I want to preface this by saying, I'm a huge believer in not putting details about your personal life openly on the internet. That being said, this is a pretty anonymous account and I just need to get this off my chest.
When I was around 15 years old my parents were going thru a divorce. A few weeks before my mom left my dad, taking my sister and I with her, I got the news that my grandfather had died.
After we had moved away, maybe six months later, my mom woke me up in the middle of the night crying telling me that our old neighor just called her and my best friend was just killed. I blamed myself for years, for not being there. The 'what ifs' of "had we not moved away, would he have been in that specific situation" played over and over in my head.
I used this loss, and the loss of my grandfather, two very meaningful people to me as the excuse to drink heavily for well over a decade. It started as having a few drinks to numb the pain, and eventually it was no longer about the pain, it was just being unable to stop without withdrawls.
I eventually cleaned up my act and have been doing pretty good in life in recent years.
A few days ago I went to the funeral of another childhood friend, who died due to complications from drug abuse.
While looking at the photos of him on the board, one stuck out to me in particular.
It was him, and two other mutual friends of ours. I looked at it for a few and realized "All three of them are gone now. One from a bullet, and two from drugs."
I kept it together at the service, being surrounded by friends. But that drive home was painful and i felt quite disassociated the entire time. Here I am, a few days later with that feeling still lingering.
I just need to get it off my chest.
