The Rise and Fall of Insulin

Do you know about Insulin?



It’s not just for diabetics. You make it.  When your blood sugar rises (by consuming sugar or other carbohydrates) your pancreas releases insulin to take all the excess blood sugar for storage in the liver or muscles.  If those areas are already full, it stores it as fat. 



If you aren’t exercising after each carbohydrate laden snack (which most of them are, including most beef jerky), your liver and muscles are most likely always full.  So everything you eat is going straight to fat storage.  



Constantly consuming carbohydrates for snacks and meals will keep your body pumping out insulin almost 24/7 leaving you no chance of ever calling on glucagon to release stored body fat.  Glucagon is insulins counter hormone.  When you are in a fasting period or blood sugar falls, glucagon is released to convert that stored glycogen into blood glucose.  Even if your glycogen stores are empty, your body can convert ingested proteins into glucose or convert stored body fat into glucose.  



Our bodies are pretty amazing if we’d just let them do their thing.  



However, most people, when their blood sugar drops they don’t allow their body to do it’s own thing.  They eat more carbohydrate rich food.  This pattern, repeated over years causes the bodies fat burning ability to shut down.  It leads to a dependence on carbohydrates and eventually insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and many other health issues.     



It still astonishes me that whole grains and other forms of grain based carbohydrates are still recommended to people suffering with type 2 diabetes.  While you can still control your blood sugar, they simply are not beneficial to consume.


Even if you exercise.  Continued filling and depleting of glycogen stores, while it may keep you from storing body fat, may still lead to insulin resistance.  



The good news is that you can break this pattern.  Though your body will push back a little bit.  Imagine if you’ve been sitting for years and tried to stand up and walk again.  You’ll be able to, but it’ll take some warming up.  

How do you engage your bodies ability to burn fat?  You take away the quick burning fuel.  Carbohydrates.  

Fat is our bodies preferred fuel source.  



Take control of your health.  75% of the foods in the grocery store are NOT fit for proper human health.  You deserve better.  

If you can (and you can) control your insulin levels, you can control your health.

Frisbees and Fisticuffs

This blog has nothing to do with frisbees.  But I'll see if I can incorporate some kind of comparison.

To preface, this is going to be a more vulnerable blog.  Some people might freak out.  Others will relate.  I think more people would relate than not.  But I'm going to put myself out there.

I remember the first time I broke a wall.  I was mad and stormed down to the basement.  On the way down I smacked the wall/ceiling in front of me and put a big hole in it.  I wasn't mad anymore.  I was scared.  My dad was gonna be pissed.

I'll never forget his response.  It wasn't anger.  Instead he took some fault for my behaviors.  I didn't get in trouble.  Instead he fixed it and we remembered that moment.  I still haven't forgotten it.

because, puppies. 

It was only a few years after that, that I was on the phone with a girlfriend and we had an argument.  I punch a wall in our basement.  I didn't realized that behind the paneling was concrete and I broke my hand.  I wasn't mad after I hit it.

Over the next several years when I would get angry I would hit something.  I wasn't sure why I would get such rage.  I was never mad at people.  Never in my life have I ever been so mad at someone I wanted to inflict a violent act on them.

I've punched walls, doors, personal belongings, my truck, and I've even thrown things like my truck door, vacuums, iPads, iPhones, or remote controls.  I tried punching bags but they rarely worked.  Something had to break.   

What would usually happen afterwards is that I wouldn't be angry anymore.  But anyone around me was scared.  Not only for themselves, but also for me.  It didn't matter how much I said my anger is not towards a person.

I never really learned how to deal with anger properly.  But I did self learn that if I hit something I would feel better.  I knew it wasn't good.  There were other negative consequences to this (scaring others), but it worked.  As much as I've tried to stop this pattern, it always comes back.

Here's the pattern.  Something would trigger me and I'd get angry.  When it wouldn't stop or I couldn't come down, I'd punch something like a door or throw something.  Though, I learned that throwing something didn't work as well as punching something.  Then I would clean up the mess and a sense of guilt and shame would happen.  I know it wasn't good behavior, but it was helping me out of a mess.  And even to this day I feel like when people look at me all they see is a loose cannon with a bad temper that will automatically punch things when he gets angry or stressed.

But that's a lie that I need to stop telling myself.  Well, I guess not since now you all know whether you did before or not.

But it scared my wife.  And I know my kids have seen this behavior, though I tried to hide it from them.  I want this pattern to stop.  To my defense, it has been far less frequent as of the past year or two.

