5:04am. Morning twilight. Looking down the southeastern slopes of Mt. Elbert at a valleywide cloud inversion.
5:05am. Now looking north at Mt. Massive.
5:17am. The colors begin to break.
5:30am. Across the Arkansas River Valley the Mosquito Range stands in silhouette against the sunrise.
5:35am. Descending to South Elbert trailhead, thinking about the hot shower waiting for me at a friend's house in Leadville.
5:49am. First eyes on the sun.
There's an ounce of tequila left in the bottle, but I promise I'm not going to drink it. My head still hurts from last night. My psychologist says there's only so much she can do for me unless I commit to getting sober, and I suppose hopping on the wagon and taking someone's advice for once is probably a pretty healthy way to have a midlife crisis. So instead of starting the evening with a shot of Jose Cuervo reposado and then following it with way too much of whatever catches my eye at Roxy's till I black out, I shall abstain and see if I can manage to coexist with the crippling emptiness and all the ageless memories of everything horrific for a single night without trying to kill myself. If I'm lucky I'll figure out how to do the same thing tomorrow night, too.
I've been reading more books than usual these days, partly because it's a great distraction from drinking, and partly because the room I'm renting right now is close to a thrift store with an excellent selection of literature. I recently finished Sarah Hepola's wonderful memoir Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget. It's remarkable and also a bit disturbing how well I can identify with her experiences. Blackouts became the norm for me beginning about six years ago, shortly after my father passed away and I showed up on Hive looking for a place to hide in plain sight.
The alcohol abuse was my way of burying the depression and silencing the suicidal ideation, but of course it only made my situation much worse as time went on. Relationships fragmented one after another, my mental health faltered all the more, and my creative output swung wildly from rambling insanity on the one side to dumb nothingness on the other. One morning I woke up in my apartment in Leadville to find dried blood on my bedsheets and a little puddle of it over in the corner, and when I went to the bathroom to piss I saw in the mirror that my jaw was laid wide open to the bone. The last thing I could remember from the previous night was prying the cap off my second bomber of Bourbon County Stout. Everything after that was and still is a blank, including the part where I apparently edited a set of photos and wrote up a whole post on the blockchain to go with them. I patched up my face with a butterfly bandage and told my coworkers that I'd slipped and fallen in the shower. A few months later I went on a bender so horrendous it landed me in the emergency room. I'll spare you the details on that one because, well, your guess is as good as mine.
Another step I've taken in the right direction lately is plugging myself into the local trail running community. It's been years since I've had any real sort of social network to speak of, but I've started attending group runs now instead of exclusively flying solo in the mountains. Granted, the post-run meetups at Tres Litros could pose a problem at some point, but there are non-alcoholic options to be had there. It's worth noting that another function alcohol has served is replacing the community I lost when I rejected Christianity and left the church 15 years ago. I was a lone black sheep who went out to face the wolves with no support. For lack of a foundation formerly provided by a book of Levant mythology that I now use to start my campfires, I built a new foundation of my own using empty bottles. And what a shaky, dangerous foundation it was.
There are some other moves I will be making in the near future. I need to get myself into a doctor's office to take stock of the damage I've done to my body over the past decade and a half. I need to figure out what kind of medication I should be taking to get this thing in my head to just shut the fuck up. I need to focus on maintaining a more regular writing schedule, because writing is therapeutic for me, whether I end up publishing my work or not. And I also need to find a hobby. One of my mountain climbing mentors—who, at 53 years old, can still easily beat me to the top—told me that he took up unicycling when he turned 40, and it was just what he needed to ease his way into middle age. My therapist has also said I'm at the point in life where I'm really going to need some sort of purpose. I'm inclined to agree. I think I'll either get a membership at the local rock climbing gym or take up martial arts. Hell, maybe I'll do both.
Hepola writes in Blackout of the amygdala, the part of the brain that plays a big role in helping us make decisions, create long-term memories, and process trauma. As it turns out, alcohol is basically a circuit breaker that kills power to the amygdala. Hence the blackouts, the bad judgement calls, the pain that's impossible to drink away. This is the reason my therapist can only do so much. She needs access to something that I keep shutting down. If I can't find a way to watch the sun rise sober every morning, then her hands are tied—and my hands are tied as well.
Hey Brandt. I know this battle well. I want to say something about it but I don't know what to say. It's good to see you clearheaded like this though, and it looks good on you man.
Thanks man. That means a lot coming from you. It's nice not having the fog of war in my head every morning. I like the feeling of being clearheaded.
I've had to start all over a few times. This being one of those times. A lot of experience knowing it's worth it.
Here's to starting over with a blank canvas. It's definitely worth it.
