ME AND A MOMENT…

Sometimes it feels hard

To (take a) breath in

As if the very act

Is too much, to exhausting

It will kill me to do it

Once….

Let alone keep on

Forever and ever, amen.

Until I do in fact

Stop breathing

Ironic it may be

But the mere act

Of taking a breath

Will hurt too much

It will kill me.

Not my body

But inside me

My soul or what

Lies within

What does lie within?
Is it friend or monster?

A wolf in waiting

Ready to lead me

Like a child

To the edge, the abyss.

Will it jump with me?

Will it stand back, smile?

Will it push me over?
Stop me , or will I

Do that myself?

If I jumped

Or got pushed

Where would I fall?

How far? How deep?

Is that blackness

Is there a bottom

To that hole?

Or will I fall

Through time and space

Life and death

Heaven or hell.

Into a sanctuary

A place for me

And others like me

With the same heads

All of us.

Happy in that place

Where its understood?
This madness

This illness

The intensity 4 disaster

This mayhem, this chaos.

AND THEN

I BREATH OUT!!!

And it’s gone

Temporarily

Clarity and common sense

Reign supreme - for now

On common ground

I am a Prince

Who would be King

A man in waiting

I am a God

And I know everything

All there is too know

And much best not to

Remember.

I seek the middle ground

Others common ground

I seek and may never find

But still I seek

You see I am insane

I am truly mad

No really, I am.

Chapter 1

“Nothing hurts more than an invisible wound”

Boy, was I in pain. Cold, clinical, denied pain, even better. What a hit that can give you. it’s a drug all in itself, but so much better than any other you can snort, smoke or inject.

This drug, self-inflicted misery, unlike others has a really low tolerance level. So you can keep on taking it but your body’s immune system does not recognize it and each period of misery is even bigger and better than before. It’s also possible to suffer for other people, mix it with heaped tablespoons full of pity and the sky’s the limits, or more the depths I guess.

Looking back, I can see that I enjoyed, in a perverse way, wrapping myself up in relentless misery. If I was happy, I questioned why and tore it to shreds. I think that I only felt comfortable with a doom and gloom mentality and all the trappings that bought with it. It seemed easier living with anger, resentment and self pity than it did just living with a smile and a positive outlook. If anyone put in a single positive I could double it with negatives and add twenty more.

It’s a question still open to debate whether this pain bought on my 10-year sentence of drug using or vice versa. It’s fair to say that they ran very much hand in hand over that time, of that there can be little doubt.

How then did a 25-year-old, youngest of three children to a divorced policeman, decide to step out of the real world and live a life of lies. Deceit and all the other un-savory parts of long term drug addiction.

How did that happen?

More importantly, and the question I still struggle with, WHY?

Chapter Two

“There comes a point when naivety ceases to be a virtue and becomes mere foolishness”.

I sat, waiting at the front reception just looking down at my feet and willing them to move, to run and just to get me out of there. Every single part of me just wanted to get away from where I was and at that precise moment, anywhere would do. Please get me out of here, NOW!!!

What am I doing here? What is happening to me? What the fuck is going on? These questions, plus many more, were all going through me by now scrambled head, sitting there at The Priory clinic, with my sister at my side. All I wanted was one more day, one more chance to get wasted, so very wasted, surely that was understandable. I’ll come back tomorrow, same time, same place and you can take me then, what do you think? Any chance? Oh,by the way can someone lend me some money, I’ll pay you back ,I promise……no, I really do promise.

I was thinking all of those things and many more I have since forgotten, but nothing came out of my mouth. When your left totally paralyzed with fear you sometimes lose the capacity to speak and I had then. I could not look anyone in the eye, not even myself, but that had been happening for a long time already. It’s hard to have a decent shave when you don’t want to look in the mirror and that had been going on for too long also. What a mess and what a waste of a life. I didn’t’t care about that because I wanted death , not life. That sums it all up. I converted death and was on the fast track to meeting it, sooner rather than later.

A separate ordeal daily

Experienced by a shell

Testing skills of survival

Endless scary hell.

Performing on a stage

Hidden under a mask

No existence by one

Who’s learnt how too fast

Full up with lies and deceit

Bound on common ground.

