Gazellien Päkä, or Pekka Salminen, talks about his sobriety in the Selvin päin podcast.
Pekka Salminenthat is, Päkä tells Hanna Tikander’s In the Survin päin podcast, how was he when he was 13 years old when he drank alcohol for the first time. Päka describes the experience as intoxicating.
– I was quite shy at that time. Suddenly, some liquid is shown to me, which removes that shyness and allows me to rise to such a new kind of flourishing, that I can’t go and talk to anyone and I can go and talk to that girl over there, Päkä recalls in the podcast.
Alcohol became a part of Päkä’s life at that time.
– I was by no means drinking all the time in those days. But then when I drank, I drank everything there was.
While waiting for a party where you can drink, Päkä pampered himself by, for example, going on a 15-kilometer run in order to “earn” a day of celebration.
After the party, dopamine decreased and Päkä was anxious.
Gazellien Päkä is sober these days. Jenni Gästgivar
Päkä’s mother died in 2017, and of course it was a tough place. A month after his 30th birthday in 2019, he made the decision to stop drinking for a year.
– At that time, I had two things I could escape to, i.e. work and drinking. I didn’t want to quit the job because it fulfilled my dreams and paid the bills and when the other one had to be dropped it was drinking, luckily.
At some point, the entire Gasellit band started to realize that if there are 100 gigs a year, you can’t celebrate after every gig.
– I was scared that what’s left, if my dream is to be at parties, will I be able to be there. But when I made the decision (about not drinking) I then realized that there was nothing here, I was stressing for nothing.
Pää turns 35 this year and the cap has remained closed. The decision to stop drinking for a year has already stretched to five years.
– Somehow, right at the moment that I haven’t had a drink for a year, I really knew inside that this was probably here.