AFTERMATH: Christmas Cracker

Hello, and a happy Christmas too.  As you may know, the first 22 episodes of this blog, from Jan to April 2013, are the text of my ebook, 'How To Become A Crack Addict', which you can read here, or buy on amazon if you like.  If you do, please leave a review, as all feedback is appreciated - there are three already, but the more the merrier.  Now this blog is the near-daily ponderings of yours truly, Benjamin of Turnham Green.  And, for your edification, here are today's ponderings...

CHRISTMAS CRACKER

Spare a thought for the lonesome soul in a quandary over the festive period.  I once was such a soul, desperately trying not to score with the money I had in the lead-up to Christmas.  Naturally, I failed, and found myself having bought no presents, with a foodless fridge, and a sense of foreboding engulfing me as the drear day neared.  What am I gonna tell my mum, neighbours, and friends?  Where shall I say I'm spending the baleful day?  What mysterious acquaintance shall I fabricate as an alibi?  Will I make up one lie for everyone, or a few to suit each well-meant enquiry?

Then, having fended off various questions, and the odd invitation, Christmas Eve arrives and, because of the imminent string of bank-holidays, money goes into my account early.  I panic, realising there's just a chance I could buy a present or two, and, even though I'm resigned to festive isolation, maybe get some nice food in, and at least celebrate quietly in front of the telly with red wine, some weed, old Doctor Who's, and a pile of nuts and Pringles.  Yes, maybe I could make an early New Year's resolution, and make Christmas the watershed for change in my dour life.

Naturally, I score.  Returning Christmas Eve night, I surmise that New Year is probably the best time for resolutions.  Anyway, now I've given myself a clear run to Jan 6, without a penny to my name, dwindling instant pastas in the cupboard, and half a carton of soya milk, but at least I can't score...I'm a prisoner of freedom.  Oh, what have I done, as I languish, sweating on my bed, Discovery History chuntering in the corner, telling me about the rise of the Third Reich.  Oh god, what have I done?

Then the phone rings.  It's a friend who's just got an unlimited tariff on their mobile, which means they can yelp their woes at me without a worry at any time.  They leave a message, saying they're having a meltdown with their erstwhile half-love.  I steam with rage as their message goes on, and on, and I just don't care, but I know they'll keep trying until they hear from me, when yet more excuses will have to be found.

Then, just after midnight, I'm trying to get to sleep, when the phone goes again.  Another friend is wishing me happy Christmas, which I resent, and I know that I'll have to make a call or two when I unwillingly rise midmorning.  I can't sleep, and heroin's comforting veil has dropped away, and life just seems awful, tense, bitter, and hateful, just a slow helter-skelter of regret and remorse.

After a couple more hours, and another rise of the fucking Reich, I somehow slump into a semi-sleep, flecked with blurred nightmares that wake me with a start, still dark.  The breakfast show is on, but it's a different presenter from usual, cos it's Christmas, and he's playing crap.  I hear my neighbour's door, my letterbox rattles, in drops a card, which I resent, and begin sweating in case they knock.  I glisten for ten seconds, stiff on my stony bed, and their door closes.  But I feel hounded, even though there's nothing but good will for me from everyone I know.

And then, the big day begins.  I roll over, basting in my own juices, utterly stuffed, panicking the phone'll ring any moment.  Hitler has given way to Henry VIII, and I try to trance out with the Tudors.  But the damage is done, again.

And that is my Christmas reminiscence for today.  And I'm mightily relieved it is a reminiscence, because that pretty much describes the last ten Christmases I've known.  But not this time, which I think might call for a little tinsel.

Oh, and here's a link to one of my songs, which you may have heard before, but all ears are welcomed...  here it is...  Get Out Of My Room

I hope you have a merry Christmas though, and thanks for dropping by.  Hope to see you in the next few days...

AFTERMATH: Crack Shack

Hello, and thanks for dropping by.  As you may know, the first 22 posts of this blog are the text of my ebook, 'How To Become A Crack Addict', which you can also buy on amazon, if you wish.  If you do, please leave a review - all are appreciated.  From then on, the blog is the almost-daily thoughts of me, Benjamin of Turnham Green.  And today I am thinking about one of my many attempts to stop using crack, some five years ago now...

CRACK SHACK

On one of my many parental geographicals, far from the danger of the city, I googled hypnotherapy, to see if that might save me.

After picking my way through numerous charlatans and predators, I found one who seemed to have a training that was more than just a long weekend in a scout hut, at the end of which you're given a laminated diploma in nothing.  He had the same name as a DJ, and was local to my flat, back in London.  His website said he'd worked with people with addiction problems, so, desperate and embarrassed, I gave him a ring.  I couldn't tell him I'd been using crack, so said it was cocaine, in case crack frightened him off.  He said he'd had clients with cocaine issues before, and assured me that, as far as he knew, he'd had good success.

I booked an appointment for the following week, when I was planning to return to my flat.  The next day, I rang him again, and said it was crack cocaine I'd been using, just in case this meant he'd need to tweak the spell.  He seemed fairly unfazed, and I told him a cheque was in the post for my session, from my mum, of course, because at this stage I couldn't be trusted with twenty quid, without spending it on crack at the earliest opportunity.

A week later, there I was, waiting for him outside a shack on the edge of an Ealing industrial estate.  Then up came a cordial, bustling chap, in white shirt and flapping casual trousers, looking doctorly, but not daunting, clinical-casual, you might call it.  Unlocking the shack, we both went in.