Speeding down the road

Rest beneath a mound

Gift of creation crushed

And just tossed aside

Wasted on a person who

Left life just to hide.

Chapter 3

“I want more than enough”

It’s hard to pinpoint one specific moment when it all went the shape of a pear. When I sit and reflect on that time it hurts. So I try to run from thinking about it. But I can’t run for too long as it’s a part of my life and thus a part of me. It’s not pretty, far from it but it was what I was for so long. The only real benchmark for where I may be now is to look from whence I have come, it’s the only way. It can be painful; it can be very sad but then again no one said it would be easy. In truth it hasn’t been, but its far less painful then what it was and what it could have still been.

I went into treatment emotionally devoid of any normal traits. That in itself, within re-hab, is not abnormal. We were all there because our lives had become ‘un-manageable’. All of us were broken, physically, spiritually and emotionally by the addictions which were ruling our lives. Drugs, drink, food and sex had become our crutches for support on a daily basis. Most of us knew that was the case, but it did not mean that we wanted to stop. If I had not been shoved through those doors by people who cared about me, I would still be living that life. In fact, that’s not strictly true, I would be dead. That is the harsh truth, I was one of the lucky one’s but there are thousands more still out there who are not so fortunate. There but for the grace of god go I; gone and forgotten to most of the world.

But not by me, not anymore.

I think that most people who go into treatment spend the first few hours and then the following days feeling the same. My first hours in there were un-bearable and scary. The copious amounts of cocaine I had been taking over the preceding six months had left me totally paranoid and unable to form any normal associations. Everyone was looking at me, whispering behind my back and trying to bring me down. I was a serial curtain twitcher and used to watch TV with the sub-titles on so I could hear if anybody was trying to get through the door or standing outside waiting to ‘storm in’. Just living like that made things worse and just added to my paranoia. I was totally fucked and deep down I knew it. But I cared little and the times that I did actually go to sleep I prayed not to wake in the morning.

I prayed for that so much, I wanted it so very much. I wanted not to be alive.

On a physical level I was only one step up from a skeleton. There were bags on bags under my eyes, my cheeks were sunken and I was a shade of grey in colour. Both my ribs and hip bones were prominent and clear for all to see. I often joked that if I got any thinner Bob Geldof would have done a concert for me. That one never got a laugh from anyone else as they knew I was in trouble.

Infact, they all knew, except me.

I was sleeping no more than two hours a night if I even went to sleep. The amount of times I lay wide awake listening to the bird’s dawn chorus knowing my alarm was just about to go off and I was due at work within an hour. I was so tired but knew that I could not even survive the day without some more coke. Unfortunately, the amount I had put aside for that day had long since disappeared up my nose during the night. So then it was Catch 22, When will I be able to get some more to see me through the day and calm the madness going through my head? How long do I have to wait to make the call and order in? What happens if I can’t get any? How long will it take to arrive if I can get hold of someone? Of course, as time went on and the amount of cocaine I was taking increased, another question came into play. How much money have I got left in my account?

When your brain’s scrambled, you’re so tired through lack of sleep it hurts and you are so desperate, all these questions only make things worse, much worse. Just trying to get washed and dressed is bad enough let alone trying to organize all the other daily shit as well. The pure fact that involves more lies and deceit on top of the one’s you have already told makes it impossible. Well, seemingly so anyway.

What I realized in treatment is that addiction is so powerful that it enables a human being to perform huge feats of will power and endurance. At the end of the day, by hook or by crook, I managed to get what I craved and what I needed. Cocaine was my best friend and lover all rolled into line. It never let me down and was always there to hold me.

It knew me, really knew me.

It helps me, seems a cure

Makes me, wakes me

It helps me, forget too live

It heals me, opens my eyes

It sees through the abyss

Reveals all, tells all

It knows me …….

Really knows me.

Of course I was a misguided and very sick. Insane and foolish at the same times, a dangerous mix. Hindsight tells me that, but that is now, it was not then.

Every morning started the same, especially a work day. Get up, I was already wake. Shuffle into the bathroom and start to run a bath, then put the kettle on whilst lighting yet another cigarette. Open up my metal stash box and sort and chop up a big fat line. And take the hit. The next 20 - 30 minutes would be spent trying to get washed, shaved and then dressed in the quickest time possible, as I was already way late for work.

