Depression and Alcohol: Chris Was 3 Years Sober When One Night Changed Everything
Chris was building businesses, raising a family, and three years into sobriety. From the outside, life looked good. On the inside, he was still fighting the same thing he'd been fighting since college.
Depression and alcohol often travel together. Many people who drink heavily are using alcohol to manage a low mood, a pattern known as self-medicating, and putting the drink down doesn't automatically quiet what sits underneath it. Chris learned that the hard way.
On the Sober Motivation podcast, Chris shared how depression shaped his drinking, why he kept his sobriety a secret for years, and how one night of drinking after three years sober became the moment he stopped hiding.
Growing Up Without a Tribe
Chris grew up in Davenport, Iowa, part of the Quad Cities on the Mississippi River. He calls himself a river rat. His parents built a family business together, and his mom started out as his dad's first accountant. Business, he said, was always on.
By his own account, it was a normal, safe childhood with a lot of freedom. But one detail stuck with him. His parents open enrolled him in Bettendorf schools across town, so the kids he went to school with weren't the kids in his neighborhood.
"There was a separation, and I think that kind of always stayed there. I didn't have a tribe."
In high school he was skateboarding and snowboarding at a high level, competing and filming. He's clear that the culture didn't push him toward drinking. Alcohol did something else. On weekends at college parties in Iowa City, it made him feel comfortable and gave him a little status. He called it a lubricant. It made everything feel better.
What Depression Feels Like, in Chris's Words
Chris had always wanted to go to the University of Colorado to snowboard. He got there, got exactly what he wanted, and fell into a depression almost right away. That year he barely drank. He spent it beating himself up instead.
A therapist prescribed medication early in his freshman year. Chris is clear he's not anti-medicine, but looking back, he wonders if it kept him flat. He remembers missing the normal highs and lows he used to feel only a few years earlier.
When we asked him to describe depression for someone who has never lived with it, he said:
"It's almost like a muted grief. You would feel the lows, and you'd bounce back up, but you'd never bounce back past midpoint."
For Chris, depression wasn't always sadness. It was gray. Below center. And there wasn't always a reason for it, which made it feel like it had no end.
Self-Medicating With Alcohol: Why It Works Until It Doesn't
Self-medicating with alcohol means drinking to manage emotional pain or mental health symptoms instead of treating them directly. For Chris, alcohol was the one thing that could lift him above that gray midpoint, even for a few hours.
"How do I bring myself above center? I've never even described it that way until now."
He called it "a medicine for just not always being sad." Then came the crash. After drinking, he'd land further below center than where he started. As he got older, the anxiety the next day went from bad to completely debilitating.
That's the trap of depression and drinking. The relief is real but short, and the low that follows goes deeper. If that pattern sounds familiar, you might also relate to Mailinn's story of drinking to numb her feelings.
A simple check: pay attention to how you feel the morning after you drink, for two weeks. Better or worse? The pattern usually speaks for itself.
From Drake to Dallas: When Drinking Became His Only Hobby
After Colorado, Chris transferred to Drake University in Des Moines and promised himself he'd stop treating himself the way he had in year one. The partying turned up to a 10.
Blackouts were routine. "Everybody just went to blackout," he said. There were a few bar fights and a few nights in the drunk tank, but nothing with real consequences, so nothing changed. The depression stayed. He just got very good at pretending.
At 21, he took a real estate job in Dallas, surrounded by colleagues with ten-plus years of experience. He was on the road more than 40 weeks a year. Hotels, airports, meetings. His drinking went from social to solitary.
"When I know I'm gonna basically be more alone than not for the next week, it's kinda your buddy on your travel."
A relationship fell apart. He calls that stretch the lost two years. One day, back from a trip to Detroit, he called his best friend Joe in Chicago, offered to buy out his lease, and moved within two weeks.
Can You Outrun Depression? Chris Tried
Chicago was better. For a couple of years, he felt like he had checked himself. He'd met his wife there. Then he came home to open the family business's new corporate office in Des Moines, and slowly slipped back into drinking and depression.
During our conversation, I pointed out a pattern: Colorado, Drake, Dallas, Chicago, Des Moines. Always the next move. Chris agreed.
"For a long time it was like, can I outrun this reality?"
A change of scenery can feel like progress. Looking back, Chris sees it as doing the same things and expecting different results.
Two Rounds of Treatment
Chris went to treatment for the first time in 2019. He went in believing he was depressed first and a drinker second, hoping they'd fix him up so he could drink like everybody else. The night he got home, he went out with friends to celebrate. With drinks.
Still, something stuck. He knew he had a problem now.
The next couple of years moved fast: marriage, a daughter, two new businesses. The drinking became daily. In 2021 he went back to treatment, this time to sober living in the Phoenix area, where he joined an AA group for the first time.
