Dear Diary, I can't do this anymore (trigger warning: substance abuse) (Patreon)

Dear Diary,

I can't do this anymore. How many more breakdowns? How many more comedowns? How much more physical illness can my body endure? How much more paranoia can I suffer before I walk in front of a bus? My depression is worse than ever and I'm sitting here wondering why? But I already know. I guess that's what addiction is - Denial. It's time to make a choice but it's no longer about the debt or lifestyle...

It's my sanity.

These words are from a dairy I had found from 2015.

I was weak - physically, emotionally and mentally. I walked a dark road controlled by thoughts that were not my own and loosing reality one day at a time. I was confused, withdrawn and on a downward spiral.

I had been using drugs heavily for the past 2 years and my mental health was going downhill at a rapid pace. It had started as fun and games, partying with big name artists that I hosted after they played at the local nightclub in Arlie Beach, QLD. I told myself that I was just showing them a good time and that it was my duty to do so. It was my job!

But what happens when the party is over and all you're surrounded by is silence and the regret of your actions.

You make it go away but escaping reality just one last time. 

But that one last time turns into just once more. 

And that just once more turns into 2 years later.

2 years of smoking crystal meth. 

2 years of letting my mind slip further and further away.

There I was, standing on the brink of insanity. Just one more night, just one more puff and my mind was ready to let go. 

I don't know how but I just knew that this was it. I had to make a decision.

Give in to the dark depths of my mind or turn my life around. 

It was one of the hardest decisions I have had to make but with the little strength I had left, I flushed the remining crystals and smashed my pipe.

They say that active addiction is the bottom of the barrel, that it doesn't get any worse and recovery is where the healing really begins. But they're wrong. 

I was sober for the first time in years yet my mind began to play tricks on me. New tricks that I wasn't ready for, tricks that I didn't understand. 

One moment I was here, my two feet on the ground and the next I wasn't. I was somewhere else entirely.

I was living a different life in a different reality.

I didn't know what was real and what wasn't. 

That's when I took to yoga. Crazy right? Yoga? 

Every time I moved my body through these weird poses on the screen, I felt in control, I felt alive. But darkness is persuasive and I kept returning as if it were my master and my time on the mat was simply a privilege.

As my body strengthened, so did my mind. I began to discover parts of myself that I never knew, a person i had never known. 

Everything began to change and I had found a new addiction - Feeling good! I felt free. But I still remind myself to this day, yoga didn't save me. I saved myself.