Recovery Homes

A lad from Narcotics Anonymous found thousands of pounds on the street at the weekend. It was wrapped in a business receipt from a Dog Kennel’s or something about fifty yards down from MacDonald’s restaurant in town. He shared about it in the meeting, said it was wrecking his head because he swore he had done the right thing by handing it in but he was having doubts. He is a better man than me, I’ll tell you that much for nothing. There’s no way I’d be handing found cash in. I’d keep it for myself. That’s the sour honest truth about the matter.

Would I score? Well that’s the problem, and probably why he handed it in, because he’s months and months clean. Cocaine would spring up in my mind instantly, quicker than you can say “Jumping Jack Flash.” If I was months and months clean then I would probably do the right thing too. But I’m only 19 days (I was 44 before my last relapse). What do you think, am I doing well or what?

There’s a bunch of guys here at Pathways who live in supported rehab accommodation called Recovery Homes. They are not allowed to even drink or they get kicked out. They are all doing well regarding clean time, but I believe it’s a default setting. I was clean in prison because I had to be. So do they. I’d be two years clean and all that if I lived there, but I live on my own with nobody instructing me about the way I should live. You may detect a smidgen of jealousy but I am absolutely made up for them. Plus, they always have company. The main gripe I have with Recovery Homes is that they make the residents do stuff, like attend Pathways and fellowship meetings. It’s in the contract. Whereas I do it off my own back, out of free will and choice. I wouldn’t like being made to do anything. The real test comes when they get their own place and are once more allowed again to do whatever they want.

Thought I’d mention my boy Fred here. He’s been coming to Pathways from an open prison to take part in our psychedelic art class. He’s done a fair few years behind bars but he’s been clean for the last three and talks a lot of sense about recovery. He seems to be totally reformed and rehabilitated, and gets out next week. It’s obvious he’s done a serious crime, but I don’t want to ask him what for and disrespect him. He might be ashamed of it or something, or it might bring back bad memories for him because he’s not properly processed it yet. What do you think, would you trust someone like that, if you were an employer or somebody else in a position to hand him a second chance? I think I probably would. He seems calm and peaceful and down to Earth, although his crime might make him look like a monster in black and white. I know my crimes, when seen on paper, make me look like a monster. I’m nothing but a violent arsonist to the law enforcement authorities. I can always fall back on those qualities, if militia law breaks out or anything like that. Of course I love a nice flame or two, it’s in my nature :-)

 

The Symbol

Just been talking to a friend named Damien from Fiona’s mental health drop in class who has just embarked on a 6 week acting course down in The Big Smoke, London Town. He said he turned up after a long train journey and was asked to perform a scene from the movie Leon The Professional (1994). His venture into that world of performing arts has rejuvenated my own creativity here at the blogspot. I now feel like a living creative spiritual being, full of light and darkness in equal measure, you know, like the yin & yang badge on my bubble jacket says to people. Although, having an informal chat with my chaplain earlier, at Hope Trinity church, she suggested, more in alignment with Christianity rather than Buddhism, that there should be far more lightness than darkness on the symbol, and that the two concepts should not be so equally wrought. The cross, for example, is pure light. David Icke would call it Satanism-lite, because of the horrors of the crucifixion. So my feelings about the yin and yang symbol have changed slightly over the last couple of hours.

I’m talking like John Siddique by calling myself a creative spiritual being. That’s what he’s like. All love and sparks and energy and compassion and faith and everything. Better than self-hatred though, isn’t it? I mentioned the other month that my Man In The Glass technique had failed, because I looked in the mirror and said, “I will never ever take amphetamines again.” Now I use the Man In The Glass to declare self-love and acceptance. Like my pal Paul from Pathways (my local drug rehab clinic) says, “You should look into the mirror and say You are amazing you, I love ya.”

It can seem a bit big-headed and egotistical but like I say, what’s the alternative, staring into the glass and saying, “I hate everything about ya, you’ll never amount to anything, I want nothing but misery and anguish for ya?” As an addict, I know all about self-hatred. Many would say that all addicts do. That feeling of a relapse is debilitating, it’s sheer horrible, the pain is impossible to express with words. You feel so low, so hung out to dry, so useless and meaningless, it’s almost unimaginable. Except that I’m always feeling like that, the identification is common, it’s a week-in, week-out thing. I have a mate called Ricky who I’m concerned about, he had 12 months clean time but he’s gone missing from recovery, I’m wondering if he’s relapsed into that darkness again. Prayers to him if he has, but I hope he hasn’t. I relapsed after 9 months and it stings like a bitch. Now I’m on the right track again, and something is different this time. I know we’ve all said it, “Never again,” but this time I think something has really clicked within the psyche of my members. I’ve found God and Good Spirits and I’m battering Clinical Depression. I know I’m loved, and boy is that hard to comprehend. It’s tough getting used to it, a big hairy-assed old grizzly bear like me. I’ve just got to accept that I’m different to others. I know, I hear you say, who isn’t? But you know what I mean. As Tiny Tempah says, in his video The Wonderman (whose identity I have unashamedly stolen, by the way), “I was born to be special.” 

