Independence Day

This week I’ve had a few similar conversations with friends who are, like me, a matter of days removed from extreme intoxication. We’ve fondly looked back at the time we put together earlier this year when we were working a program, we were clean, and we all chuckle in agreement with each other about how, funnily enough, those were damn good times.

“That was actually a really nice time, wasn’t it?” my friend said to me this afternoon.

“Fuck yeah it was. Even when I was exhausted and not sleeping well it was nice waking up to have a fresh cup of coffee with my bros, watchin’ the sunrise, shootin’ the shit.” My biggest problem for a while was a scheduling conflict that interrupted my afternoon nap. Those really were the days.

So when I was driving home earlier I found it so strange that I began to think about getting high, when all I’ve been talking about these past few days is how nice it is being clean. In a few moments, my thoughts turned to how I could get together some money to score. But it’s the fucking 4^th of July, where can I get rigs if the pharmacies are closed? Maybe I could cook up some crack instead, it’s been a while since I’ve had a nice smoke.

My mind salivates as if in anticipation of a perfectly grilled steak. I doubt my girlfriend will find out. I can wait a few extra days before I move into sober living where I will be tested and so they’ll be none the wiser.

The next thought that crossed my mind was unexpected.

Less than a week ago, I found my friend dead in his apartment. He had overdosed during the night. I called 911 etc., the cops said they would contact his parents. The next morning, I get a call from his mother, who evidently had not been contacted and told of her sons fate, so I proceeded to.

It was still early in the morning, and as I slurped my cup of coffee I simply did not anticipate that in a few moments I would be telling a mother that her 23 year old son was gone. I had not considered this conversation for even a second in my mind, autopilot kicked in and got me through it. I guess I recalled some etiquette from a movie I’d seen at some point, so I said, “I think you might want to sit down”.

Is that really something people say before delivering the worst imaginable news? I don’t know where I picked it up from, but I said it, as if it would somehow soften the blow.

As a struggling mother of an addict, this is the call I assume they fear, the call that keeps them up at night. A shiver down the spine when an unknown caller dials. As she happened to be calling me, I believe on some level she had been preparing herself, as much as one possibly can prepare themselves for this kind of thing, for this unfortunate inevitability.

And so this episode pops into my head when I’m about ready to push the button, and I recall what his Mom said to me at the end of that conversation. “I just don’t want his life to have meant nothing. Even if all it means is that you stay sober Alex, that will be good enough for me.”

And I remember right after I got off the phone with her, I sat there and let that sink in. I thought that moment was my enlightenment. I thought that from that moment on, I would be on a crusade to fulfill this wish and stay sober, thereby giving my friends life a meaning.

But as I thought about getting high, recounting this episode, I found myself thinking, “meh, whatever”.

Isn’t that sad?

Ninety Days

It has been 90 days since I last took a drink or a drug (a new record). I thought I would feel different than I do today. I am closer to using now than I have been in the past three months. The thought of using terrifies me, it excites me, it gives me butterflies in my stomach. Things have been going well. I’ve taken my foot off the gas, cruise control. Eyes off the road, so I can say I didn’t see it coming. But I do.

The seed was planted one week ago. I began experiencing some uncomfortable feelings. Perhaps, that’s an understatement, as I have dealt with many uncomfortable feelings since January 20^th, comes with the territory I suppose. This was stronger than uncomfortable. These feelings, I would describe, as an overwhelming, all-consuming hatred. My senses began to shut down, one by one, until all that was left was a burning fire inside my core. Rage. A volcano, ready to erupt.

My face turns red, hot. Small earthquakes course through my veins and my body tremors. Undying cigarettes pass between my lips and smoke begins to bellow out of my ears.

Just, breathe.

I express some of these feelings and get them out, but the majority I swallow, suppressing them deep inside of me for fear of an overreaction. I feel better, momentarily, but these feelings are simmering under the surface, they bubble away overnight and in the morning, begin to boil again, rising within me.

An hour passes. Two. I try the “just breathe” trick. Nada. The sensation grows and I begin to feel like I am losing control. Not that I had any control to begin with, but it was beginning to feel like I did. Back to reality Alex, this was just an illusion.

