For entrepreneurs struggling with alcohol dependency while trying to build meaningful businesses, the path to sobriety often feels like giving up the very coping mechanism that helped them handle stress, rejection, and uncertainty. I know because I lived it—cycling through dropshipping ventures, NFT projects, and OnlyFans management businesses that brought early wins followed by devastating crashes. After filing for bankruptcy and hitting rock bottom with alcohol, I discovered that coaching offered something I’d been searching for all along: a way to build sustainable income while helping others overcome the same challenges I faced. This is how I replaced the temporary escape of alcohol with the lasting fulfillment of purpose-driven work, and how other entrepreneurs can do the same.

Living With Purpose: How Coaching Helped Me Replace Alcohol With Fulfillment

My Rock Bottom: When Success Felt Empty

The irony of entrepreneurial burnout is that it often strikes hardest when you’re achieving what looks like success from the outside. My journey through e-commerce, NFTs, and digital marketing had produced those Instagram-worthy moments—five-figure months, exotic locations, the freedom to work from anywhere. But beneath the surface, I was drowning in a cycle of quick wins followed by devastating setbacks. Account bans would wipe out months of work overnight. Failed ventures consumed savings faster than I could rebuild them. The constant uncertainty and pressure to "hustle harder" left me reaching for alcohol as my primary coping mechanism.

What started as celebratory drinks after successful launches gradually became daily numbing sessions to handle rejection emails, failed ad campaigns, and the isolation that comes with working alone. The digital nomad lifestyle, which I’d pursued for freedom, became a way to hide my drinking from anyone who might hold me accountable. Moving from country to country meant I never had to face the long-term consequences of my habits—until the money ran out and I found myself filing for bankruptcy back home.

The most painful realization wasn’t the financial loss—it was recognizing that none of my "successful" ventures had given me genuine fulfillment. I was chasing metrics, not meaning. Building funnels for products I didn’t believe in, managing content for industries that left me feeling empty, scaling businesses that could disappear with a single platform policy change. The alcohol wasn’t just masking the stress of entrepreneurship; it was masking the deeper void that comes from spending your days on work that doesn’t align with your values.

Rock bottom arrived when I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt genuinely proud of my work. Every business felt like a house of cards, every success felt temporary, and every setback sent me deeper into the bottle. The entrepreneur who’d once coached youth soccer and felt energized by helping others grow had become someone who measured worth entirely by bank account balances and vanity metrics. I knew something had to change, but I had no idea that the solution would come through rediscovering the very thing that had once given me the most joy: coaching others.

Finding a Coach Who Understood Addiction

The breakthrough came when I finally admitted that I couldn’t solve my alcohol problem and business struggles separately—they were interconnected symptoms of a deeper issue around purpose and fulfillment. Traditional business coaches kept focusing on tactics and strategies, while addiction counselors didn’t understand the unique pressures of entrepreneurship. I needed someone who understood that for many entrepreneurs, alcohol becomes a way to cope with the emotional rollercoaster of building businesses, handling rejection, and managing the isolation that comes with working for yourself.

Finding the right coach meant looking for someone who had walked a similar path—someone who understood that entrepreneurial addiction often stems from using business success to fill internal voids, then using substances to cope when that success feels empty or unsustainable. My coach had experience with both addiction recovery and building sustainable businesses, which meant they could address the root causes rather than just treating symptoms. They helped me see that my pattern of chasing quick wins in business was the same pattern driving my drinking: seeking external solutions for internal problems.

The coaching process revealed that my relationship with alcohol was deeply connected to my relationship with uncertainty and control. Entrepreneurship inherently involves massive amounts of uncertainty, but I’d been trying to control outcomes through sheer force of will and "hustle culture" mentality. When that inevitably failed, alcohol became my way of numbing the disappointment and anxiety. My coach helped me develop healthier ways to process uncertainty and find fulfillment in the process rather than just outcomes.

What made the biggest difference was having someone who could hold space for both my business ambitions and my recovery journey without treating them as separate issues. They understood that sustainable sobriety for entrepreneurs often requires rebuilding your relationship with work itself—finding ways to create value that align with your deeper purpose rather than just chasing the next dopamine hit from a successful launch or big month. This integrated approach became the foundation for everything that followed, including my eventual transition into coaching others through similar struggles.

Building Income Streams That Actually Matter

The shift from pursuing quick wins to building sustainable, purpose-driven income required completely reimagining what business success looked like. Instead of chasing the next trending opportunity or platform arbitrage play, I started with a simple question: what work would I want to do even if I wasn’t getting paid for it? The answer brought me back to coaching—specifically helping other entrepreneurs navigate the intersection of business building and personal well-being that traditional business advice often ignores.

Starting my coaching practice while maintaining sobriety taught me the importance of building income streams that support rather than undermine your recovery. Unlike the feast-or-famine cycles of dropshipping or the constant platform risk of social media marketing, coaching allows for predictable recurring revenue through retainer clients and program sales. More importantly, every client interaction reinforces positive habits and mindsets rather than requiring me to spend my days optimizing for engagement or conversion metrics that feel disconnected from real human value.

The transition wasn’t immediate—I started by maintaining some smaller income streams that generated around $1,000 per month while building my coaching business. This provided financial stability during the transition and removed the pressure to make coaching profitable immediately, which allowed me to focus on genuinely helping clients rather than desperately trying to close sales. The key was ensuring that even these transitional income sources aligned with my values and supported rather than undermined my sobriety and well-being.

Now, five months into sobriety, I’m preparing to scale the coaching business through systems and advertising investments before returning to work from Asia full-time. The difference is that this time, the business model supports the lifestyle I want rather than requiring me to sacrifice my health and values for growth. Coaching entrepreneurs around sobriety, ADHD management, and breaking free from social media addiction gives me the same sense of purpose I once felt coaching youth soccer—the deep satisfaction that comes from helping others unlock their potential and overcome obstacles that are holding them back from their best lives.

The journey from alcohol-dependent entrepreneur to purpose-driven coach wasn’t about giving up ambition—it was about redirecting that ambition toward work that actually fulfills rather than just pays. For entrepreneurs struggling with similar challenges, the path forward isn’t about choosing between business success and personal well-being; it’s about building businesses that support both. Whether you’re dealing with addiction, ADHD, social media dependency, or simply the emptiness that comes from chasing metrics instead of meaning, coaching offers a way to transform your struggles into your greatest strengths. The same experiences that once drove you to drink can become the foundation for helping others—and building the sustainable, fulfilling business you’ve been searching for all along. If you’re ready to explore how sobriety and purpose-driven entrepreneurship can work together, the first step is simply admitting that there might be a better way to build both wealth and well-being.