Here is a bit of bored-on-the-bus creative writing. An unedited splurge of – whatever it is.
I wouldn’t get too excited if I were you. No really, don’t.
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I used to think it was life that continually slammed my misery-doors shut, throwing over the bolts and snapping off light-giving keys in locks. Never me, of course. It was never me.
A pity-party of one. I would constantly push at the ungiving doors; granite guards keeping me away from everyone else. They were unyielding and constant, silently holding me in shadows, tears, and poisoned thoughts.
Kicking and screaming until alcohol flooded my bad blood. Then all would be fine – I would calm and numb and cry. Just for a while. Until my body screamed out for more poison, my mind shrieking at the darkness. My knuckles painted the door in red strokes. The constant self-savagery – my dying cycle. A poisoned rabbit hole. Constantly lost and refusing to be found. My death’s daily basis.
Only alive by luck. Luck and more luck. The only lottery I had won was the struggling heart flushing life back into me as I willingly pushed it out. My heart, my nemesis. It fought a life less convenient. At least it fought. I didn’t.
If I’d only known during those years, if I’d only checked my pockets. I would have found the key, shiny and unused. My key! I would have discovered that I was my own the key-maker, capable of unlocking any door that barred my way.
If only I’d have listened to others, and my deeper self. My screams had kept me locked from the arms of the world. I had cried out so loud and for so long. So many years. I couldn’t recognise my own voice or my own barely-pulsing heart. The only thing left was hope.
The hope to live finally won over the hope to fade away. My key flourishes in my chest. Doors are always now open to let the light flood in.
Many others scream into a darkness where nothing gets in. I now give out roadmaps so they can discover their own keys. I can’t unlock for them – but they can. But once I convince them that ‘they’ are the key to their own life – they can begin once again.
No more screaming. No more blood. No more anger – just life! Simply life.
Another sixty-five days, and for the first time ever I will have reached a year sober.
Am I proud? Of course!
I’ve had a return ticket to Hell way too many times to get to this point. I’ve no intention of going back to ‘day one’ again. It’s hard! So hard. There are many people who I started out with in recovery that have achieved two sober years or more (I had two minor lapses). There are also people who are still struggling and cannot stop, just yet. There are people who have now sadly, passed away.
It’s simply the nature of the beast.
Am I happy in my sobriety? Well, that’s a different kettle of fish entirely.
I have many regrets about my past. It’s hard to pull away from them, but I must for my life to move on. But I’m much happier and healthier than I was and good things are now happening: I’ve met amazing people, I have a future, my career in substance misuse recovery work is becoming a reality, my son texted me to let me know he’s coming to see me in April for four days. Things are good right now.
My son wanting to see me again is the biggest indicator I’m doing ok. In the past, I’ve given my him no good reason to contact me or remain a part of his life. And thanks to my drinking, we are now 255 miles apart. But now, I have given him some very good reasons. He also knows I’m not lying any more, as I did in the bad old days. He’s seen it with his own eyes and heard with his own ears, not only from me, but from people who see me every day! This makes me very happy indeed.
Good things aside for a second. Something is making me a little sad.
I’m about to watch a person I care about take a long, painful swan-dive down the dark and soul-crushing, chaotic rabbit hole of addiction.
Watch? Surely there is something I can do?
Nope, not a thing. This person is going to go to hell and back, many, many times. They will come close to death on more than one occasion and it’s going to be an utter train wreck! There’s literally nothing I can do but watch.
Why? Who is this person?
It’s me.
Don’t panic (not that you were). Let me explain.
On August 5th 2005, I started a writing journal. Nothing major. I’d been a budding writer since the mid-nineties. But around 1999 my writing output was ranging from dire to nothing. I started the journal to kick-start my writing brain. It worked! It worked very well. A place to go where my mind could become a literary playground again. It unlocked and accessed the wordy parts that were struggling to squeeze down the synapses. It was fantastic.
I wrote in there daily and have kept it up ever since. Here is the very first, frightened, tentative, and un-edited entry:
05 August 2005
‘Today, now, this minute, I’m beginning to write again andI’m scared to death of it.
Well that was a start I suppose.
Now what do I do? Carry on I suppose. Talk about this and that and hope this comes right finally. Because when it really comes down to it . . . my head is utterly fucked! There, I’ve admitted it. So what’s the problem and what the fuck can I do about it? For years now I’ve been so utterly obsessed with my future, that my future is becoming a void. I seem to be simply waiting to die. So, I say again; what is the problem?’
Let me stress that at this time I didn’t have an obvious addiction problem – yet! The usual pulls and pushes of life that everybody must deal with. Just stuff. I merely added to that list by wanting to pursue a writing career (which is a whole other can of worms. Ask any writer!). So, I carried on merrily downloading my thoughts, swilling them around and seeing where they would take me. It was going great. The entries became longer and I began writing fiction again.
