How Learning To Code Saved My Life, After Being Stabbed 7 Times

Weeks before my 27th birthday, I was stabbed at a night club in Washington DC, 7 times. The worst of the wounds being on my left elbow, likely as the attempted murderer tried to anchor himself as I fought him off with a push down the stairs. 

The cut missed the main artery limiting what would have been a faucet of blood pouring from my body preventing the functioning of my young, healthy heart.

It wasn't but 8 years earlier the catalyst to that night was off limits to me. That catalyst was alcohol, the drug a fun night life prefers.  

Ignorance is bliss

In my youth I was a church boy, I tried a variety of faiths from being a Mormon, to later a Jehovah's witness. While I was an avid reader of holy books, the truth is I join those faiths for the pretty girls who where in those faiths. The mormon church had a hot, tall, red head I was eager to see every sunday. I attended the youth study's because she was there, I attended Wednesday church events because she was there. I joined the church basketball team, why.. because she cheered for me. Then I found out Mormon's didn't let blacks join the church back in the day and she had a boyfriend. While I was genuinely confused at the discrimination in a church, the hurt of seeing her with her boyfriend was reason enough not to go anymore.

Then came a knock on the door, I peaked through the peep hole to see a tall light skinned full lipped black girl, who went to my school. She was HOT! with amazingly perked breasts. As kids, the boys on the school bus were ready and focused when the school bus approached her bus stop. No matter what she wore, she couldn't press down the breasts we all dreamed about. To my surprise she was knocking on my door. 

Quickly I opened, then realized the con of a tall slender gentlemen who stood to the side away from the peep whole. I was presented with a flyer and asked if I wanted to learn more. "Sure" I invited them in, I could careless what they talked about, I was just happy to sneak a glance when I could at her pretty face, tempting lips and oh yes... those perky breasts.

After a couple of weeks of in home meetings, I learned how the Jehovah's witnesses started from a guy who predicted the end of the world a few times and realized she had to be crazy to believe that.

That didn't end my religious stint, I was a saint as far as others could see. I didn't cuss, didn't smoke and didn't drink.

Heartbreak is a great reason to drink

I guess when you believe in talking snakes (no offense to readers of this article), you can believe anything.  I can imagine naiveté is the side effect of the religious doctrine. It's easier to believe a lovers tale and heck even a strangers preposition requires consideration, due to the possible guilt that would come from not helping a stranger as the good books advise.

At age 20 I believed my then girlfriend that she would wait, while I ventured out to California to chase my screenplay writing dreams. We were madly in love, we both believed in the religious doctrines... so much so we prayed together for forgiveness after giving in to the temptations of our desires. 

She felt so guilty, I would have died on the cross myself for her if thats what it took for her to feel guilt-less. But our human-ness couldn't resist and prayer became the oft cleansing, a begging for forgiveness at our weakness to resist our own proof that we love each other.

"What if I told you I cheated on you?" she asked? my ear heard what she said, but my heart could un-mix whatever chemicals create the combustion of hurt. My mind couldn't believe it... "she's a whore it screamed out loud... she promised!" more chemicals poured on the flames of hurt, It's a mix that makes sanity unconscious. Moments later came the explosion of betrayal... sleep was impossible.

My pillow was soaked in tears and my reality settled on the realization of loneliness in a cheap motel. All I had now where the white walls and awful smell of paint. I had to get out...

I went outside to a barbershop across the motel where a young man had a recording studio in the back. I banged on the door hoping he was there and YES.. company.

"I just found out my girlfriend cheated on me" I exclaimed, "I'll take you up on that drink offer". He was surprised and let me in. Days earlier he'd offered me a drink while I explored his recording set up. "I don't drink" I said.

Now... today... right now, I need a drink. I didn't know what to expect, didn't know what the feeling of being drunk was like or how to drink. 

