I have been debating for sometime now if I should announce to the interwebs just who Sparty is.  I knew that at some point I should, but wasn’t sure how I would do it. I am nobody of importance in the world of media or sports (or the world in the grand scheme of things), so feel free to Google my name.  You are most likely going to only get information from Facebook, ESPN Fantasy games, my high school alumni class and a contest I won with the New York Daily News.  Maybe if you are lucky enough, you will find an old article from a local paper that lists me as a 6ft 165lb wide receiver and cornerback (I think I actually weighed about 150).  The bulk of what you will find in the Google search is about a Danish soccer player. No relation at all, and not a hint of dutch in my family.

Is this a risky decision? I don’t really think so; at least 36 of you know my actual name if you are part of Facebook.  Just because I am about to expose myself to the world, doesn’t mean you have to stop calling me Sparty.  But I am putting myself out there and my hat will now be the out the world of public scrutiny.

It is significant that I picked this day to unveil myself.  Saint Patrick’s Day takes on an entirely different meaning for me.  Ironically enough, I celebrate March 17th the exact opposite way that 99.98% of you do.

Hi, my name is David Kippe, I am a dope-shooting alcoholic.

Yep, I’m one of those people; and today, I celebrate 9 years of sobriety.  Being almost 29-years-young, I have been sober now for about the same amount of time that I was using drugs and alcohol.  Yes, I am aware that alcohol is a drug.  I am not going to bore you with a long story of how much I was doing of what, or of when and where I was always doing it, because that is not what is important today.  The journey back to “normalcy” matters so much more than the detour I took as a teenager.

9 years ago today I was entering rehab in Brighton, MI.  I was still in a fog that day, and had no idea what the date was.  Once I was done being admitted, I went outside to smoke as many cigarettes as possible on the back porch.  I was the youngest person in the detox at the time and most of the adults asked me why the hell I came to rehab on St. Patrick’s Day.  I felt like a stupid-ass at the time; I could have had one last good night.  Of course, I didn’t have a penny to my name because I had been cut-off from my parents and every friend I had was sick and tired of loaning money to someone who would never pay them back. St Paddy’s or not, I was in rehab.

With not getting into depth about my actual use, let me just say that I did enough heroin and cocaine that I was 130lbs.  That was 20 lbs less than what I weighed as an relatively thin 17 year-old senior in high school.  My eyes were sunk-in, my nose was all red around the nostrils, and you would need a phlebotomist to find a vein on any of my arms. Yeah, I was friggin hot.  It wasn’t always bad.  In high school, it was much more like Dazed and Confused and Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  But it quickly turned into Blow(not to the extent of the dealing part of it) and Requiem for a Dream.

Rehab sucks - I am grateful for it, definitely better than jail or being dead - but it sucks.  Everyday seems to be the same, very monotonous.  You wanna know what the hardest thing for me to do in rehab? Watch Michigan State win the National Title.  I thought about leaving AMA and getting myself over to E. Lansing to celebrate, but then that issue about money and friends got in the way.  That’s right, Sparty had to watch the Flintstones win college basketball’s crowning jewel from rehab.  I still cheered and screamed when they won, but it wasn’t how I had imagined watching them win it.

Anyway, I finished my 28 day stay in Brighton and was introduced to Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous.  Upon completion of the program, I boarded a plane and headed to Florida.  Yep, not back home to Bloomfield Hills, MI, but to Florida.  See, my parents had no problem locking my butt up in rehab, but no way in hell were they going to let me move back in their home and give them anymore grief than I already had.  My parents are wonderful people who gave me everything I needed in life and more.  Even paid for half of my time in college; too bad I didn’t really go to class too often.  I pissed away plenty of opportunities they had given to me and it was time for me to grow up.

While I was in rehab, they showed me a video of a halfway house in Boca Raton, FL - The Boca House. This place looked awesome. Beautiful apartments, gorgeous courtyard and pool, the beach, girls in bikini’s, not too far from South Beach; I’m there brotha.  My pops flew down with me (probably to make sure I actually ended up where I was supposed to go) and when we arrived at the 321 West Camino Real, I told him that we had to be at the wrong place.  This is not what I saw in the video.  Man, the magic of lighting and editing.  This place was dirty, the pool looked like crap; it looked like a jailhouse yard outside.  Yeah, I was home.  So I checked into the office and gave them a piss test (I PASSED!) and then took my stuff over to my first apartment in Phase 1 at the Boca House.  I then had to say goodbye to my father, not sure when the time I would see him would be.  Now, I had never seen my father tear up or cry growing up. I think I remember seeing him emotional when I was much younger and his mother was diagnosed with cancer, but that is fuzzy.  As I gave my father a hug, he squeezed me like a parent would do when they thought they lost you in a department store when you were 6.  I heard the crack in his voice as he tried to say I love you, and he then let go and left the apartment.  I was officially on my own.

