Today, it is real.

Chasing Control: From Bottle to Death to Life is now officially available on Amazon.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you had a part in making this happen.

So many of you encouraged me while I wrote it. You volunteered to read early copies. You shared your own stories with me. And through that process, you helped show me that what happened to my family and me could become something useful to someone else.

I talk about some of those messages and early reviews in the video above.

And despite everything you’ve already done, I keep getting one question:

What can I do to help?

Here it is.

1. Buy the book on Amazon.
   
   During launch week (October 6–13) the Kindle edition is just $0.99. If you’re planning to read the paperback or hardcover, purchasing the Kindle edition as well is an inexpensive way to support the launch.

2. Rate and review on Amazon (especially for you advance readers!)
   
   Reviews help future readers decide whether this story is for them, while also helping the book gain visibility on Amazon.

   • Click this link to be directed to your recent orders to find Chasing Control (after completing step 1).

   • OR navigate to “Orders” on your Amazon account within the app or website to find the book and leave a review.

3. Share the work with others.
   
   This one is the most impactful. If someone comes to mind while reading the book, tell them about it. Send them a copy. Send them the link.

   Have someone who’s not much of a reader, but enjoys audio content? Send them the MTNTOUGH podcast that just posted October 5th (Spotify, Apple).

Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart. I believe in this work more than anything that I have ever done in my life. If you find yourself desiring to do more, to help keep this door open to those who find themselves at a point of great need, please consider joining the Patreon community as a founding member.

All the best,

Kyle

He and my Dad taught me to hunt. Even after his time of going out into the field with us had passed, he still continued to wake early each morning during the season to ensure the coffee was ready and we were well fed before we ventured off to the woods. Each time we were successful in our harvest, he sat in the cold garage with us, taking lead on the process of breaking down the deer and reminiscing about hunts from years past.

More important than any of that was the time he sat with me during one of the darkest moments in my battle with alcoholism. He simply told me that he loved me.

He provided love, laughs, guidance, and gave all of us in his life an example of how to live well and love God.

Now, to the original story…

A black speck appeared on the hillside over a mile off. The sun was sinking, elongating shadows that highlighted the undulations in the vast terrain. The speck’s blocky shape indicated it was most likely a cow and not a moose. Neither animal was the reason I found myself alone on this mountainside, many miles off the last named road, but curiosity brought the binoculars to my eyes.

My magnified gaze settled on a beef cow lollygagging across the hillside and lazily munching on grass. I watched as the cow paused, raised its head, and emitted a long, deep moo that reached my ears a second later. I pulled back from looking through the binoculars and let out an audible sigh as a lump formed in my throat.

Over the last ten years, I had placed harvesting a bull elk with my bow, while hunting alone, at the pinnacle of achievement as a lifelong hunter.

My very first solo hunt back in 2017 had connected me with something that felt both foreign and familiar to me. I sensed more than ever in those mountains alone that there was something larger, something grander at play than I could ever fathom.

While I didn’t harvest an elk that year, I had experiences that intoxicated me. Locking eyes with a jet-black wolf at less than one hundred yards as he patiently waited for me to emerge into a meadow. A bull elk sending a guttural bugle in my direction from twenty yards that sent shockwaves into my bones. Finding myself speaking encouraging and loving words to myself for the first time in years as I struggled up a mountainside back to camp in the pitch black of night.

For years I pursued the achievement of bringing down a bull with my bow. I said it was for the adventure. I claimed it was for the meat. But really, there was something deeper. Something unspoken and unrealized until I stared at a regular old beef cow from a mile away through my binoculars.

Four days prior, I was driving these backcountry Forest Service roads with my oldest son. He and I had planned this special scouting trip to find campsites and hike a few miles together to get a feel for the terrain. As we rounded a blind corner, a small herd of cattle suddenly appeared before us, standing in the road and giving no indication of their willingness to move so we could proceed.

“Dad, roll down my window, please,” my son requested from the backseat.

Glancing up, I could see excitement in his eyes and a sheepish grin on his face. Not knowing what to expect, I hit the button and he strained himself against his seatbelt to get his head out the window as quickly as possible. Stretching as far out the window as he could, he took a deep breath and emitted a long, deep, drawn-out, “MOOOOOOOOOOOOVE” at the cows.

I burst out laughing. I heard a cackle of delight from behind me and turned around to see my son’s eyes sparkling with joy. I rolled down my window to join him, and we inched the truck forward bellowing our commands to the cows in their native tongue to politely get off the road.

Back on the mountain alone, the lump tightened in my throat further. I took my eyes off the cow and began looking around. Behind me lay a small hillside that we had aptly named “Grant’s Mountain” due to my son’s insistence on climbing to the top to look for elk our first morning together in the mountains. Settling in, we quickly found four bull elk and watched them lock antlers and battle each other over the next hour.

Farther beyond Grant’s Mountain, at the top of the ridgeline, I spotted “Poop Tree,” named so because part of convincing a five-year-old to enjoy a camping and hiking trip is to provide all the snacks and treats one little heart could ever desire. The christening of that tree is a story I’ll let you, wise reader, infer yourself.

My mind shifted back to the present where I had subconsciously begun packing up my binoculars.

Why am I here?

I suddenly realized how much my answer to that question had changed without me noticing.

Nearly ten years ago, when this pursuit all began, I was searching. I chased and discovered glimpses of connection, awe, presence, spirituality, and a more complete version of myself. I thought that killing a bull elk with my bow would be the ultimate mark of achievement, proof that I had accomplished what I had been pursuing alone in the mountains.

Life has changed dramatically over the last few years. Some of that change happened quickly. Some took much more time to recognize. It took me over three years to realize my why had shifted enough for me to end my current hunt, provoked by the simple sound of a cow, a full two days early.

I didn’t have it in me. I didn’t have a reason. No, that’s not right. My reason had shifted.

