DEAR DIARY,
The ability to successfully climb Mount Everest, has become the gold standard by which people measure success. It’s the idea of achieving, what seems like, the impossible. Though many have done it before, many have also turned back or died trying. People even refer to overcoming difficult situations, adversities, or fears in their lives, as being “Their Everest.”
The first recorded efforts to reach Everest's summit were made by British mountaineers. Nepal didn’t allow foreigners into the country at the time, and the British made several attempts on the North ridge route from the Tibetan side. After the first reconnaissance expedition by the British in 1921 reached 22,970 ft on the North Col (sharp edged path carved by glaciers), the 1922 expedition pushed the North ridge route up to 27,300 ft., marking it the first time a human had climbed above 26,247 ft.
The 1924 expedition resulted in one of the greatest mysteries on Everest to this day: George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made a final summit attempt on June 8th but never returned, sparking debate as to whether or not they were the first to reach the top. They’d been spotted high on the mountain that day, but disappeared in the clouds, never to be seen again. Until, Mallory's body was found in 1999 at 26,755 ft. on the North face.
Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first official ascent of Everest in 1953, using the Southeast ridge route. Norgay had reached 28,199 ft. the previous year as a member of the 1952 Swiss expedition. The Chinese mountaineering team of Wang Fuzhou, Gonpo, and Qu Yinhua made the first reported ascent of the peak from the North ridge on 25 May 1960. (source: Wikipedia)
Little did I know, when I woke up, a couple of days ago, that I would be staring straight up the face of my very own Everest, and be forced into a choice, I wasn’t mentally ready for, but being physically compelled to make.
I was compelled to wake up by an intense throbbing in my body, and pounding noise in my head. It was 2 am, and a few hours before that, I’d just finished a particularly heavy day of binge drinking (on a weekday no less), and passed out in bed (somehow). I just remember falling into bed, putting my CPAP machine on, and then everything going dark.
The next thing I know, I’m wide awake with this internal pounding making it impossible to go back to sleep. I’m not gonna lie, I was concerned. I’d felt this before, but not to this degree. The weird thing was that I didn’t feel hung over or drunk. This was odd to me, considering the near half-gallon of alcohol I’d consumed in the 6 hour period just before I passed out. I’d only been asleep for maybe 3 hours. I should’ve still been feeling buzzed at least. But instead I felt whatever this feeling was, and I didn’t like it.
I got out of bed and went into our home office, to make the best of this ungodly hour, and tried to get some work done. But, no luck. It was impossible to concentrate. I had this impending feeling of dread; what I can only describe as the feeling I was going to die.
I’m knocking on the door the big “5-O”, and so I check my blood pressure every morning. I slapped the cuff on my wrist and waited for the numbers to appear. They were through the roof. Higher than they’d ever been. I had to do something fast to get them down, so I went in and did some emergency deep breathing meditation, for 10 minutes. They barely moved.
I decided to try and distract myself from what was going on, so i started to surf facebook. Just a couple of scrolls into my feed, I see an article entitled 'We have to leave now': San Francisco man describes terrifying Everest traffic jam. I’d heard that there were so many people on the mountain, at one time, it was one solid line to the top. I didn’t know just how bad it was. The article focused on one man’s story, Woody Hartman, and how he barely made it out alive.
Woody talked about being in transition in his life, and getting inspired to climb Everest after he’d experienced it through a friends VR (virtual reality) headset. It felt so real, that it inspired him to experience in person.
Everest, literally became his Everest.
The article doesn’t go into his motivations, but the fact he was taking a sabbatical from work, usually means you’re burned out and need to recharge your batteries. What I read into it, was that it was something for him to be motivated by and shake things up in his life.
You really gotta be committed to do something like this. I can only imagine it was that commitment that he clung to when he finally got to the actual business of climbing. Like the guide rope that runs the spine of the mountain, I’m sure that drive to succeed was something that most people clung to on their ascent to conquer their mountain. Some people who make a goal like this would rather die trying than accept defeat and turn back without finishing it out.
According to this article, many did.
“My carabiner’s attached to this rope, and I have to bend down and almost come face-to-face with a body in clothes just like me, with brands of companies like mine on their jackets, and unclip around them,” Hartman said. “It really felt like a horror show of these frozen bodies.”
I’m not going to go into the whole article, but there was one line that struck me in that moment, as my body pounded and throbbed, like a warning buzzer in a nuclear meltdown.
His sherpa said, "We have to leave now. Or we’ll be stuck here." Hartman recalls, “I had hoped to have even a few minutes on the summit to savor the moment and the accomplishment, but I didn’t have that. The fear, the freezing cold, the crowds. I was in survival mode, and I think almost everyone else was too.”
This comparison may sound like a stretch, but that’s how I’ve felt about my drinking, for sometime. I didn’t want to put it down. I didn’t want to abandon this thing that kept me numb and going a few more feet up my mountain of stress. I just wanted a few more drinks. Just another couple of days, or even a couple of weeks. Just until I figure out how to conquer MY Everest. Then I’ll climb down.
I was basically saying, just let me sit here on my alcoholic summit, and enjoy the view for a little while longer, as I slowly die.
I realized in that instance, my body was acting as my sherpa, and it was saying to me, ”It’s time to let go of the excuses you cling to like the dead that clung to that rope on the mountain. People who wouldn’t let go, and turn back. Holding on for just another few minutes to see if they would actually get to reach the top.”
I’m convinced that if my body hadn’t woke me up to start moving around and get my brain activity going, things may have turned out differently. I might not be sitting here writing to you, Dear Diary. It did, and I’m eternally grateful for that.
This was the moment that I decided to turn back. To stop clinging to my excuses as to why I can’t stop drinking, and start thinking about the reasons why have to stop.
Hartman was lucky enough to reach his summit, and live to tell his tale.
I’ve was lucky enough to hit rock bottom, and finally find the courage to believe in myself. I’m just glad I didn’t over shoot it, by six feet, so I could live to tell mine.
Until next time,