I didn’t want to be at this place longer than the allotted 4 months that was required to complete the program and get my deposit back.  I looked around and saw men that were 2- and 3-times my age, some that were even in their 80s.  This was not a life that I wanted to have to ever comeback to.  I needed to follow the rules in order to survive.  That means that I had to be on the grounds between the hours of 11pm and 6 am, hold a job, pay my rent, keep my bedroom clean, attend 90 12-step meetings in 90 days, and not hold any negative contracts (i.e. not withholding any information from staff that someone was breaking the rules, especially if someone was drinking or drugging).

I finally got serious about things for the first time in my life.  I had a job within the first week of living in Florida.  This is when the economy was still booming, back in the spring of 2000.  I ended up scoring a job for a telemarketing company, a legit one if you could call it that.   Luckily, I wasn’t stuck calling someone’s house asking them to sign up to AT&T long distance.  I would actually be calling doctors office’s and detailing the physicians on new prescription drugs for major manufacturer’s like Bayer, Novartis, and Pfizer.  We weren’t selling anyone anything, just getting the word out, which made the job easier for me.  When I interviewed for the job, I was asked if I had any experience in the pharmaceutical field, ha!  I ended up holding that job for the first year and half I lived in FL.

Back at the halfway house, I was pretty much a model inmate…er, tenant.  I never broke curfew, made all my meetings, and was only jammed once in my entire 4 month stay.  Being jammed was when you were busted for not being clean enough in your apartment.  Apparently the floor was too dirty in mine, but we didn’t have vacuum cleaners and were stuck only using brooms on carpet.  I was screwed, oh well; it just meant I had grounds clean up duty and couldn’t hurry down to the beach as early as I wanted.

Quick story - one day while hanging out at the halfway house, I was asked to deliver a bed to the female halfway house a couple of miles away.  It was owned by the same guy and we were not allowed to fraternize at all with the ladies that were there.  Anyway, I took the bed with another guy over to the residence and when we walked into the office there to ask which apartment they wanted us to put the bed in, there was very attractive girl checking in.  The manager told us it was okay to say hello, so I did.  My exact words were, “Hi, nice to meet you.  I will never say hi to you again.”

One of the hardest things I had to do while at the halfway house - but I believe it was a turning point for me in my life – was the night that someone I had become friends with went out drinking.  We were separated for a little bit while we were out because I decided to go flirt with some girls that were closer to my age; he was about 15 years older than me.  When we met back up together, he was sauced and we walked back home.  I knew when we walked in together that I was out on my own if I didn’t fess up that I knew he was drunk.  They were going to bust him anyway; it wasn’t worth it for me to let this guy throw away his chance at a new life and mine at the same time.  I broke a cardinal rule of the “street” and I ratted out my friend.  I was sick of living a life a lies and deceit, and I was not about to throw away my life over somebody’s selfishness.  Dude wanted to kick my ass, but there were more people there on my side than I thought. He came after me and my former Detroit cop roommate subdued him until the local police arrived to escort him out.  The next day, a lot of men, including guys that had spent a lot of time in jail, came up to me and told me I did the right thing, that I could not let anything stand in the way of my own sobriety.  That was extremely comforting.

I ended up completing my time at the Boca House in August of 2000, and made the decision to stick around Florida.  I moved into an apartment with a guy I had become buddies with and spent the next year trying to figure out the whole AA thing. Don’t be confused by AA.  It doesn’t teach you how not drink; that part is simple - you just don’t.  What AA taught me was how to live life and help others.  My entire drinking and drugging life was about serving my own lusts and desires, taking no one else into consideration.  It didn’t matter who I hurt to get what I wanted. I stole, I lied, and I cheated my way through so much of my life. I didn’t know how to live life on life’s terms and that is what I learned to do in AA.  It did help to lead me in believing in a Power greater than myself.  I do choose to call that God. Listen, I had my confusions about God growing up, like most.  I was a member of the CIA - Catholic Irish Alcoholic – and I had a Jewish father; how’s that for starters?  AA helped me to change my outlook on an existence of something more powerful than myself.  You may not be in line with that, and that’s cool; to each his own.  I have seen way too many things that cannot just be coincidence.  Not only that, when I think about some of the situations I put myself in - how many times I got behind the wheel drunk or high, or snorted things not knowing what it was – and I am still here to talk about it, that can’t just be dumb luck.  If it was, I would have won the lottery by now.

Remember that girl that I said I would never say hi to again?  Yeah…so she ended up getting a job at the company I was working for.  She didn’t last too long, she said she quit because she didn’t like the job; but I like to tell myself that I was too much of a distraction for her.  A few months later, she and I began to date.  We were together for a few months, and then she dumped me, which was a wise move by her.  It allowed us to focus more on getting our own lives together instead of messing each other up anymore than we already were.

