LIFESTYLERock Bottom

Three years ago I started suffering from acute depression. This began with light substance abuse and heavy alcohol use. I had been 2 years separated from college and knee deep in corporate America’s suffocating choke hold. I had just turned 27 without any direction in my life I turned to booze to be my escape. This was the way all my seasoned coworkers would cope with the stress of high level blue collar work. I...
Kendall Roy5 years ago14198 min
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Three years ago I started suffering from acute depression. This began with light substance abuse and heavy alcohol use. I had been 2 years separated from college and knee deep in corporate America’s suffocating choke hold. I had just turned 27 without any direction in my life I turned to booze to be my escape. This was the way all my seasoned coworkers would cope with the stress of high level blue collar work. I work in hazardous waste which is a big money, high turnover, high stress industry. I started feeling like a slave to money, possessions, and partying. I wanted it all to end; stress had spun out of control. The pain boiled and frothed to the top, I was about to explode.

I consulted one of my best friends who was getting back into fitness and I joined him. We would go on hikes twice a week and it really helped settle my mind. My depression was suppressed, but it wasn’t being addressed. I did this for a couple months but I continued drinking at a lower frequency. After three months of this brief workout kick with my friend I had fallen back into the Friday night through Sunday night black out weekends. This was when I picked up a cocaine habit. It started small I thought I had it under control. It made me feel like a rockstar. It got me girls and popularity which I now realized was what really got me caught up. I was part of the scene and it felt great.

While you’re in it feels like no time goes by but you miss birthdays, road trips, family outings, holidays, and anything that will keep you from feeding this bottomless hunger for blow. I had tore a hole in my own soul and there was no way to fill it in site. I started calling in for work because I was staying up all night chugging beer and smoking cigarettes into my own insanity. It got to the point where I wouldn’t leave my room all weekend, I would stay in what felt like a pit for three days. I didn’t want to speak to anyone, I didn’t want to see anyone, and the very thought of human interaction hit my brain like static. This went on for a year.

I wanted to kill myself. I had planned to blow my head off with my shotgun, a coward’s death. I had called my life insurance provider to ask some questions to who would get the payout. It was going to my mother, this was the day I found out was that for her to get the money was for me to make it look like an accident. The shotgun was out of the question. The only thing left for me to do was to pick a date. Everything for me is so blurry around this time while I’m trying to remember it right now. A couple weeks went by and after one of my three day binges it was Monday morning and I had slept 4 hours out of the last 72. I still had a full bag and entire bottle of Jack Daniels. I finished both in the matter of an hour and woke up 8 hours later covered in my own vomit. Thank God I didn’t die that morning. I saw myself in the mirror butt naked with a white ringed nose and realized I hit rock bottom. I called in to work and spent the rest of the morning coming down and called the suicide prevention hotline. I entered a program that began with education of what I was battling. Some group and one on one therapy really helped find the roots of my problem. I am currently still in recovery as I write this.

One of my hardest hurdles is forgiving myself for potentially hurting my mother, brothers, sister, and friends that badly. One of the paramount moments in therapy that really still stands out to me is succumbing to this reality and asking my therapist “How did I let it get this bad?” in tears. I realized that it all starts with fun and games until you can’t live without it. When your body and mind are not yours anymore, it’s hard to focus on anything other than the drugs and the lifestyle. I have finally gotten over the grief and accepted that I had become my own worst enemy. I’ve accepted the fact that I need to change my life. This is a journey that I am finding out has no end but I’m willing to be temporarily uncomfortable to be permanently at peace.

If you are facing this evil shit, you’re not alone. Get help, you don’t have to do this by yourself. If have any thoughts about hurting yourself please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. 

1 (800) 273-8255

 

Kendall Roy

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