#RecoveryJourney: YEAR ONE

I’d like to preface this by saying that I have NEVER lied about the love I have in my heart for the people in that life who have made me the person I am. Every laugh, every tear drop, hug, kiss, smile, every single inside joke, or heartfelt text/call. Every single personal connection I have ever made with any one of you who might take the time to read this, those connections we truthful and genuine... I just wanted to make that clear before moving forward. The lies I lived within the masks I’ve worn were not about my connections with every single human I’ve ever met, those connections, in ALL truth, might very well be the only things that have kept me above ground.

For the first time in my life I’m having a hard time writing or talking about something...

... I’ve spent my entire life, especially Over the last 10-12 years, and for the majority of the last 3 years, selling and spinning a lie. Ive spun a false narrative & sold a Bill of Goods to every person I’ve ever met in the hope that if I spun enough plates, if I smiled hard enough, made people laugh, or think, or care, that I could hide the person behind the curtain, my true self.

The truth is, only a very small group of people, my family and my “family,” have gotten glimpses into my truth, the person behind the mask... The real me.

I’ve crafted and worn a series of masks to cover up a person full of fear and self doubt. A person with serious depression, anxiety, and PTSD as a result of too many minute mental “paper cuts” to mention. A person who ran as far as he could from the truth for as fast as I could until I fell off a cliff.

But as of today, I’m ready to be honest and open about the person behind those masks. I’m ready to take my next step on a journey that began on deaths door step in 2019 and has brought me to this precipice...

It’s time to jump of a cliff:

My name is Daniel John O’Mara, I am an ALCOHOLIC, and I am currently ONE YEAR into my recovery journey!

My mission is to be transparent and to try and help people while also trying to change the stigma and pre conceived societal constructs of both alcoholics & fat people.

Both tend to be thought of as lazy, unthinking, weak willed individuals, who take from the world instead of contributing it.

That is 100% not my vibe!

I am an “ALPHAHOLIC”

(Copyright, me by me in this moment in time lol.)

My entire life I have been on some type of grind, some hustle to make money and more importantly to make people like me. I always thought that if I could just make someone smile or laugh or cry... if I could evoke something inside someone, that I would never be forgotten in then crowd, I wanted to stand out every single moment of my entire life, most call it being a “born entertainer,” but it was less about entertainment and more about affirmation. If people liked me, I would subconsciously calculate in my mind, then there must be a reason TO like me and a way TO like me and therefore I SHOULD ALSO LIKE ME.

But unfortunately, that never actually turned out the way I had hoped and so that hole that was left from the all the self hate, self abuse, and mental anguish from years and years of self loathing I had for myself.

“I’m TOO loud”

“I’m TOO fat”

“I love TOO much”

I was never good enough, for me.

So I threw myself head first into everything to fill that hole. I attached my self worth and personality to the things I knew worked best to make others like me...

It’s easy to hide yourself inside of a lie until that lie becomes the reality in which you contextualize your life.

That reality, that mask, became me...

I was underwater and my addictions stated to take hold then, in my formative years, I didn’t know that then... All I knew was alcohol made people like me and when I used it, it made me hate myself... less?

Only now, as I continue to look back and do an archeological deep dive on my life before recovery it becomes clearer and clearer to me that my addiction and issues began a long, long time ago.

But that’s a story for next time!

Be well, love yourself, and love #fathandsome!

Daniel John O’Mara (HE/HIM)

Writer, Creator, Raconteur,

BPA (Body Positivity Advocate,) Snake Oil Salesmen. One year in #Recovery

Director of Brand Creation and Social Media Strategies, Fake Empire Consulting Group

#LIVEFATHANDSOME