I wasn’t drunk. I was completely sober and still watching myself lose control.

One harmless $100 bet turned into a fucking disaster.

Had I changed… or just found a new way to self-destruct?

We’d just arrived in Mexico. I was taking tequila shots from a water glass at the swim-up bar, then going after a guy who’d already apologized. My wife ended up helping me all the way back to our room. I’d spent years following self-help rules so hard that I couldn’t relax, even on vacation. Binge drinking gave me a break from my own head, and she was the one left dealing with the mess.

I was already in a drinking binge when I tried cocaine for the first time. Suddenly I felt bulletproof, could keep drinking, and couldn’t shut up. I thought it was just a wild night. Then I went out for beers again, and something felt missing. I had no idea cocaine would end up running my life for the next twenty-plus years.

In my twenties, I thought I was having the time of my life. I was drunk, driving a beat-up Chevette around Winnipeg, and somehow got caught by the same cop three times in one night. At the time, it became one of my favourite drinking stories. Looking back now, I realize just how easily one of my best nights could have become one of the worst nights of my life.

You know that guy who has a few drinks and suddenly becomes the most annoying person on the planet? He's louder, smarter, tougher, and has an opinion on absolutely everything. Nobody asked, but that sure as hell isn't stopping him.

We've all had bad hangovers. But how bad can they actually get? From waking up thinking you've gotten away with it to being so completely destroyed you're calling in dead, I break down my five levels of Hangover Hell. Thirty years of binge drinking, some ridiculous stories, and a few mornings I'd rather forget. Which level have you survived?

My second Journey out became Crash and Burn Part Two — and this one was fucking brutal.

I went looking for fun, freedom and escape. I ended up wasted, broke and questioning everything I was trying to rebuild.

But something had changed.

The escape had stopped working.

I survived a horrific car accident, a brain bleed, intensive care, six surgeries and five years of recovery.

I was given my life back.

But when life finally started feeling normal again, so did the old patterns.

This is the story of how powerful those patterns can be when you don't even know they're there.