Just read what I wrote again. Just wanted to add a bit.
The name's Foot's'crazy. This is a pun nom de plume that I use as an internet pseudonym. It's referring to a suburb in Melbourne called Footscray which is the home of by beloved football team.
I am getting a very strange feeling writing like this. It's been a very long time since I've sat down and actually thought about what I'm writing.
It's a wonderful feeling and one of the reasons why my sobriety has been an absolute blast. I am rediscovering stuff all the time, things I'd forgotten I can do and enjoy.
Reading that, seeing it in writing also puts my age into perpective a bit. I used to feel like I was drinking so much I was beyond help. My thinking was with the assumption that booze will get me in the end. I'm only 27 after all.
I don't have much but what I have is the very very best.
I wrote this after my footy team mentioned above won the premiership for the first time in 52 years. This was October last year.
I'm 27 in a couple of weeks.
Grew up in Melbourne went to private school (was ****) studied industrial design. That was great met heaps of cool people. In 3rd year I started drinking in the morning, I was living in a sweet sharehouse in West Melbourne, party house, smoking cones all day etc. but was still pretty happy. Once the booze got me I was drinking first thing in the morning. This would have been mid 2011. I dropped out of uni and just drank and smoked all my savings for about 8 months then had to move home.
Being back home didn't change anything, I was drinking all day, first thing in the morning til pass out at night. Got my system down pretty well money wise. Aldi has $9 goon sacks and thats 4l at about 10% and smoked rollies $10 a day so for $20 a day I could drink and smoke all day.
My mate got me a job at Travel Money OZ basically sat in a booth changing money. I coped at the start by giving my self an hour or so in the morning to get as much booze as possible into myself to make it until lunchtime then go to the bar smash 2 scotch and cokes then that'd be ok(ish) until I finished. Very high functioning alco. My boss was pretty chill and I was good at my job so once I was accepted I started filling a Sprite bottle with goon and drinking on the job. Lost that job about 2 years ago and then back to drinking my savings away. So it got to the point where I was drinking at least 4l of wine a day plus anything else I could get my hands on - red wine (I hate red), 20 y/o ****** port with bits of mouldy cork in it, at parties beers with butts in 'em I'd still drink it, anything. I'd wake up after 6 hours sleep with the shakes, couldn't go anywhere for more than 2 hours unless I knew I could get booze. I never drove which was a pretty responsible thing in retrospect.
In June I'd had enough, I was really sick. Didn't go to the doctor much but I was starting to lose weight (5'9 57kg) couldn't remember what I'd eaten for dinner the night before. It was awful. I didn't really have an epiphany or moment of clarity or anything but I knew I was done so I went for a 10 day detox.
Alcohol withdrawals are f''ek, that pretty much sums it up. They just gave me handfuls of valiums so I can't remember that much of it. 320mg a day was the most from about 2nd-5th day but did it and I haven't had a drink since.
Now all I had was the Dogs. I've got good family and friends but no job, no money, no girlfriend, depressed about wasting so much. The only game in Melbourne I've not gone to in the last 5 years was the Cats game when I was in detox. I LOVE the Bullies.
Earlier in the year we were playing some seriously good footy, A.B. (after Beveridge is what we should call this era, A.B.) our best has been as good as anyone's. We all know the story but I thought after the second Cats game that we were pretty much done.
We won the flag. I was there. That night I got home to everyone and their sister's mate's cat congratulating me. Texts from Gothenberg, London, Osaka, people I haven't seen for years (many due to me being a wino). I was standing outside looking at the stars and something changed me forever. I have felt like myself, like I have an identity. I didn't believe I deserved good things in life until that night. The world makes sense.
Since that day I've reclaimed my life. I don't think it's an understatement to say the Western Bulldogs FC 2016 GF has changed my life.
bark on you crazy bulldogs