Divorce, depression, sobriety, and Anakin Skywalker.To say the last 3 years has been the worst 3 yea

Divorce, depression, sobriety, and Anakin Skywalker.

To say the last 3 years has been the worst 3 years of my life is a bit of an understatement. I know that everyone has had it rough and I am by no means trying to say I have had it worse than everyone because I understand how shitty everything has been for all of us. It all started when my favorite person to wrestle in the pro wrestling business died from substance abuse issues. The last time I saw him he hit me up out of the blue after not seeing him in a long time asking me to borrow money. He was living out of his truck..he didn’t look good and sadly I knew he wouldn’t be around much longer when I met up with him to give him the money. A few months later he passed. I didn’t really have the money to lend him because like all of us during the pandemic I wasn’t exactly rolling in the money. Then I got the news that he had passed shortly after and it hit me hard. I wrestler him at least 100 times and he was not only my favorite person to share the ring with but he was a great person. I learned a lot inside and outside the ring from him and I think about him all the time. Long before my friends death my marriage was falling apart. I was a selfish asshole and I never was the partner I should have been. She was and always will be the love of my life and I will never forgive myself for my actions in our relationship and for everything that led to our divorce/break up which happened mere months after the loss of my friend. I have always used alcohol as a crutch and it got worse and worse as the year went on. The pandemic and my friends death only made me crawl deeper into that bottomless pit and drive my wife further from me than she already was.That said I never needed an excuse to drink. I could find any reason to drink. “I had a good day LETS DRINK!” “I am sad LETS DRINK!” and so on. After putting up with my bullshit for for way longer than she should have my wife left me. It was a wake up call and for a while I quit drinking and it wasn’t easy but I did it for all the wrong reasons. I did it in hopes of getting the woman I love back…It didn’t work. I don’t blame her. I didn’t and don’t deserve her. I resigned my self to losing her and let her keep our cats because #1 I knew she would take better care for them than I ever could and #2 I refused to split them up. Losing them was almost as hard as losing her because I adored those cats.

    Right after the breakup my grandmother passed away and then NOLA got hit by a bad hurricane. I made sure to tell my now ex-wife that she could come and stay with my family and I during the storm because we had a generator and I also knew if she was with us I could protect her/keep her safe. When she decided to ride it out in the apartment we used to share that she now lived in alone I made her promise that if anything happened she would call me and I would do any and everything I could to help her. I had no idea that I would have to put those words into action very shortly after saying them. During the storm some asshole tried to run a gas generator INSIDE his apartment and burned the building and his and everyone else’s apartment in said building to the ground. The apartment complex didn’t allow generators for safety reasons so this genius thought he could beat the system and not get caught by running his gas generator indoors. The building was the one directly next to the building my ex-wife was living in with our animals. She called me panicked and my Dad and I rushed there. On the way there was a tree down in the middle of the road and my Dad wanted to turn back and I refused and out of sheer adrenaline I was able to get the tree up by myself and walk it to the side of the road. I ended up hurting myself pretty badly doing it but didn’t feel it until days later. I got to her and got her and the animals out while the building next to hers was ingulfed in flames. The storm was so bad the firefighters didn’t even attempt to come out. She stayed the night at my aunts and thank god the next day we went back to discover her apartment was unharmed. I stayed with her at the apartment with no power for about 5 days after that and as painful as it was when she asked if I thought she should move to AZ with her parents I said yes because I know her and I know she would never again feel safe living in NOLA. She already lived through Katrina and I knew it was just too much and every storm season she would be a mess. It killed me because I knew it was what was best for her but I also knew that it would kill any chance however small I had of us getting back together. I helped load everything I could into her car and waited for her parents to get to NOLA. When she left it was like losing her and breaking up all over again.

    So after staying sober for awhile I did what I am a pro at and I made myself an excuse to drink again. And so I did…A LOT. I picked right back up where I started and I drowned out the world and my feelings. You see in the aftermath of the storm, her leaving, and me getting hurt getting to her in the storm I had hurt myself bad enough to not be able to return to work right away once the place I worked reopened. The person I worked for who I loved like a bother prides himself on “turning his back on people” or “cutting them out” as he calls it. As a result of me getting hurt helping her..not missing work..mind you and not getting hurt all together BUT because of who I got hurt helping this man I loved like a brother refused to work with me and thus basically forced me into a position where he knew I would quit the job I have had at the same place since I was 19 years old. I used the loss of my job and my friendship with a man I considered to be a bother as even more of an excuse to drink. Everything became a blur. My life was a series of day to day laying in bed and feeling like shit until 5pm hit and I could start hitting the whiskey. The only thing I had that made me happy was my fandom. I have always loved Star Wars, comic books, and horror movies. Well after one bender I was ashamed of ..like many I have had before I was in bed feeling sorry for myself watching Return of The Jedi and it got to my favorite scene in movie history. Anakin Skywalker’s redemption. It got me thinking about how the first time I tried to quit drinking I did it for all the wrong reasons. I quit in hopes of getting my ex back..not because it was the right thing to do or because I wanted to. I saw Vader lift Palpatine over his head and kill his demon and it was like a switch went off and I knew what I wanted and needed to do. I sit here 3 months sober. I know that is nothing. I know I could fuck up and be back at square one again but for the first time I feel like I am doing it for the right reason. I will never forgive myself for some of the things I have done. I know I will never get to be with the woman I love. I don’t ever plan on being with anyone else ever again but I do plan on trying to be like Anakin and kill my inner darkness and hope that maybe I can find redemption.