Time To Shine!

I was looking through my Notes app, the other day, on my phone. I stumbled onto something that I wrote back in January 2020. I read it and it has now been on my mind the last couple of days. Here it is…

Are the changes that I made worth it now that I feel alone or should I go back to my old ways where others will be around to see my demise

Man, this has me thinking.  I often feel as though I am alone.  Yes there is people around me and yes these people are the type that support me.  The alone feeling arises from the activities that are going on around me.

I decided to quit drinking in July 2019.  I was dealing with some serious depression and anxiety issues.  My distraction from all of this was alcohol. A lot of alcohol.  I wasn’t recognizing that what had been going on inside of me had been going on for a long time.  Alcohol became my blinder.  My way of not having to deal with anything.  Something that allowed me to push these issues aside “for maybe another day”.  

The alcohol began to become less of a distraction and more of a fuel for the fire, so to speak.  I was beginning to have thoughts of hurting myself.  Not excluding ending my life.  I had a plan, but no real intention of carrying it through…at this point.  Late at night, after everyone had left, these thoughts would begin to creep into my head.  Scared the drunk daylights out of me!  I would often make myself go to bed as I was frightened by what this could turn into if I stayed awake.  Awake and dwelling on these very dark thoughts about myself.  

One morning in July.  After an exceptional night of drinking that ended in me having these dark thoughts, I woke up that next morning unable to shake these thoughts.  I was afraid.  Fear and anxiety had their intense grip on me.  I didn’t know what to do.  I called my wife, who had left for work.  

It was with her help that I decided to do something completely different.  I needed to get some help.  Stop doing things the way that I was used to doing things.  Stop ignoring the problem.  I was out of control.  The train was well off the tracks.  I went to Bromenn Medical Center and was admitted to the Mental Health floor there.  It ended up being the best thing that I could have ever done for myself.  I was reaching out, beyond myself, for help from others.  It was there that I decided to stop drinking.

I don’t regret the decision to stop drinking.  Well, not really.  Of course I think about it…daily.  Where I am now is better than where I was then.  Without a doubt.  Still, you think about it.  How can you not?  It was a part of you for so long.  Your brain is wired to that and now you take a huge thing away from it.  The brain kind of freaks out.

I am now well within the re-wiring process.  Some things are getting better.  It’s taking some time, but I feel better now than what I did almost a year and a half ago.

I do find that there are times, though, where I feel alone.  Not much has changed around me except for me.  I spend time with the same people, but these people have not changed with me.  Didn’t they get the memo? 🙂 😃.  I am changing, but so much is the same outside of the internal changes that I make.  That is OK, as everyone can do what they want.  This isn’t meant to make people do what I am doing.  I do enjoy hanging out with people, but it is hard sometimes.

I find that, if friends are over, that I will hang out for a while, but then I go inside or away from where people are.  I continue my sober path while everyone else is altering themselves.  It’s good for a while, but something always seems to change and then I am ready to remove myself from the group.  

I am sure that people have thought that about me.  I would start drinking and then it was almost like a switch was turned on, well maybe off, and I was out of my mind intoxicated.  I imagine that people wanted to get away from me.  Not everyone, but some.  I wasn’t in control of the tour bus anymore.  It is a strange thing when you witness the other side of that equation.

So, I often find that I don’t want to do much with people.  I would definitely call myself an introvert now.  In the past I would not have, but I now think that I was still an introvert that extroverted with alcohol.  Or at least I think that I did.  

The sober life is weird. I will admit that it is strange sometimes.  I went so many years doing one thing and then just slammed on the breaks and did a complete 180 degree turn around.  Dizzying sometimes really.  

With all that said, I do not want to go back to that way of life.  I like being in control of my life and actions, well what I can control that is.  I, overall, like what I am becoming.  I still have a long way to go as everything is a journey, but I’m glad I decided to take this journey.  I also enjoy waking up in the morning not feeling like I got run over by a Mac truck.

Sometimes though, I think about how things were and what it would be like if I had not gone and gotten help.  Would I be here?  Would I lose friends over my continued actions?  Would I be able to “escape” my thoughts with alcohol like I used to? Even though by the end it stopped being an escape.  Would I recapture that?

And then I stumbled upon the quote I wrote at the beginning of this.  It has me thinking.  It is something to ponder as you take a different journey than what you were on before.  I don’t want to go back, but it is difficult feeling “alone”. 

So do I continue feeling alone and re-wiring myself into something better or do I go back to my old ways and have people around me to witness my demise?  I know the answer for me, but it doesn’t make it any easier.  The one thing I can do is to keep going. Keep leaning on God.  Keep seeking help.  Keep listening to my doctor.  Keep going to therapy.  Keep writing about my thoughts.  Just keep going and in the end I will have people around my to witness me SHINE!!

Have a great day!

Jason