Climbing the Himalayas Helped Me Stay Sober

This story is part of our ongoing “First Steps” series, where we share extraordinary stories of men who transformed their bodies, minds, and lives with a focus on the first steps it took them to get there (because, after all, nothing can change without a first step!). Read all of the stories here.

Scott Strode, 51, started drinking at 11 and using cocaine by 15. Addiction consumed his early 20s, leaving him paranoid and fearing an overdose. Once he got sober, fitness—climbing, boxing, triathlons—became his refuge. Determined to use his experience to help others, in 2006 he founded The Phoenix, a sober active community that has helped over half a million people overcome addiction. His forthcoming memoir, Rise. Recover. Thrive., aims to inspire even more people on their journey to recovery. In his own words, here’s how he did it.

I GREW UP in rural Pennsylvania and had a father with untreated mental health struggles. He once tore out an exterior wall of our house during a manic episode and never rebuilt it. He just stapled plastic up, so we lived in a house with three walls. Our house had an outhouse and no heat. We barely had running water.

I lived a very different life with my mom, who was a very accomplished businesswoman. She ended up becoming a U.S. ambassador and was friends with three different presidents. But she remarried, and my stepfather struggled with alcohol.

Mine was a pretty dynamic childhood. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was causing some significant self-esteem wounds. When I discovered drugs and alcohol during my adolescence, they helped some of that pain go away. So I jumped in with both feet.

I drank my first beer at 11. Everybody I looked up to at that point—my cousins, people in my stepfather’s family–regularly imbibed from a keg or liquor cabinet. When I told my friends about it, they all lit up. I realized people wanted to be around me to hear that story, and I thought, we have a fridge full of beer in the garage. I could grab a couple. All of a sudden, everybody wanted to hang out at my house, and I started connecting with others in a way I was craving.

I started throwing a lot of parties. I got to know somebody who sold weed. Then that person started selling coke. Soon people wanted to be around me so we could pick up bags of coke. It became my identity: the guy who’d buy a tray of shots and walk around the bar handing them out, helping pals score weed and coke.

I dropped out of school when I was 17, got my GED, and started working on boats. I was facilitating these experiential education programs, sailing around New England and the Caribbean. At night we’d open a bottle of rum and just throw the lid over the side. Because of the life I grew up in, I didn’t know you put the lid back on a bottle after pouring a drink.

I came ashore in Boston in my early 20s, and my drinking got pretty bad. I’d black out and come to. I’d have to call out off work, and by the time I pieced myself back together, it would be a day later.

I wanted to change my life but didn’t know how. I was always drawn to the idea of doing something physical and being outdoors, so I went to an outdoor equipment store and bought a GORE-TEX jacket. Walking out, I saw an ice climbing brochure with a guy hanging off this massive ice cliff, and I thought: that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.

I stayed sober through a Friday night so I could go climbing on Saturday. The guide climbed up the cliff effortlessly, and then I struggled my way up. I was sweating. My arms got pumped. I could barely hold on to the ice axes. My shirt was riding up, and my belly was on the ice. It was just like my life, because I was struggling at the time. But a seed was planted, and I thought maybe someday I could climb like him. It gave me something to aspire to, so I’d stay sober on the weekends to climb.

That same year, I ran into a friend who was a Golden Gloves boxer, and she asked if I’d ever tried boxing. At that point, I was saying yes to anything that would help me change my life, so I went for it and fell in love with the sport. It was empowering because my childhood was filled with emotional abuse that left me feeling powerless.

Despite the physical activity, my drinking and drug use had progressed. I was living in these extreme worlds. The last night I used, I was on a bender. I was paranoid that my life would end with an overdose, and I thought about how somebody would have to tell my mom. I realized I had to quit.

Waking up the next day, I suddenly had a lot more time to fill. I dove into boxing and climbing.

The edginess of boxing filled the void left by drinking and using. The sport demands immense focus and discipline, so training became almost meditative, distracting me from thoughts of relapse. Basically, it gave me a new identity as something more than my drug and alcohol use, and I became the guy with a gym bag outside the boxing gym waiting for the doors to open. I started surrounding myself with people who’d rather get up at 5am than stay out until 5am.

The first time I went running, I was still smoking cigarettes and I had just gotten sober. I ran 300 yards and had to walk home huffing and puffing. But I fell in love with endurance sports.

I went from falling my way up an ice climb to being a pretty confident climber. I started climbing bigger mountains, and I began dreaming of going to the Himalayas and the Andes. In the decade after getting sober, thanks to my recovery, I was able to do those things.

Every year on the anniversary of the day I quit drinking, I do something I wouldn’t have been able to do when I was still drinking and using. On my first anniversary I completed my first half marathon. The next year it was a full marathon, then an Ironman.

As I continued to climb and do triathlons, my recovery was transformed. I wanted to live in a place where that was ingrained in the culture, so I moved to Boulder, Colorado. But there was part of me that realized I was still trying to fill a void. I’d race an Ironman, but I wouldn’t qualify for the world championship, and I’d be frustrated. I had to find that next mountain or finish line. But when I started sharing what I’d learned with others, I really started to live a life of purpose.

That’s when a few friends and I came up with The Phoenix, a free sober-active community where we share our unique gifts with one another. I started by putting flyers up in supermarkets and coffee shops that said “climbing on Friday night,” and I’d buy a couple punch passes at the climbing gym and stand outside.

I was super bummed the first couple weeks when no one came. But one night, a guy showed up—his name was Barry. And then another came, and another, and today there are half a million people who are served by The Phoenix.

What I have learned on this journey is that it’s not about how long the triathlon is; it’s about trying something new, pushing yourself, setting a goal, and creating a vision. Those lessons led me to meeting my wife, Kate. We have a family—a son, Magnus, and a daughter, Alice—and I get to be a very different parent for them than what I had growing up.

Pain passes through generations until somebody’s willing to feel it, and I took the time to feel it… with a lot of therapy and all of my adventures. Now, I get to give my kids a very different life, and soon I hope to help get them into their own climbing harnesses.

3 Tips That Helped Me Stay Sober

TIP 1: The 5 a.m. rule.

Instead of staying out partying until 5:00 a.m., wake up at 5:00 a.m., and work to surround yourself with people who do the same.

TIP 2: Move your body five days a week.

This could be a short, 10-to-20-minute walk with your kids or a more comprehensive fitness routine. But it will pay dividends on your physical and mental health, especially if you share that time with others.

TIP 3: Help others rise by sharing your unique gifts to make their lives better. By lifting others, you also lift yourself.

It’s important to note, though, you should build healthy mutual relationships, not ones in which you’re not the only one giving.