Those things I used to glimpse while adventuring alone deep in the backcountry were now gifts given to me every day through the relationships and connections in my life. It’s laughing uncontrollably as we move one mile an hour mooing out our windows and nudging cows off the road with the truck. It’s encouraging each other on a climb towards a small hilltop that is a five-year-old’s Everest. It’s the shared experience that transforms a small, lonely, windswept pine into “Poop Tree.”

There will be a day that I hunt alone again. I know there is something special there, an experience that can bring the fullest of yourself forward. I’m grateful for all the solo pursuits. They connected me with something deeper, something more real, than I was able to experience day in and day out at the time. They drove me to keep pursuing, to never settle or relent in the face of the battles that were raging within me. They taught me to keep climbing.

Those times alone in the mountains over the past ten years helped deliver me from those struggles. They served their purpose.

Two hours later I was back in cell service, topping the truck off with gas. I texted a close friend that I was extracting because I had the realization I didn’t want to hunt alone anymore.

I received a reply as I hopped into my truck to prepare for the remaining few hours alone on the road.

“Good for you. Great, actually. Let’s start hunting together then because I’m sitting here eating dinner off of my tailgate with the same realization.”

I sat staring at a blank page of paper in front of me after listening to a directive from the counselor leading this particular art therapy session partway through my stay in rehab. I looked at the clock, noting how much time there was until the end of the session, and wondering if I could stare at this blank page that entire time. Everything in me screamed to slide the paper away from me and walk out of the room. But I remembered my promise, the commitment to give everything a chance in here and stop making judgments before engaging in an activity.

Here goes nothing.

Thirty minutes later I looked at something that hadn’t existed before. As soon as I started engaging with the page I lost myself. What started as a random doodle to appease the prompt we had been given suddenly started surfacing something meaningful that seemed to exist only in my subconscious until now. That image became a bedrock for me in my early recovery. It was an image I would physically revisit many times to reorient myself.

Similarly, when I picked up Meghan Remington’s new book, Behind Closed Doors, I felt hesitant and certain of the outcome. Meghan and I shared the same publishing team and that was the only real similarity in our stories, or so I assumed. Selfishly (I am still a recovering alcoholic, mind you), I wanted to experience what a finished product was like coming from the team. So I dove into Meghan’s work. And I found myself engrossed in a story that had me so captivated I reached out to Meghan to see if she would want to talk on the podcast.

Luckily, she said yes.

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The conversation with Meghan showed me how fear can grip us slowly and completely. How it can lead us into a life that is so frightening that we shirk away from moments where we can pull ourselves out of the fog and deflect any inquiry into the difficulties of our situation.

While our lives are different, Meghan and I very quickly recognized versions of ourselves in each other’s lives. The scenarios were different, the outcomes were different, but the underlying behaviors, thoughts, and traits were undeniably similar.

Meghan’s story and perseverance have impacted me in a very real way. She’s an incredible human being that I feel privileged to have made a connection with.

You can find our conversation on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your streaming platform of choice.

Keep showing up.

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That father still had hope in that moment, despite the unknown realities that were about to bear down on him.

Charles’s story of hope and faith stuck with me. It made me reflect on our own experiences and it allowed me to see the interplay of hope and faith throughout our story and how we, as a family, aim to navigate through the beautiful challenge that is life.

The elevator moved at an agonizingly slow pace this morning. These were my least favorite parts of the day in the NICU, being forced away from our daughter’s room each morning to take care of an administrative task required by the hospital. I reached out and grabbed hold of my wife’s hand as we stood together, counting the seconds until we could be at Lucy’s bedside once again.

My mind drifted back to nearly two weeks before, crowding into that very elevator with a gurney, our bags and the EMS team wondering what was to come for our then-unborn daughter. There was anxious energy building up in that cramped elevator as the team waited to spring into action in the extremely early hours of the morning.

That past feels like another life lived: a memory viewed through a portal that permits me to stand next to a version of myself that didn’t know what life would entail when those doors opened for us. Fear was knocking, but faith was present and refused fear entry.

The lurch of the elevator settling on the bottom floor followed by a tired “ding” closed the portal to the past on me. I knew how that part of the story played out; I did not need to linger. The doors in front of us opened, permitting physical steps forward to fully come back into the present.

There is no muted grayness that seems to exist in this world quite like a cold, wet, clouded-over December morning in Minnesota. That grayness penetrates the walled window into the entryway of the hospital where we head to a woman sitting at a desk. I think of the warmth of Lucy’s room many floors up, and it breaks through some of the gray that shrouds everything in that entryway. Finally working our way to our destination and sole reason for leaving our daughter’s bedside, a woman sitting behind the desk looks up at us and speaks.

“Patient’s name?”

“Lucy,” my wife and I reply in unison.

“And the passcode?”

“Hope.”

With that, a machine starts buzzing as two temporary passes, good for only 24 hours, are printed out. I stand and wonder how many other families stationed here in the Children’s Hospital choose that very same passcode under such dire circumstances. When first presented with the need for a spoken key to permit entry for ourselves and our guests to see Lucy, I knew instantly what we needed to speak.

We weren’t ignorant of the battles and the odds that our little girl faced. We had no idea how long our NICU stay would last. Despite my annoyance at being brought away from my daughter’s bedside for a few minutes each day, I did smile as I placed the ID on my chest with a photo labeled “Parent: Lucy”, a role I accepted with the greatest honor.

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The thing about hopes, though, is that they are our own personal desires. We should still maintain them, taking action and directing prayers and visions towards driving us to our hopeful state. But more important than anything is the ability to maintain faith when hope gets dashed.

Grief is nearly always preceded by unrealized hope. When it becomes apparent that our visions and desires in life are not going to manifest, the weight of grief gets set upon us. With that burden, an opportunity becomes presented to us all, though we never ask for it—we can bear it or we can crumble beneath the weight.

I have experienced it myself, and found it in countless others who have borne the weight of incredible hardship. Faith permits persistence through these moments of unrealized hope. Faith that there exists some purpose for the pain and outcome that we live through. Faith that there is something far greater than our own limited intelligence could ever comprehend.