 

Reunion

Hi ya. I’ve been anxiously waiting for payday to buy a pint and a decent smoke, I been abstinent and on the cheap tobacco all week. It felt good to frequent the pub last night after my funds had gone through. I got in amongst the pool balls a little bit and then played some darts. I got the bull’s eye eventually. Can’t beat a bit of bully. So satisfying, so difficult, so rewarding.

That was after a Christian bible study. We looked at Luke 12, where Jesus is talking about hypocrisy, secrecy, eternity, and blasphemy. It was quite hard narrowing that down! Usually, a lot of the bible flies over my head, in one ear and out the other, but this verse I could understand. It was around a young Christian couple’s house. They laid on the snacks. Shortbread and carrot cake. Darius was in attendance, a young Iranian who is staying at a hotel. He said he doesn’t want to move into a village but wants to sample town life. Understandable.

I’m off to see my favourite teacher from school at a Waterstones event this evening. I think she is reading from her latest book or in conversation with someone. I haven’t seen her for 27 years. We were really close back in high school. When I got ousted from there into a secure mental unit, she came to see me outside of school hours. Despite the trouble I was in, that was all that mattered, the fact that I could still see Sarah. She kept me going. She was my first crush. We were even pen pals at one point. I’d love to read through those old letters now, but my mum binned them for some reason. I’ve got a slight case of the nervous jitters, as I can’t be sure of how she’ll receive me. Part of me doesn’t want to go, to leave the past in the past.

Just been to breakfast club at the drug rehab clinic. I’ve got two feet firmly planted in recovery now, having after deleted my dealer’s numbers from my phone. You can’t be gung-ho for recovery with dealers’ numbers on your phone, I once heard. And recovery IS the most important thing in my life. It took some getting used to, accepting that fact. I want to stay clean forever now, and I feel I’m in the correct mental state to do it. I’m counting the days no matter how few or how many at the moment, it is Day 12 today. The goal is 28 as usual. I call it The Rarefied Atmosphere. If I can do that three times over then I call it Fair Weather. Fair Weather is a simply beautiful place to occupy. I was Fair Weather last year but I relinquished it for a porn star called Maddy O’Reilly. She was too powerful for me at the time. Incidentally, just before I destroyed my last batch of pornography to go to church on a Sunday, she appeared very clearly in my mind, as if in a death rattle. Okay, that’s it for now, we’ll talk again soon.

 

Isolation Chamber

Did I tell you about the time they tried to get me into the pressure cooker (isolation chamber) in Runcorn Brooker Centre? It started with me getting sectioned for nothing so naturally I tried to escape because I believed I could hear sounds of torture coming from adjacent rooms. I wholeheartedly felt that I was in a death camp. What would you try and do? You’d try and leave, wouldn’t you? It’s natural. Anybody would.  I got through the first set of security doors but was halted by the second. That’s when the police arrived. One of them was a giant and the sight of someone bigger killed the fight in me. They escorted me back onto the hospital unit once again with my responsible clinician. Only they walked me right far back into the bottom of the hospital. Where are we going, I thought, my room’s that way!

They tried to pump me with an injection which I adamantly refused. Eventually they gave up trying. They wouldn’t even let me read the instructions before jamming it into me, which I wanted to do only to buy some time to think. The police and doctor left me in the secure hands of a male orderly, who tried to drag me into the isolation chamber, which I have nicknamed the ‘pressure cooker.’ I had a great old tussle with that male orderly! It was mano gegan mano (man against man). One or two demons appeared as he dragged me towards it. I thought I was doomed. I thought all of my good spirits (children) were going to come out if he got me in there, leaving me alone forever and ever. It was at this time that I firmly understood that I have children inside of my spiritual property, or heavenly collateral. I realised it at this moment. Bennie, the mother of these children inside of my mind and inside of my heart, appeared from nowhere and said hi. This gave me strength I didn’t know I had and I started to reverse the male orderly’s forceful pull of me. I started pulling him. Then I saw a chair and held onto it, wrapping myself in its legs. I was safe as long as I held onto the chair. I’d started weeping uncontrollably. Tears stained my cheeks. I muttered two words… “The Children…”

