Alcoholism and the Fear of Death

My sobriety attempts led to existential dread.

Photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash

Even when I was all the way back in elementary school, I already had a very intense fear of death. The knowledge that one day I would cease to exist was absolutely terrifying.

As a kid, the existential dread drove me to frequent panic attacks. These attacks followed me into high school and college.

Then, when I was in college, I started to drink a lot. If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, you already know how that turned out: I became a daily drinking alcoholic for the next decade.