The Great Awakening

How does one awaken from the prison of a lifetime of deception. It’s not easy. Just like Neo in the 1999 film The Matrix, we live in a world that has been constructed. In the film, his world was a computer program, a world simulation, and he found out he was actually living is suspended animation, in a gel filled pod where the machines and ai that took over the world were harvesting the energy from humans like batteries.
Taking the Red Pill is the moment in our lives when we decide to learn the truth, no matter the consequences or pain that could come our way.
We often find that the truth actually sets us free. It’s a journey from curious, to horror, to searching, and finally arriving at mutual respect and understanding. 

Every person that has awakened themselves has come at it differently. There is no way to force a person’s eyes open… and I’ve tried. It’s only hurt my relationships.
I like to think of it like this… there is nothing you can do to get an alcoholic to stop drinking. You watch them drowned in misery. You know that deep down inside, they’re trying to fill a void and are trying to numb tremendous pain. The only way an alcoholic gets the inspiration and strength to choose sobriety has to be an event that shocks them to their core. They have to want to quit themselves. Period.
And I know this from experience. I have horrible sleep issues, and the only way I can regulate my sleep schedule is through drinking to the point of passing out… which became blacking out. I started harming relationships, and creating more pain than I realized. I got addicted to a freight train on full steam.
And then, one day the tracks came to a cliff and stopped. But the train was still going full steam. I knew I had to make a choice, and there were only two options. Stay on the booze train and literally die, or jump off and deal with the scrapes and bruises from uncontrollably landing on the ground.
I distinctly remember sitting on the wax paper on the table in a doctor’s office, feeling completely defeated. The despair, the depression. The cycle of having pain, so you drink, which creates more pain, so you drink more etc. I call this a positive feedback loop. That high pitch sound you hear at concerts is the perfect example. Sound from the speaker hits the microphone, which sends that sound back to the speaker exponentially, which then hits the microphone, and without correction, this continues until your system explodes. Others call this an Oodaloop. 

My son was three, and my daughter was a newborn when I knew I had to change. I tell my kids, now 13 and 10, that one thing I never said when I was drinking was, “Wow! I made some great decisions last night!” I never wanted my kids to see their father in a weakened state. I never wanted to get beer angry at them, screaming irrationally to the point of forever damage. 
Point is, I had enough living in that mindset. I wanted to change. Luckily for me, I have an amazing wife who stood by me when I was at my worst, through today when I feel I’m at my best. I’m forever grateful for her. She is love like I never knew existed. Now I know. 
Trying to wake people up is exactly like this. My wife could’ve threatened me with a number of things that would’ve destroyed me even further, and it wouldn’t have mattered. My drinking behavior wouldn’t have changed one bit. Making a change has to come from an epiphany. 
And if you don’t have that epiphany, you die. Both with alcohol, as well as living in the construct. You are in a confusing time, wrought with anguish. You have to decide to pull yourself out of The Matrix.