Try Not To Die
The best advice I got for you.
The best advice I’ve received to date, as far as addiction and substance abuse is concerned, has come in the form of watching others and letting their actions serve as an example of either what to, or what not to do.
How to live, how not to live — and unfortunately in many cases, how not to die. How not to leave a mourning crowd of twenty and thirty-somethings in a cold cemetery somewhere, watching my Mother and Father bury their only child.
It feels harsh, or at least blunt, to express the thought as plainly as that, but it’s true. Addiction and substance abuse are cold, unforgiving, and harsh — thus I must reciprocate with the same, should I have any hope of helping anyone through it, especially myself.
I have no real advice for anyone today, at least not when it comes to how not to use — other than to simply not pick up. Should you get the urge to, pick up the phone and tell someone, anyone — that’s what I was taught, anyway.
If you can’t do it for yourself, find someone you love, and do it for them.
Remind yourself of the painful place making the decision to drink or drug eventually leads, and that it gets worse every time we put them down and pick them back up — both sentiments which I can attest for to be true.
In fact, there was a time not long ago, I was a walking example of both.
So if I have advice, it’s don’t drink or use drugs. As far as the how goes though, well I’m still learning how to do so myself, a day at a time, just for today.
You can safely follow my lead today, as I’ll be leading by example, rather than with advice I refuse to follow or with words I creatively conjured up but hypocritically don’t live by.
My actions match my words today and my words match my thoughts, except where completely inappropriate or potentially harmful to myself or others.
If you’re someone who is still struggling, my advice is to do what I did and tell on yourself as soon as you possibly can. Do so, without thought of the consequences, like every addict and alcoholic including myself has, a thousand times before, for another one — or a thing they wanted.
Get help, before arrangements are being made for you to be cremated or buried, instead of settled into a warm bed at a treatment center.
My best advice is that help is out there and it’s not as complicated as we make it out to be to ask for it and that if I can do it, well just about anyone can.
My advice is that is where hope resides, for each and every still sick and suffering addict and alcoholic —in reaching out.
That none of us are beyond redemption and if you’re reading this, it’s not too late for you, should it apply.