Faith through these moments, large and small, has been the greatest challenge in my life. Yet, I have found nothing that permits people to progress through these experiences consistently outside of faith.

Maybe it’s simply my anecdotal survivor bias that steadfast faith allows people to navigate the treacherous waters of grief and lost hope. Maybe.

But also—is that not the point?

To survive and eventually start to live again, directing your gaze upward, finding new hope, and discovering the joy and beauty that exists in life.

Keep showing up.

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If you’re interested in going deeper, find the podcast on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or any other streaming platform.

“If there’s anything on your heart you’d like to talk about, I’m here.” I said to the young man sitting next to me with his head in his hands.

I don’t know where the words came from, I don’t know why I said them, but I had known for nearly an hour that I had no choice in the matter.

The folded paper was taken, and for the first time the young man seated next to me looked up and replied, “Yes, please.” I recognized shock and relief in his eyes as I looked back at him.

I have had a few moments in my life like this, where it feels like I am witnessing a ghost of my past.

Each time these encounters have happened to me, the recognition is instantaneous the moment the other person enters into my realm of perception. My actions in these instances seem out of my control, as if the scenario were presented to me with a script I am required to follow. As much as I have tried to fight back by downplaying the need to engage, it never feels that I have a choice in the matter.

That Sunday the young man and I sat and talked for twenty minutes after church ended. The only thing that pushed us from our seats was the start of the next service.

With equal clarity, I knew what I was supposed to do as I watched a strange truck drive through our alleyway one Tuesday morning. Thirty seconds after first seeing them, I stood outside of my garage, too late to get to them, but knowing there had to be a way to reach them. I lifted the trash bin that they had paused next to on their drive through our alley and saw the empties they had ditched, away from their own home. Just like I used to do. Trying to rid myself of the shameful evidence, and hoping to throw away the disgusting behavior and part of myself that kept giving in to the call to drink.

So I decided to create something to meet that person in a moment of despair. I know that state. It’s desperate for a way out, longing for any sign or any way in which to stop the madness from entering their lives. There’s shame, but there’s a genuine desire to escape. What I built is simple, non-confrontational, and easy for you to participate in. It’s a sticker designed to go on the lip of a trash can with a simple message: You’re not alone. There’s a resource page the sticker directs people to that aims to meet the person where they’re at and bring forth a message of hope.

Will this actually work? Who knows, but it’s damn well worth a try.

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I took a sticker out with me to our local park and the second trash can I opened had empties that had been ditched in it. Granted, I know what to look for in a good dumping location. I scouted out these public dumping sites and carried out this shameful act for years. But you can find these too. Maybe you already know of a spot. Or maybe you’re unaware of the evidence of struggle that sits right in front of you.

We may never get to see that sense of relief in someone’s eyes when they’re met with a message they’re longing for, but don’t even know how to seek. I’ll likely never see that old, red pickup drive through my alley again. But there’s still hope. There’s still a way to reach them in this moment of despair and shame.

If interested in helping to spread the message, stickers can be ordered here.

Share this with a friend or loved one who might know a spot to place one, or many.

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Not sure what addicts look for in a location to ditch their evidence? Drop an ask in the comments and I’ll explain how to quickly identify them around any town or neighborhood.

Keep showing up, even if you don’t get to see the fruits of your impact on others.

I awoke to a pounding headache and a turn of my stomach that must have caused my sudden wakefulness. The world was dark, but even in the darkness I could sense I was seeing the world through blurred vision. My mind reeled.

Where am I? What happened?

I started piecing together the evening prior and stretching my mind back as far as I could go as consciousness started returning to me.

I am many days into a bender. But why?

My mind kept tracing backwards, kept searching for that moment when I decided to start drinking. No doubt there were plans to contain the spree to a single day, but I was nearly certain it was early Friday morning and my foggy memory was landing on an event Tuesday that had sent me to the store unexpectedly to purchase drinks.

That day, I had received my annual raise at work and navigated my way through a challenging workout. I remember standing in the front entryway, cooling down before heading to a shower with my mind swirling and buzzing with endorphins from the past few hours.

You deserve a drink.

The thought that started it all.

People often talk about how faith is challenged at your lowest points. Nihilism, anger, resentfulness, and bitterness can all enter one’s heart during these low moments. That much appears obvious, and I’d venture to guess many readers have experienced wavering faith in those moments of their lives.

But there is an equal, and possibly more risky, moment in life: when success and praise start coming one’s way after working towards and achieving a desired outcome, or when you experience that first high moment after a tumultuous period of life that had previously brought you to your knees, negotiating with God that you would give everything to Him if He would just deliver your desired outcome. “God, if you would just do this for me, I will never doubt you,” is a prayer I have said and heard many times before.

Upon calmer waters, the ego steps forward. Pride, lust, and greed can all creep in. They can distort our understanding of the gifts and capabilities God has granted us until one of the most dangerous thoughts enters our minds: I’ve got this… myself.

This is more of a risk than any of us care to believe.

I haven’t found a more dangerous phrase for a recovering addict than “I’ve got this.” In my short time surrounded by a community of recovering addicts, I have sat through well over half a dozen renditions of this story. After years—sometimes decades—of sobriety, someone begins believing they can manage recovery entirely on their own.

A major reason I keep going back to AA is to receive these kinds of stories. I have seen the humility and courage it takes for someone with more than two decades of sobriety to return after believing they could manage life on their own. After losing themselves for more than a month, they return, humbly asking for help again. I hear how quickly accomplishment can give way to pride, how pride can lead to isolation, and how the illusion of self-sufficiency can slowly separate them from the practices, the people, and the God at the center of their recovery.

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In early recovery, the phrase I feared to hear myself utter most was: Fuck it. It was the nihilistic point of view that had darkened my world and permitted me to view the world only through a lens of chaos and evil.

Today, more than anything, I stand guard against this phrase: I’ve got this myself.

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Rarely have I had this sense of experiencing real change in my perspective in real-time. Shockingly this happened not just once, but twice, in my conversation with my friend Charles Hartford.