I consult my bag of tricks and decide it’s time to turn to a tried and tested favourite, distraction. I try to eat, not hungry. Couldn’t even get candy down. I think about exercising, this one sounds like a brilliant idea. My body is more than capable, but my mind refuses to give me the strength to get up and go, it wants me here, trapped. I so desperately want to talk to someone about this, ask for help and some sense of comfort, but shame prevents me. I am alone but surrounded by people. My last resort, sleep. Shutting down my mind, even if only a temporary solution I saw at this point as my only escape.

Sleep doesn’t come, clearly that was too good to be true. I toss, I turn, and in a few brief moments I surrender, unable to take a minute more of this existence. Where can I get the drugs I need to turn this off?

In previous attempts to get clean, I have always wanted to continue using. This sounds pretty basic, but during those times I felt I was trying to force myself to do something unnatural, that I did not want to do. This time around, I don’t want to use. Using feels somewhat foreign, strange, and unnatural, however, I sense a supernatural force driving me towards this oh-so-familiar unknown.

I think of the consequences and feel sick to my stomach. I think of rebuilding, again, and shudder. 

The shame I don’t think I could take. I feel lonely today and I still have people around me I call friends. What is it going to feel like when they, like shallow rivers streaming down my volcanic peaks evaporate into steam as lava begins to ooze from the surface?

It’s probably going to feel worse than in this present moment. I will try to keep reminding myself of that.

Groundhog Day

Baby don’t worry I’m a good disease.

Why, when life becomes half-decent again, do I feel this burning desire to fuck everything up. Not just a little bit, I want to drop a nuke on my face. It’s what I’m used to, chaos, turbulence, the ups the downs, the highs the lows. Today, everything is good. It’s not perfect, but, overall it’s moderately satisfying which is more than I could have hoped for at any point last year. And that’s just fine with me. It’s what I thought I wanted. I tell myself I want to just be normal, I just want to feel slightly-better-than-average all the time rather than bounce from stratospheric highs to desperate depths of depression regularly throughout each day.

In reality, being normal is boring. Maybe I’m not even qualified to say that, because if I’m honest I’m not normal. Do normal people fantasise about swimming out off the coast of North Korea and hoping a dirty bomb plops onto their face? I’m not sure what exactly it is about the chaos that turns me on. Maybe it was the attention at first, it gave me something to talk about when my life was full of nothing interesting whatsoever. Poor me, give me some sympathy.

People say to me, ‘play the tape through to the end’. To which I normally say, ‘thanks for that crazy deep advice buddy’ and roll my eyes. This advice is great in theory. Why would I want to go out again when I can clearly see that within a few short months I’d be back in the same miserable hole I’d just managed to climb out of? Getting out of the hole is exciting for a minute. It’s scary at first when you open your eyes after being in the dark for so long, everything looks brighter, genuine joy is euphoric, but with it flood in negative emotions, anger, grief, hate, despair. And when they do, crawling right back into that hole doesn’t seem like such a bad option. Just one more time and then I’ll be ready to come out into the world.

Today it’s different. Right now I want to get high. I’m playing the tape forward, I see that everything I have going for me right now will vaporise as that nuke detonates. Goodbye to the two months of hard work I’ve put in just staying alive, pushing through anxiety, insomnia, depression, withdrawals, physical rehabilitation. I’ve got a really decent life today, and that doesn’t sit right with me, I don’t know what to do next. My natural instinct is self-destruction.

When I let everything play out, and imagine getting back into recovery again, I see myself throwing in the towel. I honestly cannot do this again. Finally, there are good things in my life I do not want to lose. If I decide I want to walk away from what I have today, I know there will be no return. It’s not that I can’t do this again, I simply won’t. It’s no life.

No life.

Addiction vs. The Matrix

Here's something I wrote a couple months ago when I first landed back in treatment. 

Morpheus. Laurence Fishburne. Furious Styles. Call him what you want, but know that he’s a badass and speaks the truth, be it laying down the law in Boys n the Hood or freeing people’s minds in The Matrix, I wish he was my sponsor.  

Two lines from The Matrix have been going through my head today.