"A lot of these people are just like me. Maybe this can be forever."
He got sober.
Relapse After 3 Years Sober: When Sobriety Is a Secret
This is the part of Chris's story many people in long-term sobriety will recognize. He was sober, but almost nobody knew why. Only close friends. Publicly, he pointed to workouts and a list of other reasons.
"I didn't want it to become a part of my personality."
He worried about how it would look as a business owner. Underneath, the pressure kept building. Chris used the term dry drunk to describe it: sober from alcohol, but still carrying the anger, confusion, and inner turmoil. "It was just like a white knuckle all the time," he said.
A dry drunk is someone who has stopped drinking but still lives with the emotional patterns that drove the drinking. Left alone, that strain can become a warning sign. We dug into this in why people go back to drinking when sobriety is going well.
Last year, in a very dark place, Chris drank for the first time in three years. He decided he was going to kill himself. Thank God, that didn't happen. His wife called the police for help. The officers decided he was at fault in a domestic situation instead. He went to jail. It was very public, and it all unfolded over a few days.
"It broke me. I felt like things were caving in."
Everything he'd kept quiet was suddenly out in the open, far beyond the people he knew.
If you're having thoughts of ending your life, call or text 988 in the US or Canada to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, any time.
Chris isn't the only guest who has relapsed after years without a drink. Anthony's story of relapse after long-term sobriety is another honest look at how it happens.
Should You Tell People You're Sober?
Chris went back to treatment. He says he knows how to get sober. What he needed was to do it out loud: people holding him accountable, him holding others accountable, and no more shame.
He made a promise to God that if he got through this, he would help people and be honest about who he is, the good and the bad.
At first, he planned to be open only within his own community. His wife encouraged him to go further and go public. They put out a video online. Almost immediately, people reached out about a brother, a coworker, or themselves. People who felt trapped and had no one to talk to.
"There's a freedom in authenticity no matter what it is."
He also named something that keeps a lot of people stuck:
"Darkness becomes your comfort zone. And it's the same with dishonesty to yourself."
Lessons From Chris's Story
Chris recently spoke to a small recovery group. An older man there, new to recovery, was scared to go back to his hometown, where he owned a small business. He'd been the same person for 70 years and didn't know how to be someone new. Chris told him:
"There's gonna be a ton of people who are gonna be really excited to meet the new person."
What Chris's story shows about depression and alcohol:
Sober isn't the same as healed. Removing alcohol doesn't remove the depression or pressure underneath it. Get support for both.
Moving won't fix it. A new city, school, or job didn't change how Chris felt inside.
Secrets cost something. Three years of quiet sobriety left him white-knuckling alone.
Honesty grows your world. Going public brought Chris new relationships and a way to be useful.
Find your purpose and be honest. That's Chris's advice for anyone in a similar spot.
From Hiding to Helping
From the outside, Chris's life looked good for a long time. But depression and alcohol had been tangled together since college, and for years he tried to outrun both. What finally changed things wasn't a new city or a new business. It was telling the truth.
Today he has two young kids and a team of employees he wants to be a good mentor to. He's proud of where he is, and he credits God's grace for getting him here.
If you see yourself in Chris's story, you don't have to carry it quietly. Listen to the full episode on the Sober Motivation podcast, and find people who get it in the Sober Motivation app.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are depression and alcohol problems connected?
Yes. Depression and heavy drinking often show up together, and each can make the other worse. Alcohol is a depressant, so drinking to lift a low mood usually deepens it once the effects wear off. Many people find that treating the depression and the drinking together works better than tackling one alone.
What does it mean to self-medicate with alcohol?
Self-medicating with alcohol means drinking to cope with emotional pain, stress, anxiety, or depression instead of getting direct treatment. It can bring short-term relief, which is why it's so easy to repeat. Over time, it tends to worsen the symptoms it was meant to ease and can lead to dependence.
What is a dry drunk?
A dry drunk is someone who has stopped drinking but still struggles with the emotional patterns that fueled the drinking, such as anger, irritability, or restlessness. The term comes from AA. It describes being sober without the deeper recovery work, and it's often seen as a warning sign for relapse.
Why do people relapse after years of sobriety?
Relapse after years sober rarely comes out of nowhere. It often follows a slow buildup of stress, untreated depression, isolation, or pulling back from support. In Chris's case, three years of quiet, white-knuckled sobriety and mounting pressure came before one night of drinking that changed his life.
Should I tell people I'm sober?
That's your call, and you can start small with the people closest to you. Many people in recovery find that being open brings accountability and connection rather than judgment. Chris kept his sobriety private for years, and he says going public brought him relationships and a sense of purpose he didn't expect.
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