The orderly conceded defeat. A female nurse appeared with great sympathy for me and led me to the garden where I could breathe. Once they saw me crying, everyone changed and felt sorry for me. The whole episode had gotten to me and broken me. She gave me a sarnie and was really rather nice to me. We had a pleasant chat. I felt respected by her for being so human. I felt like I was surrounded by invisible children in that garden. It was so special; relief was etched all over me. There were about fifty of them playing with each other as children do. I’m still not sure what was and what wasn’t in my imagination to this day, only the surety that I was flanked with many kids. Macauly Culkin appeared in my psychosis and started talking to me about the kids, describing what they were doing and saying he was the king of them all! Ha. Great fun. Eventually they would get me in that pressure cooker, weak and blinded, but not that time. 

Perfecto Rescue From Heaven and Hell

Demons hitched me out of my apartment the other summer so I roamed the streets of my closest and favourite city, Liverpool. You can imagine my mental state at the time. I’d gone beyond scared and became rather forlorn and desperate. The weather wasn’t too bad, fortunately. It wasn’t cold or raining. I ended up having a massive God moment in Stanley Park, which divides Everton’s and Liverpool’s stadia. I was taking a slash in some bushes when I looked up at the GOODISON PARK sign. A tree was obscuring the second ‘O’ in GOODISON, so it read GODISON. Plus, the last four letters were obscured by leaves as well, so it just read GOD. After this I sat on a bench and watched a family making a home video in the grass. It was the most beautiful scenario I have ever seen. In the next hour I found a church out of the blue and was welcomed into a service. A kind articulate gentleman hugged me and prayed in tongues for me. As he did, God appeared in my mind and said that my enemies plans “shall not succeed.”

The next day I was housed by the church. In between, I got paid and saw all the city streets light up in beautiful sunset. I spent three days with that church, praying with all the Irish that were there. God was present with me, urging me not to go back to my flat, my drugs, my porn, and my demons. But I did. I relapsed in a hurry and ended up roaming around the psychiatric hospital grounds, begging to be admitted, surrounded by the Devil, getting ultra-sonic pellets fired into my brain constantly (tic-tacs). I was hearing satanic voices and hallucinating floridly. It really was a steep fall from grace. One day I’d been with God and the next I was with the Devil. The switch was horrible, I couldn’t believe the change in me and I couldn’t believe my luck.

A few days later I was sat in town, just about over this latest psychotic break, when my niece walked past me with one of those tracksuits on which say JUICY on the bum. It was the first time I’d seen her in a decade, since we chased frogs together in her granddad’s garden, and my eyes watered instantly, upon sight. It was the quickest tear I’ve ever shed, because she remembered me and smiled at me. Then my little sister appeared! I walked her home, thinking to myself, this is better than heaven and hell combined.

Being with my little sister after living in Victory church and hanging around a mental hospital in wicked psychosis was the best end result imaginable. I felt a serene peace overcome me. It felt like I’d been taken hostage on one of those Banged Up Abroad nightmares and come out the other side to be reunited with my family. A wonderful feeling I shall never forget. She was like a little angel. Her nickname is Perfecto.

 

Brain Tech

I’ve recently lost 44 days of clean time and I should be gutted, but I’m not. I’ve never picked myself up and bounced back like this so energetically before. Things got real bad with the CEVs (closed eye visuals). They’ve started stabbing me softly in the heart now. They’ve been doing that for just over a year. Characters in my mind’s eye, hurting my physical body, inflicting physical pain. You’d never believe it, would you? But that’s what the brain-techers can do. It doesn’t make any sense almost. How can someone in your mind stab you in your heart?

Most of the time they are just showing off, showing me videos of things I can’t do myself. Am I supposed to feel jealous? Usually my mind is black and blank, especially on a comedown, so when faced with a clear bright video in my mind lit up with clarity like an Avengers action-sequence at x32 speed, I’m bound to feel inferior.

The other night I joined in with one of their videos. It’s taken me all these years to figure out that they are interactive. My chair guy (everyone needs a chair guy), pointed this out to me. You know that person who guides you through the hard times? I call her my Blood Diamond Connect. Because in the movie Blood Diamond (2006), there is a touching scene where they are separated by a continent but connected by a cell phone line.

One thing I did to escape the pinnacle of mental discomfort was to flood my mind with an excessive downpour of golf balls. The bad guys in my head hated every second of it. The golf ball is symbolic to me because it represented my mentor’s business, but it also comes into a religious idea which is too tough to explain. Basically, if Earth was the size of a golf ball then the universe would be the size of the Earth and you could fill the planet up with golf balls. Or something loosely familiar with that idea.

