Infallible Freedom

I wouldn’t say I was a stranger to the gym and I had always been an athletic person. I've played everything from hockey, to women's tackle football to competitive paintball. But a few things happened. Sports slowed down from every day to once a week and then only in winter. I hit 30, and my metabolism went from lagging to a stall. And that one extra hard call every month or so hit like a jackhammer. But I wasn't ready to slow down, and over the years I realized how much I lacked the upper body strength needed to perform like I should. Especially when those 12 hours of relentless, callous labour hit at 2am. I joined a local gym and was consistent for several months until a severe kidney infection hospitalized me in 2015. My blood pressure sky rocketed and my doctor advised forfeiting my current gym membership until things leveled off. It took over a year for my kidneys to chill out and to get off medication completely. Our hall was fortunate enough to start a small gym earl...

I once read, "If you’ve got a problem with alcohol, the solution is easy. Just stop drinking. Because if your problem is with alcohol then when you stop, it will go away. But if you're truly an alcoholic, it's not that easy. Because when you stop drinking, the problem really begins.” And that's what my 2016 was. Dark. Dark and sober. I couldn't hide behind the whiskey anymore. I was exposed and destroyed. Anyone can hide. But no one can hide forever. And in hindsight, lucky for me it only took seven years to be found. I have a few people to thank but particularly the one who saved me that day. He knows who he is. Sometimes the brotherhood is dissonant. Sometimes they talk behind your back. But he approached me with concern and love and with a really harsh dose of reality. And I finally knew then if I kept going I would die. Or worse, kill someone else. So today is a good day. It's been almost 19 months since I took my last drink; alone and sobbing in the d...