The Inebriation Placebo

   You can never really tell that you've hit rock bottom until it happens full force. You go through a hard time, you think the world is over, you keep existing and you recuperate and either get past it, continuing on with your life, or you get used to it. Pretty soon you're back in your usual moods and your behavior is consistent with what it was before. But when you really do hit rock bottom, it just kind of drops you off of a cliff, and when you splatter all over the rocky land below you look around and go, "Oh, this is what it's like."
   It's like getting drunk for the first time. You just wander around, trying to tell if you're buzzed or if it's some kind of placebo effect. Then you go home and go to sleep and in the morning your head is pounding, and you know right at that moment what it feels like to be inebriated. That was it the previous night. That's what it feels like when you realize that everything you've built up around you has crumbled. You're surrounded by the debris of your life, and there's nothing that you can use to fix anything. You have to wait. You have to wait for the grass to grow and new saplings to find some way to cling to the ashen soil and bury their roots deep in the ground. The things that come back are things you had before, but they were too strong to be swept away, or they were hidden in some safe place, only to be revealed in times of hardship. They are familiar but they have changed. They bask in their newfound resilience, but only if you can find the motivation to stop pussy-footing around your problems and face them.