It might seem a bit egotistical to write a life story, and after being asked to write one in rehab I felt awkward and uncomfortable not only writing it, but having to read it to my peers. But the experience was so rewarding.
To put your life in black and white, emptying your soul and freeing yourself of emotional bondage in front of a group of people is a truely magical experience, which is why I am about to do it again.
My story
I was born in the 80's in Liverpool. I was born to a loving family of a mother and father. The area to Liverpool in which I belonged was a place called dingle just on the border of toxteth. You may know about toxteth from the press, in the early 80's before I was born huge riots took place, some of the largest riots the UK have ever seen. After I was born the rioting stopped, but there was a necessity to aquire a 'thick skin' in order to grow up in such a poverty stricken, neglected area such as toxteth and dingle. It wasnt until 2008 when Liverpool won capital of culture that development in the area seemed to happen. Thanks to EU money, and not our government in their ivory towers down south. Even then it was suggested that the only reason development happened in Dingle and Toxteth was due to it being the main vehicular route from Liverpools John Lennon airport and the tourist hotspots of the city centre. Despite the description I did find it a great place to live. There is something about living in a daily struggle that really makes a person. The solidarity of the people of my home in the south of Liverpool is as such that if ever I went to war, I would take the people of my hometown with me before any army.
I remember a happy childhood. Even after my brother was born with a horrific brain tumour and his life estimated at being very short, the love and support my family gave me ensured I never missed out. Either my mum or my father would be at James bedside 24 hours a day, and I would be looked after by the other parent either at home, or in the hospital. I remember at a young age drawing strength at my peers in the family room in the hospital who were going through the same fate, the possibility of losing a sibling to Cancer. I was too young to remember the next facts, and its too painful to ask mum or dad. But I know the tumour went, I believe the first time it was due to brain surgery. We thought we had him back for good. The tumour returned when he was two years old, and again we went throught the same heartbreak. But down to radiotherapy this time, he was again cured. It was at this period of my lifetime that I first felt the warmth of the people if toxteth. When news spread of James's estimated life span, the people of toxteth really pulled together. Jean, and her lovely family from Macs newsagents on park road and Stan and Fran from merseyside police became major fund raisers and sent us on two trips to Florida and various days out, including a high speed drive in a police car, a ride on a police horse and manning the controls of a police helicopter, albeit with the engine turned off. It unfortunately wasn't my last ride in a police car.
I was understandably quite an emotional kid. Instead of crying for missing toys, and throwing temper tantrums about not being able to play outside I was plagued with a grief that my young mind wasnt prepared for. Throughout James being sick I never missed school as far as I can remember. Credit to my mum and dad they never put James first, which must have been difficult for them at the time. In school I had lots of friends, but circumstances made me emotionally vunerable. Children were naturally curious, and they would ask me when he is going to die ect, and I remember crying lots at an age when boys arent supposed to cry. I wouldn't say my peers were mean, they were in fact the opposite, but my young brain just wasnt prepared to answer questions about death and it took it's toll on me. I used to hang around with the tough kids at school, so if anyone said anything mean about James, they would never get the chance to say it again (that sounds like they were murdered, I assure you, they weren't)
By the grace of god James is still alive, and it was now my turn to worry him.
I was easily led at school, I think because if my early school years and the comfort blanket my friends provided in a difficult time that I was always desperate to cling onto them by any means, this included simple 'laddish' things like messing about in class, not anything too serious like breaking the law. But even so, I left school with grades I knew I could have improved upon had I not been so influenced by others.
Despite my grades, I was determined to make a career for myself and started an apprenticeship as a painter and decorator. Instead of being taught in schools I was suddenly inside painting them. It made me feel proud, and the fact I was at this point working in a school rather than sitting behind a desk at one even if it was just sanding down radiators and skirting boards it made me feel like a man.
It was at this time I started being motivated by greed alone and lost ambition. My friends worked in shops and warehouses, and while such jobs wouldnt have insured a long term career such as being a qualified painter and decorator, I looked on their pay packets with envy. Apprentices arent paid much, it was around £60 a week if I remember. My friends were affording to party once, maybe twice a week. I was lucky to get out once a month. So, I quit painting and went to work in a department store.
