Stop Waiting. Nobody is Coming to Save You.

I thought I was the king of tough love, but boy was I wrong. I read this best-selling book by David Goggins and holy shit. If you want to learn what you’re capable of, read this book. This dude went from having a traumatic childhood to failing in school and not amounting to anything into someone who became a Navy Seal. He has insane stories in there like when he ran for miles during seal training with broken legs.

What I wanted to focus on in this piece, is something that really stuck with me in his book that was reignited in me. It’s a truth I knew for a long time that helped me overcome my addiction and start taking responsibility for my mental health. Something David often had to tell himself to keep pushing forward is, “Nobody is coming to save you,” and this is so true.

“Maybe You Should be Homeless”

When I share this story, it’s difficult to explain. Although my mom was an alcoholic and my dad was a workaholic, I could count on them. It was difficult to get them to help me out in the day-to-day stuff like emotional support, helping with homework and just being there for me, but when I was desperate or dying, they were there for me. Even in my active addiction, I was enabled for a long time because I could always count on them to “loan me money” (and I put “loan” in quotations because I’d frame it as a loan and never pay it back because of …well…drugs.)

A great example of how my mom was there for me when I needed her the most was when I got sober. She was 7 years sober when she got the call that I might not live through the night because my addiction led me to have congestive heart failure and a myriad of other health issues. She dropped what she was doing and came straight to Las Vegas to be there for me. After getting kicked out of the hospital for not having any money or insurance, she brought me back to Fresno, California, and forced me to get sober.

That first month of recovery, she treated me like I was a baby again and did everything for me. She went to the California welfare office to set me up with Medicaid and get me a food stamp card. She wouldn’t let me live with her, but she paid for my sober living home. I didn’t have a car, but she’d let me borrow hers. After living in sober living for 4 or 5 months, she let…