I've been an expat since I was 21. Different countries, different rotations, long stretches away from home. Two divorces along the way.
The oil and gas world has a reputation for a full-on, unhealthy lifestyle. In a lot of these places there's genuinely nowhere else to go. Some bars, restaurants, or even nightclubs depending where you are or traveling through. You always meet new people along the way, creating good friendships, with many fun nights out and hard hangovers in the morning. Good memories I often still think about.
In your 20s and 30s, that life makes sense. You can handle it. You bounce back fast. Nobody's worried.
One moment which is printed in my brain. I was living in Kazakhstan, in my early 30s, recently divorced. One night a man stepped into the hotel elevator with me — face inflamed, eyes bulging, sweating, carrying a lot of extra weight, breathing heavily. I never spoke to him, other than when he came to my office the next day trying to sell me equipment I didn't need. But I remember thinking, clearly: I never want to be like him at that age.
Twenty years later, I still think of him whenever I feel myself drifting in the wrong direction.
A lot of men never stop to check whether they've quietly stayed on autopilot long after their body and their life started needing something different.
I'm not an alcoholic. However, alcohol has been a big part of nearly every chapter of my adult life, and only in the past few years have I really asked myself whether it still serves the man I am now, or just the one I used to be. It's just a question worth asking, at any age.
How often do you check whether the habits that made sense ten or twenty years ago are still right for who you're becoming?