After an introductory chat, and confirmation that he'd received the cheque from mummy, he bad me lay back in his reclining chair.  I did so, closed my eyes, and on came the whale-song.  After a few squawks, he began to speak, in a low, slow, almost musical voice.  I was in a sunken garden, there was a fountain there, a gentle breeze wafted, and there was a woman, across the garden, illuminated, seeming to float.  By this point, I found myself smiling, but I wasn't sure whether it was because I found his narrative amusing, or because I was beginning to feel safe, at peace, even hopeful.

I can't remember what happened between me and the woman, if anything, but the next thing I remember is him telling me I was standing outside a walled garden, banging on the gate, demanding to be let in.  It opened, and I found myself among strange, dangerous folk, some of whom were smoking crack, according to him.  I smoked it, and heard the gate slam shut behind me.  I turned to escape, but couldn't.

Next thing I recall is being back in the garden, with the breeze, the glowing woman, fragrant herbs, and the fountain, of course.  It was here that he released me from the trance, and I woke...though I hadn't been asleep at any point.  I didn't know what to feel, but told him I felt calm, hopeful, somehow different, because I thought he'd like to hear this.  We chatted a little more, off went the whales, and I made my way home.

My ever-suffering mum had put twenty-quid in the post, which was on the doormat to welcome me.  I took up the envelope and picked out the note.  Normally, I'd have scored immediately, but something, I don't know what, had me sit on the bed and ring her.  I told my mum that I'd been, and that I thought it might have worked.  She hoped I was right.

I don't know what I did that day, but I didn't use.  Nor did I the next day, or the next.  But come Friday, I felt like I should be doing something, going out, meeting new people, doing what people apparently do on a Friday night.  I felt like a frozen lake, with a beast beneath, rising through the gloomy water, determined to break through the icy crust, and free itself, wreak havoc wherever havoc seemed easiest to wreak.  Unfortunately, because I only had twenty quid, I convinced myself there was no point ringing a friend, or going to some hostelry to coolly read a novel...twenty pounds gets you nowhere these days, I rationalised.  But it would get me down the road to Peggy and Don's, who would always order me a stone of crack, if Killer was around.

I'd gone three days without using, without using when I could have done so.  This was a first, and something to celebrate, something that seemed to offer a modicum of hope, a reacquaintance with my older, better self.  But the blackwater beastie was stirring, rising, clamouring to crack through the ice and see the light of day.  Up he rose, silently at first, and then, smashing through the white veneer, reared, hollered, lay a gleaming tentacle on the shore, and dragged himself to Peggy and Don's, where he wrought twenty-quid's worth of havoc.

Hours later, he slavered home, sinking back into the broken mush of the lake.  The water stilled, and sealed up like up a wound.  But you could still feel his grudge, even though the surface was once again smooth.

And that was the end of my experiment with hypnotherapy.

Here is one of my songs, if you'd like to hear it.  Click on the name and it'll take you to my youtube page...  The World Is Full Of Whores

That's all I have to say today.  Thanks for dropping by.

AFTERMATH: Cokeywokeydoodah

Hi, thanks for dropping by.  You may know, the first 22 instalments of this blog (Jan to April 2013) are the text of my ebook, 'How To Become A Crack Addict', which you can read here, or buy on amazon, if you're into that kind of thing.  Nowadays, as you can see, this blog is the almost-daily musings of yours truly, Benjamin of Turnham Green...

COKEYWOKEYDOODAH

Why have so many newspapers shown an almost reverential sympathy for Nigella Lawson's recent admission that she has used cocaine, and, heaven forfend, cannabis?

Could it be a composite reason, a jumbled assortment of facts like she's rich, vaguely attractive (though with a scary resemblance to her father), the plaintive in a case of domestic manhandling by her even richer ex-partner, Charles Saatchi?  Or is it because she's a sacred matriarch, who at least kept her dabblings within the plush confines of her labyrinthine lairs, and, what's more, is a proficient marinader of peach-halves in a spice cordial? 

Or could it be because the chatterati see something of themselves in her non-addicted relationship with various white powders?  One of the clichés I begrudgingly internalised in rehab was 'addiction loves company', and, although Nigella says she wasn't/isn't an addict, cocaine is a vain drug, whispering, by way of an introduction to the novice, 'you don't need me, it's ok, you can put me down when you like...'  This is true for some, whilst, for others, that first line is like the grooves left behind a skier, kicking off from an alpine peak, only to tumble akimbo, snowblind, a chaos of flailing limbs, into an icy gusset half a mile below...

How many of Nigella's attributes would have to be removed before she became the addled urchin that many of these same newspapers call spongers, dishevelled in day-centre denim, skulking into Cash Converters with someone else's hi-fi, or their own flat-screen TV, acquired by misappropriating their ill-gotten disability benefits...but that's a different narrative.

Celebrity is fragile...it comes with built-in fracture-lines, imminent obsolescence as standard.  Some people are better at being it, playing it, and Nigella is probably as proficient at this as she is aerating a salmon soufflé for some sophisticated soiree, in a world where cocaine's not so much a drug, more of a dessert.  But, as with any too-rich tiramisu, overindulgence can lead to regret, a circular state of being where luxury turns to lechery, delight, debauchery, the cure for our woes, the cause.  The boom of cocaine always comes with a bust, a gross, groggy comedown, where remorse and resentment fester, and it's always someone else that's to blame...something daddy maybe knows about.

And, to close, here is a song, if you fancy a listen...

Run Out Of Drugs Again

And that, as far as I know, is all I have to say today.