I am 37. I do not own a car, a house, a dog, or a suit. I do not have any children and I have never been married. I am hardly employed at a job that pays $10 an hour and sometimes I get freelance photography gigs when my camera gear (not the type of gear a real professional photographer would use) is not in the pawn shop. I call myself a professional photographer and I have been published a lot, had my work in galleries and a couple of people actually think I am talented. I know I am talented but there is always something holding me back; standing in my way. Most people would not consider me a professional photographer. I don't come close to making a living off of my photography. The longest I have held down one job was three years and that was at a coffee shop when I was 21-24. Since then most of my jobs last no longer than a year. I have never earned more than $20,000 in one year. Not even close. Right now I have $15 in my bank account which is not a bank account really but a prepaid debit card. I still have student loans to pay. I still have a lot of debt and my credit score is 400 and dropping. Over the last twenty-two years, this year has been the only one I have experienced sober. I will repeat that.
Over the last twenty-two years, this is the only one I have experienced sober.
Over the last twenty-two years, this is the only one I have experienced sober.
Over the last twenty-two years, this is the only one I have experienced sober.
I am also mentally ill. Over the last twenty years, or so, I have been diagnosed as bipolar, manic depressive, chronically depressed, and now borderline personality disorder. Although everyone says that they know that a mental illness is just as serious as any other type of illness I will have to say that I have never, ever met a single fucking person who believes this. If you are mentally ill no one fucking gives a shit. Because you are not. You are just lazy. You are making it up. You are off your meds. That is my favorite one, being that it makes no sense, but it is actually the most common. Do you understand? People tell me that my mental illness is not that bad, that I am simply overreacting because I am off of my medication. You see, according to these people, my medication works wonders and solves all of my problems by making me a productive member of society. My medication, whatever it is at any given time, does nothing at all. Like I said in the first sentence--I am 37. I am not new to being me. So, all of that aside, it is important for you to understand that this year is the first one in twenty-two years that I have been sober, on my medication and still not doing what most people my age are doing. I am still light years behind, and most mornings start out with me repeating to myself "suicide is out of the question this morning just like it was yesterday, so get in the shower." Maybe that is funny but it certainly is not a joke.
This was a bad year to be sober. Other than having a horrible time finding employment, staying off the booze, dealing with a "roommate" who liked to beat the shit out of me, a rocky relationship (the first four months of my sobriety), and basically coming to the realization that I have zero friends in Las Vegas, just being sober was like learning how to walk all over again. I had (maybe have) no idea who I was. I could say it is like waking up from a 22-year coma. Really, that is the only way to explain it. That stuff alone would be hard, but then my dad gets cancer, my ex-girlfriend (the longest relationship of my life 4 years) dies (everyone blames this on me which feels awesome), and then the cancer kills my dad. Is that a shitty year? Am I exaggerating? Would anyone fall off the wagon? I didn't. I mean, I am not doing well. I may as well be drinking myself blind every night, right?
I have tried. I have made the large bottle of vodka purchase more than once this year. Still, I can't do it. I can't sit down and get drunk. I can barely finish one drink. I hate alcohol. I don't know what happened to my brain, but I can not drink. I will never be a drunk again. That is the only thing I have going for me and by no means is this an accomplishment. Wow, in 37 years I have learned that drinking until you black out every night is bad for you, and that is all. What is an accomplishment, though, is this! This. This Right Here. The fact that I am not dead by my own hands is miraculous. I beat the odds on that one. I can tell you now that being a drunk is easier that being mentally ill and sober. This life of mine right now is like living in a horror movie where you are being stalked by a raving lunatic but everyone thinks you are crying wolf. Even more frustrating is that when I was a drunk I could find work, and I had friends. Now all of my friends have gone, and I can't find work. It is like a bad dream, or worse, a cliche bad dream. Everyone is so sick of putting up with my shit from my years of drunken debauchery that they are not about to hear my mentally ill shit too. I mean, nobody drinks to self-medicate, right? That is a myth.
