- Alcohol
- Drugs
I spent most of my teenage years and all of my early twenties living life through a blur, a haze of drunkenness and occasional and sometimes more than occasional various drug use. My once-best friends disappeared, lost faith and trust in me I suppose. There was a demon inside of me, a demon I’d been trying to drown for quite some time. I was living my life couch surfing, job to job, mostly broke and borrowing money from my once-best friends. I intended to pay the money back right away or so I told myself until I went down yet another dark, nasty spiral while searching for an “answer” in the bottom of a bottle.
I thought I was doing okay once after I moved to a different city and got a job. The booze and drugs were still there but were less severe. I met a girl, a girl I had no intention of dating as she had a kid. I was not a kid person. I forced myself not to be. She was persistent, always talking to me, coming over to hang out and joking with me. Before we were even dating, I brought her to meet my mother, the only parent I had in my life at that moment. My father was a good man, but he had been fighting a demon too, and his strength and will ran out. This girl was the shy type, didn’t say much when meeting my mother, but I knew my mom liked her. She has something special in her. During that weekend on June 7, I asked her to be my girlfriend. She was, in my opinion, quite silly to have said yes. I’m not sure why she ever did. I’m an attractive man, funny and sometimes charming, but there is a lot of ugly within me. Maybe she didn’t see it yet, maybe it hadn’t surfaced to her yet. But, now I knew this girl was special, a girl I wanted with me all the time, forever. I said I had no interest in kids, but this all changed. He changed me once I changed that dirty, stinky diaper. We always had so much fun together even if he couldn’t talk at the time.
The dark, downward spiral happened again. I was back on the bottle hard. I would become an angry creature. It would go away for times but always resurface. I lost another job due to it and got another one after a while, and she stuck with me through it all. She was there for every downward spiral. She would maybe leave for a night but was always there. Why? She said it was because she loved me, because we are soul mates. Why did I put someone through this when I loved them with every ounce of my tiny heart? I do love her and always will, even after I die and go wherever you go when you die. I saw a therapist, but it was scary. I was scarce on the truth which was pretty dumb considering a therapist isn’t cheap and all I did was waste time with lies. The therapist did say I had high anxiety and a stressful job, but I stopped going to her.
Another job came and went, and the girl I love came to the rescue once again. I should have been on the curb. She said she knew someone from her hometown that does construction. I’m a man that loves working with my hands, likes the outdoors and is creative. I felt greatly stress free working there. I got two pay raises quickly. He saw something in me. After this the time I did not want to talk about, came.
We had a big trip coming up and signed the lease to rent a house so the kid could have a yard. I was excited. I truly was. Our life was moving along, but when you are an alcoholic, booze causes great things to come to a halt very quickly. The day we were supposed to leave, I couldn’t stop myself. No, I’m sure I could have, but I didn’t. It sucked me in. I told myself no, but I got the bottle and mixed a drink.
When you are a slave to this, there is no, “I’ll just have one drink,” no, “I’ll drink this one slowly.” You sip and sip and sip, and there is no point when you realize you are getting a little drunk and stop or slow down. You eventually black out and blame everything on everyone else. On this night she had enough. She exclaimed she was done and left for a friend’s house. I woke in the morning thinking things would be alright until she came home to leave on the trip but not with me in tow. On this day I admitted to being an alcoholic to her and my mother. She is a strong, strong girl who cared for me so much, and I let her down for the last time. I let down not just her but also her kid. He may not be my blood, but he is my heart. That sounds like nothing coming from someone that hurt them so much, but he truly is.
I reflected, I stopped denying and I stopped blaming someone else. This is what a pointless bottle of alcohol did to me, and it took this long for me to figure it out. It took me losing the two things I care about most in the world. I’m an alcoholic, but I’m going to get better. Mark my words because I cannot go forever without them in my life. I wouldn’t go forever; the bottle would eventually kill me. For me, them, my family and my friends, I am going to be the smiling, fun-loving, joking guy that I am when not drowned in the bottom of a bottle. Do not pity me. Do not weep for me. Feel for them, the ones that were hurt over and over and over but kept fighting and caring for me. I will hope for the day she grants me the pleasure of being her great husband and stepfather to her son.