.

The magic didn’t disappear.

If anything, it got stronger.

That experience planted the seed for what would eventually become Friend of the Devil Sober Co.—a community for people who still love music, adventure, and connection, but who are choosing to experience those moments with a clear mind.

Because the truth is, the music still plays.

And it might just sound better this way.

Grief, iNDY AND THE STRANGE GIFT OF SOBRIETY

I lost my dog Indy on December 6, 2024.

Even writing that sentence still feels strange.

Indy wasn’t just a dog to me. He was a companion in the truest sense of the word. The kind of presence that quietly becomes part of the structure of your life without you even realizing it. The walks, the routines, the way he would look at me like I was the most important person in the world.

Dogs have a way of doing that. Their love is uncomplicated. No expectations. No conditions. Just loyalty and presence.

And when they’re gone, the silence they leave behind is overwhelming.

When Indy passed, the grief hit me in waves. Sometimes it showed up as sadness, sometimes as anger, and sometimes just as this strange emptiness that followed me around during the quiet parts of the day.

But something about going through that loss while sober taught me something I didn’t expect.

Sometimes sobriety actually feels easier when life is hard.

When you’re in the middle of grief, the truth of what you’re feeling is undeniable. You can’t pretend everything is fine. You can’t escape it. The weight of it demands your attention.

And oddly enough, that clarity makes drinking feel almost pointless.

Alcohol can numb pain for a little while, but it can’t process it. It can’t honor it. And it certainly can’t help you move through it in a real way.

Being sober meant I had to sit with the grief. I had to feel the loss of Indy in its full form—the sadness, the memories, the quiet moments where I’d expect to see him walk into the room.

But it also meant I could feel the other side of that grief too.

The gratitude.

Gratitude that I got to share my life with a dog whose entire purpose seemed to be loving me. Gratitude for the hikes, the road trips, the mornings, the small moments that seemed ordinary at the time but now feel incredibly meaningful.

Sobriety allowed me to experience that honestly.

What’s interesting, though, is that in my experience sobriety can actually feel harder when life is going well.

When you’re celebrating, when you’re at a concert surrounded by friends, when the music is loud and everyone around you has a drink in their hand—that’s when the old habits can whisper the loudest.

Not because you’re trying to escape anything.

Just because that’s what you used to do.

It’s ironic. When life is heavy, sobriety feels like the only honest way through it. But when life is joyful, the world sometimes expects alcohol to be part of the celebration.

Losing Indy reminded me why I chose this path in the first place.

Sobriety isn’t about avoiding life.

It’s about being present for all of it.

The heartbreak.
The joy.
The music.
The memories.

Grief is the price we pay for loving something deeply. And the fact that losing Indy hurt so much is proof of how much love was there.

Sobriety didn’t take that grief away.

But it allowed me to walk through it honestly, without hiding from it.

And in those quiet moments when I think about Indy now, I realize something else too.

The love he gave me didn’t disappear when he left.

It just changed shape.

And staying present with that love—even when it hurts—is one of the most meaningful things sobriety has given me.