What I’m getting at here so far is the end of brain tech in my life. It feels categorically sumptuous to decree that fact here live on line.

I mentioned rodents the other month. In my comedown they were laying their scent on me. I’ve come to understand that they’re not real and it is just part of my psychosis. It’s all part of a wicked scheming game plan to excommunicate me from my own property and have me out on the street, which won’t work. My home is my home no matter how challenging it gets to remain there. My personal self-sworn ultimatum is: Stay put. First rule of mind control: Don’t bother to run, you’ll just die tired. I’ve had my fair share of illuminati hit men over the years. I even done a song about it.

There’s so much more I want to mention (positive), but I haven’t donned my writing cap today, I feel off at the computer, as if suffering from writer’s block. To sum it up, I’ve found God, and I’ve found love. At the moment, I’m on top of the world.

 

Blue Light

Well I hate to dispatch the message that I have just relapsed after 44 days clean, serene, pristine and supreme. Just thought I’d get that out of the way. Truth is (I told myself), I was bored of being clean. I’m just not a straight head and never have been unless the condition has been forced upon me, like it was in jail in my mid-twenties. As a Narcotics Anonymous compadre named Craig once said, “Being clean is like doing time.” Your release date is when you use again. It’s pure unclouded escapism to decamp from reality and scram away from life. But there is more to life than being an addict or not. There’s great music, good movies, and soulful companionship.

Don’t forget Christ. I will never leave you or forsake you. Is that the correct biblical terminology? Something like that. I believe it’s nor forsake you. I witnessed Jesus appear to me in one of my most recent hallucinations. He was carrying his cross, which sure-enough looked very heavy. He arose upon my blanket, at a time when I needed to be reminded of what he did for all of us, myself included. I receive a lot of visions on my blanket, for some reason. Maybe it’s because I spend a lot of time underneath it. Sometimes it’s like a portal into a different realm. I see dominions of warriors fighting wars in it. Little figures dancing and stuff like that. But it’s the way they move…so quickly, so sporadically, so supernaturally.

Once upon a time, a surge of a stream of blue light flowed out of me for about an hour. Because I was sinning at the time (fapping), I believed it was all of the good characters I had met, encountered and invented throughout my life. It was when I thought I’d lost my love (or was losing my love). The blue light was in the vague shape of the female form. It happened very slowly. Of course, because we’re talking about psychosis here, it is very difficult to describe. Not just in terms of language, but in terms of revisiting it, with all the sad, confusing and scary emotions which are carried along within the memory of it.

The blue light was keen intense sharply acute neon. Beautiful it was. One of the people who departed me was a woman called Constance Bell, the main female lead character in my favourite all-time book by the deceased author James Herbert, named Others. It was extremely unpleasant in the uttermost to glimpse the tableau of her luminously fluorescent presence vacate my psyche. The length and scope of her chiaroscuro, like radiant tinsel, was extraordinary. I told myself it was the Chinese Government using Project Blue Beam on me, which is basically induced hallucinations from satellites, as far as I understand it.

The next day I spent mindlessly wayfaring around my neighbourhood feeling dazed, distracted and disorganised. I was a devoid dry and hollow empty shell of a man. I didn’t (or hardly) knew what love was, only that I fiercely pined for it now it was gone. But it was too late. I was (I believed at the time) all on my own. I had had the universe in my fingertips and I had squandered it. I had had all I had ever needed and I had threw it away like some unwanted trash. All those women in my heart, now suddenly gone. Or so the Devil would have me think. 

Ultra Sonic Pellets (Tic-Tacs)

The compulsion to use cocaine was ‘all over me’ last night as I got paid at half past nine o’clock. It’s a very impatient wait hanging around for those funds to go in to Santander. I used to think it went in at midnight, so for years I was on tenterhooks with bated breath until then, without realising that it went in hours earlier. Trying to score at midnight can be a difficult ordeal, not impossible, but the chances of success are a lot more likeable at half nine.

Instead I took myself for two pints of beer in the local boozer and a pizza on the way home again. Early to bed like a sensible old man and early to rise for breakfast club at the drug rehab clinic, Change, Grow, Live. It’s still all over me at the moment tbh because I still have enough money in my pocket. I just know that it will deplete my funds big time and I can’t realistically afford it. This doe has to last me two weeks and if I score I’ll be brassic for the second one, being a sad and sorrowful foodbanker wanker. Nothing wrong with it, but it’s not the kind of good look for an original G such as myself. My loan application has been received and they said it will take them 21 days to make a decision. I’m hoping they do it in about ten.

