Eric Zink doesn’t flinch when he talks about his rock bottom. He’s lived it more than once.
“I tried getting sober at 23. I didn’t get sober until I was 36,” he told High Times. “My life has been destroying it, rebuilding it, having an amazing life for like a year or two, then self-sabotaging it back to just nothing. I was tired, man. I was just tired.”
Today, Zink is a mental health mentor and social media content creator who has turned his lived experience with addiction, trauma, and recovery into something sincere and impactful. His digital platforms now reach hundreds of thousands of people who connect with his no-bullshit storytelling and raw vulnerability.
But his path here was anything but straightforward.
Trauma Beneath the Surface
Zink’s story is steeped in tragedy. He lost his wife to suicide in 2015. Two years later, his father also took his life. In the wake of these losses and his own near-suicide attempt, Zink spiraled into addiction, secrecy, and shame.
“You tell people you’re a coke addict, they look at you sideways,” he said. “So I just told everybody I was an alcoholic… I didn’t know any better. That’s kind of where I started.”
Growing up in what he describes as a privileged household with a doctor father, Eric didn’t face overt abuse or neglect, but trauma, he stresses, can take many forms. “It filters in different ways,” he said. “I know what it’s like to be forgotten by my parents… wandering around Kmart as a kid, looking for my mom and dad who forgot me. And then they come back yelling at me because it was my fault.”
For years, drugs and alcohol filled a void. “It would just kind of make the world go silent for a bit. And I just fought for that because I didn’t know how else to do it,” he said. “That was the scariest thing alcohol made me feel normal.”
Behind the Curtain of Functioning Addiction
One of the most sobering revelations in Zink’s story is how long he was able to keep up appearances. At the height of his addiction, he was earning $40–50K a month as a general manager for RV dealerships. To the outside world, he looked wildly successful.
“Didn’t have a dime to my name,” he admitted. “I was spending 15 grand a month on coke, hookers, and alcohol. I wasn’t anything. I was an addict. That’s what I saw myself as.”
Zink believes society still fails to grasp how high-functioning addiction works, especially with substances like alcohol and cocaine. “I’ve worked with people who make stupid money and are doing coke every single day. The amount of functioning coke addicts I’ve met is insane.”
This dysfunction, he adds, is often tied to undiagnosed mental health conditions. “A lot of addicts I’ve worked with turn out to have undiagnosed ADHD. So they self-medicate. And yeah, it works. Temporarily.”
When the Likes Become a Drug
After getting sober in 2017, Zink turned to social media as a form of therapy. At first, it was just a sounding board. “It wasn’t for anyone else. It was for me.”
The platform grew fast. His TikTok following reached nearly 2 million. Suddenly, the validation and attention became another addiction.
“I had a huge god complex. I thought I was going to change the narrative on mental health,” he said. “I’m not a doctor. I’m none of that shit. And I realized my addiction transferred to social media.”
The crash was hard. He deleted his accounts. Then, encouraged by his now-wife, he returned with new boundaries. “I started treating it like a business. That way, it wasn’t about ego. It was about helping people and protecting my peace.”
The Rise of Psychedelics and Rewriting the Rules of Sobriety
When asked about the growing use of plant medicines in addiction recovery — psilocybin, ayahuasca, ibogaine — Zink is open-minded but cautious. “If you’re doing it with help, and you’re seeing positive results from it, great,” he said. “We all get better in different ways.”
Zink has tried kratom and documented both the experience and withdrawal symptoms. He has also explored supplements like Ashwagandha and lion’s mane to manage anxiety and support brain recovery. But he avoids romanticizing any substance.
“People get defensive, but I went through the withdrawal. The restless legs, the hot and cold flashes, the inability to eat. That shit freaked me out.”
He also challenges strict abstinence rules in some recovery circles.
“This whole thing we preach, that it has to be absolute abstinence, is bullshit,” he said. “Anybody who’s on an SSRI, you’re not abstinent. If weed helps you sleep and not shoot up, then more power to you.”
In 2024, Zink began EMDR therapy, a trauma-focused method originally developed for veterans and first responders. It has been a turning point.
“It uses your eye movement to pull trauma from the emotional side of your brain to the logical side,” he explained. “So that it no longer controls you.”
Alongside therapy, Zink maintains a personal wellness toolkit: daily walks, music, lifting weights, a strict routine, and studying ADHD and level one autism, both of which he has been diagnosed with. “Routine brings me calmness where I’m not freaking out inside,” he said.
He also runs a mentorship platform and supports the Sunflower Sober app, which offers peer support, journaling tools, and community. “The first step is just admitting you have a problem,” he said. “Everyone already knows. You’re the only one still lying.”
Leaving the Door Open
Eric Zink isn’t trying to be a savior or a guru. He’s just being real, and that’s what resonates.
“I only share about the drugs I’ve done,” he said. “I’ve had people tell me they were getting high watching my videos. But something I said stuck. Something got planted. And that’s all it takes sometimes.”
He’s not perfect. He still wrestles with trauma, anxiety, and ego. But he’s honest about it. In a world full of noise, that honesty can feel like a lifeline.
“I don’t use it anymore. And I know how to enjoy my life now. That’s what I can offer.”
