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The 5th Anniversary of the Worst Day of My Life

And why I plan to celebrate

3 min readSep 22, 2025

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Photo by Kier in Sight Archives on Unsplash

This morning, my daughter woke up and got dressed and made her way into my office and hugged me and then went on her way back to the campus where she’s a college sophomore.

I’m not even sure if she knows what today is.

But I know it quite well.

I wrote a bit about the pain of this day 5 years ago — pain caused by my toxic relationship with alcohol.

Today marks 5 years since I was asked to leave my home — my wife and my daughter — because I couldn’t quite figure out if I wanted to live a life without alcohol.

Yes, I’d stopped drinking for a time early in 2020.

Yes, I’d taken 30 days away in a treatment facility.

Yes, I’d participated in recovery group meetings and even an outpatient group therapy program.

And yet — I was still willing to trade a life I’d spent years building for the opportunity to just drink the way I wanted to with no one bothering me.

When thinking about the worst days of my life, there are a few pretty strong contenders.

One that just bubbled up in the middle of a workday and one in the midst of what should have been a glorious vacation.

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Andy Spears
Andy Spears

Written by Andy Spears

Writer and policy advocate living in Nashville, TN —Public Policy Ph.D. — writes on education policy, consumer affairs, and more . . .

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