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Charles is an incredible man, who has lived an incredible life and can relay those learnings in a wildly engaging manner. I could have talked with and learned from Charles for hours.

Charles leads by example when it comes to fulfilling his role as a leader, servant, husband, father, teacher, community member, and a man of faith.

Listen to the full episode on your streaming platform of choice, but specifically find the moment that shifted my perception and shattered any doubt I had about the power of prayer here.

I used to be dismissive and critical of prayer, often thinking: why don’t you actually take some real action to help someone?

Charle’s story challenged that perspective. After all, when someone you love is 8,000 miles away, engaged in daily, unknown levels of conflict, what else is there to do but pray?

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Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne

Listen and follow on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, or YouTube.

I slipped into the chair mid-conversation of those already gathered in the shade, thankful for the reprieve and also soaking in my new view of the towering mountains we had all nestled our weekend camp beneath. My one year old gave a squeal of joy and elicited a round of chuckles from those who were sitting and listening to stories of a faraway land many years ago.

“Then, after the Peace Corp, I moved back to the states and taught high school English the rest of my career,” said a new acquaintance, Gwen.

From a distance I had heard tales of hippos, crocodiles, giraffes, and lions, but now as I sat amongst the others in the shade I could finally engage in the conversation.

“What have the last few years been like as an English teacher with the new AI tools that are available?” I asked.

A smile, followed by a combination of a groan and a sigh escaped her lips. “It’s changed so much,” she said, “there’s a spark from the kids that has been lost. The creativity is gone, and everything reads the same. And the parents,” she shook her head, “they have been the most difficult to deal with…”

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I confess, my friends and readers, that I have used AI to help generate content on this here Substack. It felt gross, cheap, and lazy but I had a self-imposed deadline to hit and I justified it by adding back in “my” voice to the piece. I only did it a few times, but those times have stuck with me and been hard to shake.

But here’s the thing: I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I experimented with the tool in this space and discovered its very tangible, extremely visceral limitations—it’s remarkably not human1. This work—the space that I really enjoy to operate—is about the lived human experience. The stumblings, imperfections, and incredibly beautiful pain of being a human being. There was something incredibly off whenever an AI model would attempt to write, short or long, for a piece here.

I’ll get into my own more philosophical take on AI later in this post2, but first I want to highlight something that I feel really lucky to have declared nearly two years ago. In writing Chasing Control3, I immediately promised myself that I would do it the more difficult way. I wasn’t ever going to plug the piece, either a sentence or an entire section, into any AI model for help. It caused me to feel stuck for days on end, to wrestle with portions of the story for months at a time and to agonize over word choice and flow. It drove hours of conversation with others and caused tens of thousands of word to be written and scraped, never to see the light of day.

But this is my family’s story. It’s imperfect, agonizing, exhilarating and all those emotional states in-between and I knew I couldn’t fully honor it without doing every bit of writing on my own.

This is a funny stance to have to take. Certainly writers of the past never had to wrestle with the temptation of an easy button, right? No matter, there’s a proliferation of books being written right now, some metrics putting the month-over-month output on Amazon at 3x and growing. There’s an easy button to writing and many people are taking it.

Not this story. It made the process brutal. I get why many books never see the light of day. There were so many points I saw the exit ramp, but kept driving past. Staring at a blinking cursor waiting for you to start moving it across the page and producing words on digital paper has a weird way of making my insides turn. There were many mornings I had to trust my fingers on the keyboard as my ability to read what I wrote was nullified by tears gathering in my eyes.

Prompting my way through this story wouldn’t have healed and clarified in the manner that painfully working through each and every sentence over nearly two years provided. The process was intense, but required.

So why did I feel compelled to write this piece?

Sitting in the shade seeking refuge from the sun at the base of those majestic mountains I was surrounded by strangers who pulled together for a weekend to celebrate and honor a person who had impacted us all. Bonds formed quickly as we shared in our memories of their incredibly awesome and loving life that felt like it had ended all too soon. Connection is one of the most beautiful things about being a human. Finding others who are striving, struggling, joyous, sad, and every shared experience in-between is why we live. It’s why we’re here.

We have the potential for purpose in front of us every single day. We can show up for an individual struggling, or conversely open up and ask another human being for help. We can pull someone into an embrace to show them that there is support and love around them, or we could simply sit and quietly listen to another person, letting them know they’re heard and not alone.

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All these things are available to us only with each other. Machines can’t fulfill this, only the connection with another person can. This is the beautiful experience we can partake in each and every day we are gifted in this life.

Keep showing up: for yourself and for those around you.

Kyle Layne

But most of us don’t operate at 98.7%. Hell, most days hardly any of us seem to get much past 60%. That’s what gets me about recovery stories. It’s why I love addicts. These are people who completely turned their lives around and went from near zero, knocking on death’s door, to living up to a level of potential they never could have fathomed.

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That’s Corwin’s story: from riding around town on a bicycle in the middle of a blizzard, searching for everything he had lost, to becoming the trustworthy man he once thought was gone forever.

One of the honors of doing this work is when I get off one of these conversations, and my guest says something like, “I can’t wait to share this with my family. I have never been able to fully explain to them my full experience.”

This is one of those conversations. Corwin Knight is as regular as you or I. He assumed that the depths he traversed in his battle with addiction made him a loner. He was wrong. And in this week’s episode of the More Than Capable podcast, he opens up completely and honestly.

Listen and follow on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, or YouTube.
If the conversation helps you, please follow and rate the show. It makes a huge difference for a show like this, and those small actions have far-reaching impacts.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne

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P.S. A few spots remain in the small Advanced Read Group for my book coming out in Fall 2026, Chasing Control. Sign up here for free.

No words were spoken. Each of us glanced at the others, straining against the weight of our packs. We stayed silent to afford each other a moment to steady ourselves from the climb. A tired smile formed on my face as I looked over the landscape we had traversed and this ragtag crew of guys that had come together over the last few months. Much like life, mountain pursuits had been a solo adventure for me in the past. Today, it felt good to be with others on the trail.

