It’s Probably Time to Talk

It’s Probably Time to Talk

Hi. My name is Josh, and I’m an alcoholic.

I’ve been sober for six and a half years. That’s not usually how I introduce myself—mostly because it tends to quiet a room faster than asking everyone to share their feelings. But for Time to Talk Day, it feels important to say it plainly. If we’re encouraging people to speak honestly about mental health, addiction, and the things we carry quietly, then we probably need to be willing to go first.

I come from a family where mental health struggles were passed down as easily as eye color or a receding hairline. Depression. Addiction. Emotional volatility. None of it felt unusual growing up. It just felt… normal.

My father was abusive.

And the main lesson I learned as a child was how to read people.

Not just rooms—people.

Their moods. Their tone. Their thresholds.

I learned how to stay quiet. How not to be too loud, too sad, too angry. I learned how to make myself smaller so things wouldn’t get worse. Those skills kept me safe at the time. They did not teach me how to ask for help.

We left my father and went back more times than I can count before we finally stayed gone through restraining orders, court-mandated separation, and truths no child should have to process that young. By the time my father was fully out of the picture, my mom was emotionally absent—not from lack of love, but from exhaustion and survival. I didn’t have the tools to talk about what I felt, and I didn’t know how to sit with discomfort. So I did what I’d always done: I hid it.

I dropped out of high school after tenth grade. Shortly after, I started college early, trying to reroute my life and prove—mostly to myself—that I wasn’t done yet.

On Christmas Day when I was seventeen, I got the call that my father had died at 45 from liver failure after years of alcohol and pill abuse. Whatever fragile forward motion I had collapsed. A month later, I tried to take my own life.

At the time, it felt inevitable—like the ending had already been written and I was just catching up. When silence is all you know, despair doesn’t feel dramatic. It feels logical. I survived. I was discharged. And like a lot of people, I went back to functioning without actually healing. Somewhere along the way, I found cooking. Growing up, whenever people were hurting—including me—I cooked. It was the one way I knew how to bring comfort. I figured if I could make people feel okay for a moment, maybe that would be enough. Maybe life would work itself out.

That was naïve.

But it was honest.

The kitchens changed. The jobs changed. The cities changed. I didn’t. I carried the same fear, insecurity, and unprocessed trauma everywhere I went. Alcohol stopped being social and started being necessary. It helped me sleep. It helped quiet my mind. It helped me not feel—until it didn’t.

And slowly, quietly, I realized I was becoming the very thing I was trying to outrun.

The turning point wasn’t willpower.

It wasn’t grit.

And it definitely wasn’t silence.

The turning point was talking.

Talking honestly—not performatively, not “I’m fine,” not packaged to be palatable. Talking to people who could sit with the mess without trying to fix it immediately. Talking to professionals. Talking to others who had walked the same roads and didn’t flinch when I said the hard parts out loud. Once I started talking, shame lost its grip. The darkness didn’t vanish overnight, but it stopped growing unchecked. Each conversation made the next one easier. Each honest admission weakened isolation’s hold.

Sobriety followed—slowly, imperfectly, one conversation at a time.

As I moved into leadership roles, I began to notice something: the industry I love is filled with people carrying stories like mine. Trauma. Addiction. Anxiety. Depression. Often hidden behind humor, work ethic, or bravado. I had been fortunate—even when my own family couldn’t show up, others did. So I made a quiet decision to pay that forward.

I’m not a clinician. I don’t pretend to be. What I can be is present. A steady voice. A safe place to land when things feel overwhelming. Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of walking alongside people as they chose recovery, asked for help, or simply admitted they weren’t okay.

None of those moments would have happened if any of us had stayed silent.

That’s why Time to Talk Day matters.

We don’t heal in isolation. We don’t develop our wounds alone, and we were never meant to fix them by ourselves. Silence convinces us we’re uniquely broken. Talking reminds us we’re human.

If you’re struggling, I won’t tell you it’s easy. But I will tell you it’s worth it. Talk to a friend. A spouse. A counselor. A coworker. A hotline. Anyone who will listen.

Silence loses its power the moment we open our mouths.

And if you’re not sure where to start—

it’s probably time to talk.

Author

Josh Nowell CDM CFPP

The Burnt Chef Project Ambassador