from his blog
"The reason I was in the hospital was pretty grim, and probably going to be hard to summarize the whole situation in a few sentences. I suffered from clinical depression throughout my teen years off and on, I hid it from my friends and buried it in a "happy go lucky" attitude and tons of subtance and alcohol abuse. I was never addicted to any specific drug or booze, but was addicted to getting as messed up as possible and trying anything i could get my hands on really. It never controlled my life and I was not a burn out by any means, I just liked to get high and weekends were usually spent tripping on something or getting black out drunk.
When I was 22, my depression came back to me hard. I was not taking care of myself mentally and a "perfect storm" occurred in my life and by the time I realized how far down I was, it was too late. I remember one night I just couldn't sleep and was just crippled mentally, just snapped pretty much. Couldn't work or do anything. I saw doctors and was loaded on a bunch of different stuff that spun me into more anxiety and after a long few weeks I had stored up enough of the prescription drugs that were potentially fatal (I did my research).
One day my brain just went from "I'm going to take all of them next week", next week turned into tomorrow, and within an hour or two it dawned on me that I was going to do it that very day. I downed about 35-40oz of vodka and used it to swallow all of the pills, which was over double what was documented as a fatal dose. I threw in a crapload of the other pills as well for good measure, threw on my headphones, wrote my letter, left a message on my parents phone and closed my eyes with absolute 100% certainty they wouldn't open again.
Thankfully, they did. My parents got the message shortly after and called an ambulance. I can honestly say it wasn't a cry for attention, there wasn't a single part of me that thought I would survive.
I can't relate to feeling like that anymore, it's hard to think back on. Anyways, I had my stomach pumped and drank that lovely overdose charcoal stuff they make you drink, and was locked up in ER for 2 days. I have vague memories of ripping out all my IVs as I was so mad that I was still alive and was also just completely blacked out from all the crap I put in my body.
Three days later my brain snapped back to reality and I was in the psych ward. I spent 2 weeks reading, thinking, and writing music. They could tell I was not a threat like some of the other patients and let me have my guitar and kind of do as I please.
After 2 more days they let me leave for 2 hours a day to go train, and my parents brought me lots of good food to eat. I am not a conventionally religious man and I think organized religion is a major problem, but after that experience I truly felt stupid for being one of those stubborn 100% atheist know-it-alls.
There are spiritual factors out there, some are dark and some are light. I had no real control over myself in that dark time but something kept me alive through it against all odds and it changed me.
Since then I have learned that our attitude and thoughts really create our life and happiness is really a choice that you simply have to make, that's all there is to it.
Now, for me to think that all the things I have had happen to me in the last 3.5 years would have never existed if that went as I thought it would, is overwhelming.
It's only been a short time and I have a beautiful wife, an amazing son, and have done a lot with music and bodybuilding that I didn't think I would have so quickly.
"Since then I have learned that our attitude and thoughts really create our life and happiness is really a choice that you simply have to make, that's all there is to it."