But why?  Why did that work?  What was causing me to do that?  Am I the only one?

I found out why it worked two days ago and it was revolutionary for me.  Have you ever been hiking and see a snake in the middle of the trail?  Or perhaps another frightening event.  Usually when I see a snake I'm already ten feet up a tree when my conscious self even realizes I see a snake.  Adrenaline surges through my body and it usually takes the parasympathetic system a second to figure out what the threat is.  It's your bodies defense/survival mechanism.  Act first, ask questions later.

A similar thing happens when you experience pain.  Your brain focus shifts to the physical pain.  What I believe my brain was doing, was self preservation.  I had learned that physical pain shuts down emotional pain without even realizing I was doing it.  It wasn't that something had to break.  It was that when I would punch a door, it would hurt!  My attention was automatically shifted to my physical pain rather than whatever emotional pain was happening.  And once the physical pain had subsided, a new emotion crept in.  Shame.

But good news!  I wasn't angry anymore.  And now I know what the mechanism that is involved is.  All I need to do so engage my physical senses when I start to get angry.  Think about my hands.  Maybe how warm I am.  Focus on my breath for a minute.  ANYTHING except the emotional brain.

Perhaps this is why exercise often helps when someones mood is low.  The physical work takes over the emotional brain space.

Anyway.  I just thought I'd share this helpful tidbit of knowledge.

Someone piss me off.  I want to try this theory out and think about my physical self when I start to get angry.

Actually don't. I'd rather let that happen on it's own.

Oh yeah, frisbees.  If you don't do it right from the beginning, the path will be askew.   Learn good patterns and behaviors early, so that you will be on the straight and narrow later in life.

The Waiting

It was quiet on the way to new Jacobs Medical Center in La Jolla, California.  The anticipation for this day had been building for months.

Last June, in 2017, they found it.  A 21mm tumor on the vestibulocochlear nerve.  The brains 8th cranial nerve.  6 months later another MRI showed a faster than normal growth, about 23-24mm.  

So there we were, in the pre-op room of one of the finest places on the planet to have an Acoustic Neuroma removed.  My wife is an all star at this stuff.  I'm just the support cast.  Bag carrier, company keeper, and mood lifter.

But then I had to leave.

I'll never forget the emotion that hit me when walking out into the waiting room.  I started getting teary eyed.  Some mad, some helpless, some confused.  I hadn't realized the amount of stress and work it was over the past few months preparing for this moment.  And I'm not even the one with the tumor.

I was getting overwhelmed by all the "thoughts and prayers".  But not in the way some do.  They were making me mad.  If all these thoughts and prayers worked for a successful surgery and speedy recovery, why didn't those same prayers work to have the tumor disappear?  Or didn't anyone pray for that?

Then I remembered Tyson Motsenbockers song.  In Your Name.  And it spoke to me.  You can listen to it here.  But that is all my own personal journey with understanding that stuff.

The donations on the other hand.  They were a total stress relief.  So thank you.

The first ten minutes felt like eternity.  Would my wife be ok?  Would the surgery go well? What if it doesn't?  What if she dies?  What if she's paralyzed? What if.....

Having Emily's youngest sister there helped keep me from wandering to far into the sometimes dark caverns of my mind.

Then at about 4 hours in an attendant came walking towards me with a blank look on their face. But they walked right passed me and knelt down to talk to the family sitting next to me.  I couldn't hear the conversation.  I didn't need to.  Watching the emotion come from the young lady right next to me told enough of the story.  She broke down into tears, fell into the arms of who could have been her mother, and sobbed.  Even today, it's hard to recall that memory without being overcome with emotion for this family.

I don't know what was said.  It was not my place to ask.  But it shook me that at any moment, any person waiting in this area for their loved one in the ICU could get a similar message.

We were told about 2 hours in that things were going well.  And then again at 3.5 hours we heard from the surgeon who performed phase one of the procedure.  He was in a hurry but told us all was well and it should be another 3 hours.

4 hours went by.  Nothing.  Not a word.  Then the first doctor came out into the waiting room and I overheard a conversation with another family.  He informed them the surgery is going well but he had an emergency to tend to.  Then he walked right past me, making eye contact, with no acknowledgement one way or the other.

It's one of those moments you hear about but never experience.  The unknown.  I wasn't supposed to hear that.  Yet, there was nothing I could do but take that walk to those caverns.

