I don’t talk about this much, but my grandpa was a severe alcoholic. And I mean severe. He would disappear for days on benders. As a kid, I never saw it directly, but I lived with the fallout. It shaped my family in ways that are still raw decades later.

He was also a World War II veteran. He saw heavy fighting. He came home injured. And he came home to a world that told him to man up and never talk about it. Drinking became his way of surviving what he couldn’t process.

Here’s the thing I’ve learned with time. I would not be who I am without that experience. Not because it was good, but because I was lucky enough to have parents who were steady, square, and deeply values-driven. They didn’t hide what was happening. They talked about it. They taught me that someone else’s failure is not your fault.

That’s why I study learning from failure. That’s why I believe people can change. And that’s why I believe small steps matter. If you’re struggling, one less drink. One honest conversation. One boundary. One tiny step sustained over time.

You are not broken. You are not evil. You are responding to pain the best way you know how. And you can choose a different path, one small step at a time.