The Downward Spiral of Addiction: My Untold Story

The Miscalculated Slingshot Maneuver

Christmas time was behind the doorstep, and I desperately needed to get healthier because of Christmas Eve and the time about to be spent with family and relatives, and they simply couldn’t see me like this. My alcohol situation was getting worse as my brain was excelling at finding any tiny reason why to have a glass right now at noon and not later in the afternoon. This was bad. I also started dosing HHC oil drops regularly because it also helped a little bit with RLS. Not even mentioning work, which I was constantly failing to keep focused on. At least, and this tiny accomplishment was really important to me overall, I did not spend my working time staring into the wall. I watched science documentaries about the universe, particle physics and nuclear fusion, rocket science, chemistry, both civil and electrical engineering, as well as beekeeping, hornet nest removal, vegetable gardening, or history. All kinds of education videos about literally everything, you name it. Not just my brain craved for drug doses, but also for knowledge. I couldn’t turn it off, I’ve never been able to. I don’t remember anymore, but my mom told me I was able to read, write, and do simple math even before I started going to elementary school. A miracle kid, maybe, huh? Anyway, with alcohol poisoning in my veins, I frequently found myself falling asleep when lying in my chair in front of my computer and literally sleeping through tons of great videos. I was pissed off at myself. Am I becoming an addict on YouTube as well, or what the fuck is going on?! Why did I start my day by opening YouTube and checking out any random video about radiation disasters, dam breaches, railroad accidents, cave diving accidents, the dark sides of modern history, interesting and anomalous places in the world, or just scary, deadly stories that have happened to people? Why couldn’t I work instead? Oh well, I could play computer games in the evening, which was great. I mean, I love playing games with friends, especially my newest game, Hunt: Showdown. Despite the fact that I’ve always hated and despised the typical Hollywood depiction of the Wild West, this game shows it totally differently and mainly interestingly. The only problem was that it is a first-person shooter, and I’ve never been used to play any aim-based games while sober. I get nervous easily, and I am bad at shooters, given that I started playing competitively after the age of 25, too late for the brain to optimize its neural connections for reaction time and steady hand. But this time while playing, a horrible pattern got generated and settled in my brain: a drinking rhythm. In between games, magically, one full glass of Coca-Cola with rum ran totally empty, and I had no idea how it happened. Guess in what condition I was after 8 to 10 games per evening… and I don’t mean my KDA ratio in the game. I also built another, yet safe, pattern for everyday survival. (Another NSFW confession:) Due to my intensive diarrhea, however, it again became relatively easy for me to clean my insides with water and then ride the XL dildos. I did this every single day, not just because being drunk while high on HHC and poppers felt absolutely amazing, but also because it gave me a short relief from the shaking symptom. Like I did back in 2022, just without kratom.

I told everything to my psychiatrist when I saw him for the second time (except the dildo ritual) and got a pack of antiepileptic drugs, which were supposed to help me with the RLS and calm my nervous system down. Guess what? They didn’t help at all. But hey, Christmas Eve happened, and I somewhat managed to stay away from both alcohol and HHC long enough to be able to drive 3.5 hours across the country to see the family with my ex-partner. I was so happy to see them, yet I was screaming inside for a glass of rum and Coca-Cola. After dinner, I claimed the closest bottle and started drinking while we were playing Uno and other card games. At one moment, the alcohol level in my blood went over the top, and I was visibly drunk. What an embarrassing situation in front of the family. The next day I was driving the same distance back and was possibly not fully sober yet, but at least I felt sober enough. You know when you have to drive early in the morning after miserable sleep and you feel distracted, unfocused, and uncertain in your moves, steering, crudely releasing the clutch, and everything? There are some studies saying that such a condition, despite being fully sober, is far more dangerous than having some alcohol in your blood veins but being fully aware and focused on your driving. Luckily, that was my condition; I did not feel any hangover. But it would still be risky if the police made me pull over, and you bet that on December 25th they were especially focusing on alcohol breath testing.

Back at home, I could finally rest a little, play the piano… and also drink, consume HHC oil, and have fun with my sex toys. Damn this, what should I do? I promised my colleagues that I would be working during the last week of the year and that I would also take the emergency shift, which means 24/7 availability for the whole week. I can handle that somehow. I had nearly 2 weeks of vacation, and there is hope I will be able to do some work. Besides, Christmas time is usually peaceful, and nothing much is going on as no one is really around. Yeah, everything is going to be okay, I told myself. Well, I definitely did some work, or at least I pretended well. But every single evening, I drank my brains out to a slight memory loss. If there was any incident happening at night, I was pretty sure that nothing would wake me up, not even my phone screaming an alarm tone into my ears. Luckily, nothing happened. I bet this wouldn’t have been the case two years ago, when our systems at work were constantly having serious scaling issues. And so we had a couple of friend visits and generally had fun. Then there was the last day of the year and a decent party to celebrate 2024 at the doorstep. I remember the most of that night. Some memories are fuzzy, but a sick drolf wouldn’t be a sick drolf if he didn’t cause another embarrassing situation in front of a furry whom he saw for the first time ever, a new partner of a friend of mine. Jesus Christ, it happened again. Please, God, give me strength and superpowers for the New Year. Please make my wish come true. I desperately want this to STOP!!! I was so hopeless that I nearly started to believe in God, but God didn’t hear my prayer. Or maybe he did?

