Well, here it is: A look back from eight years ago to this week —> https://instagram.com/p/BFnXBZJKFou/ pic.twitter.com/KIpqYUx5Tc
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Well, here it is: A look back from eight years ago to this week —> https://instagram.com/p/BFnXBZJKFou/ pic.twitter.com/KIpqYUx5Tc
Eight years ago, my life was, as far as I could tell, crumbling around me. My job was in shambles, my drinking was getting out of control.
Seven years ago, it was worse. I was out of the job and "underemployed," which turned out to be the perfect excuse to drink basically daily.
It was bad. It took a friend buying me a flight, another friend loaning me money, and other friends letting me live with them to move to DC.
Six years ago, I was still very much lost. I had started full-time at Metro Weekly, but was still drunk too often (& knew it had to end).
I still was living with those friends, had very little money, and honestly didn't know how I was going to hold this new ~career~ together.
At the end of June 2010, almost six years ago, I did decide it had been enough and stopped drinking. That was just the first step of many.
It was rough at first. Perhaps the toughest thing about getting sober, though, was realizing how much else I was avoiding with my drinking.
And so, I started down a new path. As I continued onward, I found many things improving—besides not drinking. It was, truly, a new life.
I had to work at it, yes, and I had to be willing to ask for help — two things that I really hadn't been willing to do previously.
But then, by continuing to ask for help and continuing to try and do the next right thing, so much changed.
This week, I spent the afternoon in the Roosevelt Room of the White House and nearly a half-hour interviewing the President of the U.S.
If you would have told the me of May 2008, May 2009, or May 2010 that that could happen, I wouldn't have been able to see how.
Addiction sucks, and things can feel hopeless, but they really, truly are not. Not at all. Ask for help. Reach out. Talk to people.
It's still not always easy for me. But, it's less about drinking than about all those other things I learned about myself when I got sober.
That's my challenge today, to keep being willing to ask for help when I need it, to keep being willing to work to improve my life.
That's the whole fitness kick I've been on since last March. It took 'til then for me finally to be willing to work consistently on that.
My focus on it might seem, whatever, but working out has been a big mental health boost for me. Some days I work out b/c I know I need it.
I get depressed. Now that I don't just go black myself out, I eventually tried to find a ~healthy way~ to deal. Working out & running works!
It works for me, that is. In any event, that's just an example that I think of of something ~other than drinking~ that I've changed since.
The point, for me, is that I now have the opportunity to make such changes if I'm willing to do so.
In a relatively short time, my life is unrecognizable from the direction in which it was heading. For that change, I am so grateful.
I am also grateful for all of you. It truly inspires me to be able to share w/ so many folks ~why~ I'm grateful for weeks like this one.
Yes, interviewing the president is cool, and, yes, I loved being able to talk about SCOTUS w POTUS, but the fact that I am able to be ...
... there at all — the fact that I'm not dead or in jail or destitute — is why I was incredibly, almost disbelievingly grateful to be there.
So, yeah. It's been a good week. But, that's mainly so for me because of the path that I've traveled to get there.
And that path that I'll continue on when I wake up in the morning. For now, y'all are wonderful — and I'm off to bed.
Night, all, and let us be good to one another.
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