Eighteen months ago, I shattered six vertebrae after one bad stroke off the lip of a 40-foot drop in the Royal Gorge. One month later, I attended the funeral of my paddling hero and role model, Boyce Greer. In September, my close friend and accomplished paddler, Alan Panebaker, drowned on a rapid on the Pemigewasset that we often bombed without a second thought. I’m left wondering why I kayak. Do the rewards justify the risks? Have I simply replaced my addiction to alcohol with an addiction to whitewater?
Before kayaking, I spent 10 years of my life pursuing alcohol. I was secretly proud when my girlfriend told me that I had been hospitalized with a blood-alcohol level significantly above the normal fatal level yet still managed to get to work the next day.
Like most, when I was drinking, I only thought about myself. I claimed I was only hurting myself, ignoring the concerns of my family and friends. I was living in the moment and when the drinking got worse, I said I wanted to escape reality. When my friends died in drunk driving and from suicidal drinking, I came up with excuses about how they were different from me. Then I drank to celebrate their lives.
I stopped drinking a little over six years ago. Not knowing how to enjoy life, I started kayaking, another escape from the doldrums of the daily grind…
This editorial originally appeared in Rapid, Spring 2013. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read the rest here.
