Fork in the road

For me, sobriety is life or death. I am not willing to go out on my knees, begging for the anguish to end. I have been deep down in that rabbit hole of addiction and it was the hopeless reality I used to live. I was slowly dying and could only see the darkness and misery of my life. Alcohol and other drugs were at the center of my existence, they took priority over everything I loved. I lost myself and who I was, the substances were my friends and loved ones, they were a warm comforting blanket and a shield from the pain of this life.

The people around me were all strangers and I was alone on this planet, stuck here with humans and their meaningless lives. I had to be from another world because I never really fit in and nothing seemed right. All I knew was struggle and I felt as though I was always swimming against the current of this reality. I’d shout to the universe, “There has to be more to this life!

“One day, I will be successful and my financial hardships will disappear, when I finally catch that lucky break! The substances allow me to put up with other peoples shit. You would drink like me if you had been through what I had.”

This was a common train of thought for me and it helped me feel better about the lethal amounts of alcohol I put into my body. Chaos and I were old friends and that feeling of impending doom only went away after my first drink. “This is how it is” I thought. The people I would surrounded myself with all drank like it was their last day, so why not I!?

Lost

Little did I realize how deep alcohol had its fangs into me and how warped my reality had become…. That is until, the alcohol and other drugs stopped working. Slowly, I felt myself slipping deeper into that darkness and I didn’t feel better when I drank. It always ended in another black out episode from which I would awake –or rather come to– feeling like I had a time bomb in my chest and that incomprehensible fear and anguish would crush down on me, making it hard to breath.

So, I used more and more substances trying to chase that bliss I used to get years back, trying to feel anything besides how I felt. The further I pushed my limit the more I needed and I could never get enough. Nothing satisfied me and nothing mattered. The few friends and loved ones, I hadn’t trampled on in my careless drunken plod toward the bitter end, wouldn’t be around me when I drank. So I isolated and started drinking, from the moment I awoke until I collapsed. My body and my mind were decaying at a dangerous rate and I did not recognize the man staring back at me in the mirror. There wasn’t a reason for me to be here any longer because the last thing I had left and the only thing I truly loved had turned on me. I felt the end drawing near and I knew I could not go on like that much longer. At that point, my only options were not pleasant: jail, institutions or death. They lay before me and there it was I had hit my bottom… or so I thought.

A road less traveled

I’m done! I quit, I’ve had enough! I would get a few days or a few weeks until the day would come when I’d allow something or someone to upset me and off I would go! apparently, I hadn’t had enough misery and self inflicted punishment. Over the next few years I tried to stop drinking countless times and each time I failed my despair only grew. I could get a month sober and a glimpse of a bright horizon before slipping back into that hell.

Then reality hit, I could not stop without help. I was broken and my life lay in ashes. I had finally found my bottom and it was lonely down there. With all of my remaining strength I reached out my hand and asked for help. The loved ones I thought had left me to drown in my selfishness and fear were there to take my hand.

During the worst withdrawals I’ve ever experienced, I made the choice to change my path and resolved to never go through withdrawals again. That’s when I checked myself into a six month outpatient rehab and it proved to be the best decision of my life. The world has not changed but now I have a choice in how things affect me.

       “I am awake, I am whole and alcohol no longer has power over me.”