By Lauren Sage Reinlie · Photos by Jacqueline Ward
On a recent day, Brad Reese was at the helm of his boat, Second Chance, 50 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. He and some friends had been fishing for hours. They were exhausted, physically spent. Now he was in awe of what surrounded him: water and sky as far as the eye could see, a cotton candy sunset lighting the way back home.
"All the things you are worried about from the day seem to dissolve when you are out on the water," he said.
Brad is 36 years old and works as a successful real estate agent in Northwest Florida. He lives in Santa Rosa Beach and tries to take his boat out at least twice a week. He attends church on Sundays, meditates, plays sports, works out, and spends lots of time outside: at the beach, on the water, in the forest, whatever he can reach. "My life is pretty simple, but it's beautiful."
These are the things that bring him joy. Many are the same things that brought him joy as a kid. They are also the things he had disconnected completely from about ten years ago when his love for life had perished.
"At some point, I lost enthusiasm for anything that didn't involve drinking or using drugs," Brad recalled. Instead, his life was a chaotic swirl of heavy drinking, drug use, big mistakes, lost jobs, and an extensive web of lies he would tell himself and others to protect and continue his addiction.
Brad had already dipped his toe into drinking and mild drug use in his teens, but his addiction took flight when he moved to New Orleans. He got into harder drugs like cocaine and started drinking even heavier. "By my late 20s, I was a full-blown alcoholic and drug addict." He worked in the restaurant industry until 2 a.m., then headed to the bars until they closed at 5 a.m., slept a little, and started it all over.
He would lose a job or have some other consequence, shape up just long enough to get things a little more stable, then go out and do it all over again. Chaos surrounded him. He got to a point where he had extremely low self-esteem. "My life revolved around partying. If it didn't have to do with partying, I was miserable."
In 2014, he finally reached rock bottom. He desperately wanted to find a way out. "I felt the walls closing in."
Haven House
Brad had grown up visiting Santa Rosa Beach and the 30A area as a kid. An aunt recommended a recovery program in the area called Haven House. Brad visited and thought it would be a good fit. He signed himself in.
Overnight, his day-to-day life completely changed. He lived onsite and followed a regimented schedule. Rise at 5:30 a.m., have breakfast at 6, meet for chores and an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at 7:30, work onsite from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., get dinner, clean up and get dressed, and then attend a second AA meeting before heading straight to bed.
"I fought it at first," Brad recalled. "It was extremely jarring from how I was used to living, but I was so desperate for a change, and that kept me a little curious about what they were doing and what they were saying."
Over time, he stopped resisting so much. He started going through the AA steps and working the program, as people in recovery call it.
One part of that process is committing to radical honesty, to tell the truth in all things, big and small. "The mind is a cunning device. It will get you to believe your own BS. When you tell the truth, even when you mess up, you own your mistake, and you can live in peace. You don't have to look over your shoulder all the time to see if someone is figuring out your lies."
Through this, Brad had to look hard at himself, not only the issues caused by his addiction but the issues he had been trying to cover up by drinking and using drugs. "When we take away the drugs and alcohol, we are still sick, and we have to dive in and find out why. It could be control issues. It could be insecurities. It could be fear. Fear is a big one. All those things mix into this stew of nasty emotions, and if you don't work through it all, it will lead you to drink and drugs again."
Brad worked the steps. But he was still pretty miserable.
"I saw some guys in there who were praying and meditating and fostering a relationship with their higher power, and they were really happy," Brad recalled. Brad had never believed in God, instead thinking of God as something similar to Santa Claus.
"I resisted it for a long time. Still, intellectually, I couldn't grasp the idea of God," he said. "At some point, I decided to take a leap of faith. I've got nothing to lose. I figured I might as well try."
He started hitting his knees and praying in the morning and night, reading scripture, studying the Bible, and absorbing it at a level he had been closed off to previously. "That's when the magic started to happen for me."
He describes himself now as a spiritual being more than anything, in touch with a higher power that he chooses to call God. He attends Christian churches and enjoys studying the Bible but has also picked up things from Buddhism and other spiritual practices.
Sink or Swim
Brad graduated from Haven House in 2015, got a corporate job, and had his own apartment. But he didn't love the work and wasn't happy with where he was. After a couple of years, he found interest in real estate and then quickly dedicated himself to it, becoming a market expert. He worked as a buyer's agent for a while but then soon set out on his own.
"It was a real sink-or-swim moment for me," he said.
The fear of sinking kept him glued to his office chair, making calls until he could call no more. Then, something clicked. He started winning bids for multi-million-dollar listings against 30- or 40-year real estate veterans. People were drawn to him. They liked his hustle. They connected with him and trusted him. "That gave me confidence early on. I knew I could do this."
Today, Brad has his own real estate business with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Beach Properties of Florida. He loves taking his clients out on his boat. He has made close friends through this work, including with a family he worked with to make a record-breaking sale in Destin, Florida. He has a tight-knit group of friends, some of whom graduated from Haven House with him. He still goes to AA meetings three or four times a week. He has three dogs that he loves. "I'm a dog dad, though I hope to be a dad dad, a real dad, someday."
But Brad's most significant accomplishment, by far, has been sobriety.
"The mountain I climbed out of addiction stands 100-fold to any other mountain I have climbed. I hold that near and dear to my heart."
Originally published in Beach Happy Magazine, Volume 10 (Fall 2022). Story by Lauren Sage Reinlie. Photos by Jacqueline Ward Images.
