To preface this, I take an array of medications (Gabapentin, hydroxyzine, cyclobenzaprine, naltrexone, and trazadone to sleep)

Last night my brother was celebrating his birthday with friends. Told me that he was going to get drunk as hell with a few of his buddies.

This is a story contrary to the whole notion of “stay away from alcohol”, and a personal lesson on exposure therapy…

Him and his buddies got belligerent. He and his ex business partner have a long history of getting wasted and essentially using “attack therapy” on each other i.e they ruthlessly dig into the others weaknesses…when I used to drink with them it would always turn into “you’re a worthless piece of shit because of XYZ BUT I’m only telling you this because I know you can be great and you have so much potential.”

Being able to experience this from the outside looking in (I was the only sober person there, even left to go buy them some more alcohol at one point), it absolutely fucking repulsed me…just a whole on no-holds barred shit show with comments such as “why do you hate your daughter so much, you don’t even know how fucking old she is…”

My brother had a pretty nasty interaction with his young son which enraged a couple guys as they drank more, and by the end of the night I was playing Chief De-escalator, physically putting myself between the drunks, having to physically restrain them and at two points literally taking someone’s hands off of someone else, getting in their faces and saying “nah this shit ain’t fucking happening”. Two grown men were bawling their eyes out telling me how they were abused as children and seeing how my brother treated his son in that moment reminded them of all of their trauma.

My longest length of sobriety has been 18 months and in that time I got a job at the treatment center I had gone to myself - it was a co-occurring disorder place for substance abuse and mental health. (this was my first attempt at getting sober). So I know how the shit goes. My brother is the type to just call someone a pussy/tell them to stop making excuses if they are distraught due to past events.

I have a pretty good feeling that if I didn’t decide to go or stay the whole time, shit could have gotten really, really, really bad.

Only 7 days sober (this time around) and I’m thanking God that everything worked out the way it did (in terms of me having the ability to control myself)…by saving myself I was literally able to save others from themselves.

Ended up having to kick everyone out around 1am after shit got too rowdy. Man, just seeing the dark dark darkness of alcohol the way I did last night has made me so grateful…never thought I would be the one who would be calming down, hugging, listening to and being the responsible one (outside of a work capacity - used to be my actual job.)

Also, I would have not been able to do what I did if I was not taking my medications properly,

Once everyone was gone, my brother still needed to have a fight. So he used that opportunity to try to destroy my spirit, digging deep into the mental health issues I have and my current position in life.

I was able to simply respond “thank you for sharing your opinion. I appreciate it”…

Just a HUGE reminder that we can have the ability to help others once we are sober, and that medication assisted detox and safety barriers such as naltrexone are effective when used in conjunction with social support/meetings. Also, the idea of paying money to put myself in a spot where I can potentially harm everyone around me makes no sense to me anymore.

And by saving ourselves, we have the potential to be a guardian angel for our loved ones.

Thank you.