Early to Rise || August 30, 2018

From College Athlete to Alcoholic to Personal Trainer—and Incredible Success

By Sam Morris

My name is Sam and I’m an alcoholic.

This is, on most days, how I begin my interaction with the other humans roaming the earth. As an alcoholic, this is my medicine, and it centers me.

But how did I get here?

Sometimes, I don’t even know myself, but I can tell you that when I was a young tennis player growing up in Vermont, becoming an alcoholic was not one of my life goals. I was destined to follow in the footsteps of Andre Agassi and go on to tennis stardom.

That’s not how things worked out.

The roots of anxiety and depression

I had a really great childhood. I would play tennis and golf all summer and ski every winter. There was no abuse, physical or verbal, in my house—just a lot of love and laughter.

I say this because later in life I would battle with depression, anxiety, alcoholism, and a cocaine addiction. There were none of the common markers from my childhood that would predispose me to any of those things.

There are a few triggers I uncovered, however, but only after several trips to rehab and years of therapy. It mostly goes back to being a really sick kid for the first 15 years of my life. I was allergic to a lot of foods and I had severe asthma that led to extended stays in hospitals every spring.

This all had lasting effects on my life as I grew up. I felt very, very different from my peers as far back as I can remember. As they were all running around the farms and fields of Vermont, I was stuck at home with asthma—and fear.

The truth: I was stuck at home more because of my own demons than because of my asthma or allergies.

I was scared of the world. The asthma was a nice reason for anti-social behavior, though; it served as a built-in excuse for not going to birthday parties, sleep-overs, or on hay rides. But asthma wasn't the culprit; anxiety was. I didn’t know why then, but I know now that anxiety and low-level depression followed in the wake of my struggles with asthma and allergies.

Since the start of my sobriety, I have found that this scenario is not so uncommon. The source—for me, the asthma and allergies—might be different for others, but the resulting fear, anxiety, and depression are very similar.

As I got older, the asthma began to subside and I learned how to eat around my food allergies. This did nothing for my anxiety, though. I was still scared of the world and avoided most social situations.

The danger of isolation

When I was 8 years old, I started playing tennis. The constant breaks in play allowed me to control my breathing, so it was the ideal sport—and, as it turns out, I was pretty good at it.

Tennis also worked for me because it kept my anxiety low.

There were no other teammates involved, and no one I needed to regularly interact with—it was just me out there.

I started playing regional tournaments all over New England. This was my new reason to avoid the social situations that caused my anxiety to skyrocket.

What I learned over time was that tennis did more than just distract me. A disease like anxiety wants isolation. That allows the mind to compound feelings that feed anxiety, which ultimately lead to racing thoughts, an elevated heart rate, and spinning tunnel vision—not to mention a complete energy drain.

Looking back, it was clear tennis saved my life—not because it was "healthy," but because it kept me from completely isolating.

I can say now, looking back, that I had a good life, full of friends and, every so often, social occasions—in part because of tennis.

Tennis helped me navigate relationships and events. But there was still a lot of discomfort. And even though I learned to adapt, that discomfort never completely went away. Not really.