Can Running Keep You Sober?

How far is it from way too much alcohol to clear-headed fitness? About 26.2 miles, but that’s the short answer. The complete answer is several miles a day for several years, and plenty of time to think. In Running Ransom Road: Confronting the Past, One Marathon at a Time (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012), Caleb Daniloff’puts his thoughts on paper, and they are unsparingly honest and revelatory. Daniloff flashes back and forward from days of drug and alcohol abuse, deceit, and failure, to marathons run in the present in cities where he once wallowed in depravity. In this interview with BU Today, Daniloff answers the question: did running help you stay sober? “To a large extent, yes,” he says. “After I quit drinking, there was a huge void in my life. Sobriety can be a very difficult time—a swirl of depression, shame, anxiety, regret, boredom, anger. Running allowed me to start filling in the hole. It gave my days, my life, a new central rhythm. Over time, the physical sensation of forward motion, of progress, became emotional, psychological, literal.” Read more here.