“You are a slave. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind. I’m trying to free your mind. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one who has to walk through it.”

Addiction is a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. You might see me sitting on the street with some bums stuffing junk in my arm, you might smell the stale shit stains on my pants, that part of addiction you see. But your neighbor might be an alcoholic, your partner might be an addict, your father might be in recovery, and you might be completely oblivious to it.  

True, we are not all born into bondage, but some are. Many of us make numerous seemingly irrelevant decisions which lead us to, over time, develop an addiction to some external thing. Without realizing, often, that we have become dependent on this in order to survive. You have your first sip of alcohol at 18 and end up in treatment centers during your 50s dealing with your alcoholism. You get hit by a car, break your hip, get on painkillers and end up on heroin when you can’t afford the pills… and heroin is so groovy that you forget everything and everyone you ever cared about.

I get sidetracked thinking about it. Heroin really is so fucking sweet if you’re ready to peace out on life. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to walk out of my parents’ house past my mother, in tears, begging me not to go. Think about it enough and it makes me think I’m a really, really bad person. What would make you stab your mother through the heart (metaphorically speaking) over and over again? Would you do it for $1 million if I put the cash in front of you? And you can’t just give her the money. You’re a selfish, drug addict, and that money is for you and you alone. Just like what the Oracle tells you.

You tell yourself she’ll be fine, she’ll get over it, but somewhere inside, you know you’re scarring her for life. Maybe you’d take the money, maybe you don’t even like you Mom, but I love mine. I can walk out the front door, or the door Morpheus has shown me, either way, I’m the one who has to walk through it. I make bad decisions for a living.   

“What you know you can’t explain but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind.”

A fucking splinter in your mind? Really picture it, having a splinter in your mind, not knowing how to get it out. Or maybe you’ve been to some meetings, done a couple rehabs, and you know what you need to do to get it out. You can “free your mind”, wake up and choose not to use every day, just for that day. You can ‘work a program’- I can’t even write those words without rolling my eyes - work? Every day? You have to be fucking kidding me, I’ll chose the easy option every time. Pop down the pharmacy and get a pair of tweezers/needles/dope.

A splinter in my mind, a dagger in my Mom’s heart, everyone is suffering. Sometimes I think it would be better for everyone if I just put an end to this now. 

I’m in detox at the moment and I’m just trying to distract myself from the splinter in my mind and the dagger in my heart.

Recovery clichés: is addiction an allergy?

Why is it, that the things we know we cannot have we desire above all else?

When you go to rehab you hear things like “you can no longer drink or use, you are allergic to drugs and alcohol”. Well that’s a nice analogy that someone dreamed up one day but it’s stupid as fuck because I do not have an allergic reaction when I have a drink or a drug. If I did, surely I wouldn’t drink or use?

Assume I’m allergic, I smoke a pipe of crack, feel great for 30 seconds then start feeling shitty. I’m going into anaphylactic shock? Nope, that’s just crack bro.

Seriously, let’s assume I do get anaphylaxis, “a life-threatening whole-body response to an allergen”. I nearly die, ambulance comes, quick trip to the hospital and Mr. Doctor tells me I’m allergic to cocaine and if I ever ingest one tiny little grain of the white powder again I’ll get the same result.

“Okay doc, thanks for the tip. Does that mean I get an epi pen? How many of them can I get and how often can I get that refilled?”

So now that I’m allergic, just like if I was allergic to peanuts, I’d go out of my way to avoid them, right? I’d let my waiter know at the restaurant… maybe I’ve got one of those hyper allergies where my worst nightmare isn’t Snakes on a Plane but rather a kid with a pack of peanuts. Logically, I let the airline know that I might die if they serve nuts on my next flight to rehab.

Before boarding check your plane for allergens, and snakes, both potentially fatal. 

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I can’t figure it out. I do not think a physical allergy is the same as an addiction, but I've little confidence in my verdict. I don’t have any allergies that I know of so I can’t really speak about that. Do all my peeps out there with a nut allergy spend their days dreaming about peanut butter?  Do you wonder if you’d be a crunchy or a smooth person? Would it be more delicious if you smoked it or shot it? What about if you put it in a shot with some jelly? Bet that would be so fucking tasty.

