Olympic curler turns his life around

Once the medal was placed around his neck, John Benton knew he had earned a title that would be attached to his name for the rest of his life. To most people, his identity would now be defined in one concise phrase: 2010 Olympian in men's curling.

In his heart, though, Benton knew he would always measure himself by another hard-won achievement. On a lonely night in 2000, he fell to his knees outside his wrecked car and decided alcohol would no longer rule him. Had he continued drinking, Benton said, he would have been dead by now. Sobriety enabled him to finally begin living again, with every new day a gift he is determined to pay forward.

Benton could not ignore the stunningly literal message the accident delivered. He put his car into a ditch and crashed into a stop sign that sliced through the windshield, narrowly missing his head. A treatment program liberated him to rediscover his potential as a world-class curler, as well as a man committed to giving other alcoholics a guiding hand in recovery.

"That night, it was me, a stop sign and God," said Benton, 40. "I knew exactly what it meant. Everything in my life had completely spiraled out of control, and I was tired.

"The Olympics is huge, a dream come true, but it's still not the most important thing in my life. I'm grateful I get to wake up every day and take a breath. To have the support of my family and friends, then you put the Olympics on top of that, I'm really realizing all the gifts of sobriety."

Since winning the national championship and the U.S. Olympic berth last February, Benton has been training and competing with teammates John Shuster, Jason Smith and Jeff Isaacson. The team, skipped by Shuster, finished fifth at last spring's world championships.

A prodigy gone adrift

A curling prodigy as a teenager, Benton had harbored such aspirations for years. He began curling at age 6 at the club that remains his home, the St. Paul Curling Club, and skipped his team to the junior state title when he was 17. A decade later, he made the first of his seven appearances at the national championships.

Curling has been a constant in a life punctuated by extremes. Benton's path shifted when he took his first drink, at the end of his senior year at Stillwater High School. He immediately liked the way alcohol made him feel, transforming him from a shy, awkward teen to a charming, funny, popular guy. That led him to join a fraternity at the University of Minnesota, where he began living for the next party.

He continued to do so when he left school after a year and a half. Aimless and adrift, Benton worked as a cook at bars and restaurants near the curling club on Selby Avenue, a functioning alcoholic who could hold a job -- and maintain an illusion -- while he was deteriorating inside.

"Most people thought my life was under control," Benton said. "I was smart enough to know that to keep my habit going, I had to make money. Even when I was hung over, I'd be at work.

"My life was just about being drunk as often as I possibly could. At some point, I recognized I had a problem; I looked in the mirror and knew a lot of the things I was doing were wrong. But I didn't know how to stop, and the shame and guilt just added to it."

Legal issues stemming from driving under the influence pushed Benton farther into denial. Curling gave him his only glimmers of self-esteem; even though he focused more on the postmatch party than on his performance, he was still good enough to compete at a high level.

Meeting Carrie Maciej at the curling club in 1994 provided a reason to straighten out his life. Within three years, Benton married her, started a career in computers and bought a house in St. Michael. He decided he had simply gone through a youthful phase. But as soon as Benton thought he had gained control, alcohol snatched it away, and he ended up on his knees in the ditch.

"He was in pain," Carrie Benton said. "John had no purpose in his life, and he thought he wasn't worthy. But I knew he was a good person, and I could still see that beneath the alcoholism.

"It was such a relief when he made the decision to lead a sober life. He was still young, with so much ahead of him. And the support we got, from the curling community and others, meant the world to me."

John Benton entered a 28-day treatment program and committed to the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because his life had been so intertwined with drinking, he had to re-evaluate many things, including whether he would continue curling.

Community of supporters

He decided he would not keep his alcoholism a secret; he had done enough running already. But all of Benton's old haunts were in the neighborhood around the curling club, and postgame socializing usually happens at the bar. He had to consider how he would deal with that, and how his fellow curlers would view him.

Benton decided he wanted to see how far his talent would take him without the fog of alcohol clouding his focus. He was warmly welcomed back to the sport, by a community ready to support his recovery.

"I still had the dream of going to a world championships and an Olympics," said Benton, a network analyst for Fairview Health Services. "All my friends in curling understood [sobriety] was a decision I made for me and me alone. And they were willing to do what it took to honor it."

As part of a team skipped by Rich Ruohonen, Benton finished fifth at the national championships in 2004, 2005 and 2006. He also had taken on a leadership role in the sport, as a member of the U.S. Curling Association's athlete advisory committee and as an official in the Minnesota State Curling Association.

By the end of the 2007-08 season, Benton was contemplating a shift from playing to coaching. He was considering offers from a handful of teams when he got a call from Shuster, a member of the Pete Fenson team that won Olympic bronze in 2006. The two men had become friends, and Shuster was trying to assemble a team capable of making it to the 2010 Vancouver Games.

The 26-year-old skip had been competing with teammates of a similar age, a formula that wasn't working. "John and I had had a lot of conversations about curling and about life," Shuster said. "I knew he had a commitment to be as good as he could be and to always do things the right way. And that seemed like something that could really help us."

It took Benton about two days to decide he still wanted to play. The senior member of the team by 14 years, he quickly earned a nickname from his teammates -- GG, for great-grandpa -- and their confidence as a leader who would nurture respect, honesty and trust.

He does the same in his work with other recovering alcoholics. Benton and his wife volunteer at treatment centers and lead an aftercare group, and he sponsors people in recovery. As proud as he will be to walk in the Opening Ceremony in Vancouver, he emphasized that every step of his new life is grounded in the path of sobriety.

"I have a purpose now," Benton said. "My life is really focused outwardly, around helping other addicts and alcoholics as much as I can.

"It's a great testimony. To be living proof of the fact that recovery can work, even for people who have reached the depths, is an honor and a privilege."