The Call That Saved Scott Crawford’s life

Honoring Scott Crawford’s sober anniversary with dinner for Healing Transitions.

It’s been 20 years since a phone call changed the trajectory of Scott Crawford’s life. It may have even saved him.

Today, Crawford needs little introduction in Raleigh, or in many regional or national culinary circles. His surname adorns several of his restaurants, both established and forthcoming—think Crawford and Son, Crawford Cookshop, Crawford Brothers Steakhouse and Crawford’s Genuine. Not to mention there’s Jolie, subterranean Sous Terre and Adriatic-inspired Brodeto. 

These days he’s an affable statesman of North Carolina’s food scene, quick to smile and capable of cultivating a team (at Crawford and Son) that made it to the finalist round in the latest James Beard Awards for hospitality.

But before any of that—before his kids were born and before the fame—a phone call from his brother made it all possible.

“He called me and very bluntly said I was going to die, and he was just waiting for the phone call every day saying I was gone,” the chef and restaurant owner recalls. “He had seen me recently on a bender and the condition I was in, and the condition my health was in. I’d never really heard that from him before. But I knew he was right.”

Crawford had battled addiction and says he’d wanted to get sober for a long time. But despite knowing he was on a downward trajectory, he didn’t know how to stop.

“I knew there was a chance I wasn’t going to make it,” he says candidly. “[My brother] asked me bluntly, ‘Do you want to live or do you want to die?’ I had to dig deeply and realize I wanted to live.”

His brother, who himself was sober, “made it OK to be terrified to get sober.” He called Crawford almost a dozen times a day those first few weeks. At that point, Crawford couldn’t even take things a day at a time—he took on one hour after another.

“That conversation really changed things for me,” Crawford reflects. “I truly believe that phone call might’ve saved my life.” The day after, he walked into a meeting—and this Oct. 18 marks two decades he’s been sober.

Now, it’s part of his mission to pay it forward by helping other people get clean. He joined the board of directors for Healing Transitions, a Raleigh-based recovery organization with a wide range of services helping people detox, get sober, and sustain their sobriety and recovery. And to mark his 20th sober anniversary, he’s hosting a dinner at the agency to raise more funds for its transformative work.

Crawford’s goal is to turn the event—dubbed Freedom Harvest in a nod to freedom from addiction and the season—into an annual fall fundraiser. Beyond raising money to sustain Healing Transitions’ work, he also hopes to raise awareness, directing more people to its services and playing the same role his brother did for him with that wake-up call.

His message to anyone fighting addiction? “I would say very simply that it’s OK to be terrified by the idea of getting sober,” says Crawford. “I think there’s this fear. My partying, my lifestyle had sort of defined me for so long. You don’t know who you’re going to be. How will you be without this thing that’s been such a part of your life?”

“But it’s worth the fight and worth the work,” he continues. “Sobriety has given me a life I never could’ve imagined when I was active in addiction—beyond anything I could’ve imagined.” Freedom Harvest dinner Oct. 20, healing-transitions.org

Learn more about Healing Transitions‘ significant community work as a place for recovery for all—and support its mission to provide services free of charge via RM’s 2024 Give Raleigh campaign.