A bit more bored-on-the-bus noodling. An un-edited splurge. A brain-burp. Not really a poem. Not really anything. But might be something to someone. Or not.
I’ve nothing much to say right now as I’m busy with writing projects and work. But I thought I’d at least post something. I wrote the words below today as part of a work in progress. I made a sort of, kind of meme with them. I’ve got something lined up for next weekend, hopefully. Keep your eyes peeled. Or not.
If this week would have happened before April 2017, I would have Sepsis. Without a shadow of a doubt. But the only difference being, nobody would have known about it. Nobody would have been around to call the emergency services. I certainly wouldn’t have called them. No chance. My door would have been locked and all phones un-plugged and turned off. I would have been in a very bad way. I certainly wouldn’t be writing this.
Untreated, life-threatening, conditions are not conducive to the written word. I’ve been reliably informed by professionals that it’s very hard to write when you’re dead. Rigor mortis, and all that stuff.
Corpses don’t blog.
I’m not out of the woods yet but thanks to the expertise and quick-thinking of a fantastic doctor who arranged urgent treatment, I’m now Sepsis-free. I’m also not dead (although my mirror tells me differently).
So, what happened? And what’s this doing on an addiction blog? Bear with me.
Six days ago, I woke up with a painful lump under my ear. As the day went on, it grew. I was confused, feeling sick and peeing razor blades. Hot and cold flushes. I walked like I was drunk. The lump grew and the pain increased. Going against my old addicted nature, I called the doctor’s surgery and got an emergency appointment.
The GP took one look at it and her face dropped. She called in a colleague and they both agreed instantly. Straight to hospital! Right now!
Blood tests, blood pressure, cannula in the arm, and pumped with antibiotics. I’ve been in hospital every morning since then: lanced, drained, cut open, cleaned, swabbed, and dressed. You name it, I’ve had it. But it’s not going away. Samples have gone off for tests to see what variation of infection it is. But I’m not dying and I don’t have Sepsis anymore. I’m sore and very bored of it all. But sore and very bored mean I’m alive and dealing with problems as they arise.
So, what would have happened pre-April 2017?
Nothing. My best guess is that it would have gone like this:
Woke up with a painful lump under my ear – drank alcohol. As the day went on, it grew and grew – drank alcohol. Feeling sick, confused, peeing razor blades, hot and cold, and walking like I was drunk – more alcohol. The lump got bigger and the pain worse – kept drinking alcohol. Go to the shop, get more alcohol. Repeat until blackout.
No urgency there eh! All blotted out until whatever happened, happened. It wouldn’t have progressed much further than the next drink. No doctors, nurses, or surgical teams. No friends to worry about me because they wouldn’t have known. Alcohol was my antibiotic and anaesthetic for everything – my oral Cannula. Extreme pain and increasing symptoms? I wouldn’t have cared one iota. Certainly not with a bottle in my hand. Pain? Death? Bring it on! Sooner the better! Nobody gives a shit anyway. And on with the badly-attended pity-party of one. Rinse and repeat.
But it’s 2019. I don’t have Sepsis. I’m 397 days sober and glad to be alive! I love my life and adore my many wonderful, stunning, amazing friends and peers and (soon to be) colleagues. I love my son so very much. Next month I’ll be employed for the very first time in two years working in my dream job as an addiction recovery worker. I’ve worked really hard for it. So hard! I won’t let anything get in the way of all this love and joy and new confidence. Nothing!
Recovery will always forever be the hardest thing that I’ve ever done, and keep doing. But I have to keep doing it because the alternative isn’t worth going back to. Ever!
Hell’s basement is always open to me to slide or fall into the pit. So, I carefully watch where I walk. Every single day. Because without my recovery I have nothing. Well apart from Sepsis, badly-attended parties, oh, and death.
This sketch really knocked me for six when I saw it today (unfortunately the artist wasn’t named to give credit on here). I haven’t been able to take my eyes off it. It threw some big emotions around my head and heart.
The image is how I imagine the how my son saw me not so many years ago. His dad slowly but surely fading away in front of his eyes. Watching helplessly and unable to do anything, no matter how hard he tried. And he really tried.
I like to think of myself now as fully-sketched and visible. As time goes on there may be a bit of colour appearing. We fade away during the fog and filth of alcoholism, we don’t care. We allow ourselves to disappear. Unfortunately, some of us never come back. Thankfully I did.
In a perfect world, every addict would eventually come back. In a perfect world, there would be no such thing as addiction. But unfortunately, the world is far from perfect.
My son can now see his dad. For many years he only saw the fast-fading shadow. My hope is to be the brightest painting I can possibly paint for us both.
Take care all xx
If anyone knows the artist’s name, please let me know
Addiction – is it a disease or a choice? There you go, worms spilling out everywhere.
As addicts, we feel such a weight and burden on our shoulders. Anything we are offered to lighten our load; we greedily but gratefully grab at with white-knuckled hands. Just as we do with our substances when we are active users.
It’s natural. Of course it is. We’ll even believe: gossip, rumours, hearsay, tittle-tattle, Jeremy Kyle’s guests, Cosmopolitan columns – even The Sun newspaper if it means we’ll sleep easier at night. Anything! We’ll take all that thanks.
Around a month into my recovery, I had my first lightbulb moment.
