36 Months Sober: Building a New Perspective on Masculinity

A couple of weeks ago I hit three years sober. I didn’t really do anything to celebrate. We have a full house and between that and starting my own business, I didn’t feel the need to mark the milestone. But it is a milestone. And as with my first and second anniversaries, it’s a moment that I’ve come to use as a way to reflect.

At the twelve and twenty four month mark, I looked back. But I wanted to use this post to look forward, and share why these next twelve months I’m exploring men’s advocacy beyond coaching, and trying to define and promote a more positive version of masculinity.

I do have to start by looking back though, because it’s further exploration of myself that has got me here. As I’ve been dipping my toe into the men’s work space with reading, writing and coaching, I’ve been asking myself where this is coming from. Am I just chasing the ghosts of my past to try and heal myself by healing others? Inevitably there is an element of that; someone once said to me that every coach wants to work with the person they were three years ago.

However the deeper I’ve gone into this topic, the more I’ve become convinced that this is where my work is. There were a few pillars that propped up my drinking problem, and one of the strongest was an unhealthy version of what it meant to be a man. This version lead to insecurity, a streak of ‘old-school’ masculinity, and ultimately an unsustainable drinking problem that served to numb the feeling that I wasn’t attaining whatever standards I believed the world had of me.

It’s taken three years of work to move beyond that and become truly comfortable in my own skin. That distance has been enough to ask myself “what kind of man do I want my nine year old son to grow into?” and “what kind of men do I want my seven year old daughter to be surrounded by?”

The answer, I think, is a man who takes traditionally male virtues and has the humility, courage and wisdom to amend them to today’s world;

• a provider; of a positive role model of a happy, healthy and useful man - not just a salary

• a protector; from harm in all it’s forms - inactivity, loneliness, poor diets, and hatred and division driven by algorithms

• a nurturer; of inquisitiveness, love and the missing nuance in today’s world

A strong and capable man who is comfortable in his own skin is not a man who hates and divides; he is a man who leads and unites. In Human Kind, Rutger Bregman writes about the traits our ancestors would have selected for in leaders. As well as being strong and brave, they had to be fair, generous, humble and wise. That has been lost and masculinity has been hijacked, and the failure of the political Left to talk to the moderate man means the Right has filled the void, leading those men who seek leadership to swing conservative globally. We need an avatar in the middle that speaks to the majority, celebrating the strong, courageous and capable men who know that it’s harder to unite than it is divide, but it’s what we need to heal.

And so that is the work for me. Exploring this new version of masculinity and how we can bring it to the forefront of the conversation of what it means to be a man. Our boys and young men deserve it. Over the next twelve months, this is where I’ll be.

I recently listened to an amazing interview on the Jocko podcast with Jason Wilson, who works with young boys and, amongst other things, uses Martial Arts as a way to teach them emotional resilience and authentic manhood. He talks about becoming a comprehensive man by running to the ares of your life that cause you to feel emotions that you currently run from.

The quote that hit me deeply was: “Because this world I don’t believe, has yet experienced the nurturing love of a man - because ours is different”.

That is the work.