How would I tell everyone?  There are so many people following along with her journey.  Do I not give two shits about anyone else and just say it..."Emily died".  If I'm hurting that bad in that moment, why should I have to worry about what other people felt too?

Would I tell anyone? How do we word it so those that are 2300 miles away won't worry or panic?

But...thankfully, it was not about Emily.  And even if it were, I'm sure I would have figured it out.  Moments like that are also easier with another person present.  Though Sarah is closer to Emily in many ways I'll never be.

 She's fine.  She's began her recovery this morning.  Things won't be easy for a few days, but will get dramatically better day.

Thank you all for your care and your support, and your understanding. And even if I don't always understand it, the thoughts and prayers too.  Many people donated to us through our YOUCARING PAGE. Thank you.  It means the world.  When I created that page I wasn't sure what to ask for a "goal", but let's just say I way underestimated costs and am incredibly grateful for your continued support.

Other than losing total hearing in her right side, Emily should be able to live a full and productive life just as she was before the surgery.

Out with the New.

Let me start by saying this is off the cuff, totally 100% my opinion and thoughts, and where I'm at right now.  It's my observations.  It's my gut feeling.  I may be completely wrong.  Or maybe only a little wrong.  But I may be right.  Or at least some right.  And that is potentially terrifying.

I repeat, this is only a thought experiment, so don't rip me apart or get to upset.  Everyone has a story.  This is just the story that's been playing in my mind lately.

This is like...history for dummies.  I like to keep it simple.  And picture this more like a story.  Like fiction with the possibly of being accurate.

Maybe a tl,dr

Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. 

Adam and Eve

If you believe the earth is only 6000 years old and that God created Adam and Eve, this may rock your world and you may not believe anything I say.  If you think God knew the future and knew what we'd get ourselves into and created our brains to handle it, I will disagree wholeheartedly.  I'm sure believing that helps you feel better, it did me at one point in my life.  So I get it.  Really.

Yeah.  I'll start there.  To the best of my knowledge, most major religions started within the past 10,000 years.  Why?  I have a theory.  The Agricultural Revolution happened around 10,000 years ago and I believe it was one of the best worst things that happened to the human race.   Once man learned how to plant and grow his own food, the selection pressure of starvation got smaller and smaller.

Hierarchy of Needs

Assuming he is correct, let's take a look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  It's a theory of human motivation.  The primary driver for humans is the physiological need.  Survival.  Food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep, and sexual instinct.  Yes...humans have a sexual instinct.  It's in our very nature to reproduce.  In fact, that's what our ancestors of yesteryear were born to do.  We didn't always live in houses and have grocery stores.  We weren't always a civilized people. I grew up going to a christian church and I was given the impression that Adam and Eve were the first humans and within a few hundred years there were villages and cities.   There wasn't a lot of human history taught.  In reality, the world is a whole lot older than that and humans hunted and gathered for food.  Staying alive was incredibly hard to do!  Predators, food supply, and climate (yes, even back then but not how it is today) were incredibly brutal to our primal ancestors.  If you were able to stay alive and reproduce, those good genes would continue.

Back to the agricultural revolution.  Humans have been around for several hundred thousand years.  They didn't have methods to plant and grow their own food on a large scale.  They survived primarily in the physiological stage of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.  And quite honestly, I believe they may have been happy there.  They didn't know any better.  This was life.  That's all they knew.  We, as 21st century humans,  can't even begin to imagine it.  All our physiological needs  have been given to us since the day we were born.  Well, most of us.  I'm speaking largely to the civilized world and being very general.

What happened once we could plant and grow our own food?  We didn't have to hunt or gather as much so we could spend a little more time securing shelter (onto level 2 on the pyramid), sleeping, playing, and making babies.  Not so bad!  Sounds like fun!  We began to practice more personal security, like having a place of our own.  Perhaps a trading (financial) system was set up.

Ultimately over the next couple thousand years, we crept up the pyramid of needs finding love and belonging.  Having families, rather than communities, and began raising our own.  Friendships and other relationships began.  Towns and cities started to develop.  No longer did you have to keep searching for food, you could grow your own!

Up the pyramid you go and no longer was everyone working as a group, we were now working as individuals.  Which means feelings of self worth and comparison to others came into the picture.  And eventually we began to wonder what our place in this world really was.

