Title: Loneliness Before the Bottle

Not the kind where you're physically alone — but the kind where you feel disconnected even in a room full of people.

Alcohol creates the illusion of companionship. The drink in your hand feels like friendship — until it wears off and leaves you hollow. I drank to stay lonely. And in that loneliness, I mistook it for comfort.

This episode is about what came before the bottle. The ache I couldn't name. And how loneliness doesn't always look like sadness — sometimes it looks like independence.

🎧 3 minutes. That's today's sticky note.

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I didn’t realize I was dying. I thought I was just sick... just hungover... just going through something I could handle. This moment marks the point when everything fell apart — when I was caught between a hospital bed and denial, unaware that I had been given only days to live. This isn’t a story about strength. It’s about what happens just before you’re forced to face the truth.

The only real judgment that exists is the one we place on ourselves.

I wrote this down the morning we left for Portugal. My anxiety about flying had been building for a week. And on top of it, I was tangled up in worry about our little rescue dog, Frankie — how would she handle a flight from Canada to Portugal?

The mind can't drain the anxiety swamp once it starts filling it. You drown in "what ifs" that have nothing to do with reality.

But then we landed. Safe. Sound. Uneventful. All the stories I'd written in my head dissolved the moment reality showed up.

This episode is about what it's like to live inside the wait, the worry — and what happens when the present moment wins.

🎧 3 minutes. That's today's sticky note.

📱 Follow me:

• TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@gerardbradbury.author

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrippingOverMyself.GB/

• Website: trippingovermyself.com

• My books are available on Amazon worldwide.