DAVE COULIER: THE GIFT OF SOBRIETY
"I also
called on something deeper, a part of me that had almost gone dormant, a faith from within, my spiritual DNA."
There is a common belief that comedians use humor to deal with or even cover up pain they can’t otherwise process. That may be true in some cases. I’ve known a few comics like that. But not me. I became a comedian because I loved to make people laugh. It made me feel good, and it made the audience feel good. That’s a pretty great gig to have in life, a blessing I’m grateful for every day.
But I also fell in love with something else: drinking. I’ve been sober now for two years and counting, two years in which I’ve suffered three of the most devastating losses of my life in quick succession. How did I survive those blows to the heart without alcohol? That’s what I’m here to talk about.
Back in the sixties, in St. Clair Shores, Michigan—a town north of Detroit along Lake St. Clair, right across from Canada, near what we Michiganders call the thumb (if you think of the state as a left-handed mitten)—drinking was just a part of life. Growing up in “Hockeytown,” we kids would play in a
hockey game, then go out for pizza afterward, the parents knocking back pitchers of beer. No one objected when they poured us...READ MORE