Religion

Enter religion.  Mans search for meaning.  For purpose.  We had time to think about things beyond our comprehension.  Why did some days it rain?  Why is it cloudy some days?  Where does the heat go?  What is a day?  What are these feelings?  How does life work?   Why did she ignore my advances? How much screen time should my kids have?  Just kidding about that last one, we'll get there though. Man needed an explanation for the unknown.  He needed answers for the questions that plagued his soul.  Religion, belief in a higher power, belief that something bigger than us is at play can be very peaceful.  It removes us from worrying about it.  It has it's benefits.  I can understand the need for something like this.

It wasn't just one religion, either.  

So what do they all have in common? They all focus on community, group think.  They all have a "do unto others/golden rule" message.  Better to give than to receive.  Peacemaking. Reaping what you sow. Do no harm. Forgiveness. Don't anger.  And so many others.  These are basic "life guidelines".

But what happens when you can't unsee the fact that it's all made up.  What happens when you believe Jesus was a revolutionary person that changed the world, but there was no miracles, no resurrection, and no afterlife.

Pre agricultural revolution we lived in harmony with the world.  Post agricultural revolution we decided to do things our way.  To explain the world and find a reason for how it all works.  We thought it was good.  But was it?

Today

Fast forward to the 21st century.  Our world is a whole lot older than 2000 years.  Older than 6000.  It's millions of years old.  We are but a fragment.  Dust.  Not even a spec.  But our impact now is far greater than we ever could imagine.  We became Gods.  We began doing things as we see fit.

Wars began. Territories were fought over.  Violence ensued.  Governments and political powers came to be.

But I'm not going there.  This time period, despite what we hear, is one of the safest and least violent time periods ever.  But just because we are less violent doesn't mean damage isn't being done.

I don't know any easy way to transition to where I want to go. So I'll just do it.  Try to follow.

Chickens

I live in south-central Pennsylvania.  We have winter here.  Often times it gets cold, really cold.  We had an almost three week stretch where the weather was at or near zero degrees Fahrenheit.  Last summer we thought it would be a good idea to get chickens.  So we did!  The summer and fall were great!  But I knew winter was coming.  And on those cold days I began to worry about those little peckers.  But then I thought, "they're animals, they are supposed to live outside!"  But I had them shipped here.  They aren't local to Pa.  How could I expect them to survive the elements if they were never supposed to?  I couldn't.  I had to get my chickens extra warmth to prevent frostbite and keep them alive.

What's the point?  When we have food accessible to us 24/7, transportation available, and shelter easily made we can travel and live places we were never "designed" to live at.  Just like my chickens.  I put them here.  And in doing those things we are turning on and off certain genes in our body.

Shoes

Lets use another easy example.  Shoes.  Our bodies are perfectly designed to function without cushion and arch support.  The way the foot works with the ankle and leg is amazing.  When we start adding cushion and support we take away from what the foot and leg was created to do.  Those muscles become weaker and weaker and eventually lead to a host of health issues.  And that's just from wearing shoes.  Entire professions are based around the health of the foot.  But you'll maybe fine one in one hundred that suggest less or no shoe being the answer.  Why?

Are shoes useless?  Nope.  We use them for all sorts of things, but mainly they should be used as tools when absolutely necessary.  And those instances should be rare.  Because in the event you realize you may need shoes, you have to ask yourself is the thing you need shoes for even a thing we need to be doing?

Cars

I could say horses.  I could say anything other than your own two feet.  But once we began utilizing something other than our two feet for transportation, we began venturing into something unnatural.  Or maybe just undiscovered.  Now, with planes and even virtual communication.  Distance doesn't hold us back anymore.  It's not a bad thing, or is it?  We really don't know the long term effects of having these advantages.  They may turn out to be a huge disadvantage for human history.

Milk 

We don't need milk. We are the only species on the planet that drinks milk from another species.  You don't see any other animals regularly going around to lactating mothers and having a drink.  But we do?  Why? It began around the start of farming communities.  AKA, the agricultural revolution.  We were never supposed to drink milk.  We do not need it, but were led to believe it "does a body good".  It does.  When it's from your own species and you are an infant.  Not when you are 28 and eating it on your fruity pebbles.

But what economic impact would it have on millions of people if we did away with milk?  It would be horrible for so many.  So we accept milk and the risks that come with it.

The Brain Drain

That's my next theory.  How does all this advancing effect our brains?   Are depression, anxiety, and many other mental illnesses a byproduct of living in the 21st century?  Our brains, hormones and other bodily functions have NO IDEA how to deal with the stuff of todays age that we throw at it.