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“This is, without a doubt, the hardest hike I have ever been on,” our flatlander friend Tyler exclaimed, having just flown in that morning from Minnesota. He leaned hard on his hiking sticks as he gathered himself and quietly laughed, a stark departure from his normal booming laugh that fills a room and leaves people smiling at its power.

The statement broke the silence and permitted us all an exhausted chuckle and a chance to comment on the rigors of the hike that had gone unspoken as we had climbed over two thousand feet over the last few hours.

I mindlessly poked at the ground with my hiking stick thinking back to the first real conversation Tyler and I had together a month before. His far north Minnesota accent gave a hint that he and I had likely walked similar paths. After nearly an hour of talking, we connected that we both had core childhood memories at the exact same lake located in north-central Minnesota. A friendship was immediately born over memories of mid-summer storms and our favorite fishing stories.

“Yeah, the path sure looks different when you look at it on the screen,” replied Ryan, the sole native Idahoan on the trip and the instigator of this current adventure.

Being in the mountains with Ryan was special. He was completely at home and at peace in the wilderness. Ryan and I had met for the first time at a breakfast months before. Our talks about our desires to better ourselves as husbands, fathers, and servants to others had drawn us close. He lived life intentionally without being loud or performative. He contemplated situations deeply and spoke only when and what was necessary.

“Geez, Jace, are you even fazed by this?” Tyler asked as he leaned forward harder into his trekking poles, calling upon the fourth member of our party.

I turned to see the youngest member of our party at the back of the line as he held his binoculars in hand and scanned the far face of the opposing mountainside. One look at Jace and you knew he had spent a lifetime on the wrestling mats. Weeks earlier we had all watched Jace emerge from the water in a cold pond far from any civilization in Idaho after getting baptized. We were all lucky enough to bear witness to a fire being lit within Jace in that moment.

“Boys, we’re just woodpeckers in a petrified forest…1” Jace stated as he continued to scan the mountainside through his binoculars.

Jace attempted to remain stoic and continue to hold the binoculars steady, but the comment made him sputter with laughter and his body began trembling in an attempt to hold back further laughter. But the laughter was contagious, made more so from our sheer exhaustion. The laughter started feeding off itself, and I found myself oscillating between thinking I had control only to find more laughter welling up within me that I couldn’t contain.

After the laughter finally dissipated, there was a moment of calm where I felt incredible gratitude for the company I was in and the experience we were having. These moments are still not lost on me. This is that second chance at a life that I felt was all but lost over three years ago. These are the moments of complete immersion in the present that I struggled to find before recovery.

I shifted my gaze to a small finger ridge behind me. Towering at the end of the ridge was a giant column of a rock formation. I felt the tug of a desire to explore pull me to investigate the formation.

“I’ll be right back, I’m going to see what the view is like from over there,” I said as I was already turning and walking the path to the rock outcropping.

The chatter of the group slowly faded off as I worked my way towards the end of the ridge. As I neared the rock formation, I noticed a small clearing with details that didn’t seem all that natural. Wood was stacked and positioned in a way that seemed like someone had posted up and worked to make the space comfortable for them. As I moved onward, a makeshift fire ring came into view. Then, I noticed the unopened beer.

Four beers, ready to drink, sat nestled next to a log positioned next to the fire with an extraordinary view of the valley below. I stopped in shock of the find, often having found empties in the backcountry, but never this. I paused a moment and let my eyes drift from those beers lying on the ground to my three friends that I could see standing a couple hundred yards off, chatting and continuing to laugh.

Their conversation was only a murmur to me at this distance, and I thought about the various pursuits and challenges that each of us had faced over the past few years that had brought us together. Each of us had our own individual battles, but we shared the commonality of wanting to draw ourselves closer to God, the ultimate pursuit that had brought us together.

I brought my gaze back down to the four unopened beers. I allowed my mind to drift back to my very first trip to the mountains of Idaho where I adventured alone and was very much searching for something beyond the game that I hunted2. It had been nearly ten years since that first solo adventure. At the time, I was obsessed with being alone. I was convinced I had to achieve and solve all of the problems in my life by myself. Those four beers sat there on the ground, not tempting me but reminding me of a life that once was and that the descent back to the hell of loneliness and isolation could always spring up when I least suspected it.

Tyler’s booming laugh echoed off the rock outcropping I now stood by and lifted me from my trance. I looked up, knowing what I now desire in life.

I turned and headed back towards my friends.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne

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Yet the messages slowly trickled in from those who love someone fighting what feels like an isolated and impossible battle. This week’s conversation with my incredible wife is for you. In it, we discuss what has changed over the last three years in recovery. We talk about the difficulties of the descent, the fear, frustration, and agony of living in a chaotic and insane cycle week in and week out for years on end.

But we also talk about hope and perseverance. Not everyone’s story will follow our own trajectory, but just as there is power in one addict speaking with another, there is power in loved ones of addicts coming together to share their trials, struggles, and revelations.

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Alyssa’s bravery, loyalty, and perseverance cannot be overstated. We hope this helps you in your journey.

Reference: Chapter 8: To Wives

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Keep showing up.

Kyle Layne

I looked up at my wife as we both sat on the couch, winding down our day. I wondered if the deadpan stare I cast outward communicated the complete lack of knowledge or opinions I had about hydrangeas, their placement, or their quantity.

“Sure, there is something appealing about groups of threes, I suppose,” I finally responded.

Our conversations on this couch have shifted dramatically over the last three years. Sitting on the couch discussing flower placement out front is a far cry from the agonizing conversations we would have as I slid further and further into despair and isolation as I continued to weave the web of lies to hide my drinking.

May 14th, 2023 is the day that I was gifted the opportunity to change course. It, and the following days, were the most fear-ridden I have ever been in my life. I had no idea what recovery meant, what it looked like, nor how to sustain it. Even though I had this opportunity in front of me, life felt all but over. I couldn’t actually envision a life in recovery.

