Mental Health thread

Subway

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 31, 2008
13,496
10,105
113
LBNY
He was only 44 . Surfer and all around great guy, really shitty situation.
f&^k me I'll be 44 in 4 months. could very easily have been me. My uncle drank himself to death at 43. Died a bloated, yellow, 400 pound tub of misery...At his funeral, his plumbing was still so screwed up even after embalming, that when they wheeled his coffin into the church (on a gurney, far too heavy for pall bearers) a pale reddish-pink fluid, probably a mixture of blood, plasma, and embalming fluid, came cascading (not dripping, but a wide open faucet) out of the coffin onto the church floor, right next to the pew where I was sitting with my family. Try drying THAT experience out of your 10 year old mind. I still see, hear, and smell it, 30+ years later

I am so sorry bud. Probably because I AM a drunk in recovery, hearing about these sort of deaths often rock me harder than hearing about a death of somebody I actually KNOW, who died of natural causes or old age or whatever.

There is an expression (or, many variations of this expression) that gets thrown around in 12-step rooms. And it's probably a bit true, but it's a LOT sad, and I HATE the fact that it's true.... but, as the saying goes, each addict's successful recovery is built, in part, on the graves of those who didn't make it.

I hear about your friends death, and i'm a mess as I type this because this HAS been a few days of serious internal reckoning, and tragedy, and hope, and joy, and every f*&(ing emotion, and i don't particularly care for most emotions, especially the unpleasant ones, but I sit here NOT drinking my way through it, because I know for a FACT, full stop, that booze will kill me. And i know this because it has killed SO many people in my life, at any variety of tragic ages, and it keeps me far from the bottle. But then there is that weird survivor's guilt, like "How DARE I use somebody's death to bolster my own resilience" and I'm just f%cking spent with it. Not in a "go back to the bottle" sense, it's just exhausting sometimes, and heart wrenching, and at times even crippling. Every time i hear about a person dying young from booze, or blowing their own brains out after a "slip" in their recovery (those events REALLY hit me the hardest), a piece of me gets stronger, and a piece of me dies along with them.

But I know I have to just put one foot forward, count my endless and absurdly wonderful blessings, and get over it. the world doesn't give a chit about my feelings, and that's a thought that actually helps me move forward.

Like "ok, you're upset, you have empathy, and being empathetic often hurts. But it's the price of humanity.... Beyond that, the universe doesn't really give a chit, so pitter patter, let's get at 'er"
 
Last edited:

santacruzin

Kelly Slater status
Oct 17, 2007
8,832
9,764
113
valley purgatory
thanks sub.
Its affected a lot of people. The one good thing was hearing stories of how many people he touched.
Even as a mess of a drunk dealing with a ton of sh!t he still had time for everyone.

Wish he would have taken some of the energy to help himself.

The sauce does no good for any problems
 
  • Like
Reactions: mundus and Subway

Subway

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 31, 2008
13,496
10,105
113
LBNY
As usual The Simpsons have the perfect hot take:

"Alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" :drowning::shaka:
 

wedge2

Billy Hamilton status
Jan 20, 2011
1,417
1,852
113
Coming up on 10 months without alcohol and I can say that life is inexplicably better, all facets - It's like cheating now. That short term memory is dangerous though, thinking you can handle a few with friends on vacation or at weddings, only to wake up a week later on the end of a bender (lying constantly and being a piece of sh!t).

Booze would have killed me or I would have killed myself, and it's insane to even think I ever lived that way, for a couple years towards the end it got really bad. Throw in a benzo addiction while I was playing doctor and yeah, I would have been dead at 36-37. Keep your head up and try and not isolate :shaka: . Sorry about your buddy.
 

Bob Dobbalina

Miki Dora status
Feb 23, 2016
4,261
4,654
113
If I drink more than 3 drinks anymore, I feel like a drank 6. If I drink 4 drinks, I might as well drink 50 because I'm fuccked for days.

So I don't drink much anymore.

Funny thing is, my dad, a career drinker, but never the bottom of the hard bottle, red nosed, booze hound, said he was down to 2-3 beers a night later in his life. I also watched him go through alcohol withdrawals in the hospital after a stroke...

YMMV

Props to those that do the work to crawl out of the bottle.
 
Last edited:

mundus

Duke status
Feb 26, 2018
36,721
15,939
113
Coming up on 10 months without alcohol and I can say that life is inexplicably better, all facets - It's like cheating now. That short term memory is dangerous though, thinking you can handle a few with friends on vacation or at weddings, only to wake up a week later on the end of a bender (lying constantly and being a piece of sh!t).

Booze would have killed me or I would have killed myself, and it's insane to even think I ever lived that way, for a couple years towards the end it got really bad. Throw in a benzo addiction while I was playing doctor and yeah, I would have been dead at 36-37. Keep your head up and try and not isolate :shaka: . Sorry about your buddy.
If you ever get the urge, think of the bad times and not the good.
 
  • Like
Reactions: wedge2 and Subway

Subway

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 31, 2008
13,496
10,105
113
LBNY
fukkin a, if you get a craving that has you shakin' and quakin', just re-read this thread. Forgive the graveyard humor, but this thread is littered with examples of why alcoholics should NOT pick up a drink today :shaka:

And congrats on 10 months brother. every day without a drink is a win.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mundus and wedge2

wedge2

Billy Hamilton status
Jan 20, 2011
1,417
1,852
113
Thanks guys...yeah starting to see the benefits that you hear but don't believe at the time. AA wasn't for me, but I did go hard for the first few months --- now more on that get the fck outside and do crazy (sober) sh!t vibe. Really helps with that natural dopamine hit we all search for in the bottle.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Subway and mundus

Pescado713

Nep status
May 2, 2019
779
386
63
He was only 44 . Surfer and all around great guy, really shitty situation.
Drinking is tricky over 45, quit this year when i turned 50 (except for the holiday bottle of Chimay) because I wanted to keep surfing regularly not wanting to feel like burnt shite for a week afterwards. It's done wonders for my health, a group of friends came down for drinking, coke, hookers & surfing (in that order) and the wildest thing I did was crossing a river full of crocodiles on a flimsy bridge. No one should be indulging on those levels at this age. Sorry about your friend.