Chris W.
Hello friends since today is the last day of suicide prevention month I wanted to share my story finally; the whole story. The last 11 years have been incredible and I am forever grateful for what this journey has been. But there are two stories I’ve told over the years on how that journey began: 1. The full unedited version my closest friends and family got, and 2. The edited for time allotment for ad revenue 😂. Which is terrible because my memory sucks and after a decade plus I can’t remember who I told what to!!!! Lmao! So here it is folks….And remember it’s good for the soul to talk about the things that make us cringe.
August 12, 2015 was the day I checked myself into rehab and started this amazing journey- August 11, 2015 was my 5th day of a week-long bender that was far worse than the 25 consecutive weekends of banger after banger after banger (my WWE fans will get that one). At that time in my life, I started a new job and was going through a divorce. This perfect storm of depression, change and chaos was the beginning of the end. On day 3 of this bender of all benders, I broke my phone and never called out of work. I’m pretty sure I was unemployed but I just kept going until the early morning hours of day 5. That evening, drunk as ever, I had enough. I couldn’t stand the person I had become . I hated every cell in my body and all I wanted was the demons to shut the fuck up! And all the alcohol in the world would not drown them out, because like Oli says “my demons know how to swim”. So I tried the unthinkable, and thank the gods I was too drunk to tie a noose properly.
But I have never regretted what I did that morning because it gave me two things: 1. A new chance to be the human I deserve to be and to learn to love that human again, and 2. The courage to change.
I was terrified for years to quit drinking because I felt it was part of my personality and who would like boring, sober Chris?!? But I was more terrified to miss a second chance of life and that fear gave me the courage to change. It wasn’t easy then and it’s not easy now. I accept it will never be EASY but it is ALWAYS WORTH IT! There are days I spend way too much time inside my head overthinking about the past, the trauma and just plain negative thinking but my worst sober version of me is so much better than my best drunk self. I am a constant work in progress and instead of fearing change I now embrace it and nurture the inner evolution of Chris. I found something in my recovery I didn’t even know I lost! I found out how to love myself again! Who knows how long that was missing but I found it and I will never let it go again.
