Introspection
How a week away from the world can change the way you look at it.
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For the past week, I spent my time in a behavioral center that I checked myself into after realizing that I was using alcohol as a coping mechanism for the problems I had with the world around me. For some reason, I believed that the alcohol would make me happy and help me take my mind off of all the pain that I felt during the events of not only the past year but of my life as well.
Constantly throwing back can after can and drink after drink of any alcoholic beverage I got my hands on only made me feel like less of my self and yet I continued to go back to it. I would wake up each morning with a pounding headache and the feeling of complete dehydration, and yet, I did not care. I would get through the pain long enough for dinner time to roll around to justify picking up yet another drink to guzzle while stuffing food down my throat.
Eventually, you get tired of feeling like you are going nowhere and that your life has no sense of direction. You must act before it is too late. Luckily for me (thanks to a push from my parents), I did exactly that. I decided to check myself into a behavioral clinic not too far from my home in hopes of finding ways to cope with my anxiety and depression without the need for a bottle. Instead, I am trying to find new ways of distracting myself through other avenues to distract myself from my temptations and the real world.
I sent myself to a place that I can only liken to a medical prison to seek help. upon my arrival, I had to remove my hat, hoodie, and shoelaces as these items were now considered “contraband.” I know that this is standard procedure, but I was really irritated when I had to hand over my hat (those who know me personally know that I do not like to be out in public without one). Everything felt so foreign to me as I had never been in a situation like this before.
I was dragged into a room with a very basic mattress and a sheet thin enough to be mistaken for a piece of paper in the middle of the night. My anxiety was through the roof at this point despite trying to put on a brave face and act like it was no big deal. I will be entirely honest that night, I cried myself to sleep. I felt so vulnerable and alone and like I had fucked up my life…