I tried to do my mate a good turn over New Year by saying I’ll score for him. He wanted some coke because he hadn’t had it in ages. I made a few calls but kept getting fobbed off until we went into town and saw someone in person in a bar. I organised the deal and while we were waiting I had a mild panic attack. I just thought to myself, knowing that my mate was going to offer me some once he got it: What am I doing? So I took off out of there without saying a word while he was in the toilet and went home without paying attention to my usual firework routine. There’s nothing worse than being sat around in suspense waiting for drugs, especially if they’re not even for you.

That same guy used to be on crack cocaine and heroin. His arms used to lock up because he’d ruined all the veins in them. He resorted to shooting in his groin. He’s got holes in his legs. He said he used to spray blood all up the wall when he was doing it. A pretty bad addict in his day. Reckoned he spent £15,000 over a several month period. What made him stop and conquer his enslavement was when someone sold him salt and sugar for 200 notes. That woke him up. There’s nothing like being mugged off is there? I’ve thought the same myself in the coke game. I suspected they were ripping me off by giving me talcum powder. I didn’t know for sure or not until eventually in desperation for a high with no funds I bought some talcum powder and snorted a bit of it. I can tell you that it messes the brain up quite badly. It was impossible to visualise anything, all I could see were bright streaks and vivid flashes. My mind was like a malfunctioning graphic equalizer display. I understood then that even poor quality coke is nothing like the disaster that is snorting talcum powder. Never do it. I don’t think even Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of the masterpiece Prozac Nation, who at one point was snorting 40 crushed-up pills a day, would ever snort talcum powder. Got you beat there, Liz.

I went into a deep psychosis off it, as it mixed with other drugs in my system. I remember sitting in front of my radio and it kept firing thousands of invisible ultra-sonic pellets into my head. Imagine being pelted repeatedly with super-absorbent tic-tacs and you’re halfway there. They clog up the brain and steal all your thoughts away, making you into a zombie. Then some invisible guys showed up with stun guns which fired the pellets and helped themselves to a free-for-all with my noggin. I believed they were aiming for the very reptilian core of my brain, a special node with is only the size of a grain of rice. That would seem impossible to locate with a gun, no matter how supernatural or high-tech it was, but they riddled me with so many that I was certain they were going to find it. I ended up frozen in fear in my hallway, and I mean like frozen stiff rigid. All my energy was leaving me in a beautiful array of blue light and I had to concentrate ridiculously hard to retain just a smidgen of it. The energy was called Nuclear Fusion and so long as you have a bit of it you can make more and many other energies with it. You can imagine my dismay as the very last dregs of it escaped my aura and my psyche and I had to pray for just a droplet or globule of the stuff to remain with me, which it did, located in my leg for some reason. From there, and with it, after that brutal ordeal, I made more imaginary friends and characters to help me fight the evil stun gunners. I’ve had no problems with the radio ever since, but at one point those tic-tacs were being fired from the telly, the mirror, and even little holes in the wall. Now and again they go through your eyes and it even hurts a tiny bit. I thought it was the Chinese Government with tech suits on to make them in-vis and soundless. I kinda understand now that it was just spiritual attack from evil entities.

I enjoy writing about psychosis as hopefully a few very rare people can relate to it and it can tie in with their crazy testimonies as well. In our brotherhood of psychosis we all have mad unimaginable crap happening to us and it is a challenge to make some sound sense of them with the written word. Plus, in hindsight, hopefully it’s all a little fun too, about from being bewildering and frightening at the time of the events. Bombarded with tic-tacs lol.

Lydia

One day my telly pulled off a stunt and a half. Within the smudges and greasy fingerprints on its surface, I peered into a parallel dimension. It started off with some mad evil dude who had about 50 different faces. He called himself, get this, ‘The Master Of The Universe.’ The complexity to his boater (boat race – face), was absolutely incredible. The harder I looked, the more faces I perceived. He was obviously a bad dude, but I granted him mercy. He started to cry in front of me. And as soon as I looked away from him, he fired several mini lizards from the telly into my living room. There really was no feeling pity for him. He just wanted to inflict anxiety the minute my back was turned.

Behind him was a giant hall full of evildoers lined up in rows. They were all scowling because I could see them. It was hard to ignore the hatred seething off them all. “It’s impossible,” they said. “How can he see us?” But I could, through the smudges and fingerprints. The TV was off by the way, but the sun was shining on it. Some of the evildoers were giant humanoid rodents, like Splinter from the turtles. In the middle of them was a pile of human corpses, I think they were expired or close to death. It was one of the most gruesome scenarios I have ever set eyes on.

I realised that these people had been looking at me all of my life through the telly. Years and years of been spied upon. And now, for some mad reason, I could see them. It took all of their power away.

