I have been sober for a decent amount now. It feels weird to say that and to not be planning a relapse. By now normally I had already given in and drank because things were not going exactly how I wanted. Now I am not. I made a schedule that makes sense for me and is one that allows me to do what I need to do.
I was walking to a meeting at 4th pres on Michigan avenue and the Handcock builing was right in front of me. it’s a huge structure filled with tons of steel and concrete. It is so tall that I had to crane my neck up just to see the top. I felt so small. I was happy I was so small. Being small allows me to do what I need to do. When I was using I was huge. My ego couldn’t fit into a room and I was juggling so much. Now I am able to come and go how I please.
Fantasy baseball is going well. I am currently trying to get another closer or two for two or more of my offensive people. I do not know how it is going to go but if I can lock down another one or two I feel like I can take the league and the money. My team is certainly good enough.
I need to do better in my recovery. I have been slipping recently. I have not been going to the gym as much and I have missed a few meetings. This has not really been my fault as one of the places...
I relapsed on this day. Less than 24 hours after I wrote these words I was in a medically induced coma after an overdose on sleeping pills and other psych Meds. If my wife had not found me unresponsive and called 911 I would likely have died.
When I woke up in the hospital I was restrained. My arms and legs we strapped down to the hospital bed I was on. I had tubes down my throat, both arms and a catheter. I did not know where I was and did not know what day it was. My last memory was getting onto the red line drunk around midnight on Friday night or Saturday morning depending on how you look at time. Instead of being happy to be alive I was angry.
There is so much I want to say about taking your own life and then being brought back to life. I face a very minimal challenge the day I decided to drink again. My work stopped my insurance. Instead of talking this problem out with anyone, I let my feelings of anger and fear eventually feed into my already low self esteem. I felt like a failure for once again being a burden on my family for losing my insurance. It only took 6 hours to forget all my coping skills and turn to the bottle. The intense shame that I felt because of my actions caused my to engage in destructive behaviors ending in a decision to take enough medication to put me to sleep and jeopardize my life.
It has been almost three weeks since I almost died. Addiction is a chronic disease. I will never recover from the disease of addiction. If I continue to engage in destructive behavior I will kill myself while intoxicated. Never in my life have I considered my own mortality with such a finite time frame. I don’t want to be dead but I also don’t want to continue living in active addiction. Recovery and taking steps daily to build my life back is the only answer between death and a living hell of active use of drugs and alcohol. Everyone has their bottom and almost dying is down really far on the list of bottoms.
No one deserves to feel like their life is so hopeless that they want to die. I have lived in that hell and still battle negative thoughts on a daily basis. The only way that I can overcome this side of my illness is to ask for help and to reach out to those is my support network. The love and the help is out there. Please I beg anyone who wants to hurt themselves to be brave and ask for help. There is nothing in this world that is so hard to overcome or cope with that is worth killing yourself over. I don’t know what my life is going to hold. I worry on a daily basis about relapse, money, my marriage and a myriad of other issues. I felt that my life was over and that I needed to die. I have gotten to the edge and jumped off. I can only thank HP, my family and modern medicine for bringing me back.
Want to read Melissa's side of the story? http://www.lifeimpaired.com/melissas-blog/the-wolves-act-i-ii