As a man, he understood... he walked me to the back and poured me a drink.. I don't remember what brand it was, but it was dark liquor... Like a good friend, he handed me the medicine I needed to temporarily un-mix the chemicals a-flame in my body. 

Thus began my stray away from naiveté, bitch was now my favorite word. I cussed like a prostitute mad her beauty no longer demanded top dollar. 

As I grew older I became a connoisseur of good liquor. My young 20's where employed from restaurant to restaurant. I waited tables, tended bars, took shots with the best of them and stayed close to a good selection of alcohol. 

Then I became a professional drinker after getting a job as a high pressure mortgage sales professional. It wasn't just alcohol it was now weed and cocaine. How far I'd strayed from the good books.. fuck it...

Never again did I experience such heartbreak, I was in control and I knew the possibilities that came with love. I broke hearts and hearts broke me. It was a part of the game. Then came a new rush.. fighting.

I'd get drunk and get in fights sometimes my drunken confidence won my fights for me before there was a fight. I didn't give a fuck, I was 26, driving a Lexus getting $8,000+ monthly checks. How far I'd strayed from my humble west african beginnings.

"I need some water"... the bouncer looked at me like ... so... and

"I've just been stabbed I need some fucking water"... the bouncer looked down at my torso and saw blood, he rushed into the club and came back out with water. I loosened my tie, then took off my jacket.. as the left sleeve flung down a bucket of blood poured from it...

"Oh SHIT"! a voice yelled out... "take off his tie and tie it around his arm" and another voice said

I was still in my suit and tie from work... "call an ambulance" another voice yelled out.

I was calm, maybe it was the adrenaline still activating my body from the fight.. surprisingly fast an ambulance pulled up and I was walked over to it...

"One, two, three, four, wow, five, six.. holy shit seven.." the paramedic counted. The liquor was still in me.. "this what they do when they can't beat you hem"... I exclaimed..

"hold still" the paramedic said... 

"i'm about to pass out.." are the last words I can remember saying... 

"Don't you die on me" I heard with an echo.. the only memory I have of the ambulance ride is that of the paramedic's voice, my eyes came too a dizzy gaze at the bright lights on the ambulance ceiling. My head swayed helplessly from the speedy ride. I gazed to blackness and jolted awake back at the rough transfer from the carrying bed to the operating bed, then gazed back into blackness, then jolted awake again at the bended of my arm as the doctor tried to stitch the deep elbow wound shut.

"It didn't get the main artery" I could hear. "Loosen your arm, I'm trying to help you" I could hear the doctor say. 27 stitches later the wound was shut, along with the other small punctures in my torso. I was alive.. that guy tried to gut me like a pro, punctures by the kidney, 3 by the heart, two on the belly. He knew what he was doing, He knew how to kill.

Depressed for a few weeks, I drank more.. I felt my heart burn a deep stinging burn... no belch could cure it.. it wasn't a gasy heart burn. My thin blood didn't want alcohol, but this is how I know how to handle heart break. Even if it was me, who broke my own heart.

When the mortgage market crashed, I lost everything. After leading the branch in loans closed and taking on the braggadocio, winner persona I had too much ego to be a small fry employee. I was unemployable, I couldn't keep a job, I definitely couldn't be 100% sober. I wasn't Barney Gumble drunk, but alcohol was a daily treat.. I didn't fight as much, but I still fought if drunk enough.

Then I made the decision to learn to code, when the money dried up and I couldn't afford to pay Indian developers anymore. 

One thing I couldn't do was drink and code. Slowly as I became a better coder and fell more in love with the idea I was building, I drank less and less. I loved to code more than I needed to drink. 

Bug fixing also taught me patience, in the tech world you solve problems through talking it out not shouting and definitely not fighting. I evolved...

Ignorance needs information

My ignorance of the world, needed the right information. Take everything in moderation. What you love will save your life. My bad decisions started from heart break as a naive young man. The best decision I made in my life, was to teach myself to code.

Now look at me... Gamerholic is the idea that kept me from drinking