Update on me...
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Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2010
Location: East Coast
Posts: 1,906
Update on me...
WOW....i guess it's been months since i've been here. Sorry to worry anyone. I'm doing well, next month will be 3 years... God willing. 
My life is going great. I'm busy with my art. it's become my life's obsession.
I found a great friend in one of my cousins i had never met. We found each other on facebook and she and i collaborated on an idea that had me working feverishly to get out to my publisher. So, late next year,(here again God willing,
My book will be published as a monthly, fully painted graphic novel. my agent says there is already some interest in getting the script optioned. I guess everything starts in comics nowadays.
I don't think about my old life much...I'm living, no more existing.
Someone one said "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
...i'll try to stop by more. I was flipping channels last night and saw an episode of intervention that sent chills down my spine and figured i better check in.
Thanks for giving me my life back, I'm eternally grateful.
-BDog
My life is going great. I'm busy with my art. it's become my life's obsession.I found a great friend in one of my cousins i had never met. We found each other on facebook and she and i collaborated on an idea that had me working feverishly to get out to my publisher. So, late next year,(here again God willing,
My book will be published as a monthly, fully painted graphic novel. my agent says there is already some interest in getting the script optioned. I guess everything starts in comics nowadays. I don't think about my old life much...I'm living, no more existing.
Someone one said "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
...i'll try to stop by more. I was flipping channels last night and saw an episode of intervention that sent chills down my spine and figured i better check in.
Thanks for giving me my life back, I'm eternally grateful.
-BDog
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2010
Location: East Coast
Posts: 1,906
Originally Posted by wes1 
Can you tell the detailed license plate story (psalm 23) again for those that may have missed it?
I should be on my laptop about 7am est. I'll have it up before 8.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2010
Location: East Coast
Posts: 1,906
Wes, here's the day i got sober, the best i can remember it....
I remember the week before I quit, I started making videos to my two and a half year old daughter, apologizing to her as to why I was dead. These would be my final messages to her as to why she didn’t have a daddy. Nobody to walk her down the aisle when she got married, nobody to teach her how to ride a bike, nobody to warn her about boys, and no daddy to be there for her through her life. I was going to make my wife a widow, make my parents lose their son and my daughter grow up without her father. I was going to traumatize this little girl and abandon her and it was going to be all my fault. I was going to be the cause of it all. I remember telling her that this sickness was just too strong and I just couldn’t stop.
In the middle of all of this, I caught some small moment of clarity as to exactly what I would be doing to my family. I was dying.
I took enough pills in a day to make the average person full and drank so much, I lived to be in oblivion. I wanted to stop and now I didn’t know how.
I told myself that if I was gonna die, It was gonna have to be on my terms. Stubborn to the bone and defiant until the end, I’d be goddamed if I was gonna live on my knees another day.
So, I quit. Mind you, at my worse, I was drinking almost a half a gallon of VAT69 a day and chasing it with klonopin and ambien. I knew I should have been dead months ago, but here I was now with no hope left and the bottle was empty. I went through a solid month of withdrawal. I had hallucinations, both auditory and visual. I lost 40 pounds, I had raging headaches with no ability to keep food of any kind down…I felt bugs constantly crawling all over me, I couldn’t stand light of any kind. I had myclonic jerks..and if any of you have ever had them it’s like your body locks up and jerks constantly. More than all of this, I went a solid month with no sleep. I’m not talking I slept here and there and I was tired, I went more than 5-7 days at a time with just a few minutes in between. I had seizures that should have killed me, I shook incessantly….but I deserved it all.
Almost 30 days to the hour, I remember waking up after one of my few minutes of sleep where I had multiple seizures the day before and my body hurt like hell. When I woke up, I had Psalm 23 stuck in my head. It kept running through my mind….At this point, I think my mind and body was preparing to die. I had no fight left in me at all….
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil;my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”
I got up and took my keys and drove to the local market to buy alcohol. This was it, I was done. I remember pulling into the parking lot slamming my fists into the dashboard, tears flowing down my face and me crying out to God…”Give me a sign…any reason why I should keep going?!”…just then, and I’m starting to choke up even as I write this…an old beat up car pulled out in front of me…the license plate read PSALM23.