A smart kid, I stick to shooting jelly. It’s a cheaper habit, its sweeter and much easier on my veins. Or do I?

People with allergies avoid allergens. But because you can’t have peanut butter, do you desire it? Or are you just curious about the taste? Do you even give a shit about nuts? Do they ever just… pop into your head? Do you actively try and not think about delicious, salty nuts in your mouth?

The clearest example of this that I think most people can relate to is cigarettes. We all know that smoking is hella cool. That’s why we do it. But we also know that it is highly likely to cause us a painful early death. And for the lads out there it turns our dicks into flaccid cigarette butts. But we smokers all think one of two things. We either think “it won’t happen to me” or “I’m planning on quitting”. Probably both.

Your penis may be smarter than it appears.

I can quite confidently say that if smoking one cigarette guaranteed terminal cancer and/or instant death, there would be no tobacco industry.  

Same with drugs. At the beginning, I thought, I can control this, I can quit. On jails, institutions and death, “it won’t happen to me”. Thankfully I’ve avoided jail but I do have multiple overdoses and institutions on my record now.

I also have the intellectual capacity to understand that I cannot use just once. I don’t really want to use just once. Sometimes, I fantasise about the good ol’ days when my using was recreational, but in reality I just want to be high all day, every day, minus all of the consequences. And if I’m being honest, my using was never really recreational. It was always some kind of escape. Be it from boredom, loneliness, anxiety, whatever. I know that when I start using it is going to end in one of those three ways. Jails, institutions, death. The top secret fourth option is to get clean. But that too, ends in death eventually, so to keep it simple let’s stick with three.

Generally, it is not that first drink/drug that gets someone into rehab, behind bars or dead. It’s highly unlikely, in fact. And that’s why I think denial can become so overpowering. It is so easy for me to live with a “I’ll deal with that problem tomorrow” philosophy. You know what they say, tomorrow never comes.

And without fail, tomorrow always comes (lately, all over my face, into my eyes, eww). I’m blind, but I can feel the warmth of the sunrise shining on me in the morning and the nip in the air as it sets each evening without fail. I continue to sit on my lazy ass moaning about how boring my sober life is or running around frantically using like a maniac. I’ll rebuild my sober life tomorrow. I’ll stop using tomorrow.

The other classic line you’ve probably heard if you’ve been to a rehab is the moniker for denial. Don’t Even No I Am Lying. And as tired as I am of hearing that crap, unlike the allergy analogy and unlike any gram I've ever purchased, this one is bang on point. I know facts yet still my mind can convince me to act against reason and defy logic. My final recovery cliché for today, the definition of insanity.

And addiction is insanity. It's so dumb, I do sometimes feel like I'm just being completely retarded. Today's JFT says "Addiction is not a simple disease, but it has a simple solution". This sums it up perfectly, and explains why I feel like such a jackass for being seemingly incapable of executing this ‘simple solution’.

To wrap this all up I want to go back to the original question which was looking at addiction as an allergy. And I specifically want to reference Antabuse. Firstly, if I was allergic to alcohol I would under no circumstances take a medicine that provokes an allergic reaction upon my consumption of alcohol, I would have no need. Secondly, I know several people who have drunk on Antabuse multiple times, with catastrophic results. The allergic reaction does not stop them repeating the behaviour. Finally, in the case of the chronic alcoholic whose liver would fail simply from using Listerine, we have an example whereby one drink is highly likely to lead to death. And that doesn’t stop some people drinking. 

What exactly are the symptoms of anaphylaxis? Impaired breathing, swelling in the throat, a sudden drop in blood pressure, pale skin or blue lips, fainting and dizziness.

Chuck in respiratory failure and it sounds a lot like a jelly overdose to me. Need an epi pen? Here, have naloxone. 

So is addiction an allergy? I guess so. But that analogy hasn’t done anything to help me stop using. I fucking hate recovery clichés. Thing is, they’re clichés for a reason, people say them over and over again because they are true. 

I want rid of you (warning - this is a poem)

For the record, I have thought poetry is the most super duper gay shit ever for the longest time. And I still kind of think that. But, I really enjoy writing it.