I was going out with my friends the at least once a week, and I loved getting drunk and dancing to house music and trance until the small hours of the morning. At that point I was no different to anyone else. I didnt drink excessively, and there was only one night that I went out which I have no full recollection of. A night where I had somehow phoned my dad to pick me up, then went missing for a couple of hours only to turn up at the house wondering why my mum and dad were in such a panic. Me, having no recollection of the phone call to come and collect me.
It was at this time working on a menswear department that I started to feel insecure and self loathing. I have never hated my naked image, in fact I would even admit that I am not a bad looking lad, and if you disagree, then thats your issue and not mine. That has, and will always be my attitude. My problem was clothes. I would look at friends, and the way they dressed with envy. It wasnt so much a case of me longing for designer. It was more a case for me longing for clothes that fit right. It sounds ridiculous, but I envied how my friends could wear tshirts that didn't ride up at the back, or jeans where the bottoms of the legs fit well over their footwear. Mine never did and it used to really bug me. It made me feel inferior, and I still have problems with styling today, although not as much.
Again, like in the past I sought after a way to fit in and be like one of the cool kids. Going out clubbing quite often at this point, I seen the admiration DJ's got. I had already had a mixer and a set of turntables which I bought off a school friend, a guy who is now doing really well on the club scene DJ Zeke, but what started out then as a passion and enjoyment soon became a necessity for me to be liked. I bought more expensive equipment, and became fanatical over buying records and started making mix CD's and passing them around the young fashion departments of the first floor of lewis's. Infamous for it's glamorous girls. I realize now that I wasnt doing it for a passion, I was doing it for my peers to notice me. Quite sad really.
Another way for me to fit in, I was soon to discover was ecstasy. After swallowing my first half a pill in club 051, it was to become a love affair that lasted years. It made every weekend complete. It completely erased my self esteem issues temporarily. It made me forget about my ill fitting clothes, it made me forget about the neediness of being liked. Because in those 4-5 hours I loved everyone, I loved myself, and everybody loved me. No weekend was complete without it.
Clubbing became my life. And despite the trouble I was to later find myself in, all for swallowing that tiny tablet of MDMA I look back on it with fondness, after all it was a passion I shared with two friends Craig and Lisa who I cherished dearly. Craig also had a set of turntables and we would go to each others houses and do mix cd's almost on a nightly basis.
My drug taking and drinking was still at this point moderate. It was a weekend indulgence, a reward as a means to escape the working week. But it was soon to take a nasty hold. It crept up on me without warning. I had moved jobs at this point to work for telewest, soon to become virginmedia. I met a guy who worked there who offered to sell me ecstasy pills for about 50 pence each. And I bought 50, with the plan to save them for weekends and kept them in a drawer in my room hidden in a sock. If any addict is reading this you dont need me to tell you what happened next. I consumed them within about the next four days. I was out of my brain in work and watching tv with my parents. It was a warning sign. But my ego told me not to worry, I was ok.
I was soon to try cocaine. That blew me away, then chewed me up and then spat me out in the gutter. Again, like ecstacy it started on nights out. On cocaine I felt like the man. Unlike ecstasy which made me forget my self esteem problems, cocaine told me I never had any. I was Tony Montana, I was pablo escobar, I was Jesus Christ. My shirts were cool, my shoes were cool, I was the funniest and craziest guy at the party.
NONSENSE. I was a wreck.
My problems were still there in the morning, but they were amplified. Cocaine raises the dopamine levels in your brain, but when the effects wear off, the dopamine sets at an even lower level as it was prior to using. A ticking timebomb for someone with poor self esteem issues.
I was, and still am quite a funny guy. But this drug made me think I was funnier than I am. I would do wreckless things on nights out, nothing to the scale of Keith Moon and Oliver Reed, but they were my heros and if fate would have handed me a rolls royce parked by a swimming pool I probably would have emulated the famous story, whether it is a true story or not. It was all an act. I almost became a character in my own play. I was affectionately called 'Bungle' and a common phrase that was to be spoken on every night out was 'oh bungle' I just couldnt be myself using this drug, and using it fooled me into thinking I enjoyed being the person I was. Despite having good times with Craig, lisa and others at concerts, festival's and parties which I dont regret, part of me wishes I could do it all again as Thomas, not Bungle.
