Today is the first day of the rest of my life.
This post is a follow-up to something I shared on LinkedIn a few days ago. Today, I’m describing step one of my plan to resolve the complaints shared in that previous post.
This is about #mentalhealth, #addiction, #ptsd and #recovery.
I need to address a topic that could be disadvantageous to my professional life by discussing publicly. But, for two reasons, I think today’s message is too important to mask with inexact wording:
- By speaking openly, I hope to incur extra pressure to hold myself accountable.
- By speaking openly, and continuing to do so while my plan achieves the success I anticipate, I hope the story can be an example for others.
All my life, I’ve struggled with addiction.
Alcoholism is prevalent in my family.
Growing up in North Dakota, I never learned to socialize without alcohol. I spent my 19th through 21st birthdays in combat in Iraq. Instead of learning how to become an adult, I left the military and went to college where a combination of student loans and the GI Bill relieved me of any real responsibility. Good fortune that I celebrated by dismissing my social unease via massive amounts of drinking. After college, I sobered up long enough to attempt to achieve my dream of becoming Special Forces-qualified. For reasons I still can not explain, despite all the training and all the success that training earned, I quit Special Forces training one early morning deep in the woods of North Carolina. The very next day, I visited a Rock Bottom brewery near my home in Washington, D.C., and began drinking again.
From that day through the next few years in D.C., I achieved some professional success, but my addiction deteriorated my condition such that I was taking shots before public engagements and would experience tremors when I didn’t drink. Drinking led me to southern California, where I continued to party like a rockstar until one day I lost my wallet and my self-respect at the Whisky on Sunset Strip.
Since the morning that followed, many years ago now, I completely quit drinking. Which I am extremely proud of.
Except… I replaced alcohol with marijuana.
Marijuana has been hugely beneficial to me in helping me escape from the damage that alcohol was doing to me. I no longer spend all of my money on my drug of choice. I no longer experience hangovers. I don’t drive nor do other hazardous activities while impaired. I never ever perform any work while intoxicated in any way. I’m convinced that marijuana has allowed my mind to view topics that I enjoy studying from a perspective that would be unavailable to me without it. I’m an advocate for all the ways in which marijuana can help a person.
I, however, am a special case.
Because I’m an addict.
Marijuana, like alcohol, began to consume my life. Others who consume marijuana may be able to do so in moderation. But the addict can not. I’m constantly chasing a high that is never quite “high enough” at the moment, but is always the high I’m trying to recreate the next day.
And since I don’t like to be in public after vaping weed, it became a thing that I did consistently instead of other things — like, truly beneficial ones, like networking, fostering relationships, attending events. Weed became a priority.
Here’s the bigger thing. Marijuana affects my self-confidence in ways that make me unbearably uncomfortable. I’ve noticed that in the very few times that I’ve been completely sober, I have felt like a superhero. Capable of anything. Clear thoughts. Sharp wit. Super confident. With an inviting radiance that completely escapes me when I’m on a marijuana bender. It seems that consistent marijuana usage — for me — has a physiological effect that results in degradation in my confidence, even during the periods that I’m sober but still otherwise regularly using.
After detoxing, I just feel different. I’m not sure which one is the real me, but I know which one is more likely to achieve the dreams that I have for my life.
It’s hard for the addict to be rational about which is more fulfilling: the feeling of actual empowerment that is provided by sobriety, or the feeling of pleasure that comes from being high.
For the first time, I’m choosing the former over the latter.
But, why? And why now?
Friends, I am so truly unhappy.
I have so much good fortune in my life that it makes no sense that every day I feel such despair. Few people know but these past couple of weeks have been really dark for me. I don’t anticipate that quitting weed will make all things better. But I do know that I need to eliminate complicating factors, of which marijuana is one. At the end of the day, all I know is that I have professional goals that I am not accomplishing, a non-existent social network that I desperately want, distance from any former friends and family, and a gaping hole in my life that was previously filled by love from a girlfriend whom I am no longer with. So many things seem dark and hopeless.
But I refuse to accept this reality as if I’m helpless in at least trying to better my condition.
I know this — Vaping marijuana isn’t helping me fill all that is absent from my life. It just allows me to ignore those gaps temporarily while I kick the can down the road on actually doing the work needed to improve my life, especially socially, to create something I truly enjoy.
Today, I’m committing to a life of actual fulfillment. I’m not certain that this will work perfectly. But I do know that doing what I’ve done all my life hasn’t gotten me what I want. I’ve always known that something has had to change. Only today have things gotten so discouraging that it gives me the strength to actually do that work. Because, at 38 years old, opportunities aren’t as abundant as they were at 20, and I need to maximize each of them. This is about putting myself in position to do just that.
Years from now, I want to look back and be proud of my adventures and know that they were real experiences, and not some fantasy that I “enjoyed” while deferring my loneliness and unease.
Day One.
I’m realistic about the commitment I’m making.
Last night, I slept sober. Usually when I sleep without the aid of marijuana, my rest is interrupted by nightmares. On more occasions than I can count, I’ve been woken up by my own screams that aren’t just in my dreams — but screams that I’ve actually vocalized while sleeping. They’re terrifying. In almost all of those nightmares, I’m in Ramadi with a lost weapon or being chased and, worse, literally knowing that I am in a dream but paralyzed from escaping the dream’s torment; other than by screaming to wake myself up. But those nightmares didn’t haunt me last night. I know they’re coming. And I am prepared for them.
I also understand that the happiness I seek won’t be attained by sobriety alone. I get that I’m doing so much that it all might seem like a lifetime exercise in futility if I don’t sense some progress:
- I don’t drink.
- I run every single day.
- I lift weights most days.
- I’m a vegan.
- I spend most of my free time studying data engineering, computer science, math, history and academic pursuits that interest me.
And now I’m quitting my last remaining damaging vice.
So, I need to be really deliberate and patient regarding my expectations to prevent myself from being overwhelmed by how much I’ve sacrificed.
This level of restraint isn’t necessary for everyone. But, for better or worse, I’m a person driven by extremes. I do everything at 160%. So, what would be minor deviations for other people become life altering obstacles for me. I’m either all in, or nothing at all. It’s not the path for everyone, but one of the two I have before me, and I trust that I will like where this one leads more than the alternative.
It’s all about making me feel better. I’ll remind myself consistently that if I stick to the plan, tomorrow I will feel better than I do today, and the day after even better than that.
Today was about laying down a gauntlet for myself.
Navy SEAL Dave Goggins began his remarkable journey one day in his twenties when he committed to losing weight in order to join the military. On his first day, he set out to run four miles and failed. But, ultimately, completed that run, lost the weight, became a SEAL and achieved a million other courageous things that I admire.
Today is that “Dave Goggins” day zero moment for me, and for the rest of my life.
So, I don’t know if I will follow up with any written updates. I hope my commitment to my plan is evident in the success I achieve. I won’t have to write about it, because you will see it. My work output will improve. My social network will grow. And I’ll achieve the happiness that seems so distant from my current perspective.
If I seem off-track, please ask me. My cards are on the table. And your challenge might be the stimulation I need to right my course should I diverge off path.
My intent, however, is that this is all going to work out as planned and, as it does, I hope to be an example to any who share similar struggles. I want my improvement to be so evident that others ask “How did he do that?” And this post can be my answer. And my example that anyone else can follow.