I am constantly being told - "you don't even know what you like Alex you've been high for half your life".

So maybe I do like poetry after all.

I want rid of you.

An endless denier, I only deny her,

happiness.

I am weak on my knees,

begging with bitter breath.

Forgiveness? For business.

She tires of my desire to be higher.

The liar extinguishes the fire.

Once roaring, she’s still warm.

Hooked on her feeling,

I grow hungry for her.

I hold onto her.

She no longer holds back.

Heroin holds my hand.

She haunts me.

Hope is my hell.

I wouldn’t even recognise her anymore.

I bury my desire, admire the high flyer.

I can’t do without you.

I don’t want for anything.

I want for everything.  

Journals

I first put pen to paper around the time Cruel Intentions came out. I guess that’s kind of where I first got the idea. I imagine my thought process was along the lines of:

•          Write explosive shit.
•          Die in tragic accident.
•          Have journal surface shortly after death.
•          ‘Explosive shit’ gets out - changes world.
•          Bittersweet Symphony plays at my funeral.
•          Be celebrated forever.
•          Have face on t-shirts a la Kurt Kobain.

Despite my efforts, my journal looks nothing like this. Never got round to adding the pictures. 

But that’s probably the most honest journal I kept. I write about video games, movies, and wait for it… girls. Girls, girls, girls. Because that’s all I had to worry about at the time. The occasional friendship drama, getting in trouble at school, all that found its way in at some point but the real meat in that journal was around my relationships with girls. Falling in love for the first time. Getting my heart broken for the first time. Breaking someone’s heart for the first time. It’s juicy shit, and it’s painful to re-read it. 

But it’s honest. And that is, for me, what a journal is about. It’s about reflecting on what’s been happening in your life and how that has made you feel. That’s the dilemma I’ve pondered over these past two days, how can I write honestly about some of the things I’ve done? Will people judge me? Will people understand?

More importantly, I ask myself, why do I care? Pride is a killer.

For me, I am finding out that it is simply therapeutic to write these ‘feelings’ down and ignore the consequences. That whole, “when you’re angry, count to 10” crap. But seriously, if you’re angry, write it down, or count to 10. Maybe you’ll be angrier afterwards, but I doubt it. Humans are animals and as such the way we instinctively react to certain events is completely uncontrollable.

For example: dude punches me, I fight back. Or maybe he’s one of those “how much can you bench” bros and being twice my size I decide to run. Either way, I am not making that decision consciously. That fight or flight decision is pure survival instinct. Hypothetically speaking, let’s say this guy punches me, and instead of fighting back, or running away, I ask politely if he will wait one moment while I produce my journal, quill and begin analysing the situation for a few moments before deciding how to react.

Now what are my options here? This guy is huge, (think Arnie in Pumping Iron, not Jersey Shore Guidos) and so if I decide to fight, I will probably get hurt. So, I guess my only option is to run, right? Or, as this guy is Arnie ‘The Governator’ and not Mike ‘The Situation’, perhaps he could be reasoned with?  How about a fourth option, now that I’ve had time to sit down and think about this, why did this guy punch me in the first place? Was this an unprovoked attacked? Some kind of macho man mating ritual to impress a girl? Or did I step on his broken toe by accident, not realise nor apologise and obtain a black eye as a result?

The nature of what happened prior to the punch is irrelevant, the point I’m making is, I find it valuable to give myself extra time to think before acting on instinct. As much as I hate to admit it, very occasionally, I might be in the wrong. Maybe I deserved to get sparked (way too classic slang -  had to throw that in there), and my best bet is to apologise and walk away.

Relate it to addiction. The punch, the trigger, the craving, that just happens. Sure, you can avoid people, places and things to keep triggers to a minimum, but you can never eliminate them entirely. How about a using dream? Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you can’t control ‘em. Unless you’re into lucid dreaming, in which case, restecp. 

