Warning
This is unstructured writing and more of a spew of consciousness than anything. Below is an outline of Alex’s thought process surrounding his own alcohol consumption. Nothing bad has happened, everyone is healthy and fine, just reflection.
A brief history-
In high school I somehow ended up with the party kid crew that threw parties and got into trouble, oftentimes surrounding the consumption of alcohol. This caused tension in my relationship with my parents.
When I was in college I used alcohol regularly as a crutch in social situations to help mask insecurities. This crutch was a leading influence on my grades, caused me to lose my license for a stretch and caused me to almost miss my college graduation. This furthered the tension surrounding my consumption of alcohol with my parents.
After college I moved to Jackson, WY. While living in Jackson in my 20’s, beer was almost like a form of currency and I was never far from a beer fridge while at work, on the bus ride home and while living in a ski town.
When Dani and I left Jackson for Boulder, CO, one of the things I was excited about was starting over fresh in a new work culture and living on our own to avoid the temptation and peer pressure surrounding drinking.
Unfortunately, I still had a lot of growing up to do and when faced with an unfulfilling outdoor industry sales job, I easily slipped back into having lunch at craft breweries close to the office and hitting the beer fridge in the repair shop after work. The outdoor industry as a whole uses alcohol in a lot of irresponsible ways (think food service except with a sun hoody and a flatbill), it feels almost like with a wink and a fist bump your boss will say they can’t pay you anymore for the job you do but have all the beer you want and a new pair of ski boots. I witnessed this first hand, lost friends to the darkness this can shroud you in and it was the last straw in forcing me away from the industry that I geek out the most on. I mean I told dani the other day that I want to print a sticker that says “Gear Makes Me Poop.” The struggle is real.
***PLEASE NOTE*** This is not strange or unique. This is what my friends did and do, my mentors, my ski partners, those that I looked up to at the time.
So why write this post and what's the point? To begin with I have opinions. I think that it’s good to have opinions but I also think that it’s important to understand that your opinions may not be the same as others. Along with these opinions there have come many “Dierker-isms” as Dani puts it, and catch phrases, some of my own creation and others that I have adopted from people that I love and respect. These Dierker-isms are small taglines that I use redundantly, mostly to remind myself why I’m doing something (often difficult) or break the ice when life doesn’t make sense and I need a quick bearing for direction. There are many of these taglines that include “Ditto-ditto”, “It's just a fun run man” “If you can't huck it, F*** It “Enjoy the process” and most importantly “There are only so many beans.”
In my opinion, life is a little bit like the folk tale about Jack and the Magic Beanstalk. We've been given this bag of magic beans that can bring an enormous amount of experience to our lives (both good and bad). However, there are only so many of them. For me there are only so many beans and therefore only so much time and energy to experience life.
During Dani and I’s years in Colorado, I often found that I was short on beans. Too often beans would slip away due to decision making on my part and would leave me feeling exhausted, depressed and with a feeling of hopelessness. Leaks in this energy would come from all sorts of directions, and so I started trying to identify these leaks and address them as best as I could, or at least work to be more cognizant of them. A few of these leaks are outlined below:
Below the line thinking, more on that here- https://discoveryinaction.com.au/above-or-below-the-line-where-are-you/
Too much screen time
Alcohol consumption
Dani and I had several different chapters while living in Colorado, but the gist of a day included long commutes, lots of screen time, stress at work, stress from life events, as much exercise as we could fit in, dinner and a beer or two. This all seemed pretty normal, especially compared to our peers, until I started to find my top end last year.
I wasn’t sleeping very well, didn’t like my job, didn't like my commute, my communication patterns were faltering, I didn’t have much empathy for the world and was finding myself more and more trying to maximize every second of the day in search of something to hang my hat on, including the thought process, “how many beers can I have on Friday or Saturday night while attempting to be social and still rally at 4am the next morning, skin our skis, pack the car, wake up Dani and get down the road before the traffic to ski, because I've been busting my tail and need 4 hrs on skis or I'm going to be REALLY bummed.”
