He was sticking needles in his arms at 19 because he couldn’t get the cocaine into his system fast enough through his nasal passages. He’d been fired from every job he ever had. He’d been fired by his own brother. Twice.
This kid grew up in a good home. Loving family. Hometown that knew his name. Had every advantage a boy could ask for. Had the world by the tail at one point. Drank his first beer at 14.
By 21 he was lying, cheating, stealing. He had dreams but no method and no plan and no shot at any of them. He’d been evicted from a ratty trailer park and would have been living under a bridge if not for a loving grandmother who took him in. His car hadn’t had a payment made on it in months. He was hiding it from the creditors. That’s the outlaw life he was living.
One night at 2 a.m., leaving a party, he passed a Hattiesburg Police Department car. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the car turning around. Something in him said run. So, he ran. He thought he could outrun one cop car. What he didn’t think about were the radios. Within minutes two more were behind him. He turned his headlights off, thinking that would help. That’s the kind of brainless thinking he was capable of in those days. The chase hit 90 miles an hour through residential streets. Thankfully there weren’t any kids out playing.
The cops won the chase. They always do.
He ended up in the drunk tank with a DUI charge and called his mother. A year earlier she had changed all the locks on her house and put everything he owned out on the back porch in garbage bags. She had been waiting on one of three phone calls for a long time. The hospital, telling her he was injured. The morgue, telling her he was dead. Or the police station. Three calls. Any mother of an addict knows the list. She had run through the scenario in her head a thousand nights. She was grateful it was the police station.
They both were.
She gave him two options. Go to rehab or sell your car and pay your fine. He didn’t hesitate. Sell the car. Lucky for him the car wasn’t worth enough to cover the fine. So, rehab it was. His plan was to lay low until the smoke cleared and then start partying again.
That boy was me.
In 1983 nobody knew what rehab was. The Betty Ford Center hadn’t been open a year. I did nine weeks in a six-week treatment center, and they sent me to a halfway house in Omaha, Nebraska. Saint Raphael’s. Run by the Catholic Church. In a former mortuary.
I arrived on a Friday. I’d been locked down for two months and I asked the guys— all of them in their early 20s like me— if we were going out that night. Yes, they said. We’re going out. I was fired up. Then they told me where. They were going skating. I thought, this is it. This is what sobriety is going to be like. I’m 21 years old, I’ve spent my whole adult life in bars and clubs, and now I’m going to be hanging out with a bunch of dudes at a skating rink in Omaha, Nebraska. I almost stayed home. Though I didn’t want to spend a Friday night alone in a former mortuary, so I went.
Here’s the deal. I had fun.
I haven’t been skating since. But on that rink in Omaha in August of 1983, something happened. Call it an epiphany. Call it a spiritual experience. I don’t care what you call it. I was rolling around that floor with a bunch of guys I barely knew, clear headed for the first time in seven years, and I was laughing. Actually laughing. Not the kind of laugh you fake at 2 a.m. in a bar, the real kind. For the first time in my life, I understood that I could have fun and live a good life without alcohol and drugs. That has held up for 43 years.
I write this on the morning of May 25th, my sobriety anniversary.
Back then I didn’t expect to live to 30. The way I was going, I wouldn’t have made 25. I’d given up on myself. God hadn’t.
That was the difference.
I don’t have many regrets in life. Seriously. I don’t regret my failures, and there have been many. I’m not kidding. I embrace failure these days because there is growth and learning in failure. All failure, besides death, is psychological. Shame is ego. The only fatal failure is the one that makes you quit. But I do have one small regret— in that halfway house I wish someone had asked me then to write down what I hoped for going forward in a sober life. Just a list where I could dream as big as I could imagine. Lofty dreams and goals about what a life without alcohol and drugs might be going forward. I would love to have that list today, the one a 21-year-old version of me might have written. Because I would have so undershot what life has given me. By a lot.
This clean and sober life has given me more than I ever knew to ask for. Not through merit. Through grace. Not material things. Not money. Not status. The real stuff. Real friends. A clear head. A loving family. A career I love. The relational things. The spiritual things. The strength to show up day after day. That’s what matters.
None of it would have happened if the Hattiesburg Police Department hadn’t won that chase on May 25th, 1983.
Life still brings problems. That’s life. But I’ve learned how to face them. These days I do my best to live in the solution.
If you’re caught up in alcohol or drugs, there’s a way out. There’s hope. If it worked for me, it can work for you. Call 988. Or call me. 601-270-7129. I mean that (Note: if you’re drunk and it’s 2 a.m. I’m going to tell you to call me back in the morning).
And if you’re early in recovery, sit down and make that list. Write it all out. Everything you want from life. Dream bigger than you think you should. Fold it up and put it away. Stay sober. Then one day, five years out, ten years out, maybe 43 years later, you’ll open that list and see how small it really was. And how big your life became.
God can. God will. If sought.
Onward.
Salt Crusted Fish
Salt-crusted fish is a time-honored recipe. The first time I was exposed to it was at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley. One of the chefs there salt-crusted a salmon. Though the best salt-crusted fish I have ever eaten was a sea bass cooked at Da Romano on the island of Burano. Any restaurant that has hosted Ernest Hemingway and Keith Richards during their run is OK in my book.
It reminded me of an Italian version of the New Orleans mainstay Galitoire’s. The salt-crusted sea bass, however, reminded me of nothing I have ever eaten before. Perfect.
1 each 4-5 lb. whole fish, cleaned, scaled and gutted (preferably bass or snapper)
8 each Large egg whites
2 cups Rock salt
2 cups Kosher salt
2 each Lemons, cut into wedges
Extra virgin olive oil as needed.
Preheat the oven to 450.
Add the egg whites to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whip attachment and mix on medium-high speed until soft peaks form, about 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low and fold in the salts until thoroughly combined.
Spread a thin layer of the salt and egg mixture on a large baking pan, about ½ cup. Place the fish on the pan and cover completely with the remaining egg and salt mixture. Using your hands, make sure the fish is completely covered and packed tightly, as if you were making a sand castle.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, remove from the oven and let rest for 10-15 minutes.
Using a wooden spoon or the handle of a chef knife, strike the crust to crack it. At this point you should be able to remove the salt crust in large pieces from the top of the fish. Carefully, fold the top half of the fish towards the spine and place on a serving platter. Divide the meat among 6-8 plates and finish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.
(Robert St. John is a chef, restauranteur and published cookbook author who lives in Hattiesburg, Miss.)