Following the breakup, I threw myself in AA.  I worked the 12 steps to best of my ability, applying the principles from them in my life daily. Did I fall short? Of course I did, and I still do today, but I was owning up to every shortcoming and making amends when necessary while trying to carry the message of hope to others that were like me as of the prior year.

I had a great-uncle living in Florida while I was down there, and he passed away mid-march 2001.  My father came down to help my grandfather with the funeral, and it just so happened to work out that I was celebrating a year of sobriety at the time.  In 12-step meetings, on the anniversary of the first day of sobriety, there is usually a ceremony where they hand out a medallion indicating how many years of sobriety that you have.  Usually someone close to you within the program says a few words about you, and then, you yourself say how you managed to stay sober.  Well, since my father ended up being in Florida at the time, I asked him to present the medallion to me.  Here he was in Florida burying his uncle, and instead of mourning him, he was able to celebrate his son having life.  You cannot tell me that is simple coincidence that things worked out that way.  I always thought I was nothing but a disappointment to him, and probably was, but he told everyone that I taught him more about courage than anyone else ever did.  It was at that point he started to cry in front of 75 people, as did I and everyone else in the room.  That pretty much sums up my first year of sobriety.

That girl that I told that I would never talk to again, then dated, and then was dumped by? Yeah, she ended up calling me up a couple months later and we started chatting again and eventually started to date again.  Today, we have been married for almost 6 and half years, and have a son that is about to turn 3.  We were married at the Boca Resort and Hotel, which is 1 mile from the halfway house that I attended.  Quite a difference, eh?

Let bring you up to speed on how I ended up in Jersey and having my own blog.  I left the telemarketing gig and went to work for drug and alcohol rehab. I worked on the clinical end of the business for about a year, and then moved over to the administration side. I worked directly under the COO of the company for the next few years.  But, the company made some changes and eventually pushed him out the door, even though he helped to build the business from the ground up.  It wasn’t long until his team employees were pushed out the door - that being me as well.  Not long after being let go, I received a phone call from my wife’s cousin who asked me to come help run his business up in New Jersey.  My wife was 3 months pregnant at the time, and weighed the options.  The majority of her family lived in NJ and PA, and I always loved the Northeast.  I am not going to lie to you either, the idea of being able to utilize my father’s New York Giants season tickets did play into my plans of moving to NJ.  It was a difficult to decision to make.  I loved Florida, I really grew up there and had to say goodbye to a lot of people that I came to love, but I had to put my family first.  My wife was able to get a transfer to a Starbucks and that helped to make the move seamless.

The job I work at now allows me a lot of freedom, and have unlimited access to the Internet. I wear a lot of hats at the business, including IT department.  I use that title loosely. Huge sports nut, duh. I participated in organized sports from the age of 4 all the way up through high school.  In high school, I played football, baseball and I was also a swimmer.  That is my sports background.  Anyway I was starting to really read sports blogs back in 2005 and also was a reader of the Daily Quickie on Page 2 on ESPN. As you all know, that was written by Dan Shanoff - a well edited Dan Shanoff.  As many of you know, he eventually parted ways with ESPN and started his own blog at Danshanoff.com.  I, like many other readers, followed him over to the blog to follow his daily recap of the previous days action. It was there that I came across more blogs like Free Darko, Deadspin, Fire Joe Morgan and The Big Lead. I really took to TBL and that became part of my daily reading. I kept reading Shanoff even though I realized that his blog was somewhat of a joke, and his hypocritical homersim grated on me.  I enjoyed talking in the comments with the other readers more than actually reading Shanoff.  Anyway, because he didn’t want to moderate his own blog, a separate commenting blog was set-up and it was there that I started taking the lead.  I kinda led the daily discussion, and one day it was joked that I should start my own blog.  It was around that same time that I compared some of the regular commenters to the trains on my son’s favorite TV show; Thomas and Friends.  GatorTrey said I should call the new blog Sparty & Friends.  That was pretty much how it all happened. Within a couple days I started Sparty & Friends, and we have grown over the last 9 months to where we are today.

Today I look back to 9 years ago and if someone told me that I would be married, have a kid, a great job, my own successful blog and living just outside NYC, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible.  I was essentially homeless with no friends or family.  My relationship with my siblings was severely damaged, and today I am closer to them than ever before.  I have better friends than I have ever had, people I can truly trust and count on, and I know they feel the same about me, which is even more important because no one did 9 years ago.  Nothing is better than the reconstruction of my relationship with my parents.  I talked a lot about my father, and little about my mother. Don’t let that fool you, I am as close to her as anyone else, she is my sounding board for a lot of things I deal with.

As a lot of you are enjoying your green beer or a Guinness (which was my favorite), I will be slamming back a Coke Zero while I devour some of my wife’s great cooking and being thankful for another day of sobriety which allows me to be part of your daily life.  Thank you to all of you that have been a part of my life; I am grateful to all of you, even Miz.

Sparty is Editor-in-Chief and Founder. You can reach him at sparty@spartyandfriends.com

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