All Jokes Aside, Let Me be for Real for a Minute

Why blog about my trip, to people I don’t even know, and who probably couldn’t care less?

I’ve talked about why I’m thru-hiking the AT in my first post, and in that post I also mentioned that I’m a recovering alcoholic.  I’ve been sober for four years, and it tends to come up in conversation, LOL. It’s not something that I look for opportunities in which I can bring it up, it’s not something I use to get attention or praise, and I don’t even really feel comfortable talking about it most of the time.  I always feel like people are thinking that I am in fact trying to get attention or praise, or preach and judge, or, I don’t know, it just makes me self-conscious, even embarrassed, and I rarely feel embarrassed about anything.  The reason it always seems to come up in conversation is because it’s a huge part of who I am now.  Drinking was all of who I was for close to 20 years and with that gone, my whole world got flip-turned-upside-down as my boy Fresh Prince would say.  So just as much as drinking defined me before, not drinking has sculpted who I am now.

My point is this: I hope that through this blog, and through my adventures on the AT, I might be able to give some sort of hope or inspiration or something to other people who are struggling with a serious life-changing event.  Whether it’s addiction, the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship—whatever it may be—I like to think that maybe the fears that I’ll conquer, the obstacles I’ll overcome, the open-mindedness to truly believe I can go for what I really want in life and the willingness to do whatever it takes to get there, maybe others in the same boat might take something away from all this that can help them on their journey to happiness and freedom.

That’s about all the hippy/idealist/spiritual crap I have in me for now.  I hope y’all are enjoying my entries so far, as I am certainly enjoying writing them.  I absolutely cannot wait to get started on my adventure and find ancient artifacts and battle monsters and befriend elves and hobbits… maybe even make out with a wood nymph!

Cheerios, mates?

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Comments 2

  • john : Oct 26th

    Hey Mike, did you play the character Murl on the Walking Dead?

    Reply
    • Michael Beierle : Oct 26th

      Hahaha no, I did not. I hope you’re not suggesting I look like him…in WAY better looking!

      Reply

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