Is there something more to your story?

In addition to my executive career at Sony, my upbringing well prepared me for this work. I began unknowingly studying the alcoholic mind at about four or five years old. Growing up in an alcoholic home teaches you to quickly assess every flinch off of an alcoholic parent’s behavior. You intuit it - every nuance, every step, every misstep. Your very life depends on it. The impact this upbringing had on me left me with a double-edged sword, a sharp reasoning mind, and a penchant to escape the pain and suffering of being me. So I left young, very young and began to drink with impunity. Eventually, I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. By 23 years old I had been signed and dropped by several labels due to my alcoholism and was left with nowhere to live -one more time . My young life seemed to be over. Now, 1991, 23 years old. Broken down and busted up, with nowhere else to go I found myself walking through a church basement door for something called a “Big Book” study.  Those early meetings changed me entirely, slowly rerouting my spirit, personal trajectory, recovery , soul objective, and life's purpose. It is how and why I write this today.

Why this path forward?

My life’s greatest joy has unequivocally come from sharing a message of hope and participating in the alchemy of sobriety. The highs of my business career pale in comparison to the benefits of participating in watching the pilot light go on in a fellow sufferer of this torturous soul sucker of a disease. With having grown up on the streets of NY, my parents, my bandmates, my 30- year career in music and my three decades of recovery there is little I’m not prepared for when it comes to you and your addiction. Though I did end up achieving a great deal in my business career, it is fair to say that 90% of the persons I achieved success with were addicts. Some sober, some not.  Thus, having spent an entire lifetime working with addicts and understanding their plight, I am limited in how to express my gratitude for being afforded an opportunity to jump in the foxhole and stand shoulder to shoulder with those still suffering on the front lines and walk towards the way out of this slow and painful suffering.

Victor Murgatroyd