I hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol in nine years. Nine years of putting my soul into learning everything I could about Jesus Christ and the Church of Latter-day Saints, trying to redefine myself in a place where everything felt fake but somehow right. I was consumed with this idea of masculinity, gauged by the amount of money I made, by the way I could provide for a family, by the way I could build a home, a life. I thought I could be the man who could support a stay-at-home wife, provide her with everything she needed, and raise incredible kids who would, by default, be born into a better world than I had ever known. This was the fantasy, the American dream with a Mormon twist. I believed that by following the church, by adhering to its teachings, I could craft something pure for my children—a life they wouldn’t have to escape from.
But those kids? They were never baptized. Sure, they’d grow up with all the attributes of someone raised Mormon: the values, the principles, the sense of belonging—but without the strange, vacant smile that came from blindly following a belief system that asked you to suppress everything in the world except for its doctrine. They were good kids, great kids, but they weren’t going to have that weird stare, that glazed look in their eyes you get after a lifetime of swearing allegiance to the institution. And in a way, that was exactly what I had wanted. I wanted them to be free of that, free to choose, free to think. But we had no tools. No way to create something new, to break out of the cycles we were trapped in. I knew it, and my kid’s mom knew it too. We were stuck in the same patterns, the same traps that had been laid by our families, our upbringings, our broken pasts.
So, we joined the church. I had no regrets about it. Joining the church was probably the best thing I ever did for my family. It brought a sense of stability, a moral compass that we didn’t have. But let me tell you something, it was also the most boring thing I’d ever done. You don’t know what boredom is until you’re standing in a suit, shaking hands with strangers who trust you because you look like someone they can trust. I was the kind of guy who could be trusted with their kids. A guy they could leave their children with and know they’d be safe. Boring. That’s what I looked like. “Square.” “Husband material.” Trustworthy. The kind of guy who looks like he could settle down, provide for a family, wear a suit to church every Sunday. They’d ask me, “Are you a member of the church?” And I’d say yes, of course, with a smile. But that was a straightjacket. It felt like I was suffocating in a suit that wasn’t mine.
Still, it helped me climb the ladder fast. The leadership role in the church? That gave me credibility. I rose in my career because of the attributes I gained from being a member. It worked—but it didn’t fit.
That was the part that killed me.
And then it started to slip. I said no one day. I couldn’t do a talk. Couldn’t make it to a baptism. I had to be busy. The reality started to sink in. The church was getting passive-aggressive with me. “Where is he? Why isn’t he here? Why isn’t he at the service? Where’s your husband? Where’s your father?” It got ugly. They started talking to my kids, talking to my kid’s mom about me. They were pushing me out, pushing me away, and I could feel it. I started to feel the pressure, the cold shoulder from the people who were supposed to support me.
Here’s the thing—if you’re not in the bubble, you’re out. You’re not involved. I don’t know who created this damn rule, but it’s the law. The unwritten rule. I couldn’t say no. Not in that world. The moment you say “no,” they start eyeing you like a leper. And that’s exactly what I felt like. A leper.
I didn’t have any moral changes. Didn’t change my beliefs. I didn’t stop being the same guy I was, but I started to feel suffocated. I started to feel like my actions, my choices—saying no—were pushing us away from the community, and that was starting to fuck with my mind. There was nothing I could do. No matter how much I provided, no matter how much church I went to, how much money I brought in—I didn’t have a happy home. The foundations were crumbling around me.
And I realized something else: I wasn’t the problem. I didn’t have a wife who could meet me halfway. I wasn’t looking for someone to do my work, but goddamn it, I was looking for someone to appreciate what I was doing. When you’re out there slaving, cooking dinner all day, putting in the hours, you want someone to clean the dishes, don’t you? But I wasn’t getting that. I wasn’t getting anything. All I was asking for was the dishes. That’s it.
It wasn’t even about sex, not really. It was about basic communication, basic respect. And I wasn’t getting that.
I was doing everything I could, but it was like trying to pull water from a dry well. All the energy I put into trying to make something better—it was sucked dry. And I realized I was growing resentful. And it wasn’t just the church anymore. It was my marriage. The life I’d built, the sacrifices I’d made, the values I’d built my entire being around—none of it was appreciated. The problem wasn’t the work I did. It was that I wasn’t being seen. I wasn’t being heard from my wife.
So I started to look for something else. Something that didn’t feel like a damn cage. And I found it. I found it in Systematic Inc., the business I started. And it was my escape. A new love. A new obsession.
I almost moved out of the house. I found an office in Clackamas Industrial Park, next to Wichita Pub. I struck a couple of good deals, and my business was starting to gain some traction. Mr. G, a good friend of mine, came over to celebrate with me. He was just turning 21, and we went down to Wichita Pub to grab a drink, just to celebrate. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I had something to celebrate. I hadn’t had a drink in nine years, but that day, I felt like I needed it. It felt like a victory I could finally appreciate.
And that’s when I had my first craft beer. Delicious. It was more than just beer. It was freedom. It was a long-awaited release. It was me breaking away from everything that had held me down for so long. And for the first time, I realized I didn’t need the church to feel whole. I didn’t need my wife to make me feel complete.
As soon as I stopped going to church, it was like a chain reaction. The wife and kids stopped going too. And part of me was relieved. The pressure was off. My daughters were reaching an age where they were expected to be baptized, but I wasn’t sure I wanted that life for them. I didn’t want them waiting around for some missionary to come back and marry them, have a litter of kids, and repeat the cycle. I didn’t want that small life for them. I didn’t want them to stay in that bubble. The world was bigger than their zip code.
I’d seen it in my uncle Vic and Aunt Yoli. Their lives were suffocating. Watching them live in their little world, stuck in the same patterns, the same limitations—it was unfulfilling. It wasn’t for me, and it wasn’t for my kids.
This moment, this shift in my life—it was the beginning of something new. Something big. It wasn’t just about leaving the church. It was about leaving behind the illusion. The lies. The falsehoods. The expectations. I had no idea what was coming next, but I knew it wasn’t going to be what I had before. And that felt damn good.
