RX: Theory Of A Dead Man Saved My Life

In the start I would like to explain how music has made a colossal impact on my life from the time that I lost my best friend in an ugly battle with heroin. The stiffness of my soul seemed almost impossible to release. Losing him made the world stop dead in its tracks and as life went on without him, I too became a casualty.

Happiness was most fleeting and finding that treasurable escape was debilitating. Music has always been super special to me but once my dear friend was laid to rest music seemed to be my only refuge.

Shackled to this lifestyle that gradually weakens your soul you find beauty in your body deteriorating simply on account you not having to feel reality for a few hours. I remember being so angry at him for leaving this Earth. However, when I tasted my first drop of alcohol it was over.

The very first time I heard this song I was drunk out of my mind. The more I listened, the more uncomfortable I became at the harsh reality of what I was truly becoming. Most days I’d quietly hush the monster that lived inside my hollow chest. A microscopic piece of me knew I was becoming an alcoholic.

Each time the song danced along my ear drums I slowly began to realize I was worth so much more than to become some statistic. This song woke me up to the realities of my addiction. This song started my road recovery. It was then that I had realized why I had this subconscious hate for myself. I was an addict. Regardless of the fact that I had never injected anything into my veins it was almost as if liquor was worse. I was so different. I was so in pain.

Addiction was something I never wanted to be vocal about until I heard the undeniable truth in this song. It gave me the courage to challenge myself to find the lost woman I’d let go of all the times I’d slip into my drunken thoughts.

When he sings “can’t wait to feel better than I ever will” it spoke to me in so many ways. I existed for almost two years in this uncomfortable sense of comfort. Only feeling alive when my mind was altered. More things than one broke me and I turned to liquor as my beautiful escape. It was so freeing to go from an intense episode of depression to floating among the whisky clouds.

He knew my story in minutes and I had barely knew myself. It shocked me. Although Tyler Connelly sang this song as a reminder of the over-dependency of prescription drugs it’s still hit home in the sense that I had been medicating with something that was so easily attainable. I was drowning myself with alcohol. The truth that rang from his powerful voice had been mine and the truth so many others. I was sad and broken and bored. Medicating made the pain more fun. It was an escape I am proud I no longer yearn for.

As this song undulated through my at first defensive ears I saw my entire life. I was embarrassed. There wasn’t a day I recognized the girl that glared back at me in the mirror. It had been so long since I knew what it meant to love her.

This song saved me from becoming the monster I had already recognized I was slowly brewing. Sobriety grew me like an Orange Blossom in the Florida sun. I am peacefully broken and intensely whole.

Today as I stand I am no longer a victim. I am no longer controlled by my thirst for liquor. I am no longer a monster. You don’t have to spend the remainder of your life speeding through your altered thoughts. As taxing as it is to believe when the holes of addiction riddle your body, the greatest drug is you. It has always been you.