Originally Posted by Catastrophe

Thanks, all. All it took was me getting hospitalized for a week, in the ICU some of that time, strapped to a bed after having a grand mal seizure. I had quit and the withdrawal was genuinely nearly killing me. The doctor came out of ICU and told my mom they didn't know if I was going to make it through the night in the condition I was in. Then, after 6 months of sobriety, I relapsed and it eventually cost me my job, my friends, my finances, my mental health, my physical health, contact with most of my family members, and my wife... So, I lay in bed with my mind racing at night now when I'm sober, unable to sleep, saying "I hate myself I hate myself I hate everything I've done to my life I hate myself" nonstop. I'm currently on a 3-night streak of being unable to sleep because of that. heh. I sometimes stay up all night on purpose even though I'm exhausted because I'm terrified of not having some kind of constant distraction and stimulus hitting my brain and then having those racing thoughts come back. Toughest times of my life are being at like 3:30AM after multiple nights of not being able to sleep and knowing I could just walk to the kitchen, pick up a bottle, and stop feeling that way temporarily. I know that only makes it worse, trust me. But, you know, my brain is actually broken (I have a handful of other clinically diagnosed mental health issues I was attempting to address before I dove head-first into the bottle to escape them).

I'm sure things get better. I lost absolutely everything, though.