In the beginning I had a good life. A loving family, friends, a good education, a bed to sleep, and food to eat. What could possibly go wrong? This story really takes off from the ages of 18-21 where I found the darker side of drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. So what could be the problem with the worldy past time of drinking, smoking, and recreational drug use? The answer is both simple and difficult. Simple in the fact of figuring it out, and difficult in the actual physical help to change it.
It’s an imbalance of the good things in life, with the bad things. Which one you turn to more, and what you want from life. The will to get out there and change things for the better, or to stay home and have another drink, just today, this one time, tomorrow I’ll get my debts and errands taken care of. That is what I started to tell myself after the slope downhill began, and that was my comfort zone.
Around 18 I started hanging out with a lot of current friends. Now are they the reason I became an alcoholic or druggy? Absolutely not. Those decisions were mine to make, and mine simply. They did introduce me to the world in such a bigger perspective than I had gone through in my sheltered life as a child, but that didn’t matter, I liked it.
When I hit the peak at 21, I had just started smoking cigarettes, using marijuana and alcohol on a daily basis, almost to the point of utter obliteration all of the time. But at 21 I also had a steady job to count on, several women surrounding me daily, just to see me, money in my pocket, and enough left over after bills to still eat and put gas in my car. Slowly things started to change for the worse as I moved into a bigger house, finding what I thought then to be, an answer to my boredom in life.
I needed a change, and the decision I made was not for the best. I started consuming around double the alcohol that I had previously, smoking more marijuana and plowing through cigarettes. At this time life was still good, a 3,000sq ft house with internet capability and a built in sound system, with an awesome roommate, everything was falling into place.
As I drank hours started to turn into days, days into weeks, weeks into months, and what do I have to show for it now? A roommate that kept me so belligerant that he easily stabbed me in the back and left the bills for me to deal with, unemployment from a job that I loved doing daily, A social circle that dwindled downhill as I had no money for a phone, from sleeping in my own bed in my own decently sized bedroom, to sleeping on the couch at my parents house. And how does it all change so? Imbalance, once again.
Bills quickly turned into debts as jumping out of the contract for our previous home left us with around a grand each to pay, that on top of various other bills that seemed to have not been around before moving out. Law suit threats, and not even having 75 cents to wash my clothes, having to do it at my parents. Luckily, those same friends of mine got me off of the couch at my parents… And onto the couch at their house. With no job, no money, no room, and no bed, I was down on my luck, and there was only one person that has kept me from dwindling into the depths of depression and changed my thought pattern so that I could challenge my life as opposed to curling up in my shell and letting it pass by as I got as drunk as could be, pretending that tomorrow would be okay… That person was my girlfriend. I felt that I needed to change, not just because it was hurting me and my life, but the fact that… As at the moment all of this is still taking place… It is hurting her too. Normally I wouldn’t care as in a life where booze and women came naturally, I wouldn’t have given a second thought about this if she hadn’t of actually stayed with me throughout this downfall, stayed with someone that is battling the ever constant stress, anger, and complete burnout that something like this can do to a person. Not only has she stayed, but she has cooked for me, provided for me, she really CARES about me in a point in my life where I don’t even care about myself enough to let her know that I love her. Which is, as was mentioned previously, hurting her.
Adding to the list of things that happened, I wrecked my car shortly after moving out nearly totaling it. A month later I was arrested for a DUI, court fees commenced and before I knew it I had more money owed to people in one day, then I had throughout my entire life. Imbalance affected me more psychologically than anything else. It forced me to push away my friends, my family, and most important to me, a girlfriend that is with me, cooking for me, even as I am a bum living on a couch. The sheer embarrassment of it has kept me from being in a happy state. Normally I am a very outgoing, social person that loves meeting new people… I feel like a hermit now-a-days.
The imbalance of completely corrupting my brain on binges of ecstacy, marijuana, liquor, liquor, and more liquor. So many packs of cigarettes that I cannot even begin to recall, my life has turned into a hell on Earth. It’s an everyday challenge to even get out of the house, and daily talks to myself in the mirror are the only thing keeping my self-esteem from completely taking me to the front of a shotgun. The one thing I realize now, more than anything, is looking back on the past my life has been a roller coaster, and I have NEVER given up on it, with it always coming out of the toilet and heading back to the top of the mountain.
The point to this? That you can have the best life in the world, and be living beyond your wildest dreams, but if you do not take the necessary personal time to FIGURE out what you are going to do next, then things will begin to slip, and that slip will turn into a rocky avalanche that engulfs everything you’ve worked for. Organizing the bills instead of lighting up that smoke, leaving the bong where it is as you instead commence with a workout routine, and doing something special for those you love instead of hitting the bottom of the bottle once again.
If I can get through to one person with this article, then I will be happier than I have ever been in the world, because I will have helped. Come to think about it, things aren’t that bad. I have a couch to rest my head on instead of the cold concrete outside, loving friends and family, especially parents, that won’t let me rot in jail or go car less for too long… But most of all? That I should believe in myself, and I should take care of my life because it will help to build an even stronger backbone for a girlfriend that is working all of the time and then doing her best with a man that isn’t the empathetic, charming, sweetheart that he once was.
Overdoing drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, or any bad habit from over eating, to suppressing anger. It really makes a difference on your family, on your friends, but most importantly: On your own perspective of life. Don’t go down the same path, exercise your mind and body with new challenges in life, changing up the scenery and sparking a fire that will burn with a PASSION to live yor life positively. Because that is what makes the world go round… Passion.