Then – BAM! October 2005.
Something big happened to me. Huge.
For the sake of the confidentiality of others, we’ll call it – a catastrophic, life-changing event that I had to deal with. We’ll leave it at that.
Was this event the cause of my alcoholism?
No. If my answer would have been yes, it would be merely another excuse. I was the cause of my alcoholism. I cannot stress that enough. Nobody poured it down my neck – I did. I own all my downfall and cannot bring other people and events in as excuses. I am my own excuse.
After this news I suddenly had two paths to follow. Deal with it in a normal way like millions of others do. Or deal with it in the wrong way. I chose the latter, the quick fix that lasted thirteen years. Alcohol – lots of it!
So, I ran to my journal and the entries became dark and very detailed. It became my friend, confidante, and life-saver. It now details years of alcoholism: the excuses, self-pity, the ‘I’ll stop tomorrow’s,’ failures, anger, and the daily broken promises. Basically, if you’re a recovering addict about to write a book about addiction – you’ve just hit the holy grail. Big time!
It wasn’t long until the first reference to alcohol appeared and the promises of giving up, kicked in. It was still only 2005!
‘Over the last few months I’ve acquired a wonderful drinkinghabit that has spiralled out of control. Vodka and Redbull in hefty quantities and every single night; just to numb that shitty feeling in my head. Tonight is my first night off it (I’m trying to quit alcohol fully) and I feel . . . pretty good really. Ok the same crashing mess of feelings I was attempting to kill every night with alcohol, but really it’s virtually the same off it than plastered. I won’t have a head-full of rusting nails in the morning. So, here’s to my first night off the pop. About the only positive thing that has happened since all this.’
Sorry mate. It’s going to be the first of many failures and it’s only going to get much worse. You are right at the very beginning of this and it’s going to last until the big crash of 2017. There is absolutely nothing I can do. I can only read, observe, and take notes. Lots of notes. But you’ll be OK. Eventually.
I never stopped writing in my journal. It’s now 312 (single-spaced) pages long (167,176 words) and rising. More than the length of a book.
But do I dare write it? It’s painful and harrowing. Utterly heart-breaking. But a once-in-a-lifetime chance to observe exactly how addiction works in real time.
Yes, I dare. If it helps one person to come out the other side of addiction, it’ll be worth it. It’s too late anyway. I’m already writing it! I am now, my own research and my source is extremely reliable.
Because it’s me! I was there. Honest guvnor, I was.
I have an odd brain. When I write, I love to get lost inside my head and have a wander. I get so far down the rabbit hole that I forget what I’ve written. I recently found this in a notebook; random mind-vomit from . . . well, god only knows. It’s unedited and presented here as is. Good luck.
An actual new (and less random) recovery post coming Saturday.
Take care all xx
* * *
The filthy darkness of addiction, is standing on the Event Horizon of a black hole, swallowing every portal of light from your soul as you watch your past, present and future sucked away. You push the nails into your own personal Jesus whilst instructing strangers to build your cross of torment.
You flood your blood with a poison of choice as it gushes through screaming flesh-tubes and feel it squeeze through every infected inch.
Recovery is opening massive, rusting doors, so flaked and swollen with decay and age that nobody ever dared to try – with keys you never knew existed. Each door a portal to a brand new world or universe. You become the god of all things inside, your overwhelming power – un-shackled thought. There are no rules in there because they are as yet, unwritten. Chaos is allowed, even encouraged. Lives, worlds and words are newly born and run free.
You can delete ancient memories as new ones are written. Inner cities, worlds and alternate universes can be torn down and re-built with flushed synapses that sizzle and pop. We flesh out the skeleton and animate it in living space. Planets, we spin with the flick of a finger within a universe waiting to be filled with wonder and hope.
I hit a milestone. A big one! An important enough milestone that the rest of my days in recovery can stand on. A plinth of granite, sculpted, chipped away, and formed by almost two years of solid hard work. And it ain’t moving.
Below is a post that I wrote on my Facebook page yesterday (grammar failures and typos included). I’ll expand a little, down below.
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Home alone for a few days. Day 3! My first mega-test since my lapse almost 10 months ago.
Is the old crap going to creep in? I can get away with anything. Nobody would know. This time last year it would have been an absolute shit-show of a disaster! Of that, I promise. As soon as the coast was clear the house would be full of alcohol.
Today?
Coffee, research work, writing, more coffee, texting my son and looking at his new drawings he mailed me. More coffee. Writing a new piece for my blog. Writing a magazine article for a big online magazine. I mean big! They asked me to submit a piece.
Too busy and way too much to do and lose. And this is only the beginning! A handful of people (and family obviously) knew I’d be alone. Not one, said those dreaded words, “please don’t have a drink. Promise me you won’t have a drink. Are you sure you won’t drink?” Why don’t they, anymore?
