You know that kid who would spin on the merry-go-round until he was so dizzy he couldn\u2019t see straight, then tell you tall tales about the other kids on the playground? Or maybe you knew him in high school, that Jeff Spicoli type who never seemed to have a pen or paper, but always had some party favors in his backpack and a great idea for how to enjoy them?<\/p>\n
Robbie Clark\u2019s like that. His tall frame vibrates with an infectious, let\u2019s-fuck-around-and-find-out energy, equal parts goofball and trail guide through a world that doesn\u2019t ask \u201cwhat if\u201d before barreling forward with \u201clet\u2019s do it!\u201d Who better to tend bar at your neighborhood dive?<\/p>\n
\u201cI really like people. As much as I hate them, I sure do love them,\u201d says Clark, who developed an affinity for the service industry through a series of back- and front-of-house jobs before landing his perfect role. \u201cBeing behind the bar became like a stage for me. I could be loud, I could be sarcastic, I could have a mouth, but with all of that I could still make people feel good. Anybody can buy a 24-pack and sit at home, but here, they choose to come see you.\u201d<\/p>\n
For 18 years, he\u2019s been that chosen one for a rotating cast of regular characters, whether in a white tablecloth establishment in the city, at a fast-casual chain restaurant, or, his preference, a local hole-in-the-wall. These days, he\u2019s pulling drafts and pouring shots at a popular spot in the Mid-Cities. And these days, he\u2019s also stone cold sober. Specifically, we spoke to Clark about addiction, recovery, and bar culture on his 926th day of sobriety since a very creepy wake-up call. More on that later. We started off with the more obvious questions: A sober bartender? Really?<\/p>\n
Too Many Games<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I had a dollar for every time I\u2019ve heard that, I wouldn\u2019t be Jeff Bezos, but I could buy a pretty decent used Kia,\u201d says Clark, who immediately dives into the tale of how he progressed from being a fun-loving, if heavy, drinker to an epic level of consumption over the course of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn a day that I worked, I\u2019d have beer with breakfast, and a shot at the house. I\u2019d leave a couple of hours early to go to a bar around the corner and have more beer, and a couple more shots. When I got to my bar, while I was opening, I\u2019d have a beer or a shot. I\u2019d open at three o\u2019clock and every day at three, somebody would come in, have a beer, then do a shot, and I\u2019d do a shot with them,\u201d he recalls. \u201cThat\u2019s where it would start.\u201d<\/p>\n
Always a hit with the crowd, Clark was known to organize elaborate drinking games among his daily customers and longtime friends \u2014 two often overlapping categories. He tells stories of endless rounds of Cornhole Loser (\u201cLoser buys the Boilermakers.\u201d), Power Hour challenges (\u201cIt\u2019s like a shot of beer every minute, you know?\u201d), and long-running music trivia face-offs. Over the years, his reputation as the life of the party and sole trustee of the recipe for the World\u2019s Best Bloody Mary solidified.<\/p>\n
During this time, however, Clark also contended with regular blackouts and a DUI charge. His Bipolar II and ADHD, lifelong companions, were also on a \u201crollercoaster.\u201d Still, the daily shot tally continued ticking upward.\u201cYou get to a point where someone\u2019s like, \u2018Hey, can I get three J\u00e4gerbombs?\u2019 And then, oops, I accidentally made four,\u201d he says. \u201cIt turned into like three shots an hour over the course of an 11-hour shift. On my worst day, I would have anywhere between 40 to 50 drinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Fully Functional Shot Taker<\/p>\n
Through it all, however, his work performance was perfect. Almost too perfect. \u201cMy drawer was always right down to the penny. My bar was clean, my customers were happy, and I\u2019d walk out having made a lot of money,\u201d he says. \u201cBut, I would wake up the next day and not remember. I was on autopilot. It was so scary to be able to do my job that well and just be completely hammered.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s at this point in Clark\u2019s story, and so many like it, where the outside observer may wonder, What was he thinking? Blackouts? Mood swings? Arrests? What was compelling him to continue hitting his head up against the proverbial wall?<\/p>\n
April Murray-Bravo, LMFT, CST, is a Dallas-based Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the Founder of Vazier Counseling, PLLC. With over a decade of clinical experience, a significant portion of her work has involved clients impacted by substance use disorders. \u201cClinically, the current and most widely accepted term is Substance Use Disorder (SUD) or Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), as reflected in the DSM-5-TR,\u201d says Murray-Bravo, beginning by clarifying her professional terminology.<\/p>\n
