I Was Stuck in the 'Alcohol Matrix'

I grew up poor in the Midwest, but I went on to become a model with a doctoral degree in psychology. I retired early by investing in income properties around the United States, and once upon a time, Ryan Seacrest handpicked me to be the "LA Shrink."

I've lived all over the world in some of the most beautiful and exotic places there are, and I married a gorgeous and intelligent woman. She and I have two beautiful, brilliant daughters.

I'm not telling you all of this to brag. I'm telling you this to warn you. Despite appreciating everything I had, I almost threw all of it—and so much more—away. After years of moderate social drinking, I became addicted to alcohol.

The irony is that I knew better. I knew exactly the kind of damage and violence that comes from alcohol addiction. Throughout my childhood, I watched my father become addicted to alcohol and abuse my mother verbally and physically. I swore I would never be like him.

And yet, I still became addicted to alcohol and ended up behaving exactly like him—maybe even worse. Before now, I have never told anyone this story. But it's time, and it starts like this.

I was always what most people would call a "moderate social drinker", but at the peak of my addiction, I would have two glasses of wine, or a couple of beers on the weeknights and then double that on the weekends.

On one particular day, my ex-wife and I were in Hawaii. We were drinking ice-cold IPAs at a local happy hour and watching Monday Night Football, the exact same thing many Americans do every week during the NFL season.

Once the game ended, we continued drinking. Because, why not? It's what we always did, and we were having fun. Later, at home, we both had about three glasses of red wine before capping off our night with a cocktail of whiskey over ice. Granted, this was more than we usually drank, but not by much, honestly.

What I recall, which isn't much, is that my ex-wife and I started arguing about something. Neither of us remembers what the fight was about. What we do remember is that we were getting louder and louder, more and more aggressive, until I thought we were going to wake up our daughters.

I can still vaguely see my ex-wife getting right in my face, screaming at the top of her lungs. I remember putting my right hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. I put my left hand behind her neck. I remember tackling her to the bed and her getting up and running out of the room. After a few minutes, I passed out on the bed. I woke up to three police officers, guns drawn, ready to take me to jail.

That is my version of the story—at least, what I recollect.

My ex-wife, however, remembered a much different story. She said that I grabbed her by the throat. She said I picked her up off the floor and started to choke her. She told me she thought she was going to die. She said I threw her on the bed, before she was finally able to run out of the room, gasping for air.

Terrified, she grabbed our daughters and fled the house. Once she felt safe, she called the police, who found me passed out on the bed.

Which story is the truth? Mine or hers? I had no idea. All I knew, in my alcohol-deadened mind, was that I was angry. Sitting in the back of the police car with my hands zip-tied behind my back, I couldn't figure out what I had done that was so bad.

I hadn't hit her or choked her. It wasn't even close to as bad as what I had seen my dad do to my mom. I clearly remember thinking this, even with my face smushed against the plexiglass partition of the police car.

I was completely wrong, of course. My addicted, in-denial mind was working overtime. When the police booked me, they showed me photos of my ex-wife. Violent red marks covered her neck. I had done that, I finally understood. I could have killed my ex-wife, the mother of my children.

And, just as quickly, I realized I was now worse than my dad, a much more dangerous monster.

You're probably thinking this is when I started to turn things around. That, surely, this was my rock bottom, and I had finally realized I needed to stop being in denial and start addressing my out-of-control addiction. Alas, I was far from done.

I stayed mad at my ex-wife for a month.

"How could she do such a thing?" yelled my fragile, addicted ego. "I am a loving husband and doting father to her children! You were drunk, too, and you wouldn't stop screaming."

I knew I was out of control, but I still couldn't stop drinking. I kept drinking for another year.

I finally hit bottom after drinking heavily on another trip, this time to Canada. My ex-wife and I went on a whiskey-drinking tour with friends. I really didn't want to go. I was already getting tired of drinking. In fact, I went an entire month without drinking before the trip, which made me feel really good. But I agreed to go.

It was a disaster. I was blacking out and hitting on women in front of my ex-wife. I was so disrespectful and careless. At the end of the trip, she told me she was done with me. I knew she meant it.

On the flight home, I had a Bloody Mary, which was the last drink of alcohol I ever had.

That was nearly four years ago.

As I write this, we are getting a divorce. She hasn't told me she loves me since that trip, which I understand. Throughout ten years of marriage, all she did was love me, take great care of our children, and make us tons of money.

In turn, because of my alcohol addiction and what I later learned was an unconscious love addiction, all I did was traumatize her by sneaking around behind her back until she finally had enough of me and my crap.

Today, I live alone in San Diego and, though I share joint custody of our girls, now ages eight and ten, I see in them the same signs of anxiety and stress I experienced as a scared little boy in my father's house.

No person in their "right" mind would do what I did.

But here's the thing: I wasn't in my right mind—I was hardly conscious. I was addicted and I was unconscious. I was blind to my terrible behavior and my crippling dependency. I was in the full grasp of the ugly, insidious, and life-destroying lies alcohol and alcohol culture tell us about drinking.

I was caught in what I call the "Alcohol Matrix", the collective illusion deep within us that encourages us to drink, more and more, no matter what.

When I finally had my awakening after many years of drinking, I had a lucid dream about alcohol. I was on a hard hospital gurney with alcohol being pumped into me through multiple tubes.

As far as my eye could see, there was an endless number of people in the same condition as me, hooked up to the tubes of alcohol, except my eyes were open and the other people were still asleep.

Everyone else was alone, but I was surrounded by a motley crew of alcohol marketeers. As I squirmed in fear and rage, trying to get the tubes out of me, I could hear them talking to one another. One looked down at me and said: "It looks like he is waking up."