I have already got the dopamine science out of the way, so when I would wake up the next day I wouldnt be bungle, I wouldnt even be Thomas. I was even worse than I had been initially. My self esteem was worse, I developed a depression (if you take cocaine, you will) and I developed severe anxiety. But I just couldnt stop. I would sleep off a night out on a Sunday morning and upon waking would be calling a dealer. And like the conclusion of the ecstasy story, I ended up using while watching TV with my parents.
Eventually, after a prolonged use of cocaine the chemical effects on the brain altered. It was no longer the drug that made me chatty and feel like king of the world. It would make me isolate, taking to snorting in my room. My parents became suspicious and I came clean one night. I had had enough.
My parents and I went to a place called addaction, but it didnt work. I was willing to talk about how much powder I put up my nose, but I wasnt ready to bare my soul and get to the deep underlying issue of my problems. I would often have dealers waiting for me outside the councilling building for me, which is absolutely tragic.
Many years of drug taking followed. Cocaine is an expensive drug. 'Pound for pound costs more than gold' as the song says, and you can never get enough. Thus meaning once my pay packet had been wiped out, I had to find something else. Now I suffer with a bad back, which the diagnosis was given as a herniated disc. This to me, at the time was a ticket for free drugs. I would manipulate doctors into giving me pain killers and muscle relaxants and consuming a months supply within days. It was at this time I am ashamed to say I still looked down on heroin users. Yet the amount of pain killers (which contained opium) was equal to a dose of heroin. But my ego once again told me I was fine, after all the doctor gave me them. When money ran out for cocaine, and my prescription ran out for dihydrocodien it was onto over the counter medicines. I took to the internet to a process where you extract paracetamol from cocodamol. This is not a safe process. It often made me sick. The descriptions you find on the internet explain the science behind it, but there is absolutely no way at all to know how much paracetamol was left in. At this point of my life however I didn't care. If I was to die then I died. I had already attempted my own life twice.
Some say to recover you have to hit rock bottom. I dont believe that, I think recovery is posible whether you are starting out in active addiction or you have lost everything. In my case though, I had to hit rock bottom.
It began in 2014, I was desperate for a fix and I found about 6'000 pounds hidden in my then home, with my mum and brother. Apart from one prior occasion, I had never stolen, from a shop or from family. If i found a wallet in the street i would have handed it in. However, all morals that I had desperately clung onto disappeared when I discovered this money. It started off with the odd £20. Every fibre of my body knew the consequences, and every fibre of my body didnt want to do this to my family. But cocaine was my power, and I was powerless to it. A guy in a meeting I go to often says if you have your family in one hand, and a gram of cocaine in the other which one do you love the most. Every addict will say the same, the hand with the family, but what we choose is the drug. It borders on insanity. Anyway, to cut a long story short the £20 became £50, the £50 became £100. I was living each day with the fear of her finding out and the family disowning me, yet instead of stopping, and paying it back as sneakily as I took it (yes I was spending a wage as well as stolen money) I continued to steal.
I was found out and kicked out, my whole family found out what I had done, again the insane thing was I had just been paid quite a lot of money. I had, I think (memory not too good around this time) been paid sick pay and holiday pay from my last job in insurance so instead of getting my act together and stopping taking drugs, using the amount of money to secure a flat I took myself to a hotel for 3 nights and spent the lot on cocaine.
Well I didnt spend the lot. I had enough money in my bank account for a train fare and last meal. I had become facinated by the film 'quadrophenia' and I felt I related a lot to the character Jimmy. It was set in brighton, so I took myself to Lime street train station, and I was waiting on a train to brighton. I was going to go, have a nice meal and then end the pain I was in. I didnt tell anyone my plans, as it wasnt an emotional cry for help, it was the real thing. A bit of devine intervention came my way at that point, and I recieved a call from Lucy my drug worker. She could tell something wasnt right, and worked out I was at a train station. She begged me to go in and see her and I did.
