Lighter fuel was a constant from my being about 12 until I was 15. Quick and dirty, the way I like my drugs. breathe in enough to see stars, hear the noise. Be straight again not much later, just with a banging headache.

I never got in to smoking, my friends did a lot, I never liked the slowness, the being unable to think - like you had to drag your thoughts through treacle. Of course, if it was offered I would never turn it down. Not the first couple of years, not until I learnt that whiteys are just not fun. the only fun times I can remember having on it was through eating it, pretty much the only time I can remember seeing the point of the other Pink Floyd stuff was after ingesting large amounts of cannabis yoghurt in a squat in Newquay and watching the wall. I think my main issue with smoking is it makes you fucking boring to be around, no interaction at all...

Speed was my first love, started that when I was 14. Clubbing at least three nights a week, at one point a wrap would get me through all three nights (pink champagne, oh yes!). Speed is an honest drug, brings you up, rushes you around, then leaves you feeling like shit for the next day. The way a drug should. Before I got kicked out of school I used to take it before writing my essays, once the initial rush was done, I'd have pages and pages of writing that I'd just have to take the interesting bits from. It's much easier now with computers ;)

The first time I took acid, I didn't think it had worked, so I started to walk home as I had school the next day. Two hours later I am lying in an allotment staring at the rain falling in me in rainbow drop colors. Acid has taken me so many places, and the amount of laughing that you do is beautiful. If only the time it lasts could be cut by half (hello 2CB! I wish you'd turned up earlier, you might have saved my crappy job at 15) Acid showed me that I am an animal guide, that I can find the universe in a glass of lemonade, and it is possible to laugh so much you hurt for a week after. To those about to talk about people thinking they can fly, I refer you to Bill Hicks "Take off from the ground!... you ever see a bird take an elevator?"

E I didn't do til Leah Betts died, after all the fuss had died down a little and it came out about the water. After that I did a lot, I had psychic experiences, I had therapy, I had the most intense postive emotions. Which for a 15 year old SIer was really needed. E post moral panic - The idea of having therapy where both parties are on e is something that I think could work amazingly well for getting past initial barriers, with strict controls, I hope they start to look into that again. But that's a rant for another time. Personally, I credit E with enabling me to overcome a lot of trauma by allowing me to trust and have physical contact with amazing friends.

So between 14 and 18 I did a lot of the above, interspersed with a lot of what ever was around. "oh, your crazy neighbour gave you his meds because he thinks they are poisoned by his support worker? Awesome! I wonder what happens when we mix 2 blues, a white and a yellow one?" "Prozac helps with E comedowns? let's try it!" "diazapam what's that? oooh nice" "of course we can have jellies for your birthday" "Lets candyflip"" "school trip? let's drink cough syrup" (Never did get on with dissociatives). Ryvita and banana skins don't work, but neroli oil does...

I spent 6 months in Newquay, where it all got a little bit darker. Apparently there can be more consequences on drugs than having a bad come down. You'd think with a junkie brother I'd have learnt that earlier.

Moved to London, had a staff party where lines of something were being handed out, turned out to be K. Which is a horrible drug (I refer you back to cough syrup - bleh) anyway, the next morning my boss found me sat in a doorway with a tramp, who had just bought me a cup of tea. Awesome. Turned out to be a good investment on his part, every time I saw him after that I gave him whatever change I had.

Still in London, NYE 2000/2001 - My first proper cocaine. I'd had a couple of lines here and there, but I was still caught up with the idea that the only truly awful drugs were coke and heroin, This time, I had a couple of grams to myself, and few pills and an amazing night. From then on I never looked back. For the next 7 years I don't think I went more than a week without any. Rock stars and managers, back stage passes, thousands of pounds, drinking Cristal from the bottle, yet still able to work my arse off. It was the perfect drug for me. You start to ignore the warning signs, you have a nosebleed from one nostril, you can use the other, you're taking it before a job interview, you have it set up so you can have it from the side of your bed. You miss half of your graduation evening because you are trying to score.

