Week 10
Direct copy and paste from twitter
We’ve hit double digits, dick heads! Ten whole weeks. 70 days. Completely sober. Wasn’t sure I’d make it one week, let alone ten of the fuckin’ dogs. Anyway, here’s what’s happened in my stupid brain this week…
When I first realised I was really struggling with my mental health again, and wasn’t “partying” because I was just a guy who liked partying and it was actually because I was fuckin’ miserable, I started to think about why. I had a lot on my plate. A whole bunch of big.
Stressful, significant life changes ahead of me. I was provided a great opportunity, for my career, my lifestyle and potentially even financially. Only time will tell with that last one. All really exciting shit. Moving to the beautiful south coast of NSW. A small promotion,
But a promotion all the same, with probably a little more career development opportunity. The opportunity to rent my house out and buy a second house, which will hopefully help a lot in 20 years. The above is all, for lack of a better phrase, pretty good shit, and you’d be
Fuckin’ mad not to jump it, right? As someone who’s terrified of change and leaving my comfort zone, even I could see this was too good an opportunity to let slide. Especially as once the position was filled, it could be years before another opportunity arose. So, I jumped.
I was already in a pretty bad place mentally, work was insanely busy, I was already fatigued, trying to do too much with my day. Sacrificing sleep for work, training or partying. Throw the added stress of uprooting my life, sorting my house out, finding a new one etc, my head was
Not a good place. It was all just too much. I’d work all week, most Saturdays too. Then I’d “unwind” on Saturday night. Blow $500+, spend Sunday being a piece of shit in the lounge, achieve nothing, repeat. As the weeks went on, I started to stress about not getting enough
Done and running out of time to get this shit sorted before I had to move and potentially jeopardising this incredible opportunity. I felt stuck. I wanted to have a quiet weekend. I wanted to use that quiet weekend to get on top of some shit, but I just fuckin’ couldn’t!
I’d procrastinate, I’ll do it next weekend. I’ve got ages. I’ll do a bit in the week. Even I knew that I was lying to myself most of the time. It all came to head 10 weeks ago, when I had an alcohol and “other” fuelled breakdown. Around 3am, Easter Monday. I was so sick of the
Internal conflict. Mad at myself for just not being able to get it together. I’m fuckin’ 33. Why can’t I have a few quiet, productive weekends? I’m fuckin’ hopeless. I don’t deserve this opportunity. Fuck it. That’s where I was at. Anyway, that was the breakdown it seems I
Needed to have. It’s been hard, but I haven’t drank or done anything else since. It’s been an absolute godsend. It truly has. But it’s been fucking hard. Only two weeks ago, at eight weeks sober, I had probably the hardest weekend I’ve had on this little journey.
A voice/thought in my brain was trying it’s best to get me to fuck up. It was very, very hard. Ironically in the thread the week before that I talked a lot about complacency and how I was aware that I would get to a point where I would falsely believe I was capable of enjoying
Such a fantastic opportunity. It does reiterate a couple of things to me though. Money, career success, houses etc, won’t make you happier. They just fuckin’ don’t and won’t. The more shit ya have, the more ya have to stress about. My privilege is in no way lost on me.
Don’t get that twisted, please. But mental health hurdles don’t discriminate against anyone. They’re real and they’re Fuckin’ tough work. If you’re struggling and conscious that you are, try to educate yourself somehow on what’s going on in your head. Try to understand it.
Scientifically. Just understanding a little of what’s going on helps so much to calm yourself down. As always thanks for proving me with a platform to clear some shit outta my head and do a bit of internal house keeping. Be nice to people this week guys, they could be fighting
Something you have no idea about. Also, shout out @richieactor. Listened to his pod on @richroll this week then went straight into his book. If a knockabout bloke like Richie can sort his shit out, so can we.
Peace, wankers.
X