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Three years in recovery is both something and nothing all at once. It feels like such little time, yet I know how agonizing it was to go three minutes without thinking about alcohol before recovery. To have the obsessive thoughts eradicated from my life is a miracle in itself.

Recognizing three as an oddly harmonious and powerful number, I wanted to put together my three learnings across three important topics that I have been gifted and discovered over these last three years.

Three Bits of Advice for People in Early Recovery

1. Stop asking ‘Why?’
   You don’t need to understand why you’re an addict to find recovery, you simply need to accept the fact that your life has become unmanageable in its current form. Chasing the ‘why’ is a distraction. Even if you discover an answer to it, so what? What are you going to do with that information? By letting go of the ‘why’ you can focus all your effort on figuring out what it takes for you to live in recovery each and every day.

2. View alcohol as your solution, not your problem
   When you frame alcohol, or your drug of choice, as a solution you can start asking yourself: ‘A solution to what?’ That question can lead you to deeper, more fundamental issues that you are more than likely attempting to numb, suppress, or hide from. If you can face those problems, name them, and start working on them, you will start to discover other solutions, besides a substance, to help you manage through those root problems.

3. Be selfish in protecting your recovery
   Nothing should come before your recovery. Absolutely nothing. Not your marriage, your kids, your job, your other relationships. If you don’t prioritize your recovery, you should be prepared to sacrifice everything. And I mean everything. I have seen it, I nearly experienced it myself. This is where the relationships become difficult. Some people won’t accept you prioritizing your recovery, and that’s okay. They’ll either come to accept it, or move on from your life. If they can’t handle you prioritizing your recovery, they’re not meant for your life anyway.

Three Steps to Live One Day at a Time

1. Pray
   First thing in the morning: request your selfish desires and ego be stripped of you for the coming day. Pray for continued faith, learning, and progression. The simplest version of this prayer, that I can go to even in the most rushed of mornings, is: “Thy will be done, not mine.”

2. Act
   Do the things that keep you in recovery with intention. Be quick to apologize for missteps and genuinely change your behavior, if needed. Simply put: Do the next best thing.

3. Reflect
   Sit at the edge of your bed before retiring for the night. Recount your day. Do you have any house cleaning to do? Do you owe anyone an apology for your actions? How did you make progress today? What occurred that you can be grateful for that you might not have noticed in the moment? By taking these steps, I guarantee you will find a deep and sound night of sleep each and every evening.

Three Unexpected Benefits of Recovery

1. Feeling feelings
   It’s frightening to reflect back and realize how numb I was for so many years. I feared the ups and downs of life and went to alcohol to relieve that fear and numb those feelings. Ironically, alcohol made the highs higher and the lows lower to a degree that was completely unmanageable. “Feeling the feels” these days has become a beautiful component of life. Experiencing life as it was intended to be lived, both the ups and downs in their raw unaltered form, is a joy that I never expected to achieve three years ago.

2. Navigating hardship
   I have been asked on numerous occasions what has made me proud about living in recovery. Pride is a tough thing for me to talk about. I still honestly don’t know how to approach it, and I take a very cautious stance towards stating pride about anything. But knowing how much our lives were falling apart before recovery, I can say that I am genuinely humbled and honored to be able to navigate the difficult periods of life over the last three years in lockstep with my family. Our journey has been on the more extreme end of the spectrum than most in early recovery, but even navigating the hardships that most everyone faces such as job problems, financial concerns, and other aspects of life has become an honor in itself. To not crumble under the weight of life, to actually find yourself strengthening and drawing closer to God through these hardships, is something I never imagined being able to discover in my life.

3. Finding power in living an honest life
   Let me be straight with you about this one. Living an honest life, focused on transparency and seeking the truth, is a horrible short-term strategy. Especially if you work in corporate America. Doubly if that corporate America job is in financial services. However, there is incredible long-term power in living honestly. No one has anything to hold against you. Your fear of man slowly starts to dissipate, and you establish yourself on a new foundation that can stand any attack or hardship. What is someone going to do, blackmail me for being an alcoholic? I think I’m comfortable with anything that will come on that front.

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That’s all I have for this week. It has been the greatest honor to be able to communicate with you through this channel, and I genuinely hold each and every one of you who read these posts close to my heart. Isolation and shame nearly killed me. Faith, community, connection, and a willingness to change and live honestly have saved my life. You all have played a part in that. From the depths of my heart, thank you.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne

P.S. Interested in joining a small advanced read group for my new book Chasing Control? Find out more, and sign up here. You’ll get early access to the book (for free) and insight into the launch! Advanced readers like yourself are a huge help for self-published authors.

Jacob shares the story of his son Levi’s birth, including the silence that came over the delivery room and the unforgettable moment his wife held their newborn son and declared, “You’re perfect.” From there, we talk about the fears many parents face after a Down syndrome diagnosis: fear of the unknown, fear of whether their child will be accepted, fear of how to lead a family through a new vision for their future.

But this conversation is not only about diagnosis.

It is about what happens after.

Jacob eventually founded Dads of Down Syndrome, a growing community created to give fathers a place to be honest, encouraged, and connected. What started with a small group of dads sitting together has grown into something much larger: a movement built around presence, compassion, and the belief that these men are among “the luckiest men in the world.”

This episode is about special needs parenting, marriage, community, honest conversation among men, and the quiet power of simply showing up.

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Jacob is an incredible man, and I’m grateful he was willing to share his story here.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne Zibrowski

Follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube. While you’re there, please leave a rating or a comment. These small actions have major impacts on a podcast such as More Than Capable.

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As of yesterday, the manuscript is out of my hands, taking its final pass through production reviews. Today, I want to share a small bit of writing from the book. If you read no further, but are curious about what this project might entail, here is the best snippet from the Preface (below) that I can offer.

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This book is not a how-to-do anything manual. Instead, it is a story of control. It is the story of my own, and my family’s, fight for life. Of potential destroyed and even greater potential realized.