The other drugs fell out of sight, no longer of interest. If it was a big night we might get in some MDMA or something, and we did occasionally plan for three days of acid (first day to take, next day to come down, third day to complete recovery). But coke became everything.

"That particular fear has the texture you can neither forget nor describe. It is like the fear of the victims of an earthquake, of people who have lost faith in the stillness of the earth. And yet it is not the same. It is without analogy for it is not comparable to the fear of nature, which is the most universal of human fears, nor to the fear of violence of the state, which is the commonest of modern fears. It is the fear that comes from the knowledge that normalcy is utterly contingent, that spaces that surround one, the streets that one inhabits, can become, suddenly and without warning, as hostile as a desert in a flash flood. It is this that sets apart the thousand million people who inhabit the subcontinent from the rest of the world - not language, not food, not music - it is the special quality of loneliness that grows out of the fear of the war between oneself and one's image in the mirror"

"Every word I write about those events of 1964 is the product of a struggle with silence. It is a struggle I am destined to lose - have already lost - for even after all these years, I do not know where within me, in which corner of my world, this silence lies. All I know of is what this silence is not. It is not for example, a silence of imperfect memory. Nor is it a silence enforced by a ruthless state - nothing like that, no barbed wire, no checkpoints to tell me where my boundaries lie. I know nothing of this silence except that it lies outside the reach of my intelligence, beyond words - that is why this silence must win, must inevitably defeat me, because it is not a presence at all; it is simply a gap, a hole, an emptiness in which there are no words."

Amitav Ghosh -The Shadow Lines

Tease

lightnight

Daddy!

The secret library

The Laughing Heart
Charles Bukowski

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvellous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

"Autobiography in Five Short Chapters" - Portia Nelson

Chapter I

I walk down the street
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in
I am lost . . . I am helpless
It isn't my fault
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter III

I walk down the same street
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in . . . it’s a habit.
My eyes are open. I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter V

I walk down another street

What I know about recovery

Step One is easiest, get clean, all you have to do is hold on through hell, and not use.

Step two, cut all the people you used with out of your life.

Step three, start working on your recovery...

If someone handed you your drug of choice, how difficult would it be to hand it back?

It is not ok to do that

People are allowed to say they do not want to be around you when you are drinking. If you choose to take that as a rejection of you as a person that is your issue. It is really not ok to OD over it, and call another friend to tell them.

I stick with my choice to not talk to you when you are like that. I stick to my choice to not allow you to guilt trip me into talking "in case you OD" because that is your bullshit drama, not mine.

I understand that you are suffering, and I expect you to understand that your actions affect other people and allow them to not participate.

Friends with eating disorders

I spent the weekend with a group of friends in which I am unique in not having an eating disorder. Now they aim to be "good" when we all meet up, there will be at least one proper meal (this time it was vegetarian spaghetti bolognese) and snacking is encouraged. As someone who usually eats at least two meals a day, I find that I get pretty hungry by the end of it.

The group time finishes and people head off to their own homes, it's just me and one friend left, with a couple of hours to kill before my train. We wander around the town and, as I was hungry we stopped in a small coffee shop where I bought an overpriced cheese panini and some carrot and coriander soup.

And I ate. And it was good.

It was good in the way that simple food when you are properly hungry is good. When you feel just pure joy that bread and cheese and soup exist. That the simple act of eating can be so wonderful. It was good in the way that makes me understand why people used to give thanks before every meal.

The conversation at this time has evolved to her feeling so faint that she doesn't think she can carry on walking, but not eating because she "feels sick", and I'm sat there practically glowing in my love of food.

Now, the dilemma; do I allow myself to show how good this makes me feel?
Is it showing off? rubbing her face in her illness? Will she think I'm faking the enjoyment for her benefit? Should I fake enjoyment at eating at other times? Should I not eat in front of her?

Is there a right answer?