The Road to Sobriety: Peter Geyer's Story
Story by Sean Bessette | Video by Inderjit Singh | Design by Morgan Rosentrater
With a daughter at home and a wife out of town, Peter Geyer drove drunk to get more alcohol six years ago. He was arrested.
“That was the very lowest point in my life,” Geyer says. “I moved here to be a father and I finally saw that I had failed.”
Since then, Geyer’s been sober.
Upon meeting Geyer, who’s 52 years old and works at The Porch, you wouldn’t know he struggled with alcohol since his teenage years. Today, he lives with his wife, Jen, and his 17-year-old daughter, Lili, who’s on track to graduate this year.
“It’s pretty cool and bittersweet,” Geyer says. “Time flies, you know.”
Geyer grew up in Los Angeles and lived there until he was 23. He didn’t have a father-figure until he was four years old when his stepfather entered his life, because his biological father separated when Geyer was roughly eight months old.
Geyer’s stepfather passed away Sept. 2021. His biological father passed away a couple years back.
His stepfather had a profound impact on his life, but Geyer says he didn’t know it at first.
“He definitely didn’t like to see me drinking, which unfortunately he did,” Geyer says.
Even though he no longer has that connection with his stepfather, Geyer’s relationship with his mother remains strong; in fact, he visited his mother in Hawaii over Christmas.
First Sip
He was first introduced to alcohol during his teenage years, sometime around eighth grade.
“It started becoming an addiction by 16,” Geyer says. “It was definitely a weekend thing. Partying on the weekends, going to backyard parties was definitely the thought at 16.”
Geyer says he thought he could have better control over his drinking, but it progressively got worse as he got older.
“At a young age, you like that trouble. You like getting in and out of trouble,” Geyer says. “I can’t take responsibility for myself and at 16, 17, that’s perfect. You know, because you’re not taking responsibility for yourself anyways.”
First Incident: Skiing accident
Geyer is no rookie when it comes to skiing. He says he started skiing when he was four years old.
While working a job at a ski resort at a young age, he ran into his first incident with drinking. During his training, he was drinking, partying and skiing.
One night, he woke up in a hospital about 80 miles from home with his divorced parents by his side.
“It was an eye opener at least,” Geyer says. “But of course that didn’t stop me from continuing.”
Before he turned 21 years old, Geyer already had two DUIs and was no longer driving. He got his license back years later and received a third DUI.
“You know why I was getting in trouble, why I had bad relationships, why I never had any money, you know, all these things that were happening to me and it was all the result of alcohol,” Geyer says.
At 23 years old, Geyer left Los Angeles for New Mexico, where his stepfather retired in 1992.
He moved there to, “escape myself and escape Los Angeles,” Geyer says. “I was seeking and searching along with getting away.”
Alcoholism was negatively affecting all of Geyer’s relationships, including his family.
The Turning Point
“Nobody can live with an alcoholic unless they’re an alcoholic and what I realized is that most of my relationships were with women who drank, women I met in bars and it never worked out,” Geyer says. “Most of my relationships were with women that are addicts of some sort.”
That changed when he met his wife, Jen, and learned that she was pregnant with their daughter, Lili. He moved to Ellensburg to be a father, Geyer says.
Finding a turning point in his struggle with alcoholism wasn’t easy, according to Geyer.
“I would want to get better and sober up a little bit and I’d see the light so I’d think there wouldn’t be a corner to turn,” Geyer says. “Things would get good, you know, and then they’d be like, oh, maybe I can just go out and I never admitted that I had a serious problem.”
That turning point finally arrived when he was arrested for drunk driving six years ago while his wife was out of town and his daughter was at home. Geyer says it was a wake-up call, and he’s been sober since then.
His relationship with his wife and daughter is good, “because I’m not hiding, not sneaking around and not trying to be someone that I’m not.”
Geyer attends Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings three to four times a week and refers to the halls these meetings occur at as therapeutic places.
“I was never understood until I came into a place like this,” Geyer says. “You’re shown here’s what you have to do if you want to survive.”
He even chairs a meeting every Monday at noon at a hall on 3rd Ave.
“Now I see that I have to be here because you can easily get drifted away,” Geyer says.
The hall has a couple dozen chairs organized in a circle, has a bookshelf full of AA literature and is decorated in AA material that Geyer attributes his ability to stay sober to.
“I’ll read the daily reflection that you see here [in the AA hall] and we have the literature or anything to get it going, you know, keep it positive,” Geyer says.
Geyer says he wouldn’t give any advice to younger version of himself because he “wouldn’t listen.”
As for his future, he plans on staying sober, staying happy and taking it easy.
“I could never accept life on life’s terms. I was always trying to change it and make it so I would be happy,” Geyer says. “And I realized I have to be happy no matter what happens.”
Geyer doesn’t want to be remembered for one certain thing but rather that he, “got sober and you can be sober. You can have a sober life. You can live a happy life. You can be content in this life.”
