Living life to its fullest everyday what does this really mean? I think it means taking care of myself, living with my diabetes, progressing through my sobriety, learning from my past mistakes to make each day better and better. I know every day I will be able to live to the fullest as long as I take it step by step. My life hasn’t always been to the fullest every single day up until about four months ago. I had to learn how to do this through rehab and going to Alcoholics Anonymous or “AA”.

Taking care of myself and living with type one diabetes isn’t always as easy as it seems. There is pricking your finger up to nine times a day, taking insulin shots up six times a day and the constant awareness of the foods I eat. The last three years I have struggled with this and let diabetes control my life. After starting high school I was always asking myself “why did I get screwed over with this?” or “why me?” So then soon after that I slowly stopped taking care of myself and let diabetes control my life. Soon my blood sugar numbers were high and so was my A1C which is the average of all your blood sugars over a three month span. Though I felt like crap and my body was aching a lot, I didn’t care and just wanted to be that “normal” high school kid. After about two years of listening to the doctors tell me I needed to change the way I controlled my diabetes, my mom telling me to change I gave them an “ok” but still it never changed. In August 2011 I was hospitalized for ketoacidosis shock as my blood sugar was so high if I had gone to bed I would have went into a comma.
On July 6th 2010 I got a phone call that soon would change my life forever. My uncle was killed in a motorcycle accident. I soon fell into depression shortly afterword’s but hid it from everyone with the use of drugs and alcohol. About three weeks after my uncle had died I started drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana with my friends. Never in my life had I done anything like this or acted like this. My life all the sudden spiraled out of control. Now two things controlled my life and I wasn’t one of them. Drugs and diabetes slowly started to kill me but my selfish ways didn’t care and I only wanted more drugs and more money to supply the drugs. Not caring about who I was hurting, including myself, and also slowly killing myself. After the marijuana got boring and old I went into heavier drugs. These were oxy cotton and Xanax bars. Soon I became addicted to the Xanax and the marijuana addiction grew more heavily and I wasn’t bored with it. Even though I had been caught with drugs and was in the court system I had a “screwed up attitude.” I was kicked of diversion quickly and awaited for court to come but before my court date I decided to go out and use for this last time. Mixing the Xanax, oxy cotton and drinking and not taking care of diabetes finally bit me in my butt. I ended up in the hospital on August 22nd 2011.
After about a month of just sitting around and not getting any help Sarpy county finally put me into a treatment center called ABH. I have learned so many things from my counselors, one of the things being how to accept I have a drug problem and realizing my triggers which are things that get you to use. The triggers can be anything like places, things, people and even thoughts. I have learned how to cope with these and I’m currently coming up on seven months sober. Alcoholics Anonymous also taught me so many things and also helped my reach a spiritually connection with God. My sponsor told me that religion and spirituality are two complete different things. Religion is for people who do not want to go to hell, spirituality is for people who have been to hell and don’t want to go back and that really fit me because with all these crap that had happened in the past I didn’t want to end up where I was ten months ago.


Living life to the fullest has not always been easy for me. I have learned to cope with my drug problems, take care of my diabetes slowly though at times I still have the “why me” thoughts, and progressing through my sobriety . The people that have helped me like Sarpy County, ABH, and the person that has loved me and stood by my side this whole time, my mom. I owe a great deal of my success to them because without them I would still be a drug addict that has this disease that controls my life. Living life to the fullest isn’t always easy but waking up and asking myself can I get through today with a smile on my face? Can now always the easiest and then living life to the fullest is just another simple task in the life of Matthew Edelman. Waking up praying to god asking him for forgiveness for all the wrong I have done yesterday and then chose to be happy even when wrong has happened I must be happy throughout it because I know it’s just a tiny bump in the rode and I will get over it no matter what with the people on my side, myself and god. So when you ask yourself is living life to the fullest really for you? Take my advice and let the helping hand of god who will always be there for you, who has always been there for you take his hand and let him show you the way to living life to the fullest.