LACEY’S STORY

Growing up with an addict as a dad, you have two roads. One is to follow, and one is to break the cycle. I followed, until I didn’t anymore.

My dad was my best friend when I was young. I was the definition of a daddy’s girl. He always refers to the time that I was backing him up to the trailer to hook it up (I was always spot on, or maybe he was just good at knowing exactly where to be). Something happened in the process that he had to help with, and I said “What would I do without you dad?”

Not too many years after that, I found out what I would do without him. And that created a version of me I am not proud of today, but it also made me the person I am. Unfortunately, dad relapsed after eight years of being sober. I was about 14 or 15 when he tore out. Of course this left my mom, brother and I to fend for ourselves and go through this change of life.

My mom decided that the first time around was enough times of going through this with him, and they got a divorce (He already had been to prison for drug related charges when I was about 6, and she stayed around through that). From there on out I battled with feeling good enough, as most kids do through divorce. I was also going into high school, which is a pivotal time for anyone. Of course you are exposed to more partying, alcohol, relations and more.

I played sports, and was pretty good at them. But that wasn’t enough to keep me on the whole straight and narrow. I learned that I liked to drink, and it was a regular occurrence on the weekends, after football games, and even sometimes during school. Of course when you’re that age, you don’t realize that you really shouldn’t be doing those things, but you do them anyway because you think it’s the cool thing to do.

Needless to say, high school was a weird time for me. I had a relationship that lasted most of those years, and not a healthy one. He was a couple of years older, so that made the perception that I could do whatever he was doing even stronger. Hanging out with older people, even just 3 years older, when you’re 18 doesn’t lead to much good decision making, especially when the older person isn’t on the right track themselves. In high school I got a couple of underage drinking tickets (two in one week, actually), and as you can imagine that led to fighting between the newly single mom and her oldest child.

I pulled out of that and made it to college in Gunnison, Colorado. I attended Western State Colorado University, otherwise known as ‘Wasted State’. With a nick-name like that, it’s expected that the partying is going to be top tier. Also, it is one of the coldest places in the continental 48, so there wasn’t much to do for 8-9 months, except for drink and party.

Again I thought my habits were normal. When you’re in college, everyone around you is drinking and partying. Not making the greatest decisions in life, but most of the time getting to class. At first I had a good group of friends in the dorms, and thought life was going well. One night, not too far into living in Gunnison, the partying got intense, and some shady stuff took place. I didn’t really know how adderall would affect me at the time, but I found out really quickly that you can drink like a fish when you take it. This led to a night of bad decisions, regret, and some pretty serious consequences. My room mate and I got into a fight, I went to sleep in another dorm of some other ‘friends’. Mind you, because of the lack of decision making skills at the time, it was guy ‘friends’, and as you can imagine he had a different idea of me ‘sleeping in his room for the night’. This isn’t at all a ‘me too’ story, just a story of me being naive, reckless, and plain dumb.

I don’t want to go into that whole story on this platform, but let’s just say that night opened my eyes, and made an already untrusting young girl, even colder. I had to move dorms, start at square one knowing absolutely no one, and of course had re-opened the high school relationship because I felt I needed him to lean on which left me in even more of a mess than I would have been in without adding him to the equation, considering he was going down the path of substance abuse himself.

This is when it got dark though. I was living in the dorms my freshman year. It had already been -30 degrees for about a month. My new room mate had a boyfriend that had a place in town, so she only showed up once every three or so months when they would have a fight or she just needed some time away. I was living in a new place, with no friends, no money, and it was too cold and dark to do anything. Looking back, I was severely depressed. A lot of the time I would have trouble sleeping, and resort to Nyquil, or a case of beer if I could get my hands on it. Considering I wasn’t 21 yet, I would try my best to get someone older from work to buy me beer. Or I would just stay up all night watching Netflix. My freshman year was rough. It ended up being -30 for two months. The sun would be shining and I would think it was one of those days where it’s chilly, but the winter sun warms your face when you go outside, and it would give me a little hope. But in Gunnison, the winter sun doesn’t do much except provide light for a couple hours in the day. It was deceitful.

This continued on for the rest of my college experience. Don’t get me wrong I had a ton of fun, fished a lot, and got my degree buttoned up in 3.5 years. I graduated with a business degree in the fall semester of 2018. And I couldn’t wait to be home.

I moved home, and found that doing that didn’t do much for my mental health. Job searching fresh out of college, they want two years of experience, but you just went to school for 3.5, and how do you get experience when everyone wants it, kind of thing set in. I also didn’t have many friends left when I got home. Mostly everyone that I was friends with before were still at school, or moved in different directions with their lives.

With no job, no friends, and really nothing to look forward to, this is when I started playing with leather. I bought a ‘starters kit’ at Hobby Lobby, and it has been a passion ever since. I also started working at a popular restaurant in town, serving tables. This is how I got through college so it felt comfortable, and plus I made some friends. The money isn’t all that bad in serving tables either. But both of these came with a lot of long nights of drinking.

Back into the same cycle. A couple years down the road and, well, 2020 happened. We were all at home. My mom was also in the middle of remodeling the kitchen. Let me tell you, electricians, plumbers, dry wallers; they don’t turn down a 10 am beer. My friends were over everyday. It turned into drinking all day and well into the night, sleeping a couple of hours, waking up and doing it all over again. Now, these are some of the funnest days I’ve ever had. And I wouldn’t trade the friends I made along the way for the world.