Then it was time to sit down with another cup of tea and do a line whilst sorting out the gear I had left to take with me to try and get me through the morning at least. By now I was even more wired and paranoid which was made worse by the fact I still had to drive 20 minutes to work. Jesus, how was I going to manage to do that safely and without attracting any attention to myself. I thought I was being continually watched by plain clothes policemen who were waiting for me outside my front door. By the time I had sorted my gear to take with me to work it was time to have another line to take the edge of the journey I had to take. This in turn meant more tea and a fag to help it down and there I would be sitting, two hours late for work!!

All rhyme and reason gone and people ringing to see where I was.

I remember clearly, being at home one lunchtime with a big line ready on the table in front of me, just asking to be snorted. No really it was. Cocaine talked to me, reeled me it and seduced me at every turn, no really it did speak to me. Anyway, I digress. Before I could take the line, my mobile went and it was a client who wanted to talk in detail about a few things. So there I was after five minutes no longer able to talk and concentrate on the conversation at hand, just staring at this line on the table. I had to have it, everything else was inconsequential.

I asked the client to just hold on for one minute, put the phone in my lap, bent over and snorted the line, sniffed to help it on its way, picked the phone up off my lap and asked them to excuse for that but I had cold and just had to blow my nose. Even the two people I was sitting with at the time were shocked and laughed out loud, more through embarrassment I think. I looked at them and mouthed the word “What?”.

For me there was no issue, who was I hurting.

It’s hard to fully describe what a total nightmare it was trying to hide what I was doing to all an sundry around me, work, family and friends. The sheer effort involved everyday was more tiring than the sleep deprivation I was having then. Even sitting here trying to put it down on paper its hard to try and get in touch with all of that chaos and madness. When I think about it all now it brings only feelings of shame, sadness and the real waste of those years. It hurts a lot, it hurts too much at times and really affects me. But that hurt helps me, it helps me stay clean as I do not want to re-visit those times ever again. The important thing is I can say that, I can write it but I actually mean it, totally.

Although I can look back and see what my drug abuse did and what it took from me, it does not mean I miss it always. It may sound strange and a contradiction in terms, but that’s addiction for you. It has no rules or boundaries and does not distinguish between race or class.  As you become a slave to its power it teases you and plays with your mind. I had some truly great nights, especially in the first couple of years of my using. At that time, I had not become the anti-social paranoid freak which I eventually turned into. I went out and socialized and used my then drug of choice, speed, to be a party animal. They didn’t’t call me Billy for nothing. I used to wake up on a Friday morning and not go to bed until Monday evening. I spent those weekends working, clubbing, playing football and socializing. All of this was achieved with a happy, friendly and surprisingly pleasant manner. Looking back, I still believe I was all of these and ten more. I really do. But that’s my illness for you, that is addiction. Even now it tells me, on more occasions then I care to admit, “Yeah Tim, you were happy, you had so many friends who loved you and your company”.

Cunning, slimy bastard, worthless parasite - I know what you are trying to do. It’s not going to work, difference is now I know what your like and realize I don’t have listen to you. I control my choices now, not you. I choose not to use, I do, not you wanker!!

When you stop using it can be, for a while, a very lonely and desolate existence. All the friends you had, up and leave on the next bus out of town. What good are you to them anymore, if you can’t supply or take drugs with them. They may have seemed like good friends at the time but you were just there means to an end, that’s all.

If I were a priest, I could exorcise this deadly demon

If I were a surgeon, I could remove the offending organ

If I were a doctor, I could prescribe a course of medication

But I am none of the above, so I let it control me.

If I were a politician, I could ban this state of mind

If I were a policeman, I could lock it up below

If I were a lawyer, I could submerge it under papers

But I am none of the above, so I let it consume me.

If I were a journalist, I could hide it like the truth

If I were a judge, I could swamp it with hypocrisy

If I were a cabby, I could by-pass it on the map

But I am none of these, so I let it kill me.

If I were……………………………. But I am not.