Hours later I was in hospital, begging to be sectioned under the mental health act. Even that was a struggle. I had to return twice, spending 13 hours in total in a waiting room. Even then I was that desperate to be admitted I told the professional on duty that if she doesnt section me I will wait for her at staff entrance and slice my own throat in front of her. Needless to say I was whisked off in an ambulance to the broadoak unit. Broadoak helped me abstain from cocaine, but my drug seeking ways were still evident as i always wanted the strongest sleeping pills. I was dealing with drug psychosis after consuming so much cocaine in the days prior to my admittance that I was hearing voices, and seeing the devil and bats, leading me to spend a lot of the time hiding under the covers like a small child. I stayed there for a couple of months, my depression got slightly better. I was advised by my doctor to stay, but having help saved a friend from suicide, and being tormented by this lost soul from syria who was convinced everyone was going to behead him I felt enough was enough, I was about to leave hospital with no fixed abode.
Liverpool has a huge homeless problem, but before I had to have a night on the streets I recieved some fantastic help from a charity called whitechaple centre. There was two venues, one for meals, one to hang out in, and then at night they drove us to a 'sit up' place in a salvation army building. It wasnt fun, but it also gave me comfort and hope. They arranged with a landlady to get me a room, and after 3-4 nights in a shelter I had my first ever place of my own.
I still needed to combat my demons, and somebody, I cant remember who, told me about the ,brink of change', a therapy group held in a fantastic alcohol free venue called the brink. It was ran by two fantastic people called Paula and Dave who were addicts just like me. It was then I first learnt about the life saving benefits of telling people that you're not ok. After several weeks in the brink of change they could tell I wanted this recovery so bad they sent me to rehab. It was there I met a wonderful councillor called Alan. Group therapy continued in rehab, and Alan quickly established my self esteem was a major issue. And with his help I battled it. I graduated from rehab a different man, but I knew there was still work to be done.
I step foot in a cocaine anonymous meeting for the first time after rehab. It was absolutely terrifying. My ego, still causing me problems, was telling me that I am going to be entering a room full of tough cocaine cocaine users who will want to fight me or sell me drugs. The truth couldnt have been further off. Yes, some of them looked tough, some of them intimidated me, but after a while I realised, 'why would they be all sitting here on a friday night if they didnt want the same as me?'
At the end of the meeting, all these intimidating men and women came up to me, welcomed me and hugged me. I couldnt believe it. I felt I belonged for the first time in my life. I couldnt believe that him with the smart shoes, and him with the smart fitting t-shirt had the same problem as me. I got myself a sponsor and started to share often. Whether I had had a good day or a bad day, it all helped.
I struggled a bit at first. I didnt want to admit that I had no power over this drug, I didnt want to accept that a god of my understanding could relieve me from the bondage of self and I certainly didnt want to give up alcohol, after all I wasnt an alcoholic. But I seen this 12 step program work for others, others who taught me that god doesnt have to be in the form of a man with a beard. I trust in the power of the universe to help me stay sober, and I trust that if I take a drink of alcohol I risk losing my newly found spiritual self and return to dark days.
In my dark days in January 2015, I somehow managed to charm a beautiful swedish girl called Emelie who has watched me grow. Her family have seen the 'real' me, and thankfully avoided seeing me at my worst. I thank god for waiting till the right time to bring Emelie and family into my life and I thank them all for their lack of judgement. Despite the heartbreak of losing many family and friends sobriety has helped me form new bonds and friendships that I am going to fight to keep forever.
I have since been able to pay rent, keep plants, enjoy being with family, enjoy being outside, cook, clean, be a trustworthy partner to Emelie and most importantly, stay sober and happy being sober.
I have even more recently been able to enjoy festivals and a wedding without taking a drink and a drug.
Early recovery is tough, you will think of your drug of choice on a daily basis, tormenting you to the point of serious temptation. But if you are like me, just think to yourself 'is this slight feeling of discomfort anywhere near as bad as I will feel if I put that first drug or drink in me?'
If anything like me, drugging led you to the insanity of spending time alone in a room with the curtains closed thinking every car outside the house was people spying on you, or the insanity of collapsing in a heap on the floor only to come around and have another line, then I am sure no matter how tough the cravings get, nothing compares to the hell of using.
Thanks for reading.
Thomas.