Crystalline from @Amaranthemetal which I discovered today made my entire day. Such a beautiful song ❤️ I spent my evening by learning the chorus on the piano and this is the result 😇 pic.twitter.com/RyueYqVoou

— The Jumping Drolf (@TaikuDee) January 3, 2024

Singularity: The Point of No Return?

In the second week of January 2024, I had another appointment with my psychiatrist. I admitted to him that I am consuming one liter of Captain Morgan 35% vol. per 24 hours, and he wasn’t particularly happy about it, considering that the alcohol can have side effects with my SSRI antidepressants as well as the antiepileptic drugs, but he didn’t seem to be particularly concerned about the pills rather than about the alcohol volumes. Well, I was very concerned too. He offered me that I could go to a clinic for a detox under the supervision of doctors, but obviously I refused that (white coats? Please no!). I was given another chance to fix myself on my own until the next appointment on January 30th, but deep inside me, I knew this was not going to end well. I simply couldn’t resist the craving in my brain for dopamine, which was still present despite the fact that my last kratom dose was a month ago. I didn’t know what to do at all, and I realized that I had become addicted to alcohol. What the fuck? I remember the doctor mentioning a cross-addiction, which is kind of a self-explanatory term, and I already had this experience from before. But during my life, I found out that I can get rid of alcohol abuse way easier than it took me to get rid of kratom, so there was some hope. Yet very expensive hope, and my financial situation was following the downward spiral again, and not just that. My mental health as well. Depressions were back, as were panic attacks, and I was still unable to do much work. Despite that, I lied to myself every single day, saying that tomorrow is the day I will do a shit ton of work and I will delay the time I enjoy the first glass of alcohol. As for the kratom withdrawal symptoms, cold sweat was mostly gone, but maybe only because I had been constantly drunk. The rest had, sadly, remained their strength. Just one symptom down after almost two months, sigh. But hey, I was finally delivering some visible results, and my colleagues were happy that I was back from whatever shit I came through during the last quarter of 2023. At that time, however, no one knew what would happen next…

Got emotional this evening and played myself another song which is kept in my heart forever, oldie but goldie 💔😭

Nazareth – Dream On pic.twitter.com/NlDhoakpPc

— The Jumping Drolf (@TaikuDee) January 25, 2024

On Thursday, January 25th, my life turned upside down. The day started as usual. Some poor work output on my end had been delivered, and in the afternoon I drank three glasses of alcohol during the working hours because of my fear (hello again!). I had planned to visit someone for the evening, and I should’ve asked certain people about such a plan, but I didn’t do that, as I was scared of telling them, stupid me never ever learning from my own mistakes. I did eventually tell them because I simply had to, but it was way too late as I was already on my way outside. A well-deserved hailstorm of shit had been sent upon me, and I didn’t really understand why at that moment, so I remained somewhat calm. I kindly returned home and pretended nothing had happened at all. But the damage has already been done, and I knew that deeply in my mind. Nevertheless, I minded my own business, was emotionally stable for the time being, and started playing the piano with the confidence boost of Captain Morgan. I drank up like five more glasses while playing, and I was performing really well. Singing some of my favorite songs and being silly with my fursuit head while recording videos was amazing, but a devil plan was also born in my alcohol-poisoned mind. The plan was quite simple, and it was entirely built around my drunken idea of revenge. Revenge for what exactly? I am asking myself now as I write this blog post book. For my stupidity and inability to follow very natural agreements based on the fact that other people also have emotions? Who knows. My mind on that day and that evening knew it clearly. And this simple plan, which I began realizing, was, as a matter of fact, the worst and stupidest decision I’ve ever made in my life.

I wrote a letter by hand, a goodbye letter. To emphasize its importance, I also dumped my master keychain and disk decryption passwords for both my laptop and my home server there, together with the unlock PIN for my iPhone and all bank PINs I was using. The other content of the letter was simple: just take my money because I won’t need it, as I am going to jump off a bridge to end my life. Then I left my phone at the desk and promptly escaped the house, just with headphones and an Apple Watch on my wrist. I had pre-downloaded my favorite songs into it, and I couldn’t go outside without music in my ears, especially not on that day. My watch does have an eSIM, but it is not active, as I’d have to pay way too much money monthly for a very little added value, and I wanted to stay offline and hidden. I walked the city streets at 11 p.m., heading to that famous Prague bridge of suiciders, which I even described in my goodbye letter. When I arrived there after 2 kilometers, while I was enjoying the nighttime Prague horizon and being pretty sure that I don’t really want to jump off that goddamn bridge because I am a pussy and, in fact, I want to live, I spotted a person walking their dog in the darkness. The dog was a beautiful black German shepherd, and he was so excited while fetching his ball. I could mostly see only his LED collar, but that moment just brought a smile to my face. Strengtened with alcohol, I approached the person walking him and politely asked if I could pet such a beautiful animal. It turned out the person was a mid-age Armenian/Ukrainian lady, a war refugee who moved to Prague. We spent a good 40 minutes talking about everything. You know those conversations with strangers in which you feel good and comfortable, and you don’t want such moments to come to an end. And there was the sheppy, a wonderful and hyperactive doggo, which I admired so much! Shortly before midnight, we wished good night to each other, and without any deeper thinking, I turned back and headed home. I was becoming paranoid a bit every time I saw a police car with emergency lights on.I felt that weird itch at the back of my head that they might had been looking for me, but no car had stopped next to me, and no one had approached me by foot until I showed up in front of the house door. Everything had changed from that moment I was waiting for an elevator, then on…