Today, Life Got Better... in Hello

I keep thinking to myself, jokingly of course, about using health insurance with a week's paid vacation to check back into the hospital.

My six day stay in the psych ward has turned out to be the best thing I could have done for myself. I was on my third semester of school. No off day. Work. School. Balancing a worsening drinking problem and depression. I completely cracked one night after my eighteenth beer...instead of going straight then I slept it off for a few hours and still felt just as lost and broken when I woke up.

I was reintroduced to a routine. Up at around eight AM everyday. Bed time at ten. Pills to help with alcohol detox, pills to help me sleep. Three squares a day of healthy (ish) food with snacks provided about nine PM. Mostly what is became for me was time off. Time away. A break...one I haven't had in such a long time...even before school...just a chance to get away and clear my head of the cobwebs.

The first few days I was in the half of the ward with the at risk patients. Mostly the new comers. Some odd days after I was transferred, clandestinely in the middle of the night, to the other side where it was more relaxed which I'm glad about because some other guy had come into the ward and kind of scared me a bit. Showed me his knife wounds and where he had been shot twice...I wish I was kidding. Note, these were scars from PREVIOUS altercations. I never saw him again after my transfer.

The other side...during group sessions I come to find that three of the adults there were all alcoholics who had the same issues as I had. So it became a bit easier to talk about how I felt, where my head was, and my background.

I really don't want to end up back in the hospital under those circumstances again. I love being sober. During this last week with what all has happened I didn't drink. It was hard at times. But I made it. My mad spell has been scratched and I'm putting it all out of my head.

But yes, if I was back in the psych ward for a vacation...I think they'd be able to sniff that one pretty quick. I spent all that time in house shoes reading X-Men comics when not interacting with everyone watching TV or eating when it was meal time. I've seemed to have found a balance with life. I always associated my drinking problem with the karma plot device from My Name Is Earl. I drank and bad things happened. I quit drinking and seven months later my life is different. No longer sleeping till one or two in the afternoon. Restless nights getting up every hour to get water. Appreciation of hot showers and what they make the body feel. Off days up no later that nine AM. Somehow managed to get out of my nowhere dead end job and a foot in the door of my career.

Every time I have a bad day, every time my mind strays or I lose sight...I must remember all that has changed in just seven little months since giving up the bottle. Now on that note it is after ten PM and I'm super tired.

Bed time for me.