The End and Beginning

The last time:
I had close friends over Friday night to celebrate with strong drinks, good music and great company. We had a blast, we laughed, danced and told funny stories about each other. My company all left around 4am and I finally went to bed. Saturday morning I woke up around 9 with a slight headache, also known as a hangover although I never liked to admit that because it was self induced. Around 9:30am I decided to make a red bull and vodka, the caffeine in the energy drink helped the headache and the vodka...well that was just for fun. It was October 14 and a beautiful  morning, still warm enough to wear a t-shirt outside and the color of the changing leaves were amazing. I decided to get out my computer, and enjoy the day on my back patio playing on YouTube and facebook and hopefully catching a few rays. This was my typical routine each weekend. As always one drink turned into another until I was about 4 vodka and cokes down. No one should be able to drink 4 strong drinks like I made and still be able to function, but I was just beginning to come alive or so I thought. After a few hours of drinking and waking up, I called up a friend that I new would drive and begged him to go with me to an Octoberfest event downtown to meet up with some other friends who loved to drink as much as I did. I had a blast that day, the event was very entertaining, I enjoyed watching all the kids and adults enjoying the music on the blankets laid throughout the yard of the venue. It was about 7pm and like always I wasn't ready to go home, so I convinced my friend to go bar hopping with me downtown. We basically went to every bar we could, being the entertainer of my group I proceeded to make a fool of myself while I acted as the bouncer at each bar we went to. I was ok with it though, I had been drinking all day and it was making people laugh. If you asked me that night I would tell you it was well worth the money and my reputation. I continued to drink well into the night. Somewhere around 3am while waiting on my ride to pick me up, I tripped over my own clumsy feet and fell very hard right on my face. I laughed at myself for a few seconds until I felt something cold running down my arm and the warm sensation of blood streaming down my face. That's when I began to panic. I don't remember very much after that.

Day 1:
I don't ever remember a time that I have felt the way I did waking up that morning. My head felt like it was being crushed by a 2 ton truck, my eye was throbbing, every time I stood up I felt like I was going to drop to the ground, and the guilt...the guilt felt like a thousand knives stabbing me in the chest. What had I done? How much money did I spend? Who did I see? Did I offend anyone? Were people going to make fun of me today? How was I going to explain having a black eye at work on Monday? I was devastated. The lows that followed a hard night of drinking were usually what caused me to drink again. But this time was different. I was mad, REALLY mad. How had this happened again? Why was I doing this? How do I stop? Crying extremely hard, I called my Dad and confessed that I had yet again had messed up. My liquid drug had taken control of my life once again. I knew this was the day it had to stop, FOR GOOD. No more lying to myself and other people about how I was in control. I remember laying in bed sobbing and praying that the first month would pass quickly. I was all to familiar with the withdraw symptoms that would happen in the days and weeks to follow. I would have given anything in that moment to fast forward through time and through the hard work I knew it was going to take to make it through. One day at a time.