Day 430
As someone often regarded as a high-performer, even a star in multiple fields, it is remarkable to look back at my life as an addict. While I was functioning and accomplishing, I had no dreams nor expectations about the future. I consciously believed I had to work harder than everyone else because I was less deserving than nearly everyone I knew. I don't remember ever asking myself, 'why?' That's just the way it was.
In many ways, I was a dead man walking toward an explosive moment that would send me careening into a self-destruction spiral. My meltdown could have happened at any time along the arc of my acting-in. There was a little burp in my 30s when I accepted an invitation into a place of lustful release, but I was strong enough then to recognize it and stop. I still caused a lot of pain. The next invitation would take years to pull me in, and there was no strength left to do the right thing.
In the absence of resistance, I was swallowed up by a world where I could neither live an accomplishing life nor escape the manifesting desires of my worn-down fantasies. The surreal sounds of merely typing that out still stun me, even more now than when I began seeing it for what it was.
I was not dying; I was already dead to life's potential. I was blind, and now I can see.
–JR
When I'm alone I think a lot of all the things that I forgot
All my regrets have left me lost and broken
I'm so tired of feeling like a dead man walking
Hear the razor calling
I don't want to live, I don't want to die
Dead man walking
–Art of Dying, ”Dead Man Walking"
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