Just think about the stresses of modern day parenting.  All of that brain activity to just be a parent that wasn't required throughout almost all of human history us hard!  And there almost seems to be a message that if you can't handle it, you must have a problem.

And parenting is just one of many stressors!  Marriage, work, relationships, and so many others pile on. If you start to get anxious or depressed, you are told you have a chemical imbalance and need to take this drug to fix it.  While that may be true.  You may very well have a chemical imbalance.  But it's not cause you are broken.  It's likely happened when we are faced with the daunting task of trying to live in the 21st century.  So give yourself some slack.

Don't get me wrong,  I'm not saying these aren't real problems.  They are!  I've dealt and continue to deal with my own mental battles.  But knowing that my brain was never designed to handle this world has made the process much easier.  It takes the pressure and expectation off of myself.  This is not the world our brains have evolved to live in.

I'm also not saying that parenting causes this.  Not at all!  Although, my symptoms got incredibly worse once becoming a parent.  Being a parent can be an incredibly joyous experience! But the stresses of modern day parenting wreak havoc on our emotions and our brain chemistry!

Facebook Brain

This should need little explanation.  We have no idea the long term implications of the information age.  While you could argue it's nice to know what's going on around the world, we don't need to know.  It's not in our genetic makeup to know what's going on around the world.  And any reason we should need to know what's going on, is a byproduct of something else we probably shouldn't be doing.  

I like to view our brains like I view a computer.  We have long term memory and short term working memory.  You know, the memory that is needed to run several programs at once.  Call it operating capacity if you wish.  

In todays world our brains are expected to function at a maxed out operating capacity.  So many of our senses our firing at one time.  Emotions from all things are flooding in by the minute.  Information is being fed to us from every angle.  Have you ever been trying to catch up on facebook, thinking about that day at work, thinking about your friend with cancer, about what you will make for dinner, the house that needs cleaned, about how you are going to pick up the car from the garage AND pick up the kids from soccer practice, hoping the baby will sleep for at least 10 more minutes, and......the list goes on.  God forbid if another child or something else starts asking you for ONE more thing during this period or you will lose your shit.

Being connected has some necessary benefits, but it comes at a cost.

The Grain Drain 

Another example, everything that is man made that we eat changes the chemical/hormonal balance of our bodies.  We can't keep eating fake, processed food and expect our bodies and brains to be perfectly fine.  And we can't even wait to adapt to it.  Why?  Because big pharma comes up with a drug that you can take to "correct" what ails you.  Type 2 diabetes got you down?  Here, have some insulin.

Type 2 diabetes is caused by a diet that is out of balance with you.  You can prevent it, treat it, and manage it by diet alone.  Type 2 diabetes is also a man made disease.  But don't worry, you don't have to change your lifestyle, you can have this drug.

Why do I bring up Type 2 diabetes?  Because by 2040 it will be the biggest threat to America if people don't clean up their diet.  The total cost of diabetes is 322 BILLION dollars and on the rise.  Follow the money on that one.  If you have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes there is hope beyond medication!  I strongly encourage you to look into it!

Exercise 

If you want to dive a little deeper into this idea.  Could you imagine our primal ancestors all running a 5k before they started eating their fresh kill?  Not a chance!  And it's not because they didn't have enough food that they were skinny.  It's because what they ate was natural to the body's condition.  The fitness AND food industry are making BILLIONS off the idea that you need to exercise to burn off those extra calories.  NEWSFLASH!!!!  It doesn't work that way.  Weight loss and gain starts in the kitchen.  Period.  

Financial Impact

So much of our world today is comprised of things that we were led to believe we need but are absolutely unnatural to the human existence.  And we need to be careful!  Or at least be aware. And I'm worried.

I'm worried because we have trillions of dollars tied up in things that we don't need and may even be harmful to us.  People have built there livelihoods and incomes based on lies.  And I'm not accusing them.  They could have been largely ignorant.

I'm worried for the future of humanity.

Point Being

Almost everything today is unnatural to us.  We haven't had time to evolve and adapt.  And unfortunately we'll never be able to.  Every time we encounter an error or hardship, we invent something to fix it.  But we don't really fix the problem, we just figure out a way to live with the problem.  In fact, we may even be creating more problems for ourselves with each problem we fix!

And most of us don't even realize we are doing it.

Advancement comes at a cost.  But we don't know we are being charged.  And when we finally do get the bill, I'm not certain we are going to be able to pay for it.