I got into another relationship. I thought that was the one, turned out to not be that at all. He was a rancher, and it was still covid time, so we didn’t do much but put up hay, feed cows, and drink Coors. At first it was all okay. Then it got to the point where we would just drink, fight, sleep, be sorry for the night before, and then do it again. We also didn’t really have a normal experience of a relationship because we couldn’t go do anything else. Then we broke up.

I was heartbroken and destructive. I was getting wasted most days of the week. I was depressed. I wasn’t doing any of the things I wanted to do with my life. I blamed myself fully for it ending, while at the same time being so angry with him. I was mean, hurtful, drunk, and immature in that relationship and I ruined it, so I thought. I realize now there are two parts to every problem, and it wasn’t all on me. He did the same mean things I did, but at the time I just beat myself up about it.

That went on for a couple of months. On my 24th birthday I drank 22 Coors banquets. I bought a 24 pack, gave two to friends but kept the rest in my room, and the next morning they were all gone. I was also still standing that night and talking (God only knows about what, and it couldn’t have made much sense). As you can imagine I woke up with a mean headache and the desire for another beer in hopes to alleviate the pain of the hangover. What a great way to start my 24th year of life…

Then January of 2022 I decided I needed a break. I realized that I had to stop crying over this person that didn’t want to be in my life anymore, and maybe I needed to try to face it with a sober mind. Dry January was on the table.

I am the kind of person that goes 100% or 0%. If I put my mind to something, I will achieve it. So I succeeded in a completely dry 31 days. February 1st I rewarded myself with a beer. It was a cold snowy day, and a friend and I were doing a photo shoot for some new product I had made up that winter. I drank two beers during the photo shoot. After, I was thinking about it and realized that during the 31 days sober, I liked the way I felt. I was productive, well rested, clear headed, and didn’t have to apologize to anyone for my actions the night before.

At that time I didn’t know what this was going to look like for me, and to be honest, I still don’t today. But I know what it did for my life.

The next part of this story is hopefully the story for the rest of my life. Over the next year I was *mostly* sober. For example on the 4th of July that year I had a beer or two floating down the river. And for a special occasion here and there. After, I would feel regret and like I let myself down.

In 2023 I dabbled less and less. Grade Mare Leather Co. took a booth to the Miles City Bucking Horse sale in May, and I had a few beers there. And then I went to the NFR, and the same. I am saying this because I want you to know it doesn’t have to be perfect. No one is. Maybe you can handle this form of relationship (every now and again), maybe you can’t. I am to the point where even that isn’t necessary, so I keep it to a minimum. And I surely don’t need it to have fun.

I have control now. I have the ability to have a couple, instead of 22, and twice a year if that. I have really enjoyed not being hungover. I really have enjoyed being able to drive (safely) everywhere I need to. I have enjoyed being in control of my life, and not letting alcohol have the reins. I have really enjoyed knowing my feelings, and being in touch with them.

We all know the drunk crying girl. I really have gotten to know her. I am now the SOBER crying girl. If I cry, I know why. I accept the feelings and do something about it. And I can tell you I don’t cry nearly as much. Before I was constantly hurting, so I would get drunk and cry. Now I have worked through a lot of that and come to know that it’s okay to cry, but I don’t feel the need to so much anymore. There are always going to be scars from my dad, relationships, heartbreak, death and any other trauma that comes from life, but they don’t hurt as much anymore because I face them head on with a sober mind.

I have tried new things, like boxing for example. I have boxed for the last 6 months, and really love it. It helps mentally, and I am not going to complain about the physical benefits! The gym is one of my outlets. I spend most nights boxing, lifting, and then some form of cardio. This is my time to focus on my body and how I am feeling. It gives me goals to achieve. It helps my mind to be quiet, and sink into something good for ME.

Most importantly my relationship with our Lord and Savior has grown. I have always believed in God, and got baptized at the age of 21 while I was in college. The story of baptism and ‘why’ is for a whole different post in itself, but for now we will just say that the Lord was protecting me in college on one of my drunken nights, and I was surely thankful. So I decided to get baptized. Since my baptism, my faith was in and out. Not as strong as it could have been. But now that I have had time to focus on it, I feel truly blessed to have a strong relationship with God. I have started reading the bible. I pray daily. And I try to share the word with those around me as much as possible.

As for my love life, I am single. But there is good reason for that. I needed time to know ME before I allowed myself into another relationship. Now, I feel that I have the capacity to love someone else fully, and be in a HEALTHY relationship, because I love and value myself. When I was drinking, I didn’t even know me, let alone be able to LOVE someone else. I don’t think that we ever fully know how to love, or be in a relationship, but I know now that when that does come to my life, I am ready to tackle whatever issues come with grace and love, instead of substance abuse.

My businesses and work have flourished in this time. I know what I want my business(es) to look like, which has led to SOBER COWBOY. I have always had a passion for those with addiction or substance abuse problems. I have also always had a passion for the western industry and agriculture. So I thought, ‘How can I be a part of the western community as much as possible, while fulfilling my passion of helping those with substance abuse problems or addiction?’

And then SOBER COWBOY was born.

I hope to share motivation, healthy living, community, and scripture with those in the western industry that may have a similar story. I feel so much better. And I hope that others can discover this feeling, too.

Thank you for being here, and here’s to the next wave of SOBER COWBOYS.