Ali G speaks the troof

So why do people stay clean who follow the basic suggestions they hear in the rooms? Because those basic suggestions work. When I allow myself to go from trigger to reaction without any gap in between, I engage my auto-pilot. It typically takes me at least an hour to score, get needles and use. Longer even if I need to get money together first. Surely that’s enough time for the craving to pass and dis-engage the automatic process taking place whereby I find myself running around London looking for drugs? But for me it doesn’t work like that. Once auto-pilot has been switched on, there is no switching it off without a strong conscious effort to do so.

Phone a friend. Talk to someone about how your feeling. Get out your journal and write it down.

Three great suggestions, none of which I ever do. To me they’re a cop out. Once I pick up that phone, I’ve already made my decision not to use. Don’t get me wrong, every time I’ve called someone when I’ve been craving, every single time I have spoken to someone about what I’m planning to do, I have not used on the back of that craving.

60% of the time – it works every time. But seriously, it has worked every time.

But for me it’s not the ‘phone a friend’ that is getting me out of trouble. It is me who is getting me out of trouble. I put distance in between trigger and reaction. I think about the consequences - I mean really think about the consequences, no sugar coating it. No “oh well it’ll just be this one time” horse shit. And if I still want to use then I say fuck it and I use.

But if I decide to pick up the phone, or turn around and go to a meeting, I pat myself on the fucking back. I did that. I mindfucked the shit outa myself. And to me that’s all addiction is. It’s my mind, mindfucking the shit out of me, all day, every day.

Sergio knows where it's at.

When I get one day clean in London I am over the moon. I treat myself. It is such hard work just getting through one day that when I manage to do it I want everyone in the city to know about it. I call my sober friends, they’re genuinely as happy as I am to hear the good news. Of course, it never lasts, but we must all start from somewhere and build on our experiences.

I am proud of every single sober day I get. Quietly, I worked my ass off for those 24 hours. Life goes on, and typically we struggle in silence. Hard work deserves reward. In work, that might be financial. In the gym, that might be my six pack. In recovery, my reward is freedom. And freedom is a kick ass reward worth fighting for.

More often than not, I overlook the true value of my freedom, and need a little reminder of why I fight for sobriety. Yes I’m an addict and yes I want a reward for every goddamn thing I do against my will, sue me.

But if I’m having a down day, stayed clean or maybe just did something outside of my comfort zone that I didn’t want to do, I treat myself to an Oreo milkshake, or some Churros. Because damn do I deserve it. And you do too.

Just try not to be a dick, like me, and treat yourself to drugs. 

Why?

I got side-tracked the other day. What I wanted to write about was my journals. They’re bullshit. I write in them, 90% of the time, in the hope that one day I’ll have been someone important so people will go back through my journals and give me bucket loads of posthumous sympathy. A journal is not a journal if it is dishonest. Just like this blog is ineffective in its purpose if I cannot write with complete honesty.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this since that first post. Why am I writing this stuff? What’s the purpose? What’s the meaning!?

On the positive side, it helps me a bit, I suppose. It certainly gives me something to do. I enjoy writing. Every second I spend writing is one less second I spend trying to score. Double thumbs up.

But admittedly it’s hard to write an honest account of my feelings and actions when I know my words are certain to inflict pain on others. Surely, I’ve caused enough pain for one lifetime? Maybe I owe it to those close to me to just zip it, zip it good. Keep my sharing to meetings, behind closed doors, as so many others do.

Does it help others? Probably not. I’m not exactly in recovery (although I am clean just for today whoopdidoo!) and as such I don’t have magic answers for anyone seeking them.

Finally, what employer doing basic due diligence will overlook these posts? I, like many addicts, find myself completely broke and in need of work. Who’s going to hire the author of these posts who so clearly lacks the commitment required to achieve long term sobriety.

Therefore, at the crux is one question: why go public? And I think I know why. Pride, arrogance, showing off. I still think it’s cool. The junkie subculture. It sucks me in. And it’s completely insane. When you spend time with career junkies, in their late 50s, shitting their pants every other day when they can’t get together the money for a fix (honestly I’ve given away 3 pairs of undies in the past month to those in need, junkies you get what I mean), clucking out on the streets, in the freezing cold. 

Please someone tell me – where is the appeal?  What is so attractive about that?

Good times fellas...