A wave of calm swept over me as I pulled into the parking spot and I just sat there and cried for awhile. These were tears that unbound me from the chains of addiction, and I believe this was a case of divine intervention and God had heard me. Mind you, some of you will undoubtedly say to yourselves..”well, he was hallucinating anyway..this could be that”…maybe…but whatever you choose to believe, I just know for me, at that moment….I felt the hand of God comfort me and he told me not to stop trying. I went home and slept the most peaceful sleep I had in 20 years. I didn’t shake anymore, there were no more seizures…I was released from my sickness...That was 3 years ago. I’ve been clean every day since.
Thank you guys for listening to me…. thank you for being the rock I’ve needed. You’ve been my friends and family, and my life has never been the same. I have my wife back, my daughter and my soul. No man could ever be so lucky.
I remember the week before I quit, I started making videos to my two and a half year old daughter, apologizing to her as to why I was dead. These would be my final messages to her as to why she didn’t have a daddy. Nobody to walk her down the aisle when she got married, nobody to teach her how to ride a bike, nobody to warn her about boys, and no daddy to be there for her through her life. I was going to make my wife a widow, make my parents lose their son and my daughter grow up without her father. I was going to traumatize this little girl and abandon her and it was going to be all my fault. I was going to be the cause of it all. I remember telling her that this sickness was just too strong and I just couldn’t stop.
In the middle of all of this, I caught some small moment of clarity as to exactly what I would be doing to my family. I was dying.
I took enough pills in a day to make the average person full and drank so much, I lived to be in oblivion. I wanted to stop and now I didn’t know how.
I told myself that if I was gonna die, It was gonna have to be on my terms. Stubborn to the bone and defiant until the end, I’d be goddamed if I was gonna live on my knees another day.
So, I quit. Mind you, at my worse, I was drinking almost a half a gallon of VAT69 a day and chasing it with klonopin and ambien. I knew I should have been dead months ago, but here I was now with no hope left and the bottle was empty. I went through a solid month of withdrawal. I had hallucinations, both auditory and visual. I lost 40 pounds, I had raging headaches with no ability to keep food of any kind down…I felt bugs constantly crawling all over me, I couldn’t stand light of any kind. I had myclonic jerks..and if any of you have ever had them it’s like your body locks up and jerks constantly. More than all of this, I went a solid month with no sleep. I’m not talking I slept here and there and I was tired, I went more than 5-7 days at a time with just a few minutes in between. I had seizures that should have killed me, I shook incessantly….but I deserved it all.
Almost 30 days to the hour, I remember waking up after one of my few minutes of sleep where I had multiple seizures the day before and my body hurt like hell. When I woke up, I had Psalm 23 stuck in my head. It kept running through my mind….At this point, I think my mind and body was preparing to die. I had no fight left in me at all….
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil;my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”
I got up and took my keys and drove to the local market to buy alcohol. This was it, I was done. I remember pulling into the parking lot slamming my fists into the dashboard, tears flowing down my face and me crying out to God…”Give me a sign…any reason why I should keep going?!”…just then, and I’m starting to choke up even as I write this…an old beat up car pulled out in front of me…the license plate read PSALM23.
A wave of calm swept over me as I pulled into the parking spot and I just sat there and cried for awhile. These were tears that unbound me from the chains of addiction, and I believe this was a case of divine intervention and God had heard me. Mind you, some of you will undoubtedly say to yourselves..”well, he was hallucinating anyway..this could be that”…maybe…but whatever you choose to believe, I just know for me, at that moment….I felt the hand of God comfort me and he told me not to stop trying. I went home and slept the most peaceful sleep I had in 20 years. I didn’t shake anymore, there were no more seizures…I was released from my sickness...That was 3 years ago. I’ve been clean every day since.
Thank you guys for listening to me…. thank you for being the rock I’ve needed. You’ve been my friends and family, and my life has never been the same. I have my wife back, my daughter and my soul. No man could ever be so lucky.
Self recovered Self discovered
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Toronto Canada
Posts: 5,148
The day comes for each of us when we finally accept that we can't go on as we have, and something happens so that we understand we actually have what it takes to quit. Thanks for sharing your day with us.
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