Struggles of Sobriety

Did it mean...I were alive?

Dec 16, 2025

Struggle of Sobriety is the nineteenth entry from the book, The Helpless Romantic, by Travis Salguero. This book is a collection of journal entries presented as poems that give you insight into the Author’s struggles with addiction, mental illness, and his journey overcoming them.

Struggles of Sobriety

The struggle.

The struggle of opening your eyes and hoping you could have the “energy” to get up, to do something, instead of lying dormant.

Still, the opposite happens. My body shakes and my heart quivers. Gathering myself time to reclaim my bearings, I hear a voice calling out to me:

“HYPOCRITE! GET OUT OF BED! GET MOVING! BREAK FREE! BREAK FREE OF YOUR CONFINES! OPEN UP YOUR MIND!

THESE TORTUROUS MEMORIES HAVE MADE YOU WEAK!”

But instead of rotting into my bed like I had planned to that day, I remembered the last time I held your hand. Nowhere else did I feel safe. There was nowhere safer being in your beautiful blue eyes of reassurance. How deep they went into your soul, and how much it drove the fire out of mine to extinguish the urges to poison my body any longer. I wanted to confess my need for help, but I was afraid that they would say I cried wolf. Why do I do this to myself?

Why did I fall madly in love with an intoxicant that is killing me on the inside? I am still so fucking tired. Exhausted beyond a point, watching the diminishing point vanish on the horizon. I could still catch it; I had time to. Scribbles in a notebook cut into quarters, holding in emotions like an episode of hoarders. Timing is key, timing is like diamonds. Let them gleam like they can never be blinding, open and shut case.

I am convicted of trying to soothe other souls while mine is slowly dying.

I want to be able to support anyone in their time of need like how I have always wanted to.

Seeing how those nights were fogged with shadows and darkness.

With no one by my side to be able to even soothe my most inner thoughts.

So, I tried to soothe them myself,

Damaged,

Marred,

I kept going because I thought that the pain was my only outlet.

Digging into my own flesh in the vast blackness that was my room.

It hurt,

Did it mean,

I was alive?