Content Warning: Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues
On New Year’s Eve I came dangerously close to attempting suicide.
The root causes are a history of alcoholism, depression, mood disorder, and suicide ideation.
The acute triggers were alcohol, financial stress, anxiety, and shame.
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255
Text 741741 – Crisis Text Line
What Now?
The hospital stay was critically important for me. It gave me time and space to wrap my thoughts around how close I had come to making an irreversible decision. It offered a supportive environment of folks struggling with similar issues. It provided the opportunity to set aside daily responsibilities and focus on what had brought me to that point.
For me the clear answer was alcohol.
I’ve dealt with depression, anxiety, and suicide ideation my whole life. But in the throws of an episode of active alcoholism the healthy coping skills I’ve learned over the years simply were unaccessible. I was trapped in a series of negative, destructive, recursive and self-reinforcing thought that was directly modulated by a depressant chemical.
Addiction is an asshole.
The question I asked myself when I left the hospital was “What now?”
Step One was reintegration. I’d only been in the hospital seven days but the idea of returning to the gym was terrifying. I slept horribly the night before I went back. I worried I would be judged. I worried people would doubt my ability to come back and coach. I had to listen to their fears, their anger, and their relief with equal levels of empathy. I was a raw nerve that first day back, and even the second. I have a new appreciation for the challenge of reintegration experienced by anyone who has spent time in an institutional setting – prison recidivism makes a lot of sense now.
Step Two was planning my first steps. I went back to work, but I also made plans to be with people everyday that first week. I knew – and my wife reiterated – that isolation would make me feel worse. I planned lunches, coffees, phone calls, and meetings. Having to get out of my head an ACT in the world was important for not shrinking in the face of the anxiety I was feeling. I had an intake appointment with my new therapist’s office.
Step Three was finding co-conspirators for my recovery. I’ve never been much of a joiner, but I felt like finding a peer-group of folks focused on recovery was important to try. I’d never been in a hospital mental health unit before and that helped; I had to give a shot at coming together with other folks struggling with addition. Going to a meeting for the first time was very nerve-racking. I was terrified of the unknown. I went in anyway, and it was a tremendous experience. Peer support isa tool I continue to explore. There are plenty of such groups – from 12 step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous to SMART Recovery Groups to SOS and others. Try them out and find the room that fits you.
Step Four is an ongoing one. It’s where I am now. For me it’s making a deliberate practice of going to therapy, engaging with my peers in recovery, and working on untangling the emotional motivations behind my toxic thoughts and behaviors. It’s setting a new course where LIVING matters, and I respect living authentically.
Firefighters don’t have any particular claim to addiction, mental health issues, or suicide ideation. We are a part of the human race and human’s wrestle with these things. Our craft can exacerbate these conditions, but it doesn’t necessarily cause them. What we do have is a desire to fix things. And the way I have found to begin fixing my experience of addiction, depression, and suicide ideation is making the Step Three actions habitual. It’s embracing that each moment of each day I am making choices that either move me forward or backward. So long as I keep taking two steps forward for every step backwards I will make forward progress.
Keep making forward progress.