January 1, 2024

My name is Bobby Brittian, a lot of my friends call me “Crash”, thankfully because of four wheel activity’s and not two! 

As a teen/young adult I wasn’t really a drinker, more of a social drinker type deal. I joined the military at a relatively late age and my first duty station was overseas in South Korea. If you have ever talked to anyone who was in South Korea as a soldier you probably know that alcohol is heavily involved in the day to day life due to the lack of other activities and a lot to do with the villages outside of the bases that cater to the drinking being readily accessible. I definitely contribute my year spent there as the kickoff point of my overuse of alcohol. 

When I returned back stateside to my next duty station, that habit followed and I found others who were heavy users as well and it just sort of went from there. Blackout weekends, hangovers at work, etc… and I just continued because that had become the norm and that’s what my friends did as well. This went on for years. 

I eventually met my future wife and the behavior continued as she was younger and in college still so that type of drinking went hand in hand. We went on to have two kids (I have two older daughters from a previous marriage) and my behavior continued, coming home from work immediately start drinking, beer liqour, etc… all the while thinking it was normal because I had never got in trouble at work for drinking or got a DUI despite driving drunk countless times. 

A couple of years ago at my wife’s family’s Christmas party my brother in law and I started drinking pretty heavy early that day and I was pretty drunk by the time the party actually started. There was some commotion all evening between my mother in law and sister in law in dogs being inside the house or outside and I snapped. I stood up in the middle of my wife’s family Christmas, drunk off my ass and cussed the whole family out and drove home in the middle of winter, barefoot, drunk and without telling anyone I was leaving. 

The next morning my wife called me and we had a serious discussion about what I didn’t remember at all saying or doing. A “come to Jesus” moment if you will. We discussed our kids being older and realizing my behavior wasn’t normal and the stress it was putting on my wife and the rest of the family. 

Starting that morning I told myself I was going to do better and decided to test out a “dry January”. Dry January lasted past January and I was doing good. I was nervous as hell because all my friends were heavy drinkers and what was I going to do around them, how would they handle it, etc… These were my military buddies, my motorcycle buddies, my friends who I had spent the last 10 years with being a drunk with. I didn’t want to be left out. As you can imagine those friendships were tested and the hangouts became fewer and fewer and even though they knew I was working in my sobriety they continued to ask if I wanted a beer or mix drink. 

I eventually back slid and said you know what, I’ll have a beer here and there with the boys or a mixed drink with the wife on date night and started drinking again. Not to the point I was before but still drinking again non the less. By know I had met a new group of friends who were also into motorcycles and didn’t really care to drink at all if any. We had a bunch of stuff in common as far as hobbies (motorcycles) and family which was great, my other friends that I drank with didn’t have kids and never understood the whole family dynamics, they just wanted to party. I was up front with my new group of friends with my journey to sobriety and they were super supportive. 

By now a year had passed and we were back at January 2024. I said you know what, I’m starting over, from here on out, no booze. My family life is 100 times better, I have great friends who are 100 percent supportive and never put me in awkward situations. 

It’s crazy to think that a bunch of motorcycle guys can get together be sober and still have the best time. Some may say I traded one habit for another with the bikes but i just ignore them, I’d much rather have my knees in the breeze with my friends than drunk in a lawn chair with them. The adventures are better, the stories are better and the people are better when you can connect over something like bikes rather than booze. 

So yea, 10 months completely sober from alcohol and my family life could not be better. Hope it gives someone else the push they need to see that life can be so much better when you’re not dependent on substances. 

- Bobby Brittian

@__motofarm__