The others chimed in.

"Don't let him!"

"Give him more!"

"Dustin, you can't live a fun, sexy life without it."

"It is good for you."

"Just put the tubes back in. It will take the edge off."

"No one else is going to live alcohol-free with you."

I stood up on the gurney, and I ripped the tubes out of me. "Get the hell away from me!" I shouted. I woke up in a sweat, but, finally, fully awake.

The concept of the Alcohol Matrix came to me from that dream.

A month after the dream, I was reading a book titled The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Gray. She says: "There's a jaw-dropping scene in the film The Matrix, which sums up, for me, how it feels to unplug from our alcohol-centric society. It's a swooping sci-fi shot which shows an endless field of people plugged into a fake reality."

I was beyond shocked that she and I had the same revelation. And that is when I realized that since she was in England and I was in California, it was a collective experience.

Long before any of us were even alive, the Alcohol Matrix was spinning its lies. And, as a child, years before we took our first sip of alcohol, we were already being conditioned to believe them.

Throughout human history, alcohol has been our most accessible painkiller. It has also been consumed in celebration for every major life event in nearly every culture, from parties and weddings to religious rituals and funerals.

And, thanks to the Alcohol Matrix, we've all been brainwashed to believe alcohol—literal ethanol—is totally safe to consume, and rather than getting us sick or ruining our lives, alcohol is actually good for us.

You and I have been brainwashed to believe alcohol is the secret to being cool, attractive, fun, and carefree.

I knew better. You knew better. But you and I continued to drink, primarily because of our collective belief that alcohol benefits us in some way, even though we were fully aware of the damage alcohol does to our personal and professional lives, and study after study that proves alcohol causes cancer and two hundred other diseases.

Every time we raise a glass of alcohol to our lips, there is a part of us, deep down, that knows we're doing something unhealthy, stupid, and self-destructive. It might just be a tiny voice in the back of our heads. But it's there, nagging at us. That little voice is us waking up from the Alcohol Matrix.

You are starting to see how profound it is, once you see it fully, you'll realize that alcohol is an absolute monster, and it is everywhere. It influences us unconsciously, telling us how to behave and what's expected. Get together with loved ones, and the Alcohol Matrix sets unspoken rules. Host or attend a social gathering, and the Alcohol Matrix shapes our actions in numerous ways. It is an ancient, unconscious, powerful social signal that we tune into without question.

Think about how many times you've either said or heard someone say the following:

"You deserve a drink to take the edge off."

"Just one won't hurt."

"It's beer o'clock."

We know alcohol is bad for us. Science has proven it is bad for us. Unfortunately, we've continued to drink it because we've continued to believe these and other lies the Alcohol Matrix tells us, just like I did.

"Drink me, your life will have less pain."

"Drink me, you will have more friends, more money, a better party, more sex, a nicer car, better body, more laughs; you will look cool, sophisticated, and classy."

"Drink me, you will be funnier."

"Drink me, people will like you more."

It goes on and on and on.

You know exactly what I'm talking about. You can feel it, just like I did. You might not be able to explain it, but you can sense a dark side to the emphasis everyone seems to place on drinking. Maybe you've always noticed it, or perhaps you just started to see it recently. Maybe you're finally starting to notice how things could—and should actually be.

Right now, this creeping realization might still just be a tiny voice in the back of your head. Listen to that voice because it's telling you the truth. It's trying to show you what's real. It's trying to remind you who you truly are.

It took me far too long to listen to this voice, and because I failed to heed its warning, I hurt everyone I loved and nearly threw away everything I valued most.

After suffering through an unbelievable–and unbelievably long–amount of pain, I finally started to listen to this voice, which kicked off a remarkable process of personal transformation and a radical shift in consciousness.

The truth is alcohol is addictive. Anyone—and I mean anyone—who consumes enough of it will become addicted to it, just as anyone who takes any other addictive substance, whether it's tobacco or heroin, Vicodin or OxyContin. Some people get hooked faster than others.

Anyone has the potential to become addicted to alcohol once they consume enough of it. Just like me.

Here are some more truths:

You are not the problem; alcohol is.

You don't have an addictive personality.

You don't have the alcoholic's gene.

You are not defective.

You don't need to drink.

I know this is probably hard to believe, but it's the truth. And it's time we accept it.

I have been alcohol-free for the four years it has taken me to write my book, You're Doing Great! (And Other Lies Alcohol Told Me). I am not sober. Sober means somber, subdued, serious, solemn, grave, and restrained. I am none of those things. Nor am I an alcoholic.

I am a joyous, alcohol-free man, and my ex-wife is extremely supportive of my transformation. We are great friends now. We travel to our properties and spend weeks together on the holidays with our girls and family.

I have apologized in many different ways and she has fully forgiven me. She knows that my story will help many people, so she has been wonderful about me going public with our past issues.

My hope is that this story, no matter how embarrassing or damning it proves to my own character, will help you accept the truth about alcohol and, in the process, start living your life peacefully on your own terms: Alcohol-free and fully awake.

In 2009, Dustin Dunbar was handpicked by Ryan Seacrest for LA Shrink and Endemol Productions Dallas Life Coach, where Dunbar was the "Shrink" and "Life Coach" on those pilots. Dunbar earned a doctorate in psychology and overcame his addiction at the age of 48. He is a coach at WearetheAFR.org, a non-profit online community helping others with alcohol addiction and raising consciousness and the author of You're Doing Great: And Other Lies Alcohol Told Me.

All views expressed are the author's own.

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