Welcome to adventures and things. I’m Michael Wright and this is a blog about my journey from raging alcoholic to mild mannered adventurer who also likes things. In these blogs I will talk to about my travels when I was a drunkard to travelling sober and the problems I have faced with both. This blog will mostly be about the importance of getting out and exploring and how it saved my life. If I can inspire at least one person to get out and explore or get sober or explore while sober and eat tacos then I have done my job.
My love for exploration didn’t start when I got sober but it definitely helps me to explore more. When I was a kid growing up in Prince Edward County, Ontario I played hockey and as much as I loved the game I loved the travel. I loved the feeling of being in a new town experiencing a new place and a new energy. Before every game I used to get the map of Ontario out and study it and try to figure out the route to the game, home games were never as exciting for me. My favourite thing was to look at the town names and ask my Dad if we could go there. Most of the time he would say no because we didn’t have time, but every once in a while we would stop by a little town for quick visit or drive through. I just really enjoyed seeing how other towns were laid out and the different stores and shops they had. We used to go exploring as a family as well which I feel also sparked my love of adventure. We would cross country ski in the sand dunes, go to Niagara Falls and go quading in northern Ontario. As I got older though those times stopped happening, I would start to get rides to hockey with friends and my family didn’t really like to explore as much anymore. Maybe it was me that didn’t want to explore with them anymore after all I was starting to party with my friends more on the weekends. The explorations didn’t necessarily stop I still explored different areas around Ontario but half the time I couldn’t tell you if the place was actually amazing or not, I would usually be too drunk to really appreciate the places I went. I mean there were times when I would be sober and experience the place a little bit but when you get drunk you definitely miss out on the true beauty of the place.
In my early twenties I travelled to Australia with my brother, it was my first really big travel experience and I was super pumped to go to the land down under and see all the funny hats and deadly animals. However when you are an alcoholic and travel with an alcoholic you tend to spend a lot of money and time drinking and missing out on what the country has to offer. We did get out and explore the Blue Mountains and drove up and down the east coast living out of a station wagon. That was amazing one time we were just outside of Mackay and it was stinger season and bloody hot out so we decided to go for a quick dip in the ocean. We hung our towels off a sign and walked out into the ocean and went for a quick dip. When we got out we were wondering why everyone was looking at us like we were insane and kept drying off. As I went to put my towel back on the sign I read what it said. It was stinger season which means all sorts of jelly fish and other kill you water animals. Somehow we went in without dying which was pretty fun but then we went to the pub and got drunk. The pub scene was becoming boring too me and I wanted to try and see more of the country. My brother said we are seeing more of the country it’s cool to check out the pub culture of different places. I said dude we are not really travelling and seeing the world. He once again said sure we are we are seeing the night life and my only response was “the whole world looks the same from the seat of a bar doesn’t it.” So we cut back on our drinking a bit and travelled on more.
That travel put the travel bug in me and I was raring to go so go I did, right into a relationship with someone who I eventually found out didn’t want to travel. So my drinking started getting more and more. I had to stop for a while so I decided to hike the Appalachian Trail so a friend of mine and I went down and he quit after six days and left me out there all alone. I found a group of great guys that I hiked with one of which was of course an alcoholic trying to quit drinking, what could go wrong? Well we hiked and stopped for drinks and hiked and drank and then called it quits because alcoholics are great at quitting everything except of course alcohol. So I came back to Canada and took up drinking some more.
After a while I decided to move out to BC where my brother and my mother (both alcoholics) lived. This was going to be my big change my life of travel and adventure was about to begin, how could it not? I was living in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Well I will tell you this, alcoholics sure know how to find each other, and if it’s not at the pub it’s in a shitty job or through mutual drunks. My family all drank my new best friend drank and my new lady friend drank. Goodbye adventure and hello crippling depression. Like all my adventures back in Ontario these adventures in BC, although mostly amazing were very limited by my crutches, drugs and alcohol. I went to some beautiful places and saw some cool things more than likely haha. I did see some cool stuff but once again I limited myself with alcohol. After a few years of this I was on a downward spiral, I was getting fatter and fatter and sadder and sadder. I hated my life I wasn’t pursuing any of my dreams I was in fact getting further and further away from them. But one day I said fuck it I need to get my shit together I need to take my life back and stop with all the bullshit excuses, I had a tough day boo hoo, I’m so stressed I need to relax. It’s all bullshit addicts tell themselves because it’s easier than admitting you fucking suck. I admitted it; I called myself an alcoholic and said to myself I want to stop being a piece of shit human being. I quit drinking and within two weeks of drinking a good friend of mine from back in Ontario had passed away due to complications related to alcohol. That was an even bigger wake up for me and I haven’t had a drink in over three years. I left my alcoholic girlfriend and moved to a place I have always wanted to in Victoria, BC. I have now travelled to Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua. I have been throughout most of the United States and Canada and I get out and do adventures and things at every single opportunity I can. I started following my dreams and adventuring and becoming an entertainer. I started a YouTube channel called adventures and things. I have mostly taken my life back. I say mostly because I still struggle some days but I have healthy coping mechanism and I have a purpose in life and that is all a person needs to survive, well water and food too. So I hope this journey of mine inspires you to get out and do adventures and things and maybe quit drinking or doing drugs or being a deadbeat. Ever since I quit drinking my life has changed for the better. My circle of friends is changing drastically I have taking up scuba diving and have many more adventures I would love to share with you throughout this journey. I will post about old and new journeys and you can go over to YouTube and check out my channel where I post weekly adventures and things. Thank you for your time and don’t forget to get out for adventures and things.