I Am Grateful for the Day I Died

Light does not need to be loud to be real.

My life once looked very different from what it is now.

Almost unrecognisable.

I was caught in a cycle that revolved around alcohol and cigarettes. I drank heavily and smoked constantly. I was earning good money, but most of it disappeared the same way it came, spent, forgotten, gone by morning.

Every day began the same way.

As soon as I opened my eyes, I wasn’t thinking about living. I was thinking about time. How to pass it. How long until the pubs opened. How to get to the next drink.

The only boundary I held onto was my work.

My passion for projects, both new and old, existed even before these habits took hold of my life. I worked seven days a week, no matter how sick I was. I never called in sick. Even when the office was closed on a Sunday, I would be there, working alone, preparing what came next.

No matter how things looked outside of it, I had a rule I never crossed. I did not drink when I was working. Not a single drop. Work was the one place where responsibility still mattered, where other people depended on me, and I refused to let that be compromised.

It didn’t fix what I was living through.

But it kept something intact.

At first, drinking started in the evenings.

Then earlier.

Then much earlier.

Happy hour stretched from 6pm to 11pm, then 5.00pm to midnight, and eventually from mid-afternoon until the early hours of the next day. On weekends, when there was no work, I would wait outside for the doors to open. I was often there before the staff. The owners would laugh and say I was more hardworking than their employees, from opening to closing.

Every day ended the same way. Not violently. Not loudly. I could still get home. But I was lost, and I didn’t know how to stop.

It was a quiet kind of destruction.

Then there was a day I found myself alone in a room, broken and exhausted. I was in a dark place. I prayed, even though I didn’t know who I was praying to or speaking with. Not for miracles, but to be free from the grip I was in. I asked for a different life, even though I couldn’t imagine what that looked like. I even added details I believed were impossible.

At that time, everyone around me drank and smoked. They weren’t bad people. They were my people. But I didn’t know anyone who lived well without those things. I prayed for new company, new influence, new surroundings.

Three months later, every single thing I had prayed for happened. Even the details I thought were impossible came to pass.

This year marks nine years since that version of me disappeared.

That version had to end, because if he hadn’t, I don’t think I would still be here.

I never planned to quit drinking.

I didn’t prepare for it.

I didn’t announce it.

I just stopped. Overnight.

There’s an old saying that a life without drinking and smoking only feels longer because everything becomes boring. I used to laugh at that.

Now, I understand something different.

It isn’t boredom.

It’s peace.

Like anyone else, I still walk through difficult seasons. I still feel alone sometimes. I still face darkness. But I now know there is light, even when it isn’t loud or immediate.

And I am grateful, deeply, to still be here to notice it. I’m grateful to be able to share my thoughts and my darkness. If this resonates with others, I hope it reminds them that we are not alone. Never alone, even in the dark.

Made In His Image

You are made perfectly. Loved deeply. Never beyond hope.

Visit the Made In His Image project at: madeinhisimage.life