This has been the most exhausting, freeing, brutal, and meaningful work that I have ever done in my life. I was helped along the way by so many of you, and I can’t wait to share more details with you all soon.

I will be setting up a very small advance reader group once the book is in a production ready state. If interested, you can find more details here.

With that, I give you the first sneak peek at Chasing Control: From Bottle, To Death, To Life.

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Preface

Ordinary and obsessive.

I’m not sure if these two traits square, but that is exactly how I would describe myself.

I sought the comfort and obscurity of living an ordinary life.

Yet, I was dominated by obsessions.

Fire was one obsession. I was drawn to fire as an element for its lessons and power.

Fire is the actualization of potential—the result of a balance of elements and conditions—fuel, air, and, finally, a spark. I can think deeply as I stare into flames. I easily become lost, searching the dancing flames for their hidden lessons.

The heat, visuals, and crackling of the wood offer the ultimate multisensory experience, bringing me into the depths of what it means to be a human.

Fire, when controlled, provides security and warmth.

Fire, when free to run wild, can scourge a landscape, seemingly stripping it of all potential for life.

Yet that destruction can cleanse. It can burn away that which is no longer useful.

I like to think about times when our ancestors lived with more connection to the land. Fire was revered. Fire gave them life. Communities gathered and tales were told around a fire, with the pulsing embers breathing life into the story’s characters as lessons were passed from one generation to the next.

They must have understood their delicate relationship with fire—the salvation it provides and the destruction it can bring forth when unleashed.

Did they understand that control was never fully in their hands?

Control was my unnamed obsession.

As time progressed, men and women have been honored for their achievements and contributions to our species’ well-being—often by advancing the notion of control over ourselves and our environment. Many of these have been truly remarkable achievements. But I can’t help but wonder: Have we lost touch with a truth that was made apparent to us as we stared into the dancing flames of a fire, night after night? Have we unintentionally fooled ourselves into thinking we control more about our lives than we actually do?

When I felt a loss of control, I reacted in a simple, yet destructive manner: rage. Early in life, it was relatively harmless. When I wasn’t able to control the outcome as I desired, my rage flashed forward. There were dings and nicks out of nearly everything that I owned.

But when alcohol got introduced to my life and I struggled to control my insatiable desire to consume, the rage turned inward and onto the relationships I held closest to me in life. That rage unleashed an all-consuming inferno inside me that started destroying everything. The consequences of wrestling for control grew in severity—until both my sanity and life were on the line.

I had an incredible life. I recognized that even when young. Much of my descent was reflecting back on my life and wondering:

Why do I feel so lost and in despair?

Why can’t I find happiness and peace?

I have it so well, I am loved, I had passions—why am I struggling?

My inability to answer these questions only fed the growing fire within me. I felt pathetic to be struggling, so I searched harder for ways to control my drinking and suppress the raging inferno of self-loathing and chaos. I isolated. No one could know the depths of my descent. I didn’t believe anyone could possibly understand.

By the time I recognized my loss of control with alcohol, I felt like my realization had come too late to save anything. The raging fire of chaos that had built throughout my life had now burned the landscape of my life without any hope of recovery.

Yet somehow, there was still hope. I was spared. I am lucky, and I know it. My life turned into the ultimate blessing, an about-face that to this day still feels like a miracle, even if this blessing also brought with it unimaginable hardships, burdens, and loss.

This book is not a how-to-do anything manual. Instead, it is a story of control. It is the story of my own, and my family’s, fight for life. Of potential destroyed and even greater potential realized.

If this story, my family’s story, can provide you with enough hope to persevere one hour longer, to discover the gift that is waiting for us in every single day that we are given, then the effort to write all this out was worth it.

Maybe you’ll see a little bit of yourself as you stare into the flames of this story. I am, after all, just an ordinary person, impossible to discover among the crowds and statistics.

But ordinary as I might be—and ordinary as you might feel—each of us is called to realize the greatest potential in our lives, yet few do.

And for that reason, this is no ordinary story.

This one felt worth breaking that rhythm.

Chris Burns was winning Emmys, working on 77 episodes of Duck Dynasty and built relationships with the likes of Robert Downey Jr.—he had built a career at the highest level of television.

And at the same time, Chris was losing control of his own life.

We sat down to talk through what it actually looked like to live in that tension:

• Success on the outside, collapse underneath

• Addiction as a solution—and what it was solving

• The moment his body gave out

• Facing death and waiting for a transplant

• What it takes to rebuild after surviving a brush with death

There are conversations that are informative. And then there are conversations that are honest.

This is the latter.

If you’re interested in following the podcast, you can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne

In this conversation, I take time with Luke Thorkildsen of Weatherby to talk through the long, often uncomfortable process of building a life rooted in faith, family, and responsibility.

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We get into the reality of marriage—not the version people like to present, but the one that requires ownership, humility, and a willingness to work when things get difficult. Luke shares what it looked like to move from trying to fix others to taking responsibility for himself, and how that shift changed everything.

We also talk about rejection, career uncertainty, and what it means to build something meaningful without a clear path forward.

This conversation isn’t about quick answers. It’s about the slow, daily work of becoming someone who can actually carry the life they say they want.

If you’re trying to build something that lasts, this one is worth your time.

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What an uncomfortable question to face. You may be shifting or squirming in your seat as it sinks in. I hated this question. I ran from it and lied through my teeth about it for years.

Sometimes we’re lucky and well-practiced enough that we can shoot off an answer to that question with clarity and confidence.

“My name is Kyle, I’m an alcoholic.”

I have said that statement enough times that I don’t question it. It rolls off my tongue quite easily these days. Shortly after entering recovery, I began to, almost by accident, form what became five practices that helped me stay in the practice of recovery each day.

In the world of recovery, people started asking me another uncomfortable question: “What does your recovery look like?” I never knew what the hell they meant by that question. I started listening to others. Many talked of programs they were members of, activities or hobbies they picked up, or religious organizations they joined. But I noticed something early. The few people who had long-term recovery spanning numerous decades had something in common. They talked about work. They talked about breaking things down into manageable challenges they could face each day. And they talked about growth.

