Facing a Brutal Fact

High-per­form­ing CEOs and exec­u­tives — as they search for ways to cope with stress — can some­times get lost down the rab­bit hole of addiction.

Tech exec­u­tive and coach David Greer is one of them. In the hope that his sto­ry inspires oth­ers, in this three-part series, he shares his jour­ney of growth, as an entre­pre­neur and how alco­hol became a cop­ing mech­a­nism until the point when it began to rule his life. Until, 16 years ago, he reached a turn­ing point.

David remem­bers that, when we first met at a one-page strate­gic plan sem­i­nar, I asked him a cou­ple of ques­tions that made him very uncom­fort­able and brought tears to his eyes. Until that moment, he said he hadn’t real­ized how unful­filled he was in his work.

Short­ly after, we began work­ing togeth­er. Our first coach­ing ses­sion, in August 2007, was David’s 50^th birth­day. But it wasn’t until 18 months lat­er that he real­ly got to work.

Lis­ten to David talk about our first call here.

First, a Lit­tle Background

Now based in Van­cou­ver, Cana­da, he grew up in Edmon­ton where he was intro­duced to com­put­ers, at a young age. By Grade 9, he knew want­ed to com­bine com­put­ers and busi­ness into a career and went on to earn his degree in com­put­er sci­ence. Dur­ing this time, while work­ing part­time for a rapid­ly grow­ing Cable­vi­sion com­pa­ny, he met a con­sul­tant who offered him a posi­tion (the first hire) in his fledg­ling soft­ware com­pa­ny. He stayed for 20 years, help­ing to grow a very suc­cess­ful com­pa­ny, and became a partner.

That part­ner­ship end­ed in 2001, just at the start of the dot­com melt­down. Although he began to chase oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties, a ​‘light­bulb’ moment made him real­ize that, if he con­tin­ued to work at the same pace, he’d miss the pre­cious, grow­ing-up years of his chil­dren. So, David and his wife made the rad­i­cal deci­sion to take their three chil­dren on a two-year, 5000-mile sail­ing adventure.

A Brave Deci­sion Changes Everything

I met David when he returned, when, as an advi­sor and investor in emerg­ing tech com­pa­nies, he wasn’t hav­ing suc­cess find­ing some­thing to sink his teeth into and need­ed help to fig­ure out what to do next. And while we ​“cleared a lot of stuff off the table”, our work hit a new lev­el when David decid­ed to take a brave step that would dra­mat­i­cal­ly change his life. He talks about his life or death deci­sion here.

“About 18 months in,” he says, ​“the night before we had a coach­ing call…about 10:30 at night, I had my last beer, put the emp­ty down and I sent you an e‑mail (that) the top­ic for dis­cus­sion tomor­row is my drinking.

Lis­ten to David and I have an hon­est con­ver­sa­tion here.

We also dis­cuss when he real­ized he had a problem.

“As a dai­ly drinker for 20 years, it was my biggest, dark­est secret. I had been com­plete­ly in denial, and you were the first per­son I opened up to.”

“I tell peo­ple that I had enough of a trust rela­tion­ship with you, know­ing you had my back. I knew once I told you, there was no going back. I knew that you would nev­er let me off the hook. I was real­ly scared. I did­n’t know how I was going to live my life with­out alco­hol but once I let it out to you, I knew that was the end.”

David talks about tak­ing his first step to sobri­ety here.

Not a Unique Story

David was a high-per­form­ing alco­holic who got a lot done.

“I drank to pow­er up and give rock­et fuel to get more stuff done, or to skip past exhaus­tion or feel­ings. Towards the end, I start­ed drink­ing a lit­tle ear­li­er. It was 4:00, then 3:30, and then 3:00; a six-pack just to get a lit­tle buzz going, then wine with din­ner and then I’d find ways to drink after din­ner until I passed out. Then, I’d get up at 6:30 in the morn­ing, go to the gym to work out the hang­over, then the work­day and just repeat, ad nauseum.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard this sto­ry because I’d worked with peo­ple in Alco­hol Anony­mous’ 12-step recov­ery pro­grams and had learned, over many camp­fire nights, from a neigh­bour who taught me about alco­holism, through his own expe­ri­ence of being sober for 30 years and men­tor­ing oth­ers. He also taught me the impor­tance of plant­i­ng a seed with some­one who is strug­gling, to let them know what is avail­able to them when they are ready to ask for help. Lis­ten to us talk about camp­fire sto­ries here.

Alco­holism is a pro­gres­sive dis­ease and when David was ​“sick and tired of being sick and tired and being behold­en to the booze”, he was ready to ask for help.

David and I had talked about what he want­ed in his life, the future, pos­si­bil­i­ties and what he need­ed to get there. But we had nev­er talked about alco­hol, until that day. When it became unde­ni­able that booze was hold­ing him back, he was ready to do some­thing about it.

And I knew enough to rec­om­mend he get to an AA group that day, or the next day.

Now, after 16 years of recov­ery, he’s a dra­mat­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent person.

David’s sto­ry con­tin­ues next week.

Watch the full inter­view below and click the link for David’s web­site https://​coachd​j​greer​.com/.

Resources

• • From Your Oxy­gen Mask First:
    • Chap­ter 1 Live an Amaz­ing Life
    • Chap­ter 6 Deal with Your Emo­tion­al Junk
    • Chap­ter 7 Man­age Your Men­tal Health
  • Alco­holics Anony­mous to help peo­ple achieve sobriety.
  • Al-Anon for peo­ple who are wor­ried about some­one with a drink­ing problem.
  • Adult Chil­dren of Alco­holics for peo­ple who had alco­holic par­ents or fam­i­ly dysfunction.

Oth­er Blogs

• Is Emo­tion­al and Men­tal Health a Pri­or­i­ty in Your Boardroom?
• The Psy­cho­log­i­cal Price of Entrepreneurship
• Align on the Most Impor­tant Things
• An Inter­view with Some­one Who Had a Close Call
• A CEO Burnout Story

Old­er Podcasts

• Exec­u­tive Burnout: How Do You Know You Need Help? Part 1
• Exec­u­tive Burnout: How Do You Know You Need Help? Part 2