Day 10.

Matt Jackson

Follow

Feb 25, 2017 · 4 min read

Lotsa driving the past couple of days. Twelve hours to the Q from the Hoo-Ha, then another seven to drop off the bugmonsters at my parents’ place. Then another hour back to Denver for a little bday celebration with my best mate.

This is the first time that I’ll be going out for a proper weekend of fun and festivities with the bestie sans any sort of liquid courage or social lubrication on my part. We may enjoy a cigar together tomorrow, but that’s still on the menu along with caffeine and ice cream. I’m nearing 3 months on the wagon and couldn’t feel any better. Well, I could, but I feel better physically, mentally, emotionally, and all the other “ally’s” than I ever have in my entire life. I did a four month stint without drinking as an experiment in 2015, and the results remained in my mind as a major shift in thinking and a newfound ability that informed my decision to stop in December. So…why did I do it?

Fat, sick, and nearly catatonic. It’s where I was somewhere in early December 2016. I lacked inspiration. BUT I had just shot the Indiegogo promo for Platonic Season 2, so having that in the can and with a plan kept me with one foot over the artistic fence and on the creative lawn. Two or so Rockstar or Monsters a day didn’t seem to keep my energy up, and I kept on toying with the idea of making some kind of “big change” to get things going. But I had no reason why or how I would do that. I also lacked drive.

The whole recipe needed one more ingredient- I had to get fed up.

And I did, and the moment it did felt a little on accident, even though it was the culmination of everything I’d been subconsciously striving for for years. I was at the gym, pretending to work out, hung over, riding the stationary bike and feeling terrible. This was it- I couldn’t live like this anymore. I wanted to be a filmmaker and have big muscles and at the very least a six pack and feel good about my life and find some joy and happiness in the mundane and I wasn’t going to get it the way I was doing things!

“You’re done drinking. Done,” I said to myself out loud.

I looked down from the second level to the first and working out below me was an actress I would see around the gym fairly often. I thought, “If you want to be with a girl like that, then you need to get your you-know-what together.” And that thought- all of the above thoughts- weren’t AT ALL about body, or money, or success, even. I knew that I would never have the things I wanted to have if I felt about myself the way I did in that moment. A loser. A failure. Worthless. Self-loathing had made it’s way deep into my psyche, and I was very simply done and finished feeling that way. That very second I chose to never go back to that place and from that moment on to discover how to get EVERYTHING that I want.

I’d long been a fan and reader of Tony Robbins and had discovered “Think and Grow Rich” years ago. I would walk the dogs listening to “I am rich. I am successful. People LIKE me.” affirmations and meditations. It was so gross. I was trying the whole “there’s no weeds, no weeds, no weeds” approach to keep the weeds away, but those weeds were a’thriving! None of it made sense in application. I thought I understood how people find success, how they design their lives, but I found it nearly impossible to put it into practice. How do they really do it? How do I do it?

The answer was clear- you just do it, man.

So I took the most direct route to getting what I want- I just started doing it. I started working out on a plan I designed for myself, cooking according to the diet I want for myself, and writing and directing the projects I want to make. And during those first few weeks I received some of the most generous and life-altering gifts from my family and friends that took my life and career pursuits to new levels. I want that to be very clear- while I’m very proud of the steps I’ve taken, the abundance of love from my family and close friends cannot be understated. I’m indebted to them beyond any repayment, and I’m finally understanding the meaning of the word “grateful.”

But that’s another topic for another day.

It’s late, you guys. Get some sleep.