At the start of 2022 my life was a disaster.
I was drinking every night. And I don’t mean a couple glasses. I mean half a gallon of vodka with beer chasers. I’d smoke two packs of menthols a day. Eat Taco Bell. Pass out. Wake up hungover with the runs. Oh, and thanks to forty years of chain smoking my teeth were also falling out. I know what you're thinking. Adorable.
On top of that, my job was awful. It paid well, sure, but the way my boss disrespected me? Yelled at me? The verbal and emotional abuse? I was already down on myself, and that jerk just made it worse.
Then one day I came to work sick. I was sweating, I could barely stand up. Everyone in the office said to call 911. My boss said, "You can leave -- after you finish my quarterly report."
The next day I walked in, grabbed all my files, told him to go to hell, and walked out. It felt really good.
Unfortunately, it didn’t fix anything. All it did was give me more time to destroy the organs I had left. I was in a downward spiral and had given up all hope.
Then one day I’m scrolling Facebook, and I see this job posting for a laundromat. I thought it was fake. Like I'd show up and they'd rob and murder me. But something in me said, “Just go.” Plus the joke would be on them. All they'd get out of me was a broken plastic lighter and my Ralph's card.
I showed up looking like hell. Sweats, an old Barbra Streisand T-shirt, reeking of cigarettes, and of course hungover.
But the owner, this guy Hank, and his manager Madison. They were ... nice. I wasn't expecting that. And they treated me like a human being. I was definitely not expecting that.
After a couple of days of phone tag, they actually hired me. I couldn’t believe it. I hung up the phone thinking, “Those guys were supposed to murder me!"
My first day was September 7, 2022. It was a very strange feeling. I was used to sitting behind a desk, not scrubbing washing machines and cleaning lint out of dryer filters.
But the vibe was warm, and I was treated with respect. And there were lots of coins and jewelry in the dryer filters.
Then, I broke my ankle. Bad. It took four people to lift me into the ambulance. My legs were leaking fluid. My stitches kept ripping open. My body was basically falling apart because of how I’d been living. Oh, yeah, I was still drinking. And smoking. And then they gave me pain pills. Just what I needed.
But I was not going to lose the only good thing I had going. So basically, I broke out of the hospital and at 6am the next morning, I was back at work. I had to roll around the laundromat in an office chair, but I was there.
But even while all that was happening, something else started happening too — something I didn’t expect. I found people. I found connection. Mostly the ladies who came in to do their laundry.
They spoke Spanish, I didn’t, but somehow we understood each other anyway.
It wasn’t about words. It was the way they’d smile at me, check on me, bring me food sometimes, or just sit near me while their clothes were drying.
They saw me struggling — rolling around in that office chair, bloated from the booze and the pain pills and liver disease, weight ballooning up to 280 pounds. And they didn’t judge me.
They treated me like a human being. We had this bond that didn’t need translation. And truth? Those women, those customers… they’re a big part of why I didn’t give up. They cared. And feeling that — being seen by people I could barely communicate with — that did something to me. It made me feel like maybe I wasn’t completely alone. Maybe I was worth caring about. It gave me a reason to keep showing up. Of course I was still getting plastered every night.
Then came June 10, 2023 — the day everything changed.
I tried to drink like usual… and my body rejected it. The Popov came right back up. I tried again. I'm no quitter. But I could not keep it down. At first I didn’t know what was happening. Then it hit me:
My body is done.
After thirty years, it was finally done with alcohol.
And for the first time ever, I didn’t push through it. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t say, “One more drink.” I just stopped. Right then. No program. No rehab. No weaning off. Just done. I quit the pain pills, too.
And you know what? Within a week, my ankle — that big open wound that wouldn’t heal — finally started closing. Like my body had been waiting for me to give it a chance.
After that, things started getting better pretty fast.
I went from the office chair to a walker.
From the walker to baby steps.
From baby steps to walking again.
The customers, my friends, totally supported me. They’d clap. They’d smile. They’d tell me I looked better. They noticed the change before I did.
Then the weight started coming off.
And kept coming off.
Over the next twelve months, I lost 120 pounds.
I stayed sober.
My clothes went from 5XL to mediums.
My waist from 44 to 30.
I felt lighter — not just physically, but in my head.
I started waking up at three or four in the morning because I actually wanted to be awake. I looked forward to going to work. I laughed again. I cared again. I felt connected again.
Then the craziest thing happened. I did the one thing I thought I could never do. After forty years of smoking two packs of menthols a day, I quit.
But it was not a pretty sight.
It was so much harder than the booze. I was anxious and jittery 24/7. Sweating and pissed off all the time. Two weeks in, I got violently sick for days. I thought I was dying. The doctor said it was harder than quitting heroin. But somehow I pushed through it.
And as of right now, I haven’t had a cigarette in two months. And I’ve been sober for almost three years.
The laundromat didn’t just give me a paycheck.
It gave me a life.
It gave me community.
It gave me a reason to get better.
A reason to stay better.
If you told me in early 2022 that a laundromat would save my life, I would’ve told you you were insane.
But it did.
I walked in broken, and somehow that place — and the people there — put me back together.
Piece by piece.
Day by day.
I didn’t just get a job.
I got my life back.
And I’m never letting it go.
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