It’s disgusting, degrading, demoralising and yet so damn deceptive. How can you package up one of the most lonely, miserable existences into something so appealing? I want it. Now.

It’s this heroin chic shit, Kurt Kobain, the troubled soul, misunderstood, turned to substances when life got unbearable. I bought into that a long time ago. But my life has been great. Yes, I’m a seriously troubled soul now, but that is a consequence of my using, and not the other way around. I find it so easy to understand why people turn to heroin if they have had difficult upbringings, experienced traumas, rape, domestic violence. I cannot imagine how those sorts of events impact the developing adolescent mind, but I do know that no matter what that feels like, heroin is probably an excellent solution, it will make you forget the pain, and it will work. Temporarily.

Then you have the people like me. I’m just an asshole, I manufactured the circumstances in which I would be able to use and simultaneously receive sympathy for doing so. The truth is - I like to get high, it was fun for a long time! The euphoric recall, those are the good times I remember and hold on to. Since trying to put drugs down, I’ve also noticed this complete emptiness inside of me. This hole in the soul. It’s been there forever, but drugs fill it up. Love fills it up. Without either of those things, life becomes unmanageable very quickly, for me.

A spiritual solution – that’s what I believe in. Maybe writing some of this stuff down will help.

When I see people with good recovery I don’t see arrogance, I see gratitude, humility and above all, serenity. 

I don’t think I am going to make it out of this alive.

Periodically throughout my adolescent years I kept a journal - rarely with real conviction or consistency. Reading back through some of this now I get the impression that little has changed throughout the 15 years elapsed from my first entry at 13 and my most recent at 28.

The key theme I note throughout the years – this is the writing of a spoiled child. He wants more. Often, he thinks he knows what he wants, but when he gets it, it is not enough. He is trying to fill a hole. He tries material matters, emotional experiences, friendships, substances, a career, love. Unfortunately for him, these brief encounters are but a trap, as for a fleeting moment they provide the answer to life, that missing piece of the jigsaw that completes the puzzle. Harmony. It never lasts.

I spent 6 months travelling in 2010 - where I picked up my habit - but only remember it as the best time of my life. 

I find study of the brain fascinating. My mind struggles immensely with euphoric recall. My interpretation of this phenomenon is simply an unconscious trick my mind plays whereby it holds on to these moments of happiness like a mother to her new-born child. There is no letting go.

In some senses, I suppose it is a form of misguided nostalgia. If I look back on my early childhood, some of my fondest memories are attached to spending hours upon hours immersing myself in video games. Nintendo have built a business on this nostalgia. For me personally, Zelda, Mario and Pokémon franchises defined the years leading up to my adolescence.

Every few years, Nintendo release a new console with updated versions of those original franchises and I buy into that as it evokes the memories of joy I had playing those games as a child. There have been a small minority of games within these new franchises that have captivated my imagination in such a way as those early games, but the memories are overpowering, they defy the reason centre in my brain so that I act against all logic, buying into each new franchise, often to be disappointed. I think this has less to do with the games themselves, which are in all honesty fantastic, but more to do with the fact that I cling to the hope that by beginning a new Zelda quest it will bring me back to a happier time in my life. Perhaps this is just me, but I challenge anyone who played through Zelda: Ocarina of Time to watch the new trailer for Breath of the Wild and see what emotions this brings up for you. For me, the excitement watching this gameplay trailer was on a level with the rush and excitement I feel when I have finally found a quiet bathroom to sit down in, cook up my shot and then finally see the blood ooze out into the needle as I have registered in a vein.

Bliss.

It is this feeling that my mind remembers. Not the running around for hours on end before that moment trying to get together money to score, the sickness, the pain I have so carelessly inflicted on parents, partners, friends, myself. The paranoia, the insanity. Yes, my rational brain is aware that these are all consequences of my using. But do I feel them? Do I connect with them emotionally? Not one bit. I simply connect with the perceived feeling of euphoria, painlessness and satisfaction that comes when the drugs enter my system. I feel the good feelings. I don’t feel the bad feelings. Intellectually I know they exist, but when the mind feels so strongly the anticipation of a reward, those good feelings, and cannot connect with the negatives, it is no surprise that the behaviour loop repeats time and time again, despite those negative consequences getting worse, and worse, and worse. Last week I sold my Nintendo collection, my childhood happiness, the false nostalgia. I sold those lies to get money to buy more lies. All to fill a void, all in the search for happiness.

