You Don’t Have to Drink to Ski

N 2007, I CAME HOME from Iraq after my last year in the U.S. Army. What followed was four years of rivers of booze and mountains of cocaine while trying to live a ‘normal’ life. At the two-year mark of being home, I started rock climbing. That gave me my first sense of something I could live for beyond mere survival. When I was outside, my nervous system calmed down and I