Day 1: Why You’re Really Here
Have you wondered why you bought this book, or picked it up off the shelf?
Addiction is a pretty niche market.
Books like this don’t usually end up in the hands of the casually curious. Those people are browsing sci-fi, world records, cookbooks, or something with a motivational quote on the cover. Even the weird books get glanced at, but not bought, because you don’t want to be seen holding something that might say too much about where you’re at.
So why this book?
Were you curious about what an addict goes through? Did you see my face on the back cover and think I looked like someone worth listening to? Or did something in the description hit different, words written in a way that made something stir inside a locked part of your mind, like a key that worked where so many others had failed?
Whatever brought you here, you’re here, and we are in this together.
It’s Day 1, and right out of the gate, I want you to know that I am hoping you make it to Day 31. Beyond that is your choice, but Day 1, that’s an “us” choice. I’d like us to work together for the next 31 days, though I know that feels like a long way off right now. So let’s not look that far. Let’s just work on Day 1, figure out what brought you to this moment, and then maybe we can show up together for Day 2 as well.
My name is Zachary Small (I go by Zac)
You can find me on the socials listed inside this book. If at any point you want to reach out and work through this together, send the DM. Just like that, you’ve got an accountability partner to bounce things off of and get your questions answered. I mean that. I’m not a brand. I’m a person, and I have been exactly where you are sitting right now.
Zac’s Socials:
So why did you start this?
Were you tired of being tired? Did something explode, a night where you lost your mind on someone you love and watched their face change the way it does when something breaks? Are you broke and finally doing the math on what sobriety would put back in your pocket?
Was it a health scare? Your kids? A partner who told you it was them or the bottle? Did you wreck your reputation? Get a DUI?
Look at all the ways alcohol tears things down, and then look at how it is sold to us. Advertised as fun, normal, and practically a personality in every movie, show, sporting event, and commercial on television. The contrast is hard to ignore once you start seeing it.
And once you’ve found the surface reason you’re here, I want to go one level deeper with you.
Why did you let it get this far?
I’m not asking that to hurt you. I’m asking it because nobody else in your life is going to. Your friends tiptoed around it. Your family either enabled it or gave up trying to talk to you about it. And every resource you’ve come across before this probably handed you a hotline number and a breathing exercise and called it help - I’m not doing that.
You let it get this far because, at some point, alcohol was working. It was taking the edge off something real. It was filling a gap that nothing else was touching. It was making the room easier to be in, making the silence less loud, making the version of you that showed up to the party feel like someone people wanted around. I know because that was me, too.
But here is what nobody told you when it stopped working. The drinking stayed the same size. Your life got smaller around it.
That is the truth most people never sit long enough to feel. Alcohol didn’t grow into a problem; you grew, and it didn’t. You started wanting more, building more, becoming more, and every time you reached for the bottle, you were choosing the old version of yourself over the new one, the one trying to get out of this cycle.
That person trying to get out is why you’re holding this book.
I’m not here to be nice to you; nice doesn’t save lives. I’m here to be real with you, because real is the only thing that ever worked for me, and I believe it’s the only thing that’s going to work for you too.
Thirty more days. Let’s go…
Your Day 1 Sober-Challenge
Write down two things.
The reason you told yourself you picked up this book.
The real reason. The one underneath that. The one you haven’t said out loud yet.
They might be the same. They probably aren’t. Either way, write both down and sit with the difference. Nobody has to see it but you.
If you want, you can share your message with me on any of my socials. Only paying subscribers can comment on TDDN posts, but you can hit me up anywhere.
- Zac Small
PS: Tomorrow is Day 2, see you then.