personal revalations

[yoink 321]

I was considering posting this anonomously, but I figured it might have more impact coming from a known member. If just 1 other person reads this and takes a moment to look at themself, then the personal embarassment of publicly baring my soul is worth it.


It's very rare I have moments of introspection, but as I was lying in bed earlier this week, recovering from my fourth vomiting fit of the night and trying not to cough my lungs up, I had an epiphany.
Don't get me wrong - This isn't a world changing thing. It's not the discovery of a new messiah or a sudden and enlightened understanding of the universe, it was much more basic than that. It was my own little personal epiphany.

Are you ready for this?


I'm not very healthy.


That's it. For those that know me, this might seem like stating the obvious, but seriously, lying there feeling like death, it suddenly occured to me to try and work out why I was feeling so bad. What had brought this sudden bought on? Yeah, I work kinda long hours and don't get a lot of sleep, but that can't be the only thing. Did I drink? Well.. yes. Who doesn't. But not that much, you know - I'd come home from work and have a few beers whilst watching TV... no more than 5 or 6 maybe.

I lie there and try to prod my tired brain into working it out... 5 or 6? Jesus. that's getting on for 40 a week. At least. That's not even binge drinking. That's a serious problem. I'll have to keep my eye on that... OK what else?
Smoking? Yeah - hands up . I smoke and I enjoy it, but it's under control. I don't smoke at work - only at home with my beers, so it can't be that many. Let's see... umm. Through my blurry eyes I found my wallet and pulled out reciepts of the last week... 35 quid on tabs alone. Wow. that's like 6 packs a week. I honestly had no idea I smoked that much... I mean, I knew I smoked a few a night, but 6 packs a week??? A pack a day nearly???! No. It can't be right... 120 cigarettes in the hours between getting home from work and bed, and the weekend. About 48 hours at a rough guess... That's a smoke every 20 minutes. Holy crap.

At this point, memories surface over the blistering pain in my head to show me images of an overflowing ashtray surounded by beer cans. I feel another vomiting fit coming on....

After dry heaving for the fifth time that night, I start to get seriously scared. This in itself is unusual - I don't say that in a bragging way, but simply as someone who doesn't usually care. Apathy about my death is fine - I can handle checking out at 120 mph doing something I love, but to be found as a shuddering mess, lying in a pool of my own filth and unable for people to say "yup, he would have liked to have gone out like this" is more than just embarassing - It's seriously upsetting.

And you know what's worse? I had no idea that this was going on.

I guess that's my point of this post.

Problems like this are insideous. It starts with having a drink with dinner and maybe a smoke after. Over time, this turns to a couple of drinks but psychologically it's still classed as the same activity. You don't realise just how fucked you're getting. Or I didn't at least.
Being il makes you think strange things....

It's now 4 days later and I'm over the worst of it. I'm left with a lingering remenant of the flu - some blocked sinuses and a bit of a cough, but worse than that, and at the same time better too, I've stil got vivid memories of how scared I was about the state my body was in.

The good news is that being ill helped me over the hardest part I guess.... I haven't had a smoke or drink in 4 days and have no intention of having one again any time soon. Maybe next month I'll have a beer or two, but only when I know I can do it without picking up a smoke.
I'm looking at exercise for the first time in years... It'll be hard but I used to be really fit. I can do it again.

So that's it - that's my promise to myself. I will sort myself out. Vices are fine as long as you keep them in control, but to do that, you have to maintain a realistic awareness of how in control you are.


I know now that I can look at this post in the moments of weakness that I know are to come, and I can find strength from it. I will not fail. I will not go down this path again. I will not lose control of my vices. I will not let self-destruction become a normal thing for me.

I will not.

[crwmike 0]

As I sit here finishing up my shift in ICU, I read your comments and saw much I can relate to. I suspect many of us are pretty cool with issues of mortality. Dying, in and of itself doesn't bother me. Issues of morbidity however ...well, I'm looking around the room and looking at the patients, most on ventilators. One bright orange (jaundiced) from advanced liver failure (multi-year alcoholic). No fucking way am I going to allow myself to go that way.

Unlike you, at my age, I'm keeping all my vices and will not whine and moan when ...something catches up with me.

Richard Pryor once said (pre-incineration) "Being dead doesn't bother me. Getting dead scares the hell out of me.

BSBD,

Michael

[Tonto 1]

Thanks for your honesty.

I was very average at school. Not a natural athlete by any means.

Now 25 years later, I feel super human. Why? People around me are starting to die. We all go through that 18 - 25 patch when friends die of car crashes and overdoses, but it's happening again now, from the inside.

I'm lucky. I've never smoked. I drink, on occasion, usually a Saturday night at the DZ, but seldom more than 2 beers. There's a running joke at the DZ right now. My bar tab for the year is R50 (That's nearly $8.) because usually beers bought are for something I've already done. My last headache was February 1983. I've exercised, or been active my entire life, and my cost, rather than throwing up or coughing, is osteo-arthritis as the result of several broken bones, usually little unimportant ones, being left without medical attention because I had things to do and could not afford down time in a cast.

My lifestyle has changed little in the past 20 years. I still jump every weekend, train Kung Fu once or twice a week. Recently, I've been going to gym a bit.

But in the end, we all die. Whether we're worn out, poisoned or had the life smacked right out of us, it all ends.

It's just about whether you can do what you want to, when you want to in all the time we have before that happens, and be happy with those desisions.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[PurpleWill 1]

Good luck with that, with commitments like that you should soon feel years younger.

There is a lot of stuff worth doing but then there is a lot of stuff worth doing instead.