Adorned there, in white light, the only true spark in a field of misery, was a beautiful woman. “Are you the Orchestrator?” she asked me. This is the title I’ve been given by my enemies. I nodded. It felt like I’ve saved her, through the simple act of acknowledgement. And so she instantly became my wife.

Apparently, they were putting her in a sewing machine. Torture and all that crap. But I had saved her by perceiving her from a distant planet. I would have gone there in a heartbeat to save her. I did go there. I was present. The expression upon her features, even for a grandmaster wordsmith master master such as me, is extraordinarily difficult to describe. It was just utterly and totally utterly totally beautiful reverence and love. I took her as my wife there and then, and named her Lydia. She looks just like Clare Higgins from the first Hellraiser movie.

Imagine saving someone from an eternal sewing machine on a planet full of humanoid rats? How do you think they’re going to look at you? I looked back at her in exactly the same way. Reverence and adoration and awe and devotion and love. I’ll say that just one more time: Reverence and adoration and awe and devotion and love. There’s no other way of putting it. Never have I seen love so personified.

It was magical, but I had to get rid of my TV after that experience.

 

Diary

I drank two bottles of cheap cider and walked to my dealer’s the other day. The walk took 32 minutes exactly. Pissed down on the way back. I suspected he was in prison, as his phone was on answer machine, but I took the gamble. I left a note through his door with my number on it, just in case he’d simply lost his phone. As it happens, I got a voicemail from his mum the next day. She alerted me to the fact that he was indeed in prison. She said he might be out on the tenth of Jan with a tag, or the 5^th of Feb without. So today is a waiting game. When will my recent clean time ever come to an end?

I’m sooo looking forward to using again. There’s no way I’ve beaten this addiction. I know how that sounds, defeatist and forlorn, but we are always brutally honest here at Anvil Samsara. That’s what you need to understand, that this is Anvil Samsara here. There’s no bullshit.

When I got back I watched Ong Bak: The Beginning. It wasn’t in English. Just full of warriors fighting each other and growling. That’s all I’ve got to say about it. Animalistic noises and samurais. The main star was the actual director, which I find is rare. Tony Jaa. Take a bow anyway mate.

I’ve applied for a loan from the benefit people. £350 notes. Judging from past experience, I’d say I’m 85% eligible for the payment. I’ve already put that baby aside for a phat bag of coke lol. That’s if a laptop doesn’t get in the way. I could really use my Photoshop Elements 6.0 again, I tell thee. That graphic design program fills a void up.

Had a tuna pasta sweetcorn at midnight in bed the other night. Graham Norton said that it feels brilliant going to bed full. I’m inclined to agree with him. Add a few Diazepam and it’s winner winner chicken dinner, even though it’s not a chicken dinner, it’s a tuna pasta sweetcorn. Which do you prefer? I’ve always thought that a Dominoes bin-lid gets you to sleep, along with cricket and philosophy. How about a carvery in bed? Just a thought.

As for the Samaritans, I’d like to thank Kath from South Wales, Ash from Newport, Grant from North London, and Peter from Manchester. Just a little acknowledgement roll there. They listened intently.

I saw an old mate from Widnes begging outside the Sainsburys the other day. He had a sign. It said Ex-Royal Engineer! He was never a royal engineer lol. Complete blagster, I think, but the fullest of respect to him. I love Jon Dennet, known him since childhood. And his brother Chris is doing really well.

I sorted my windowsill out. It was full of crap on it. Now there’s just an out-of-work blender and some butter.

Played competitive pool on Thursday. I got beat but it was a very close game. Then I played a woman called Debbie who is a barmaid in the pub. I kind of lost to her on purpose to feed her ego. Where’s the satisfaction in winning? I’d rather lose on purpose and make it look like an accident. That’s the trick, making it look genuine. I’d been thinking about buying a couple of bags of coke so going to the pub to play pool with people was a far better idea. On the way home I got a Meat Feast Pizza from Turkish Delight. The establishment is run by a pair of identical twins who I can only tell apart by their thinning hairlines.

I bumped into James from Pathways, the drug rehab clinic I attend. He suggested that my dealer being in prison was a result of my higher power being at work. I’d never looked at it like that, in that way. He said that my higher power might have f**ked my dealer off.

To finish off, I punched in at the town’s monthly poetry event last night. I had a problem talking with my thick tongue but I read out some very special poems to me, and heard a few back in between. It was splendid. I lived in the moment and enjoyed it, very happy to be there. Bye for now, and I’ll speak to you soon okay.

