Originally Posted by Amputate Your Head

I had to lose everything. And I do mean everything. Once you are free of your "stuff", both physical and mental "stuff", you begin to re-evaluate every molecule of yourself. All your decisions, all your "values", all your priorities, the works.

This took years in my case. It didn't happen overnight. It took years to piss everything away, and it took years to go through my re-evaluation. Many times I suffered losses and thought I had lost it all.... I was wrong. The way you know when you've lost it all is when you are stuffing everything you have left into a disposable plastic shopping sack and there's room left over in there for the scraps of your remaining pride. When you are silently debating whether it's better to sleep in a bush or under an overpass. When you start contemplating how squirrel cooked over an open fire should be seasoned for taste. Suddenly, that $2 million dollar house you had doesn't seem so important anymore.

No books. No rehab. No support groups. No divine intervention from god. No 12 steps.
Just a realization that, it's time to stop fucking around and grow up. No one is going to "save" me from myself, but myself.

I've rebuilt myself since then, and partially my "stuff", (only the things I now deem important), but my priorities are different now. I don't care about the pool, jetski, servants, etc anymore. I don't give a fuck what people think of me. I found out exactly who was left standing beside me when I found the bottom: No one. And THAT.... changes you.