You woke up half-dead.
Sweating through the sheets, mouth full of rust and shame.
Didn’t sleep. Couldn’t sleep.
Spent all night fighting, begging, lying to yourself.
Trying to hold onto something that was killing you.
You didn’t know what was coming.
Didn’t know if you were going to survive the day, the week, or not at all.
All you knew was it was going to hurt.
Bad.
You saw the wreckage you made —
Family on the edge.
People you swore you loved standing there, ready to walk away.
Not because they didn’t love you,
but because you shattered everything they tried to build with you.
You were scared.
You were weak.
You were a heartbeat away from giving up.
The panic owned your chest.
Every breath tasted like failure.
And deep down, part of you wanted to die.
Part of you thought it would be easier.
But you didn’t pick up the bottle.
You didn’t crawl back to the lie.
You stood up.
You stood up when there wasn’t a single reason to believe you could.
You stood up when every voice in your head told you to quit.
You stood up without knowing if you’d make it out alive.
And because you did —
because you fought through that hell —
I’m standing here now.
I’m clear.
I’m sober.
I’m building the life you thought you burned to the ground.
I owe everything to you.
To the broken, scared man
who decided to take one more swing instead of one more drink.
And to the few who stayed—
who watched me burn everything down and still didn’t leave—
thank you.
You held the line when I couldn’t even lift my head.
You are why there’s anything left to rebuild.
You are why the dreams aren’t dead.
I have fought the monsters inside my own skull.
And I’ve faced the worst truth —
I was the monster under my own bed.
I know exactly how dark it gets.
And I am not afraid of it anymore.
I’m here to accept everything good the universe has to offer.
I’m here to build, to climb, to roar.
I’ve earned my seat in the light.
And if you think you can drag me back into the dark,
you better bring an army.
Because I’m not coming quietly.
By Ken Cox