 

The Townies

Now then, White Voider. It truly is a sincere privilege to commune with you. Where the hell are you? What are you doing? What are your mental thought processes like at the moment? I hope you’re not masturbating in a darkened room feeling like a hole will swallow you up, claiming you into the deepest recesses of the pit. If you are, and you’re probably most likely not, coz you’re not me, then I empathise. I myself am in the library writing this bull shit down, thinking about nothing but you. Really hope you’re well. Wouldn’t it be nice if we met? I’ve just inherited a sense of enjoyment by sampling a can of Karpackie and two pints of run-of-the-mill Carling in the pub. I wish Karpackie was on draught in the pub. Now that would be a truly beautiful thing, see. 9% smack in a frosted glass. I had to buy that from the shop before the pub.

Saw some guy with chain game the other day, while waiting for my injection in the psychiatric clinic. His chains must have been worth a couple of grand. Just thought I’d mention it. He was coloured, per se, not what I would call blacky black. Does having two black parents make you fully black? I would say that unless you are f**king masai warrior, from the heartlands of the dark continent Afrikaans, then you are not black, you are coloured. How hard is it to denote a f**king colour? As the ninja from Die Antwoord says, and he should know his stuff as he’s from South Africa, there are only three kinds of gangs: Whites, Coloureds, and Blacks. I hope that makes things simple for you. Hispanics and Mexicans don’t count, I’m ever so sorry. Now the Aryan Brotherhood is a gang. But minions from Toxeth 8 aren’t. Maybe I’m wrong. I used to be part-in and part-out of a gang meself, as a teenager.

We called ourselves the Townies, as we were from the centre of town. Our HQ was the local youth club, where we played pool, computer games, ping pong (aka table tennis), and most importantly indoor five-a-side. There was a big black cross at the side of the five-a-side pitch and I used to sit on it thinking I was the Black Messiah. It was a vintage frame-of-reference viewpoint to watch the proceedings of the game from, high up and away from lethal toe-bungers. That was between games, when I wasn’t part of the action, usually as ‘The Cat’ in net, putting my face in the pelting line of all the other older townies’ shots. It was a fest of rock-hard dirty challenges at the best of times. We had the equivalent of goal-mouth scrambles in the corner of the indoor space. Basically a free-for-all fouling session in which everybody would converge on whoever had the ball and act like Danny Mills on them. Loads of ‘bite yer legs’ going on. We called it ‘Shitty Corner.’ One guy, Chris Batty, was the most skillful person I have ever seen with a football. You just couldn’t get the damn thing off him. It was like he had glue on his shoes or something. He would wade into ‘Shitty Corner’ totally on purpose with confidence that he would make it back out. He was the only one who could do that. Then there was Big Bad Bob, a weightlifter in charge of the lads, who would hit the painted-on post and claim he scored a goal. He celebrated goals that didn’t go in! Looking back, these were happy times. Just a young kid playing football and doing what he loved.

On one occasion, my very best mate Jon Paul walked in and got flattened with his glasses smashed to boot by a vicious wayward townie shot. Everyone was in hysterics although he was obviously hurt. That fact that he was hurt made it all the more funny, I’m ashamed to admit it. The ball whacked him full in the face and knocked him off his feet. The townies called him ‘Wobble Head,’ for some reason. People doubled up, creased with laughter. That’s one of the greatest memories in my whole life. Peace out x

(Just one more thing. Us Townies had a darker side. We would occasionally beat up a random stranger on the street and we called this ‘Suspecting’. This is why I wasn’t a fully committed member of them, and why I left them to join the Halton View Massive. More on that later maybe. Peace out again x)

Using

Well, where are we up to? I feel clean, serene, pristine and supreme. It’s about time. Long may it last but I’m not bothered if it doesn’t. To be frank with you, my dealer is in prison. I’m missing him a lot and I hope he gets out soon. The urge to use is still prevalent, so I’ve not really cracked it. I’m clean by default, in a way. But clean is clean – you’re either clean or you’re not. I’m feeling dapper, just about to go through the spellchecking/proofreading part of my novella and get a perfect hard copy made. Then I’ll make a photocopy and hand it to Clint, a volunteer at my mental health drop in. He seems to know his books so I’m confident he’ll give me some decent feedback.

I had a further 121 with Fiona from the drop in yesterday. The night before at Peer Support depression group I had another mild panic attack and left promptly (it’s becoming a habit), but with Fiona I feel relaxed and calm enough to open up and share. She made me write a list about the pros and cons of using. The pros were: That it is euphorically rapturous coming up off illegal intoxicants while simultaneously indulging in (perverse?) sexual desire, it kills a helluva lot time, and it knocks depression (temporarily) out of the ballpark. The cons were that it depresses me when it’s over, it induces psychosis, and it leaves me flat broke. Plus I feel like a piece of shit, I hate myself, and I want to die because of the voices and hallucinations. Also, I drink a lot when it’s over.

