Personal Essay
Addiction, Sobriety, and Panic Attacks
Was this the most difficult part of overcoming my addictions?
In the past five years, I’ve overcome two major addictions: drinking and smoking cigarettes. If you’re familiar with my blog, you already know that I’ve written about both subjects extensively. (I like to write a short post about sobriety nearly every day.)
Despite writing about addiction and sobriety so often, there’s one subject that I almost never mention, even though it was one of the hardest parts of quitting both alcohol and cigarettes: Panic attacks.
My History of Panic Attacks
I had my first panic attack at a very young age, long before I ever started drinking or smoking regularly. I think I was only in middle school, although it’s so long ago that I can’t even remember for sure. What I do remember, quite vividly, is that I was watching Tim Burton’s movie Mars Attacks!
In case you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a totally shlocky alien invasion movie, meant to be pure comedy. Although there’s gore, it really isn’t meant to come across as a horror movie at all. Yet, something about it triggered a sudden, overwhelming panic attack in me. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I became all too familiar…