Even writing this now puts me in an extremely dangerous, vulnerable headspace. In 30 seconds, I have gone from fondly writing about video games to planning an escape from my current situation. Complete disregard for my family, their feelings. It’s Christmas? So what. I want a fix. I don’t care what gets in my way, who I hurt, I want what I want and I will do what I must in order to get that. Flashback to the 13 year old writing his first diary entry, spoiled child. If you get in my way, I’ll hurt your feelings with complete disregard of any consequences.

This is a habit loop. An animal instinct which resides deep in the core of our brains. To ignore what has over millions of years become a survival instinct: trigger à routine à reward, as I have found out over the past few years, is beyond challenging. But millions of people across the world who have suffered from mental health issues including addictions to both substances and behaviours have found ways to overcome this.

My rational mind knows that using drugs brings with it misery, poverty, homelessness, disease, ultimately death, and those are just the affects to myself. For those loved ones who still cling on to hope that their addict may one day recover, I argue that they suffer even worse. All the same feelings of hopelessness, despair, fear, wide ranging mental health issues, but unlike the addict or alcoholic they suffer these feelings without the substance to numb the pain. At least the addict finds temporary relief with each fix, no matter what pain they may have endured to get there.

I have read many inspiring accounts of addiction and recovery, and many of these have been truly gut wrenching. I do not use gut wrenching simply as a generic expression that I’ve heard used time and time again to describe the actions of alcoholics and addicts, because I do hear the term thrown around frequently in meetings and in first-hand accounts of others who struggle with problems like these. I chose these two words carefully as they describe exactly the physical sensations experienced by myself when reading some of these harrowing accounts of active addiction. First comes the nausea, a sinking feeling in the abdomen, physical symptoms in my stomach, tightening, increased heart rate, anxiety escalating to full on panic when certain passages really hit home. For me, the most painful part of this that I live with every day is the simple fact of how my actions have devastated the lives of those around me. Unfortunately, in my experience, and I’m sure many can relate, it is those that we love most who get dragged through the shit, deeper and longer than anyone else.

It is through reading memoirs, blogs, first-hand accounts written by addicts that can dig beneath the euphoric recall and expose the life of an addict for what it truly is. It is so incredibly painful, I think, because I can relate. I know that the actions being described are identical to those I have carried out myself, and if I haven’t quite gotten that far yet, I see the reality of the situation and know that, although I may not have sunk to such depths yet, I know that the path leads one way only. We continue to decline, we cheat, rob, sell our bodies, sell our souls and ultimately take our own lives when we have sunk so far down the rabbit hole, in our isolation we can see no way out.

There is always a way out. Recovery is not easy, it is not natural, it doesn’t happen overnight and to be honest, I don’t think I fucking want it enough. I see my younger siblings getting their lives back on track, my best friends around me getting 6 months sober, throwing themselves into the program, or doing it their own way, it doesn't matter how they do it, just that they're doing it! And they're happy. It makes me so fucking proud of them, so happy for them. It also makes me so upset that I can't be there on that journey with them.

I want to want it. I've tried doing it for girlfriends, family, and sometimes I think I've wanted it for myself. But it doesn't last, and what good is that?

I find myself in a situation now where I have but two choices, recover, or give up. The alternative to recovery at this stage is to dive head first into the rabbit hole. But I know it’s there, I know what I need to do to get there, and I know that I can do it. For me, it is not a matter of how to do it, because the solution is simple. It does, however, require hard work, determination, and an absolute desire above all else to fight for your recovery.

Summer 2014 - think this might have been the last time I was actually happy and clean from opiates at the same time. Love, happiness, its never enough. I relapsed a matter of days later.

I am grateful for those who have managed to capture the insanity, depravity, and unparalleled selfishness of active addiction. Those who have been brave enough to put honest accounts of their stories out there. They help me see through my euphoric recall, and they may ultimately help with my recovery.