Hi Chris
I'm so glad you're feeling a difference. Strange how a difference can come about sometimes, in such an intense way. Perhaps this is the difference your parents needed too, as kind of a wake up call. Unfortunately, it involved such a physically painful experience for you.
Would you say you're making significant progress when it comes to figuring out a lot of your triggers? You mention alcohol as being one. I can relate. I was quite a drinker throughout my years in depression. These days it's rare I'll touch a drop, mainly for 2 reasons: 1) I've managed to work out I'm a binge drinker where I can't stop at one and 2) it's a serious trigger for depression for me. Not drinking is one of my management strategies for staying out of depression. Btw, with my husband being a drinker, I get to observe more clearly what I was like to some degree back in my drinking days.
If the following is of any help, I'll share what I've only recently worked out in regard to why I used to drink. I'm grateful for the revelation which has brought greater clarity, largely through me observing my husband. I worked out alcohol, for me, was a kind of sedative. It would sedate the sad side of me so I could feel what felt like a carefree form of 'happiness'. I didn't care about much while I was drinking. Alcohol would sedate the fearful side of me as a shy kind of gal, so I could feel some 'Dutch courage'. It would sedate the 'people pleaser' in me, so I could please myself for a change. Of course, this can leave one feeling serious regret, as what pleases us can be highly triggering for others. It would sedate the analyst or thinker in me, so I didn't have to analyse my problems or work so hard through feeling those challenges. Alcohol sedated so many aspects of me I really needed or needed to work on. It got in the way of me developing myself through some intense and sometimes highly emotional challenges. Without the sedative, things can be so much more confronting and emotional. I finally worked out the confrontation and emotion exists for good reason. It's partly what creates motivation, in some cases. We can either drink through what we can't tolerate or constructively work through and beyond what we can't tolerate. I hope that doesn't sound at all preachy. Just sharing a revelation I had in regard to my own experience.
Btw, I still have my vices which don't serve me. Smoking cigarettes, to name one, is something I need to seriously work on, in the way of elimination 🙂
