client love

In a perfect world, I would have a nonprofit client for every subject we wrassle (work goals!). For today, we're featuring a client who isn't a nonprofit but gave us a great play on words for a sex issue!

LET'S TALK WOOD!

CTH Woodworking is a brand new business to Crystal Lake, IL, but Chris Hicklin isn't. He grew up here. The same trails I hike every week he's been doing for forty years. You would have thought we'd cross paths at some point out there (maybe we did), but it wasn't until I needed some work done on my house that led my sister to introducing me to their dear friend and jack of all trades.

Full disclosure—I knew I was in "trouble" when I met Chris. We clicked immediately, and the day he and his brother-in-law finished work on my house, he asked me to hike those same woods with him. We've been together ever since.

This is why I can get away with asking a client to introduce their new woodworking business in a sex issue (I mean, the puns may be low hanging fruit... Now I'm giggling at "low hanging fruit"–I'm 12). From this paragraph alone, I'm sure you're as suprised as I am that he said yes. I'm an idiot, but his article will make up for it... I promise.

This may not be the woodworking article you're expecting, so let me start off by painting you a picture of who I was before I was a woodworker... Pre-sobriety, before I knew I had a problem.

In my early 20s I was excited, energetic; working as a bartender at numerous establishments, while I was in college. It was great! During work, I met and talked with people, and at the end of the shift I had cash in hand to have a "couple" of drinks.

After college, I went on to work numerous other jobs—park district maintenance, television production, loan officer and client relations, warehouse logistic operations, and more. In my late 20s, I found myself back at bartending. My excitement and energy was now something I had to do to pay the bills.

Before this, I always considered myself generally nice to people, but bartending (so I thought) was changing me into somebody I didn't want to be. It was changing me into a grumpy, old 40-something.

I thought quitting bartending was going to be enough, so I went into carpentry and handyman work. At the end of the day, I still had that cash in hand to have a "couple" of drinks with friends.

I did this up until 2020—the year we all experienced isolation differently. Now I was drinking more than ever... alone.

My mind seems to work a million miles per second, so I drank to slow it down... to numb those thoughts. I had dug myself into a hole I thought I would never get out of.

In August of 2020, I hit the bottom of that hole. My rock bottom put me in ICU for a week with Type 2 diabetes, a broken jaw, and an infected toe that would have been amputated if it weren't for the medical-level care of my mom.

It was scary.

I never want to go through that again... to put my parents, sisters, other family members, and friends through that again. I needed a new way to slow down my mind.

So I hiked.

I went shed hunting, which taught me to slow down and look around. To take everything in. At night, I started woodworking. Woodworking also allows me to slow down, think about what degree an angle needs to be, and attempt to make the perfect cut on repeat. When I put it all together, I hope to make something someone else enjoys as well.

The first thing I made was for my sister and brother-in-law—a piece of wall art (image 1) solely made of angles I had to perfectly piece together. They loved it, which made me feel like there was something there.

I reached out to two friends opening a restaurant and asked if I could help by making them something. Their idea turned into a seven foot, back-lit, Illinois-shaped sign with their logo on it (image 3). They saw the potential before I did and wanted to tell others about my work. To me, it was just a release to keep my brain occupied, and to slow down. It was a way to make others happy, to get back to that guy who was nice to people.

For six or seven months I continued on with my hikes and woodworking. I started recalling projects I use to make with my dad—like a paddle boat for Indian Guides (a YMCA-based alternative to Boy Scouts) or at-home DIY things like deck spindles. He would take me to Hines Lumber that use to be in downtown Crystal Lake, where we would watch the freight train hauling lumber into the yard. To think, 40 years later, the seed he planted was helping me stay sober.

Something I needed more than ever, because little did I know 2021 was going to be worse than 2020 with the unexpected loss of three friends very close to me. I knew if I didn't stay sober, I'd be next. So I kept hiking. I kept making things in my shop.

Sobriety is a journey that needs to be taken one step at a time—whether its down a trail, working with my hands, or designing a sign—to stay present.

Today, it's an overcast day and 36˚ out. Two red-tail hawks are flying overhead. I'm looking for deer sheds, even though I believe it to be a bit early; but it's one of the tools I need. This article is coming together from ideas I stop to jot down while I'm out here. Without this, I may not be able to put it all together.

Without this I wouldn't have met Anni. Without this I wouldn't have believed her when she said I could turn my hobby into the fulfilling career—to make products people enjoy (whether that's a sign for your business, art for your wall, or other hand-crafted pieces for your home—image 2). I'm excited for the start of another journey... one step at a time.