I almost forgot about this...
10 years ago today I had a spontaneous recovery from alcohol induced bipolar depression.
I've had two sips of alcohol since 2015. An American Airline stewardess gave me whiskey instead of apple juice. And I was at a business meeting in 2021 and had a small sip of champagne in front of colleagues I did not want to disclose said alcohol problems. Other than that I've been clean from alcohol for 10 years as of today.
I think of myself as an accidental alcoholic. I started drinking in grad school. I didn't touch alcohol before that. I was drinking to take the edge off, and intentionally drinking an amount I didn't think would cause me harm. I generally drank a couple fingers of whiskey a day to take the edge off. Though, some weekends I'd get drunk, play poker, and still win. We hosted some parties too.
I was in the grocery store and heard a couple of Sorority coeds talking about the Jello Wrestling Party the Chemists (me and my degenerate chemistry friends) were putting on. I went to Texas A&M for grad school. Hearing those coeds talking about my party was probably the high point of my social career.
I completed a PhD in Chemistry in 4 years, 1 month, and 1 day. It was approximately 7 years after I graduated high school, and was just before I turned 25. A couple years later I was a professor at a military college where I was one of the youngest professors and a few decades below the average age. It nearly killed me to graduate that quickly.
That said, I was also really good at it. Al Cotton is one of the most hated and brilliant chemists that ever lived. He was an MIT grad that came to TAMU. I was a giant fan. He might have been the biggest bastard in the entire profession, but I looked up to him so much. When I took his class in my second year of grad school I started taking ADD meds for the first time in my life to try to keep pace. I ended up memorizing his book. He literally wrote the book on Inorganic Chemistry (this is what my PhD is in), and I literally memorized the whole fucking thing. I aced his class, and at the age of something like 85 he gave me the best professional compliment of my life "Jesse, you're one of the best students I've ever taught." Still makes me a little weepy to think about, cause that old cuss never spoke a word he didn't mean. He died shortly thereafter, which I think cements me as one of the best Inorganic Chemistry graduate students. A laurel I don't think I'll ever top.
My first and regrettably current wife, the woman I'm in a now five-year long divorce with, hated Texas. I was trying to finish up as quickly as possible. I asked her if I could delay a year, and she said "no" and that she wanted out of there as fast as I could get us out of there. I wanted out, and applied to a job at the largest chemical company in the world. I was offered the job, which was really speedy for a third year to get a job, and I basically used it as leverage to make my advisor graduate me. In order to finish though I was working 14 hour days 7 days a week and only gave myself every other Sunday afternoon off.
My wife was telling me nearly daily that she wanted out of there. The job offer was telling me periodically that I only had so long to finish before they would rescind the offer. My advisor told me I'd never make it. It's one of the top worst experiences of my life to make it through that year. It was constant stress and I didn't really have the skills or core willpower to deal with it all. I was just a kid.
My first wife would sometimes bring me dinner in the lab and I'd eat it in the breakroom. This went on for something like 9 months. I was so exhausted. I would sometimes vent in one of the neighboring lab rooms that was vacant. Scream into the abyss of an unused lab hood for a minute or two, and then head back to work. I might do that a few times a day.
During my time there I blew myself up a couple of times in the lab. I have scars on my wrist and arm from shards of glass that scattered across the lab. Last time I visited the place the blood that shot out from my cut arteries could still be faintly seen near the ceiling. While I was in the chemical shower my advisor walked past the lab window and saw me. There was so much blood he thought I lost my whole arm.
I also almost killed myself accidentally inhaling hydrogen cyanide. I remember going to the bathroom to check my eyes to see if they were going red from inhaling the killer gas. Ironically, holding them open in front of a mirror also makes them red and after a minute I thought for sure I was about to die. Ahhh, good times.... For the record hydrogen cyanide smells like almonds to those that can smell almonds, and so oftentimes the smell of almonds triggers a stress response like I'm about to die again. Fuck you Dr. Bronner's almond soap!
I eventually defended my dissertation. I nailed it. I only had to add 1 page to my dissertation after my defense to provide a better answer to 1 question that I got wrong during it. I'm not the first and probably not the last highly functional alcoholic from my bloodline.
I remember driving my motorcycle to the stix where my dog's vet was. I teared up on the ride just thinking that for the first time in ~4 years I wasn't an indentured servant to the lab and my advisor anymore. Probably the most liberated feeling I've ever had. This divorce might top it though...
Anyway, it turns out that even a few fingers drank a night for a couple of years can cause wet brain. Alcohol ruined my business, ruined friendships, and this was a root cause for the failure of my marriage.
I've been doing my best to carve out a new life. I'm in my forties, but often time think of myself as in my 30s and have to re-remember the 9 years I lost to alcohol. It's like having files on a corrupted hard drive. I know there's stuff there, but I can't always access it, and my memory is swiss cheese. My friends and wife are mad at me for things I don't even remember doing.
I wouldn't wish this on even on the most corrupt chinese market makers who nuke the market for tens of billions at a time.
I played WoW for years and my Orc Warrior was a bad ass I named aggroed. When I woke up in 2015 I wasn't quite the same man. Memories missing, everyone suddenly seemed 10 years older, and it was like I was teleported 9 years in the future, but basically every friendship I held dear was rekt.
My first name is Blair and my middle is Jesse, but those felt like dead names to me. In 2016 I found Steemit, a crypto based project to blog. I created the account @ aggroed and have spent the majority of my new life building games in crypto. Sometime back around then I remember telling my wife all I wanted to do in life was make games and be snarky on the internet. From that perspective I've been killin' it.
The last couple years of have been pretty challenging though. Alt coin dystopia has been brutal since 2021. And waiting 4 years of shitty grind down to just watch everyone get liquidated in the most brazen fashion is total bullshit.
Worse still, family law is no joke. This is the most dystopian and unamerican thing I can imagine. My wife with unconstitutional support of the state has taken my kids three separate times. The current experience is ongoing for about four months. It's a waking nightmare as a daily experience, and while there's lots about marriage that I like there's very few things worse than this star-chamber esque experience in family law. It's humiliating, degrading, and the most lopsided mother worshipping cult on the planet. And yes, I used that quote verbatim in a legal filing.
I'm now spending the majority of this psuedo-birthday working on pro se legal matters to defend my "fundamental liberty to care, custody, and control my children" as well as my "fundamental liberty to acquire, possess, and protect my property." But I got to say, short of war and physical torture I can't imagine much worse than family law. This place is a shithole.
Anyway, I've spent 10 years grinding out a new life. Back when I first had a spontaneous recovery I was basically broke and squandered an inheritance. I've carved out a decent portfolio since then even despite tee never ending altcrypto winter.
I count today as a second birthday and this lil' aggroed turns 10. Life could always be worse, but I miss my kids and Flippin' Tables in family law is a combination of a Herculean task and one meant for Sisyphus. I'm grateful for many things in my life though, and the simpler the better. I have people I love, a trail not far from me where I can walk in peace and solitude, and kids who I love when they're close by and when they're far away.
I'm still here. I'm still standing. This bear market can't kill me. I'm still building. I'm still sober. I'm still kicking.
So, here's to 10 years of struggles, success, love, pain, health, wellness, games, and snark.