I knew as an artist and Photographer I had to make a major change in my life, this is the beginning of that change and how I got to here from where I was. (Welcome to the Wild with Keith Podcast Modulate the voice deep and add reverb to the entire thing)
I was finally doing my dream of traveling the world and doing photography I had also rejected the entire nonsense of covid as I had seen the truth everyday being out doing photography and traveling the entire time this so-called pandemic was taking place. In 2022 I was the most miserable I have been on my entire life. I was sad, felt depressed had crazy crippling anxiety and was really feeling the effects of the craziness that was taking place in our society. I had also just received the news that I was on the verge of having II diabetes and I had just witnessed my step dad two years earlier die from diabetes and it was a really messed up thing to witness. So here I am November 2022 heading to Egypt and the Middle East for two and a half weeks and the one thing you could not do was drink it’s not a part of the culture as it’s a majority Muslim society.
I felt like crap for the first few days from the hangover I had drinking from airport to airport over the 30-hour journey to Egypt and then something happened. I could not drink for two weeks and my mind was so very clear and I was more awake than what i had been in a while and being in Egypt was already like being on an acid trip. It made the trip amazing and life changing both as a person and as a photographer. This was the first time I had for a moment realized I think I have a problem with alcohol.
Long story short I got back home from the trip went through the obligatory travel blues you get from coming off the constant dopamine hit you get from being somewhere completely foreign to your normal life and I’m just two days back my wife and I were like ok that’s it we need a change in our life! We can’t keep doing this the way we are its not working.
We began packing all of our stuff for the first time went through everything things we had carried with us for years in boxes and we put everything in storage and moved to Nashville into an air b&b and began the journey that needed to happen. This began from not drinking for a three-week period.
I then got a gig to go down to Colombia South American to scout for a tv show and I totally forgot what I learned while in the Middle East it was like no lesson was learned at all. And I drank who knows how many cervezas a day in Columbia and kind of felt like crap the entire time from both the altitude of the Andie’s mountains and from drinking every day.
I came back from this trip and I had sat down a few days later and was making some videos and I saw this picture my wife had taken and I was like who is that. She goes that’s you! And I said no way really who is that. That was the moment that put me on a path and awakened my spirit. I could not believe how un -self-aware I was from addiction from drinking.
The very next day I began the painful at first process of changing my life. And it was not easy it was excruciating at first. I quit eating sugar, any packaged foods, started drinking a lot more water than I ever had.
We then moved to a small apartment attached to someone’s house in a small town outside of Nashville called Hendersonville the home of Jonny cash and Taylor swift. I knew my
current life was going to cost me my old one! And I had to face that very stark reality, I was essentially staring over from ground zero in many ways because making drastic decisions like this always rearranges your life.
I then began the hardest journey of them all and quit drinking alcohol. We are in a culture that wants a fast easy way out for everything and there is no such thing and never will be however with discipline everything can be transformed and more creatives need to know this. Taking Ozempic and pharmaceutical pills will not solve your issues there are no quick fixies.
Alcohol was wrecking my life figuratively and creatively for a long time and it robed me of believing in myself to make art without feeling anxiety every time I was creating something.
I reached a breaking point inside and was lying in my bed with the celling spinning I found a you tuber Megan Malean that I watched when I was drunk the very last night! I was seeking a change in my life and I really did not know how to even begin, I knew if I didn’t make this change my life as a creative and photographer would never be fulfilled to the level that was possible.
I really wanted to stop drinking however I did not know where to begin. (I put her link in the description.)
I Started listening to her videos and I could really hear here it resonated with where I was in my life, I could really relate to a lot of the things she was saying and I needed to stop lying to myself and face this issue head on. I then started small going out less, having only two drinks instead of 8 and went out and did not get drunk again and at the end of August of 2023 I drank three times from that point until the first week of November and I started to feel the effects of not drinking and how good it was and how clear my mind became.
I would then fake like I was drinking so at the time my social group would not give me shit. I would talk to the bartender and drink none alcoholic beer or soda water with lime and no one noticed because I did not want peer pressure or people saying anything about it. Then on Friday November 3rd 2023 I had my very last drink of alcohol and my last hangover for good. That was six months ago and I have not looked back. I have lost 51 lbs. and reversed my health I do not think I have felt this good since I was 20 years old maybe even earlier in life, I just know I feel amazing,
Alcohol is a poison that keeps you trapped in a permanent anxiety where you never have the courage to make real decisions because it keeps you trapped in constant anxiety and fear.
After just the first three months away from alcohol you decision making ability’s 10 x what it once was and you feel present and in the moment. You know how we have been told things like weed is a gate way drug! This is a complete lie, the worst drug in the world is alcohol and it will cost you and rob you of your life and family and creativity if you don’t solve it.
Depression and anxiety are not real and not some mental disease they are simple symptoms of something your body and mind are telling you to change. The feelings of anxiety and depression are very real however it’s not some disease you catch like a cold from the air. My opinion of Corse and I can hear the haters on this one, however I have had massive anxiety in my life and crippling depression so I am speaking from my own experience and I know you can overcome it.
Alcohol is a procrastinator-based drug that stops you from personal growth and slows you down and keeps you from evolving as a person in every way, it makes you avoid facing things. It also convinces you you’re not wrong and you have everything figured out. If you want to stay in low level vibration and never move forward in life keep drinking. You will look up and another 10 years will have gone by and you will still be doing the same thing you were doing back then, living the same boring dead-end life over and over again day after day and never grow. You choose what you want out of this life and with faith and strength you can get though this and you can find support from others in your area that have gone through the same thing so you’re not alone.
As a photographer for 20 years now I am putting my photography and creative first and putting it fully out in the world with zero hesitation. Because I have been given a second chance I also intend and hope that I can help others how their videos have helped me and inspired me on my journey of not drinking alcohol and becoming healthy again. I am also finishing a book to help others get healthy and stop drinking and turn their lives around as well.
What used to be difficult and hard with my photography has become second nature and the extension of myself like I always knew it could be.
And I’m so very grateful to the person she knows who she is that we stayed with while this was happening, she never knew why but now she does and, it changed and saved my life! So, from here I will be talking about my journeys as a photographer around the world and in the music world as well as a not drinking alcohol and a Myriad of other things. I don’t care if sometimes I piss people off on this journey as long as I take my own stance and I’m honest and authentic to my art and truth. If your struggling with alcohol Start today and try to not drink for one week see how it goes and keep going. You do not realize that 90% of the so-called issues people struggle from are connected to drinking alcohol and it holds you back from being your true happy and successful self.