oh dear I think that Christmas cheer and sh*t went and got me.

 It is the time of year when eating and drinking your body weight in junk food and alcohol is totally acceptable. Which is wonderful for a lot of you out there. But for us addicts in recovery we are faced with another challenge; getting through the festive days with no booze. Smiling through those uncomfortable 'what are you doing with your life?' conversations. Chewing down Brussels sprouts without indulging in our favorite Christmas tipple. No bucks fizz at breakfast. No cold lager cheers. And oh how I miss it.

But. And it's a big fat BUT, this year I started healing (as some of you know, sorry I must sound like a broken record!) I started learning how to live a life without my bastard black dog being in control. This Christmas I have something to be well and truly happy about. So I can focus not on intoxication this year but on no longer living with that tricky prick regret. Despite recovery being bloody difficult I am finally getting better and learning how to be happy and live a life knowing that happiness is a possibility for me. And maybe that's what this time of year should really be about. Despite it being sickeningly sentimental, maybe Christmas is a time to be reflective and remember that we are loved. A time to surround ourselves with the people we love. Humans, are of course, undoubtedly barmy; bringing trees in houses, and being happy that some lady had a baby some 2015 years ago, are a few of our milder insults to logic. But we do give ourselves these couple of days. Just to be with each other. In our own little ways. So this year that's what I am going to make Christmas about. Or at least I'm going to try.

So Merry Christmas. One and all. And a shout out to those who (like me) are about to embark on their very first sober Christmas. We can do it.  

if every fool wore a crown I would be a king and not a clown

Once again I am foolish.
Once again Bristol stands ugly and aggressive before me.
It's thick shoulders bouncing as it laughs at me.
A bastard.

All my memories leave me totally naked in the light of this city.
And oh so suddenly it doesn't feel like home, just when I need to be.
Because once again I've been a classic fool.
I must have forgotten that all that fragility and vulnerability was running through my veins. Or perhaps I thought for a moment too long, that something good might finally happen. Either way I've been silly in my brain again.
I am wrong again.
Obviously. Classic me.

I am aware this doesn't make much sense.

A couple of things have happened recently that have very almost caused a relapse.
I haven't relapsed. But I'm really struggling.
And it's not because I want to have a pint, and be silly, I'm really struggling because I'm hurting. Because I've come home to feel a million miles away. Because I'm missing so much and so many.

Again I am reminded. Again I am reminded that my recovery comes first. Again I reminded of who I am. I am an addict.

one hundred and five days.

Fifteen weeks clean and sober. One hundred and five days. Zero units of alcohol. Zero narcotics. 

If someone said that this would be a possibility for me a year ago or even six months ago. If (in the world of cliques), someone had abruptly knocked on my door and said, 'you will be sober for one hundred and five days.' Firstly I'd be slightly dazed by the audacity of this unknown being, then mildly frightened by the mysterious stranger but finally (of course) I would have laughed, at this (seemingly) absolutely ridiculous statement. 

Some of the 105 days have been a lot longer than others. Some of the days I've had to fight harder and I will continue the fight. My recovery continues and it will always continue. Everyday I remember the buzzing head and sickness of my old life and that pushes me forwards. Being an addict means being constantly vigilant, constantly assessing every inch of my mood. My recovery will always come first because if it doesn't I risk the possibility that everything will sharply fall apart. 

But right now, I feel like I really like the sound of 'one hundred and five days clean and sober.' It's got a ring to it, but I think I'll like two hundred and five just as much.  

What war on drugs?

I am an addict. I came out of rehab almost three months ago. I am now clean and sober (yay!). And you know what? It fucking sucks! It sucks that I can’t drink and be silly with my friends. It sucks that my confidence has disappeared. It sucks that I’m ill and I struggle with it every single day. It sucks that I spend my Friday nights in a cold church for my Cocaine Anonymous (CA) meeting. But the thing that hurts me the most is the look on people’s faces when I say those four words - ‘I am an addict.’ That look is fear. People are afraid of who I am. And that’s shit. Because essentially I’m just a normal 23-year-old woman, I just have a story, like everyone else.

My poison was not the cocaine I spent thousands of pounds on. Nor was it the alcohol I binged on till my only friends were the floor and the toilet. Not in the way that many people think. My poison was my anger and my sadness. My poison was not being able to ask for help. And the thing that stopped me using wasn't the threat of being a criminal. It was talking. It was the people I met in rehab and my family and friends who held my hand all the way. 

Addiction is everywhere. It’s that white F surrounded by blue on your phone. It's neatly wrapped in eat-me junk food wrappers. It's a shiny yellow M on a high street. It's sat at the bar. It's on the side of the road. It's sleeping in the cold and the rain. It's running through so many veins. Maybe it's because it's dirty and ugly that we don't want to look at it. Maybe it's because we're all so scared. I'm not sure why we find it so easy to ignore. But it's here and it's not going away. Despite the laws that scream DON'T USE DRUGS OR YOU’LL BE PUNISHED! in the science of addiction, we now know that it can be caused by a stress hormone called Cortisol. I won't go too much into this as I'm not a scientist but this tricky bastard of a hormone sucks every inch of enjoyment out of life. People born with this are so much more likely to turn to addiction. It's a bitch and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Once you've made that turn to drugs or alcohol or whatever it may be, your brain gets all excited and it releases dopamine. It’s the part of your brain that tells you to sleep, eat and breathe and it tricks you into thinking you need your 'drug of choice'. That part of your brain is now fucked. It is not a choice. If we look at the way some people view addiction as the chemical hooks in the drugs that make you an addict, we'd have safely identified the millions of people that have been in hospital and had to have a morphine drip addicted to heroin. I'm sure someone you know has had an op but not come out a junkie. We need to change the way we think about drugs. Maybe you’ve even used drugs recreationally or you drink alcohol regularly. What’s the difference between you and an addict? It’s not the substance. It’s the person.

In Portugal they have decriminalised ALL drugs. Sounds like a stupid move, right? Or does it? They now have systems in place that HELP people who suffer with addiction. They help the person to find work and they provide counselling and support. And guess what? It costs a whole lot less that throwing them into prison. By doing this the number of people using drugs in Portugal has dropped massively and so has the number of drug induced deaths. The Portuguese prison population has also declined. I was told in rehab that addiction (alcohol and drug related) causes more deaths than any other illness in the world. Why are we ignoring this? I get it. I’ve been there. Addicts are annoying. We lie, we steal, we’re very difficult to be around but we’re ill. Most of the addicts I’ve met have been so kind-hearted and compassionate and every single one of them has one hell of a story. They’ve been fucked over by life. I’m not asking for sympathy. A lot of the mess and havoc I caused was all my doing. I have taken responsibility for my actions. I’m just asking us to rethink this ‘war on drugs’. To me it is redundant. We cannot fight a substance. But we can fight for each other. We can fight this together. We can fight those demons that tap at the back of the skull of the people we share this beautiful planet with. Our time is always so precious to us, until it's too late. Don’t let it be too late. We need to start talking about mental health. And we need to do it now. 

#weneedtostarttalkingaboutmentalhealth  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY9DcIMGxMs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66cYcSak6nE