Roller Coaster of Emotions

Deciding to completely give up alcohol is an enormous decision. I can honestly say it was one of the most terrifying decisions I have ever made in my life. For someone like me, it is all you know. It is something my entire social life had been based around since I was in my mid teens. It turned mundane tasks into enjoyable adventures, awkward situations into manageable affairs, and frankly, I loved the way it made me feel. To give up something that had been a constant in my life for the better part of decade absolutely freaked me out. What was it going to be like sober? Was I going to lose friends? Would people like the sober version of Jake? Would I be able to talk to girls? They are so pretty, smell so nice, and have certain parts I don’t get to see in the mirror everyday. To not sound like a creep, would I be able to pull my shit together in those situations? To just stop was incredibly scary. But you know what else is scary….? Fucking spiders! You know the feeling when you see one. That split second you look for the self-destruction button to blow up your entire house. I think that’s why there is not a self-destruct iPhone app because the general populous would initiate World War III in an attempt to eradicate the world of spiders. Zombies….. just another walk in the park. Vampires…… they sparkle in the sun. Spiders…… here’s an entire truckload of nopes. Think about what it takes to overcome the fear to get close enough to kill a spider with an aerosol can. That’s what giving up alcohol is like, but you have that feeling of apprehension everyday, because you have never experienced most social situations without a heightened BAC.

When finally coming to the realization that your not going to just take it easy for awhile, and that you are giving up drinking for good, you experience nothing less than a roller coaster of emotions. You feel shame for the way you treated or used people under the influence. Guilt for rationalizing your actions in thinking it was ok because “I was just drunk.” And finally you feel anger. Anger in the fact of why me? Why can’t I go out and socially drink like my friends without getting plastered, or why did it seem trouble always found me. Now to be clear, I have no shame in killing a family of spiders, no guilt in equipping a flame thrower out of a grill lighter and a can of WD40 to inhumanely destroy them, or no problem with the blind sense of anger that I channel to end them, but for man who could be described as bit stubborn with the ego the size of a mountain, it was hard to accept these feelings as normal.

When you have used alcohol for so long as tool to suppress your emotions, when they finally do come around, they come all at once like a ton of bricks. I honestly thought something was wrong with me. I got on Google and WebMD to research the symptoms of male menopause or to see if somehow I’d contracted the Ebola virus. I had no idea what I was experiencing. Turns out they were just normal every day feelings. A few weeks ago I went to the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. I am a bit of a nerd and I find Chris Pratt to be hilarious so when a friend suggested we go I was all on board. The first scene started with him talking to his mother on her deathbed and I lost it. I was balling like a girl reading a Nicholas Sparks novel. What the hell was going on? C’mon Jake, you’ve chop blocked a 300+ lb all state lineman, you’ve fought off more headlocks then one can count, you were a human bruise from blocking fastballs in the dirt, and now you have tears rolling down your face, let alone allowing it to happen in front of a friend. I couldn’t let him see me. I had to pretend like I had a popcorn kernel stuck in my throat to mask the fact I was sobbing.

This was not an isolated incident either. Whenever I see the Sarah Mclaughlin commercial with all the abused animals and her song, “arms of an Angel” playing in the background, it is like someone turned on the waterworks. It takes everything I have to not grab my wallet and max out my credit cards to save all the puppies in the world and help a Canadian singer who is well out of her prime become relevant again. These feelings are something completely foreign to me. I no longer spend my downtime watching the Sylvester Stalone arm wrestling movie “Over the Top.” Just kidding, I still do that, but now I often find myself gravitating towards a cheesy Rom Com so I can laugh, cry, and make my heart tingle, all at the same time. Good thing I use my family’s Netfllix account so I can blame the “recently watched” on my sister. Now if anyone has a problem with that, I am still Jake, and still possess a cross face of legend. So kiss my ass. I haven't completely changed as you can see, being I still have trouble articulating my feelings, but damn, it feels good to feel them.

Now in this blog I will always inject a bit of humor because it comes easy to me and I always vowed to not take myself too seriously. With that being said, there is no doubt that quitting alcohol has been and will be an extreme rollercoaster of emotions, but I look forward to letting go, putting my hands in the air, and continuing to enjoy this scary new ride.