I attended a five-day addiction course called, Intuitive Thinking Skills. Highly recommended!
It was a frightening but fantastic start to my sober career. I’ve kept many of the tools in my brain to this day. But the thing that will always stick with me, is when the facilitator asked us, the newly clean and sober, “how many of you think addiction is a disease?”
Of course, all our hands shot up as if we’d been asked how many of us want to win the lottery. Then the next, but devastating question came. “How many of you could stand in front of a room full of cancer sufferers and tell them that you have to literally pour alcohol down your neck twenty-four hours a day because you have a disease?” Not one hand raised. Just a lot of guilty-looking and defeated faces.
In that one sentence, he’d taken away our warm and trusted comfort blanket. We had a something that made every terrible thing we had ever done in addiction, not our fault. We had a disease. But then suddenly, we didn’t!
One simple sentence took that away from us. It was our fault. Bollocks!
Can you imagine a woman’s relief when her doctor gives her the news that the lump in her breast isn’t the cancer that has been giving her sleepless nights with worry. Benign. Doctors can give this sort of news because all the tests have been done and sent back to them. It’s all there in black and white. This woman does not have breast cancer! It’s official! And relax. The same for other worrisome, anxiety-inducing illnesses that turn out to be OK.
Unfortunately, having things down in black and white can also reveal the bad news too.
A doctor cannot do that for the addict. They can give out pills for the depression, anxiety, cravings, restless legs, and all the other many underlying side-effects of addiction. But no real good or bad news. Nothing is down in black and white. We’re simply just – addicts! That’s it!
Take my last lapse over ten months ago. Yes, please take it! But seriously.
When people asked me how it happened, I would tell them that I was: low, depressed, anxious, haunted with guilt, etc. I was simply walking to the coffee shop one morning and the next thing I knew, I was in a pub with a glass of wine in front of me. It just happened. It happens!
But magical wizardry doesn’t just happen, ‘Harry Potter and the Infinitely Filling Glass of Wine.’
What happened was: I was walking to the coffee shop one morning, stopped, turned right, walked into a pub, ordered a glass of wine, drank it in minutes, then ordered many, many more. All day every day because I chose to. I could have chosen to go to the coffee shop, drink my coffee and chill for an hour before I started my day. Just as I did every other day with the same emotions: low, depressed, anxious, haunted with guilt, etc. But that day, I chose not to. I chose.
If I could have taken a pill, puffed on an inhaler or jabbed my leg with something that stopped me walking into pubs and getting royally slaughtered every time I have one of my dark, drinky thoughts, I certainly would have done that!
Would I?
There’s still that massive elephant in the room – choice. Would I opt to take away that powerful option when I feel weak, low, and pissed off? The option to fight? Take my diseased thoughts away with a legally prescribed wonder-drug? I’m not sure.
Not sure because I’ve trained my own mind to cope with everything and the kitchen sink when it’s thrown at me. That’s all me: me, me, me! My work, nobody else’s! Many, many days, weeks and months of excruciating, emotional and mental gymnastics on my part. All me!
Would I let a doctor steal my thunder with another, extortionately-priced and no doubt highly-addictive – drug? If the option was given to me today? Right now? Actually . . .
No.
I enjoy making choices in my mental gymnasium. I enjoy my biblical, internal fights. I’m tougher now, as opposed to the weak old days, Balls like Titanium. I wouldn’t, not now. I enjoy the fight. But for others? If it saved and improved the quality of their lives?
Yes of course! Anything that is good, is good! But not for me thanks. That’s my choice.
If addiction is a disease, a drug would have been discovered/invented by now to eradicate it off the face of the earth. Rather than countless blogs like this, trying to work addiction out and how to cope with it, you would simply see online statuses such as, ‘I drank too much, then my doctor prescribed (insert wonder-drug) and now I’m fine!’
Or
‘I injected Heroin last night but the chemist gave me (insert wonder-drug) and I’m doing great!’ (insert smiley emoji). But obviously that is not the case. Thousands of books and blogs like mine exist. People are dying in their thousands every day. Lives and families are being destroyed. The drug dealers and the alcohol industry (the biggest drug dealer) are doing just fine and they always will. It is what it is.
But how do we stop doing what we shouldn’t do?
I’ve stopped. Many of my friends and mentors have stopped. Millions of people around the world have stopped. You, and the people you know may have stopped. It’s happening daily and will do forever. But how? None of us have had anti-addict medication.
Choice.
I chose to stop. Right now, I could choose to drink. I’m alone as I type this and nobody would know. But I don’t. My friends and mentors chose to stop. The millions around the world have chosen to stop. It’s what we do. We choose.
One of the strongest people and mentors I’ve ever met once said to me, “stick with the winners in life!” He meant stay with people who shine, who want to live and give back to the world. People who choose good over bad. Don’t waste time with avoidable negativity and people who try to bring us down every day because they can’t be bothered to put the work in themselves. I listened to him. It works. Learn from the best! And the wise.
So, addiction. Is it a disease or a choice?
It’s whatever you think it is.
All the above is only my opinion based on my own experience. Am I trying to convince you to think like me? No. Everybody is different. If you disagree with me, that’s fine. I’m not here to change your mind. I’m simply here, working things out for myself. But also, you won’t convince me to change my mind because . . . It’s my choice. That’s how it works.
Stumbling Towards Hindsight 