The truth is, I don’t even need porn anymore. I use substances to the female voices inside my head. They are very mean and cruel but sexy at the same time. They talk dirty to me and get me going. It’s like my own private sex line inside my noggin. I very rarely divulge this information, I’m not sure of the correct fashion to disclose it. It’s hard to talk about. I feel like I’m blabbing on the Devil. It’s been happening for about seven years. They say anything I want them to say and make other voices repeat them in a mantra. I see it as a sexually-orientated female domination soundtrack. It does the job. Its purpose is to get me ‘properly’ erect. Properly properly properly properly. And whenever I’m watching porn, this line comes in to distract me from it. I always turn my attention to the ‘line’ at this point, and start fapping away to that all day and night. It’s very powerful and in a way I am enslaved to it. In all honesty, given my recent abstinence, I am filled with excited anticipation at the thought of retracing my footsteps back to it. I wish this wasn’t the case, but it is. Evil disembodied women being all erotic and fem-dom just for me. It’s titillating.

The bonus is that the Celluloid Corridor (porn) loses all its power, and almost becomes invalid, kaput and out of commission. Good riddance to that, because, when I’m watching those female interracial babe actresses, something else supernatural happens. They start talking to me too. From the telly. ‘Talking Televisions’ are very popular in modern mental illnesses. It used to be Jesus Christ, or Joan of Ark (one of my spiritual wives), or God, or John the Baptist, but now it’s the television. Well, I can certify this phenomenon because several of my friends have substantiated it and it’s happened to me to boot. It's known in the psychiatric game as 'thought broadcasting.'  This is partly some of the reason why I haven’t watched television for over two years. Anyway, more from me later, good bye. 

Festive Period

Last week I got my ear chewed off by a man in a pub. He was mixed-race like myself. “If anyone calls you a nigger then come and see me and I’ll batter them.” That’s the gist of what he kept banging on about. That, and the fact that he used to be a football hooligan. “I was always at the front, knocking them all out.” Yeah, sure you were. He was off his head on cocaine, openly snorting it on the pub premises, just outside the entrance. He had constant white foam around his lips. I couldn’t get a word in. I had to walk away to get clear of him in the end. The next day I seen him and he bought me a pint. He was alright, he said nothing. That was how I preferred him.

Christmas Day went superbly. I got a last-ditch invite to my brother’s. I’d been praying for it, and it arrived in the nick of time. I bought each of them presents, most notably a dinosaur slime kit for Rosie, my niece. I also gave her a card with ten pound coins sellotaped into it to go into her little new pink purse. I watched her play with the dinosaur slime kit. I played with her playing with other toys as well. She was more interested in her brother’s presents, rather than her own. I enjoyed a real mountain of a dinner. Even nicer than the dinner was the evening selection of buffet food laid out, including sliced hot waffles and BBQ chicken skewers.

The next day I rang Sarah from Hertfordshire who worked for The Samaritans. We had a good chat about my addiction. I’ve been ringing them quite a lot lately. I’m disappointed if the call doesn’t last at least twenty minutes. Getting a bit bored of them now, to be honest.

The day after Boxing Day was a pool tournament in my local boozer. I was locked out from the table all day. They were playing for £20 each, about £160 in the pot. They said the league might be able to let me join in September. Bare in mind it’s January. One player had a sports top on with the lettering ‘Jonnie Two Shots’ on the back. Another player was Stuart who was showing me martial arts moves in between frames. Yet another was Sub, a short slight Indian gentleman. They all took it serious and the standard was very high. I myself am not very competitive, I’m not sure I’d fit in. But I learned a lot and even sussed out a few new ‘rules’, including a ‘skill shot’. Basically, if you pot and foul at the same time it doesn’t matter. News to me.

I had some more female company that evening. Vicky popped up outside the pub. I bought her two pints then a £24 bottle of Smirnoff from the supermarket. The checkout assistant charged me £2 for it, for some reason I wasn’t complaining about. It was a real blessing to my budget. We headed back to her place. She still refused to show me any of the book she’s writing, ‘Living With Voices’. It was going well until she had a spliff and flipped on me, insisting that I depart for no reason. “LEAVE,” she told me. I gathered up the vodka and skedaddled. F**k her. What a sad shame. She’s obviously got issues. So that’s my festive period, apart from a mild panic attack on New Year’s Eve. This time I didn’t go to my special bridge to watch the fireworks across Liverpool, because the weather was terrible.