Chapter  4

“However much you have got …… I will take it all”

By now, all of you must be hoping for something juicy, something tasty. So here’s the story, so here’s my head…………….

At last, now there’s the money, at long last. I live neither in the country nor in the city, more a mixture of on the edge of both. I am close enough for supplies yet far away to have the isolation my head desires and can’t live without.

The house is basic, functional and in no way flashy or flamboyant. Its ¾ bedroom detached with a plentiful garden to let the dogs run free if necessary. There is enough open ground to see if anyone is trying to get in without me wanting them too. A large kitchen and lounge area with a huge entertainment system linked up to a satellite TV system, which allows me to get an up to date weather forecast for southern Portugal if necessary. It never is, but then again why not have it: you never know when it may be a god send.

But there’s a place in this house that cannot be seen by anyone, it’s a secret, my secret place. I go there to escape and dance with the devil in my very own hell. It’s down in the cellar area where it’s a room which has all you could want and so much more. Its fitted out with a bed, kitchen and food area. There is another fuck off TV/Sat system as well as all the DVD’s and CD’s you could ever purchase in a life time from play.com. It also has many DVD’s that are not stocked or sold on play.com as they are ’blue’ in nature and not for the faint hearted.

There is a security system so advanced, I’m fucked if I can work it all properly! But I can work the camera’s located on all the entry points into the rest of the house and this is the main priority. In this room is the ’piece de resistance’, the built in safe. This holds my treasure, my heart it holds my ‘white gold’.

It holds my supply of drugs!!

The safe is on a timing device and only opens for ten minutes each night at 7 pm. After that there’s no access until 7 pm the following evening and I mean no access. It bears a close resemblance to my heart in many ways as its un-accessible and very cold. Try as hard as you like but you can’t gain access into it ever. If you have seen the film’ Panic Room’ then this room is it.  

I call it the ’Powder Room’, for reasons easy to imagine.

Its where I go to indulge my illness and laugh at it and the absurdity of it all. I look on it as a little bit of ‘Tim Time’, nothing more and nothing less. But that’s all a charade as its really a place I go to run and hide and in time to die.

Then there are the women who come to see me here. All of them from an escort agency who know me and know my needs and desires. They should do really as it’s been so long I have used them. I am almost a share holder. I don’t really have to pay them if I choose not to either. They have all fallen in love with me and fight each other to be the one to come there each evening. But for appearances sake we keep the game going as its less complicated that way!!!!!

I have my favourites of course and I am all of their’s. They arrive about 9 pm and we spend time talking and watching TV or just sit and chill, with them lying across my lap as I stroke their long hair. Sometimes there is sex, sometime’s there’s not. I don’t like them touching me in general. It feels too intense and too personable. My head implodes with the sense of intimacy so they just go with the flow and just let me take the lead. It’s all totally false but within my world it’s all I want or more to the point all I am capable of. It’s sad but just the truth and that’s why it hurts afterwards when I sit and think about it all. By about 2am I’ve had enough of the contact and want to be alone with those thoughts, so they leave me as if I never existed. In the real world it never did it’s all so totally surreal.

And then only then I realize that it’s all in my head and where I have allowed it to run too; headlong into total chaos and pure insanity. I have to hit the front of my head, hit it really hard and say “Hello - is there anyone in there - Hello”.

It’s all been a fantasy, a dream within a waking moment and now it’s gone. It leaves me with the knowledge that I am fucked and totally insane. It’s not a nice feeling, far from it , but at least I’m aware of it now and that is a real advantage in this fight for life and peace within that life.

When I was using I was fucked and insane BUT never knew it.

Addiction, I have found out, has no boundary’s. It recognizes no difference in class, status or up-bringing. It chews you up and spits you out when its finished and cares for nothing and no body. It has no moral code of ethics and offers no respite. It’s important for me to acknowledge that my addiction, drugs, can come back and destroy me at any time, whenever I want it too.

The thing is, drugs didn’t finish with me, I finished with drugs. I now have a choice, a freedom to experience my life in a way which was alien to me for so many years, and today that feels good. It’s important to say that is today, it may not be the way it is tomorrow. But, that is then, this is now. The best thing I can do is live this day, this moment and tomorrow will take care of itself until I reach it, no more; no less.