“I had 365 days clean yesterday but I just want to tell you it’s not all that easy, and it ain’t all that hard.”
For as long as the cameras have been rolling, fans of MTV’s Teen Mom series have watched Butch Baltierra struggle with his sobriety. Butch is the father of Tyler Baltierra, who stars on the show with his wife Catelynn.
This week, the elder Baltierra took to Instagram to share that is he one-year sober.
On Nov. 15, Baltierra posted a screenshot from a sobriety tracker, showing that he had 366 days sober with the caption #IDOSTRUGGLE. Then, he posted a video talking about his first year of sobriety.
“I had 365 days clean yesterday,” Butch shared. “I didn’t post anything because I was pretty busy, but I just want to tell you it’s not all that easy, and it ain’t all that hard. Am I struggling? Yeah. I struggle. I struggle every day. I struggle every day that I don’t work a program or I keep in communication with my sponsor or follow direction. I struggle. Do I have obsessions? Yes, I do. Yes, I think about smoking marijuana, I think about drinking every now and then. I’m not a big drinker, but I been thinking about it. But it’s not all that easy, but I know it’s easy when you work a program… That’s all I wanted to say.”
Viewers first got to know Baltierra and his family when Catelynn and Tyler appeared on a 2009 episode of 16 and Pregnant. The couple soon became fan favorites. They talked about how having unstable parents—including Butch who was living with addiction—caused them to want better for their daughter.
Since then, Butch’s sobriety continued to be a secondary storyline as Catelynn and Tyler appeared on Teen Mom and Teen Mom OG.
Butch has been in and out of prison and battling to stay sober. Last January, Tyler talked about wanting to send his dad to rehab, according to Radar Online, even though Butch claims to have been sober at that time, according to his social media posts.
In one episode, Tyler talked to Catelynn about the hurt that his father’s addiction has caused him, and about the importance of maintaining healthy boundaries.
“I think I’ve just come to the conclusion that I’m always going to feel angry about it,” he said. “When I was younger, I used to like calling him a crackhead. I used to like seeing him [get] angry about that. You can’t help it. You just get angry and you remove yourself from the situation. We know what’s going on here. We’re in control of what’s happening in our environment.”