It sucks, people think I am a dick, a loser, a failure, and worst of all, a bad person. That is what my family thinks and I can only guess those people whom I considered my closest friends who no longer speak to me. They have all moved on and grown up, but I have not. At 37, I have only been an adult for one year. That is the way I look at. I, though, unlike others, know the extent of my alcoholism. When I say that for twenty-two years I was a drunk, I don't simply mean that I drank too much. What I mean is that the only time I was not intoxicated in those twenty-two years was by mistake. Also, that for those twenty-two years I was addicted physically and mentally to alcohol. If I did not drink I would experience withdrawals, and I will tell you that to get to that point is hard, it takes work and that is no joke. I am not saying that I started drinking twenty-two years ago, oh no. That would be twenty-five years. A little aside here: My mother, brother, all family and few friends know that I started drinking almost every day at twelve, or that I was trying to become an alcoholic. I wanted a reason. I wanted something concrete for people to address when I would act odd, feel sad, not want to move an inch, constantly wish for death, and on on on on. Yes, it was my mentally illness, and my embarrassment, my feeling of helplessness, of not being taken seriously, that drove me to become an alcoholic. That is the truth. Now back to whatever this is. So, for twenty-two years, if I did not drink I would become ill. In the begining, I could get by with a pint of hard liquor a day, or a few glasses of wine, or four beers, but as time went on that obviously became a monster. The last few months of my drinking I was up to around two liters of hard alcohol in order to simply feel okay. To get out of bed, and I mean in order to physically be able to move from the bed, I would have to drink probably two pints of vodka straight. I remember vodka seriously tasting no different than water to me. None. No difference what so ever. Can you imagine that? Now, if I take a sip of vodka I am baffled. I have no clue how I could do that, and that it was only a year ago. I'll throw this in here too: If you can believe this, if you can image what this would do to you, or if you could even do it if someone offered you a million dollars; if you think you could do this without dying, honestly. I would say that for the last year of my drinking, maybe more, I would eat about the equivalent of a half of a sandwich a month. I promise that I am not exaggerating. That is all I would eat. I would guess that I would average a teaspoon of solid food a week, and I did not drink protein shakes or smoothies, nothing like that at all. My lowest weight was 82 pounds. I am 5' 8". People would constantly, and I mean constantly, ask me, bug me, harass me, "why are you so skinny? Is there something wrong with you? You need to eat something." Over and over, until I lost it. I started to tell people I had cancer. That was the only way I could explain looking like I just walked out of Auschwitz (I got a lot of those comments also). I was weak. So weak that I could barely step up a curb, and I remember that the three stairs which lead to my front door where nearly impossible to navigate. I had to stop and sit on the second stair before continuing. I was 100% sure that soon my life would end and was always afraid to go to sleep. That was hard, being exhausted almost all of the time but being terrified of sleep because I was sure I would never wake up. Can you imagine that? Can you?
Yes, I am broke. I don't own anything really, and for the most part, unless I work incredibly hard (which I plan on) my life will most likely amount to nothing at all. The odds are stack against me. I am a 37-year old ex-drunk with a history of relapsing and mental illness. Most people like me do commit suicide, and I do think about it but I just won't do it. For some reason, I think that I will overcome all of this and eventually amount to something. Honestly, the reality of my situation does not seem real. I guess I have always been a step or two outside of myself if that makes any sense. I am a closet optimist, a habitual daydreamer, and a secretly believe that any day now my superpowers will manifest; that I will be great. I also don't want much. My goals are not too lofty. All I want is a real chance at an adult life. If I could make $35,000 a year I would feel like a billionaire. That seems impossible now but I won't stop trying. Why? All I want to do is to be able to help others. I could give up on myself because I don't exactly care for me, but to give up on those whom I could potentially help, well, I can not imagine that.
I have to stop this here. I am tired. I have interviews tomorrow, photos to edit, "to do" lists to compose, promises to myself to live up to or break, dreams to turn into reality, and myself to help, to heal, to transition into something better than this.
What's the verdict? Am I a "man"? Am I decent? Or am I just another lazy motherfucker who makes excuses for his shit existence?
