Sober Diaries: Day 1

Don’t worry, this will not be a daily installment of how much I’m *not* getting fucked up. Probably once every week, or couple weeks. I just figured I would hold myself accountable with an obligation that I set for myself. I’m deciding to attempt being sober for the first time since I was 17 (I’m 33). Saying this kind of implies that I’ve had a substance abuse problem for 16 years, and yeah, that is more or less true (more). Really, since I was 20. That’s when I started drinking/popping/snorting about 3 times more than everyone around me. I actually went to a 28 day rehab when I was 22, but I felt more like a depressed person than an addict. When I was 23, I hit a pretty bad low point, had a meltdown, and then shortly after found stand up comedy, which I thought of as a cure-all since it gave me a sense of purpose. After a few years of not really getting fucked up, I would occasionally do coke on a night I didn’t have a show if someone I knew had it. Got stuck in a situation where I had to perform high a few times, and that is a nightmare; so basically I stayed as busy as possible with stand up and would fill in any lull with harder drugs and booze. I’ve gone long periods without getting “fucked up” on the reg, and then periods where I spent any free time numbing myself to the type of career woes in comedy that stress you out and drive you nuts. 

I have never admitted this to even myself, much less publicly, but I am incapable of moderation. Even something like weed, which helps a lot of people, becomes a way for me to escape my default setting. I really don’t want to be some cautionary tale. I know that this has held me back comedically. You can’t burn the candle at both ends all the time and it not affect you. I’ve already affected some very important relationships negatively and I don’t wan’t to be that dude at all. 

To be quite frank, I am scared shitless. I am diving into the most uncomfortable feeling I know. At this moment, I am writing this thing, but soon I will have nothing to do for hours and my sort of aimless anxiety kicks in. That’s when I want something to alter my state, and that I can no longer do. I don’t even let other people tell me shit, so I dunno how I am gonna tell me shit. I am gonna have to start exercising or something, I dunno. 

Despite me holding myself back, I’ve reached a point in my career where I am getting opportunities that I can’t melt down on. It would burn bridges that I can’t be burning. It actually is not relieving being this honest. It is mostly embarrassing, but lying to myself seems way more dangerous than embarrassing at this point. I have some amazing friends who have gone/are going through this and I’ve been talking to them, so there is that. 

I’ll report back in a week or so. Hopefully these sober nightmares I’m having will chill the fuck out by then. I am flying to Denver late tonight. DENVER. No weed in Denver. I’m so stupid.

-Toodles