Hey, I'm glad you're back! Are you here to stay? I need more mountain goat pictures in my life.
How is Yolo? Is he..?
On a more serious note (not that the other portion of this comment isn't dead.fucking.serious), I'm
reallyseriously glad to hear that you are making serious efforts to take serious care of yourself. It's fucking hard work, but it does pay off. Not instantly, or eternally, it's always work, but... you know. Just don't relapse back into the church. Unless that's something you find you need in which case who am I to judge.Or, um, maybe it needs to be heard. Faced head-on. Not avoided. Just, you know, speaking from my own experience.
I think I'm back to stay. I'm working on another piece to publish either tonight or tomorrow night, so we shall see?
Maybe. It's complicated though.
I promise I will never relapse back into the church. I don't have any mountain goats to share but here's a recent photo of a sheep:
What a lovely sheep! What a place to live.
Complicated, yes. I can relate to that. Did I ever tell you I went to adult behavioral outpatient suicide camp? I remember there was this one chick who was bragging about her suicide attempts and it made me feel like I wasn't good enough to be there because I was only there because of ideation. Depression is a weird beast.
I'll keep an eyeball out for your post.
It's one thing to speak frankly about suicide attempts, but bragging about them strikes me as theatrical. I don't know why anyone would brag about an attempt unless they wanted attention, which is very different from wanting to die. Who knows, though. It's hard to fairly judge what's going on inside someone who's depressed.
I think attention-seeking is a way of being seen and heard that can gratify the part of the person that wants to live. Even some suicide attempts are attention-seeking; if it works, you get away from it all, and if it doesn't, you get attention. Not sure if that was supposed to be a semicolon or a colon there.
It was an intense experience being in that program, to say the least. I saw all kinds of ways Major Depressive Disorder could present itself in humans. In some ways it helped me see how functional and strong I was, in spite of my internal (and external) turmoil.
I second that. Even in my darkest, most dangerous days, I still had people saying you get depressed??!! Which of course led me to second guess my experience...
Fair point re: attention-seeking. I think the will to live is still in there somewhere no matter how dark and close to pulling the trigger things get. It's all so extremely complex.
I believe both are grammatically correct. The differences come down to emphasis and nuance. I think. I will now be spending the rest of the night reading about the historical development and current accepted usage of punctuation marks in the English language.
Sounds like a fun time. Let me know if you find the truth. If you discover anything good we can start our own religion based around semicolons and daylight savings time.
I think that visit to the doctor should be a priority. If you are going to start to try and build afresh you want to squash those demons in your head. At least if you took something in the short term it may give yo the strength to regroup.
Hang in there man
Thanks Boomie. I'll tell Dr. Squasher you said hello :)
The Dr will know just by the smell of you that you have been in contact with me!
Yes, indeed your scent does travel ever so easily across the interwebs!
Congratulations.
You're doing great dude. Come see me. I'll buy you a water.
As long as it's non-alcoholic water, sure :)
Deal. August 2, 2014, last time I had anything other than a non-alcoholic water. You know it's bad when the date's permanently etched like the day mom died.
I'm on day 4. Non-alcoholic coffee in the morning, and non-alcoholic tea at night. It feels really good. I went to a pumpkin carving party the other night where people were drinking and I did not partake. I'm not sure which is crazier - the fact that I actually agreed to attend a party, or the fact that I refused free beer.
Nor am I. I'd have to poll the audience.
What are all these floating eyes doing here? Are they watching me to make sure I don't drink?
My eyes dislocated at the sight of you + non-alcoholic. I've put them back in my head now.
Kinda hard to believe, isn't it? Not too great for vision either.
It is. I feel the need to test you, see if you're as sharp without it. For vision, close your eyes and it all goes away.
You should combine the two and take up rock fighting.
Good to see you alive and still kicking around Mt. Elbert. Gorgeous shots too. I'd offer some pithy words of encouragement but I'm fresh out. One of these days we'll have to get together and swap 'night I don't remember' stories.
I've actually been in quite a few tussles with rocks over the years, and I have the scars to prove it :) Rockfighting, I like it!
Get in touch next time you're in Colorado, I'd be happy to meet up.
Will do, I've been meaning to get back to your neck of the woods ever since I left.
More power to you: do both! Martial arts for 10 years at 36 helped me kick the last remains of the drinking habit and taught me how to fall head-first down stairs without killing myself and give a junkie attempting to steal my 3/4" thick electrical cable a shock: he never thought a 5'4", 54yr-old woman that he tried threatening would rip it out of his hands and whip him with it. Oh and I took up (athletic, not stripper) pole dancing at 43 too. Physical skillz get the brain back on track
I can only imagine the look on that poor bastard's face :D