\u201cA major commonality in use disorder is when people typically start to use it as a coping strategy to fit in or calm anxiety and it becomes maladaptive,\u201d she continues. \u201cThere is no singular reason for why it happens, but there is research and clinical experience suggesting several common factors such as early exposure to trauma, chronic stress, or emotional neglect, as well as self-medicating for co-occurring conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, depression, or PTSD.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was running from something, for sure,\u201d says Clark, his story mirroring much of the clinician\u2019s statement, only in layman\u2019s terms. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know what it was I was running from. I don\u2019t know if it was low self-esteem, low self-worth, or loneliness. So, I was running and hiding from something and then, it\u2019s one of those things like the farther you run, the closer it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Rain-Drenched Episode of Manic Euphoria<\/p>\n
Sure enough, whatever \u2018it\u2019 was was from Clark\u2019s growing list of suspects, it did eventually catch up to him. And it shook him to the core.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had just worked my 11-hour shift, and it was supposed to rain,\u201d Clark recalls of that pivotal night around 920-some-odd days ago. \u201cI drove home and it started pouring and I thought, \u2018I\u2019m just gonna grab my chair. I\u2019m gonna sit in the rain, I\u2019m gonna listen to music, and I\u2019m gonna have a couple beers. And so I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Planted on his lawn in the small hours before dawn, he describes manic euphoria. \u201cI was getting soaked. I was jumping in puddles at the end of the driveway, and I had my toes in the wet grass and I\u2019m just having the time of my life. And then Adam\u2019s Song comes on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first lines of Blink-182\u2019s Y2K-era hit blasted through the air and struck him like a lightning bolt:<\/p>\n
I never thought I\u2019d die alone, I laughed the loudest, Who\u2019d have known?<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, just all of a sudden, I want to die,\u201d he recalls of the moment his high came crashing down. \u201cThis is like 40 to 50 drinks in, you know \u2026 I was just so sad, in such a bad way, and then I heard a voice. It said, \u2018Stop. Something\u2019s coming and it\u2019s irreversible. Stop now or you will be stopped.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark describes it as \u201cthe kind of voice you can\u2019t ignore\u201d and that he felt the \u201cpresence of impending doom.\u201d But, whose voice was it? What specifically called out to Clark in the rain?<\/p>\n
We may never know, but in that moment, \u201cscared shitless,\u201d drunk off his ass, and soaking wet in the pitch black night, this ultimate class clown, trouble-maker, and life-of-the-party curiously decided to just do as he was told. \u201cI grabbed my unopened beer, and then I sat it back down and I said, \u2018I\u2019m done.\u2019 At eight o\u2019clock the next night, I was at my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so he started what is anything but a conventional getting-sober story. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey call us \u2018lifers\u2019 for a reason. We\u2019re in this food and beverage industry for life,\u201d Clark says of the decision to keep his job, even as he took the first steps on the road to recovery. \u201cThe second step in AA is finding your higher power, and I thought, what if my higher power were the regulars at the bar?\u201d<\/p>\n
Clearly, drying out did not drain Clark\u2019s wellspring of fuck-around-and-find-out energy. But what would the expert say about this bright idea?<\/p>\n
The First 24-Hour AA Chip<\/p>\n
\u201cThe food and beverage industry ranks very high on the stress spectrum,\u201d says Murray-Bravo, citing long shifts, high customer expectations, and irregular sleep patterns among the key stressors in Clark\u2019s line of work. \u201cWhether working in a bar or restaurant is appropriate for someone in recovery depends largely on the individual, the stability of their sobriety, and the strength of their support system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark put that support system to the test on his first day back at work. \u201cI opened the bar, and someone came in, the same way they came in every day at three o\u2019clock, and wanted to do a shot with me. I said, \u2018I can\u2019t.\u2019 I pulled out my 24-hour AA chip, and they said, \u2018Good for you. Don\u2019t ever do it again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Surprising, right? Fast forward to the present, and Clark\u2019s still counting his regulars among the most trusted members of his support circle, and he\u2019s not planning a career change anytime soon. \u201cI can call any number of people at any given moment and have someone to talk to,\u201d he says. \u201cNot just people that are happy to drink with you, but people who are also happy to just be with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also still up to (most of) his old tricks, still playing games, slinging obscure trivia, mixing legendary Bloody Marys, and sometimes even doing a shot of cranberry juice to stay in the moment with a new customer. He always stops there, though, because his own little voice inside tells him that \u201cthe next drink is the one that\u2019ll kill me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You know that kid who would spin on the merry-go-round until he was so dizzy he couldn\u2019t see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,56551],"class_list":["post-141571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-sober-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}