Have I gone completely off my rocker?  Well, a rocker is a man made invention.  I was never supposed to be on the rocker in the first place.  So if I fell off, it was my fault for even getting on the rocker.

Jon.  You are crazy.  What the hell are you even talking about?

Nothing today existed 100,000 years ago.  Nothing today existed 50,000 years ago.  Hell, hardly anything that exists today even did 100 years ago.  How do we expect to be able to process all this change so fast?  Can we even handle it?

Long Story Short

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.  I don't know that I have many solutions.  Other than for us to take a good hard look at what we are doing right now and how that will impact the future.  We are guinea pigs.  We've never done this in the history of the world (that we know of).  

Be careful.  Just because it's available to use doesn't mean it's safe nor should be done.

At the end of all this, advancement is good, right?  Is it?  What are we advancing for?  Will we eventually out advance ourselves? A.I. anyone? Will we out advance the earth? Next thing you know they'll be trying to find ways for us to live on the moon!

What are we doing?  We are moving forward with no goal.  No end.  No nothing but doing whatever we think feels good in the moment.  

This blog was also brought to you unnaturally and no human was ever supposed to read it. 

My friend, a gentle soul with a heart of gold, Pete.

A couple years ago I worked part time for an at-risk youth organization. We met with youth in their late teens and early twenties who had or were about to age out of the system and needed help finding a job, getting into school, and basic life guidance. Issues ranged from having addiction problems or had come from an otherwise dysfunctional family or difficult environment. It was both gratifying and heartbreaking.  It was and still is a tremendous organization and those that founded it have a tremendous passion for helping young men. I admire them greatly.

There was a man named Pete that volunteered countless hours to the group. He was older, and in his 60's. He had overcome his own addiction problems and had a heart for these young men. He knew how to help people get clean and he knew an addict when he saw one.  He gave his all to these young men, and to me.

As much as Pete would do for this group, he made me uneasy. We butted heads quite a bit. He hit all my triggers. He was intense, yet had a heart of gold. He brought up things that made me incredibly emotional. I was uncomfortable around Pete. Pete would often make some of our students, and myself angry. He would often make them cry and push them to the brink of their emotions. I was mad at Pete for doing this. 

Pete didn't have much patience for me when I got that way. These situations were heated and I can’t say I ever enjoyed them. 

Helping those in difficult situations isn’t always enjoyable.

Pete would often ask if he could come watch me work.  He said I was good and he enjoyed watching people that were good at what they do. Naturally I didn't think I was that good. All I did was take pallets apart and make all things with them like tables and chairs. I never invited Pete to do that. Nor did I find time getting together with Pete over the past few years.

Pete scared the shit out of me.

 I just wanted Pete to be my friend.  I didn’t want him to say things that would cause us to argue or me to get mad.  I wanted to have a normal relationship. 

It wasn’t until about a week ago that I realized that’s what Pete wanted to. But he had something else in store for me first.

Truth is, I wasn't ever really scared of Pete.  I was scared of what Pete brought out me.  Pete was trying to help me not be afraid anymore.

Pete saw me for what I was. An adult child of an alcoholic that had a whole laundry list of mental, emotional and social drawbacks. I wasn't aware of the majority of them at the time, but Pete was. And he saw me, a young man desperately in need of guidance.

You could say Pete wasn't the greatest at helping bring about that change in a "soft" way. He didn't mess around. But he wanted to help. And he could, if you'd let him. I never let him.

Looking back I recognize all the chances he gave me. I see all the ways I got in the way of how he was trying to help those in our program. I see all the ways I got in the way of him trying to help me.
I needed that program as much as they needed me. Scratch that, those guys didn't need me. They needed Pete. I was just there to drive and tell jokes.  

I regret the times I got in the way of what Pete was trying to do.

I’m not exactly sure what made me revisit all these feelings a week ago.  I’m not sure what made me look for characteristic traits of an Adult child of an Alcoholic. Sunday, January 7th 2018, is the day that it became undeniably clear to me what Pete’s role in my life was for.  An apology was due for me not understanding at the time and I was hoping he could help me with the difficulties I would experience moving forward.

Monday morning, January 8th, Pete passed away. I’ll never get a chance to tell him. 

Pete was a hero.  Pete is a hero.  Words will not be able to express how much he will be missed by so many.  

I love you, Pete.  Rest easy my friend. You’re still helping me.