They can see it in my face, the look in my eyes, the sound of my voice and how hard I work every day. They just know – now. They just know. It’s obvious. Not only can they trust me, but the biggie . . .
I can trust me!!!
It’s taken almost two years to get almost ten months sober. Why?
I finally threw the big switch in my head from ‘Daily Shit-Storm’ to ‘SAFE!’ It’s a great big, hulking, rusted, cobwebbed, bastard of a switch to throw. But it does move. Eventually. If you ‘want’ to move it! And I’ve finally moved it. That’s the way it’s staying!
* * *
There you go. The tools to recovery are fine and dandy but they are useless without a few things. They can’t simply be learned verbatim as they swill, slop, and wash about in your head like dirty laundry. You’re not copying someone else’s homework or doing lines after school. It’s your own work. It must be locked, loaded and ready to go at any time. You must believe in the tools implicitly and understand why they are there. You’re screwed without them. The almighty swan-dive down that rabbit hole again is only one drink/fix away. That soul-crushing Groundhog Day that we all know too well.
Then there’s the big one! The one and only, Platinum reason for recovery to stick.
You have to want recovery. Not because you’ve screwed up. Not for other people or to keep the peace. Not even for family and friends. Not for anything or anyone but . . .
For you.
I gave a worker at my recovery service the green light that I was good to go, to finally get stuck into volunteering. ‘Throw everything and the kitchen sink at me. I’m ready to get my hands dirty.’
They threw a lot.
As you can see from the picture of my calendar below, February filled up very quickly. Every blue line indicates a full, crazy, wonderful day of learning the ropes of recovery work. March is looking crammed already.
Be careful what you wish for. Sheesh!
Apologies if I’m coming over a bit preachy, saccharine, or sanctimonious. I don’t mean to be, I promise. I simply want to share my optimism, hope, and the things I’ve learned so far. I guess I’m just an excited (and terrified) newbie.
What happens when you’re a struggling addict in recovery, and stuck in hideous traffic on a packed, smelly, noisy bus? Anxiety is making your teeth float. Get creative. I wrote the following on my phone in my rehab days. As you will be able to tell straight away, I’m no poet. Keats or Yeats, I ain’t, but they ain’t me either. Writing these two pieces of bus babble, helped to stop my head exploding into slime on various bus rides home. The picture beneath is one of my drawings from many moons ago, in my twenties.
* * *
Bus babble #1
THROUGH DARKLY EYES
Praying this glass is the killer,
The TNT in the heart,
The body gets sicker and slimmer,
The explosion is waiting to start.
Dulling takes more and more poison,
Much more than a human can take,
The blood paints its walls with ‘NO CHOICE,’ on,
No matter the soul is at stake.
I shamble as the puppet strings snap, creak, and fray,
Clawed fingers no longer life-sleek,
The master looks down, unable to say,
“Don’t pray to me I am too weak.”
The hope of that second heart beating,
Beneath the smile of my son,
His eyes slay my death that is cheating,
His wings take us up to the Sun.
The End.
Actually. Strike that.
The Beginning!!!!
* * *
Bus babble #2
Essentially, life is like concrete. Hard, unyielding, and tough to crack. Some chip away, others take a pick axe and tear through it. Many just walk over it without a second thought because it’s there, it serves a purpose and necessary. But one thing’s for sure, you can’t sprinkle it with pretty glitter and hope the winds never blows its false beauty away. Dig, chip and smash. We do whatever we can. Because it’s underneath, beneath the cracks and the filth and the darkness were the diamonds and the stars truly sparkle. And behind filthy curtains that hang down like the rotten, tattered, bloody wings of long fallen angels – new born wings unfurl behind. Ready to guide and fly with us – if we dare to look and hold out our hand – and trust. Then we will rise and rise and rise. Because that’s what we chose, because now, we can. I’ll meet you at where we all want to be, not were ‘others’ want us to be. We began with the hope of choice. Our one and only prize. . . life!
One of the many, many benefits of recovery is rediscovering old passions. One of mine is creative writing. Here’s a little something I wrote when I was bored on a bus journey.
The picture below is one of a growing series of recovery memes I write for myself as backgrounds for my phone. I call them Word Noodles.
‘We all hide our scars, pain and shocking darkness with the thinnest of fragile skin. But sometimes they bleed through as life catches us out. As the architects and artists of our own souls we build and paint with the only tools we have at hand. Our palettes may vary and the way in which we re-build and re-paint ourselves. But we are all one as we repair a worn and tattered spirit with striking new colours and washes of a new and stunning life. We are all so very the same and all so very strong in our fight. The world can be frightening. But the world is only a canvas and together, we will paint it with pride and love and joy and awe!’
Stumbling Towards Hindsight 