I followed those people. I listened, I worked, and I experimented. I found what worked and kept working those things. Slowly, the practices formed themselves. Much more than a list, they are the way I live each day. They expand well beyond the realm of addiction recovery. They are completely transferable, bound to no place or set routine. They helped us navigate the challenge of loss. They also led me to unexpectedly answer that question of “Who are you?” in a way I never anticipated.

Movement
Awe
Vision
Community
Faith

The practices are simple, yet powerful. They are approachable, but challenging. They are routine, yet boundless. They are forgiving, yet demand everything from you. They can be continually practiced, but will never be perfected.

The five practices train you daily to separate what you can control from what you must let go. Quite by accident, they allowed me to realize my true identity versus anchoring my identity to capabilities or outcomes.

Look back at that opening question again. Ask yourself how many “I am…” statements that ran through your mind ended with something you’ve accomplished with your talents, something you own, or a capability you have.

The practices unknowingly led me to realize the singular, foundational piece of identity everything is built upon. Initially, I viewed them simply as a tool to grant me daily reprieve from alcohol. It turned out that the power that lay within the daily practices was much more significant.

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Each practice will be explored in detail over the coming months. I had incorporated many of these practices in my life when I was battling alcoholism to no avail. I worked out, journaled, and searched for gratitude. But those didn’t work. We’ll explore why and highlight the subtle but required shifts that have allowed these practices to have a profound impact.

Keep showing up,

Kyle Layne

There are moments in life that split everything into a before and after.

For Kenny White, that moment came in an instant. A fall. A broken neck. A life that, by all accounts, should have ended the way it had been going.

But it didn’t.

Instead, it forced a level of clarity most people spend a lifetime avoiding.

What followed wasn’t just physical recovery — it was a complete reconstruction of identity. From addiction and chaos… to faith, family, and purpose.

This conversation explores:

• The slow drift into alcoholism (and why it never feels sudden)

• The psychological toll of trauma and recovery

• A moment of clarity that changed everything

• What it actually means to take radical ownership of your life

• And how rebuilding begins when there’s nothing left to hide behind

This isn’t a story about motivation.

It’s about what happens when you’re forced to face the truth — and choose something different.

Keep showing up,

Kyle

Now, I can’t watch a single show or bit of content without noticing the details of their lighting, background, and camera work. It’s those small learnings in life that catch you off guard and really add some flavor to your day.

The beauty of it all is how little it actually matters for the incredible conversations I’ve been blessed to have.

Grant Hankins: Taking the Harder Path and Finding Identity

Take Grant Hankins, for example. A kid raised in rural Colorado who felt destined for a hard life of alcohol, drugs, and jail. But hockey saved him. Or at least, for a time it saved him. It brought him to new places and removed him from the path that felt inevitable. But, like everything, hockey came to an end, too. We talked identity, navigating hardship, discipline, and taking the more difficult, narrow road.

Full episode with Grant is on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Morgan Hampel: Transitions, Legacy, and Military Stigmas of Mental Health

I recognize how lucky I am to have a group of incredible friends doing incredible things. Very few exemplify this more than Morgan Hampel. Morgan and I became friends in undergrad, where he was a roommate of mine during an extremely lax period of time, my senior year. Morgan was destined for greatness, even then, and the number of times he would walk into our room with me sitting there (generally not yet fully dressed) watching Queen Live in Montreal is slightly embarrassing, if not for the greatness of that entire performance.

Morgan went on to navigate some truly incredible feats (and literally navigate large ships) in our time since undergrad. He worked through hardship associated with seemingly big changes in his professional life as he went on to become a Naval Officer, went through the incredibly rigorous Navy Nuke program, and then made a seemingly massive career change once again as he eyed replacing his Naval income upon leaving his active duty service.

Full episode with Morgan on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

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Tyler Moon: Second Chances, Talking with God, and Service to Others

Most recently, there was Tyler Moon, a self-described ordinary suburban dad who had an extraordinary moment in his life that changed everything. Kept alive by a group of strangers in the middle of the street in St. Paul back in 2019, Tyler recounts his road to healing, the lessons it taught him, and how he views his responsibility to share and help others.

Tyler lives authentically and unapologetically, a refreshing stance in today’s world of masks, false narratives, and self-driven amplification of personal achievements. One thing I didn’t expect to connect on was Tyler’s short, but exhausting, bout with living a life built on a web of lies.

Full episode with Tyler on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

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If you enjoyed any of these conversations, follow the show on your listening platform of choice so you never miss one. If you’re willing, rate the show, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Those seemingly small actions have big impacts and can help these stories reach the people who need them.

Through the last month or so, I have felt honored and privileged to be sitting on the receiving end of these individuals’ messages. It has humbled me and pushed me to be better, to focus on those things that truly matter in life and make an impact on others.

Lighting these days isn’t as much of a problem as when I started. Not because I mastered the art of studio lighting, but because I learned to focus on what actually matters: the conversation, the lessons, and what it means to show up for yourself so you can show up for others.

Keep showing up,

Kyle

He was 25 years old. Healthy. Three months away from his wedding day.

The memory of what happened next never came back.

What followed instead were fragments — stories told by others, moments pieced together by family, doctors, and strangers who stepped forward when it mattered most. CPR in the middle of a race. An AED. A medically induced coma. A long and uncertain path back.

But survival was only the beginning of the story.

In this conversation, Tyler reflects on what it means to wake up after a moment that nearly took your life. We talk about identity, marriage under pressure, faith in moments of uncertainty, and how experiences like this reshape the way we understand purpose.

Tyler now leads Living Proof Leadership and recently released his book More Than a Conqueror, where he reflects more deeply on the lessons that emerged from that day.

This conversation is about survival, but more than that, it’s about the question many people face after adversity:

What do you do with the life you’ve been given?