Ok so sidebar, there is something that the record must show. Above all else I love my wife Dani, I love my family and friends, however after that follows a host of pursuits led by skiing. I was really lucky to have a father who taught me to ski growing up in Illinois when I was 4. No lessons, just rental gear a couple days a year and a lot of encouragement. At 21, skiing was something I had known for my whole life…. before I moved to Jackson, WY after college. I knew what I was doing, skiing was NO problem. I promptly face planted skiing powder snow for the first time, double ejected out of both my bindings the first time I skied off Glory on Teton Pass and sun burned my eyes while on my first hut trip. The challenge of learning this new pursuit of backcountry skiing, in an environment that seemed so unfriendly but so beautiful with all the nuances of terrain choice, communication and gear selections in the most beautiful mountains I had ever known drugged me…. and then introduced me to a beautiful snow scientist. Life has never been the same. There are very few instances in your life that you have those dumb struck moments that change your course drastically and leave you with your jaw on the floor. Meeting Dani changed my life. Those first tours off Teton Pass changed my life. I love to fish, I love to run, I love to climb, but you might as well be saying I love lamp compared to the feeling I get with cold air on my face as I work my way punching in a new skin track or making turns of literally any kind, chunder, mash potatoes, hot pow, cold pow, pow pow, breakable crust, I don’t care.
This love of skiing has been stretched and tested over the years by going back to school, jobs, commuting, traffic, location and the biggest culprit has been alcohol. So many days I skinned on a brisk morning or put on my running shoes feeling groggy and fuzzy, bloated and generally shitty. I struggle to regulate temperature on a good day and being hungover made it far worse. I get snippy, emotional and don't problem solve or make decisions well.
The effects alcohol has on my body are not unnoticed by me and my recreating partners. Over the last 10 years I have been working through an internal dialogue surrounding my consumption of alcohol and its effect on my life and I think I may have finally found the path forward.
I have been lucky enough to live a life where I get a lot of days in my year that I feel 80-100% overall. The luck in this is not lost on me. I have friends who are brilliant and strong in the mountains and yet suffer physically due to nothing under their control. What I see is that when I have a beer or two or three, the next day I am lucky to get to 80% and I end up not feeling great. Basically I poison myself and sabotage my efforts. My critical thinking at work suffers and my communication with Dani suffers. I am super fortunate to have the health and lifestyle that I have and it seems trivial and dumb to sabbotage this for no reason.
It is not lost on me that others, including Dani, are able to function much easier with responsible consumption of alcohol. Maybe I damaged my system at a young age or maybe my personal relationship with alcohol is just a little more sensitive and complex than others. I’m not sure. Just know that if you're reading this and think, “man Alex hates everyone who drinks,” please know that is not the case.
As of 2020, Dani and I have relocated to Reno, NV. Our 4th stop on this wild ride of life.
We relocated here for a host of reasons but one of which was the skiing. As I have navigated a new career and getting married and relocating to a state that is a far cry from where I grew up I have also been on a hunt to find a few more beans and generally be the best person I can be. Be my best self if you will. Along my path to finding said beans and best self, I keep coming across articles and having conversations with people surrounding drinking. Turns out I'm not the only person who has been on this thought process! No crazy issues to address, just trying to get a little more sleep, train a little more efficiently, have more time on the weekend with the dial at 11 and generally feeling better over all. See links below to some of these articles.
OK enough rambling. Long story short, I have decided to cut alcohol out of my diet for 2020. I am 3 months in at this point and it has been easier than I expected. I have shared this choice with friends, who shockingly have been supportive and nonchalant about it. I have attended weddings and social gatherings. I have talked to my parents and in-laws. It turns out I am surrounded by wonderful humans who love and care for me no matter what my preference on the subject. Maybe I'm a little more comfortable in my own skin now that I have Dani P in my life. Social situations seem less daunting and life doesn’t seem like something I need to bury or run from anymore. I don't know if this will be a lifestyle choice for ever or just for this year. But Operation New Decade New Dierker is a go and I am going to post a few more write ups here as the year progresses. Mostly just as an outlet to put thoughts down as text, so feel free to skip over if you find yourself checking our site for some of Dani’s great photos. Stay tuned and remember to KEEP THE STOKE ALIVE!
https://treelinejournal.com/why-treeline-journal-and-why-24-hours-on-pilot-butte/
https://ultrarunnerpodcast.com/why-i-quit-drinking-beer/
https://www.therunnerstrip.com/2020/02/my-change-for-better-wellness/