reunited

I’m told the ratio of recovery is 3 to 1 by a man at a Sunday evening meeting ‘one person dies, one person is in a relapse, one person is in recovery’, he says this with a sadness and smile that tells me ‘you’re doing okay’, but he sees needles and public toilets and pain in his mind. And I am tense in anticipation. Because nothing in that ratio is solid, but death. This is the reality. Although I think the real statistic is 1-10 chance of recovery.  Sadly, neither feel wrong, and that makes me ache. And so, I go, back to rehab for the day, the annual reunion. My first trip back.

We listen to music, talk loudly, silly singing and laughing, and bubbles in our tummies as we drive. It feels like it’s the only right thing to do, that there is only one way the car can go. Outside are the hills of Gloucestershire, I know this drive, something skips in my soul. There is coal in my chest that can’t be swallowed, it’s indigestible. As the roads get smaller and we get closer I am somewhere between me and who I was two years ago; I’m sitting between the two, sweaty palms and hospital stained skin, and clean and serenity. Squashed and suddenly nameless in thoughts. We turn in and I breathe deeply, pull together the two parts of me, squeeze them into each other. The tires roll over the gravel in that beautifully familiar sound. We walk up to the happy and joyful, who offer tea and name badges. We’re early, we wait. Sip tea under the marque that looks like too grand, too out of place, a sour thumb. It sits at the bottom end of the car park. The rest looks the same. It’s how I remember it but it’s shrunk. All the memories are still here, they’re right where I left them.

As people drift in the bells start to ring in my brain, with ‘it’s you,’ and everyone begins to feel like family again. We swap stories, talk of therapists we feared and ones who fell asleep. We are naughty school children with giggles and cigarettes. We laugh at the tedium and the tears we shared. The changes are huge, ‘not fast car- big house’ huge. But happiness huge, ‘I have my family back’ huge, ‘I walked the dog’ huge, ‘my life in now manageable’ huge. ‘I don’t want to die’ huge. One mother shares about how she’s now a grandmother, how she couldn’t be happier since her daughter left treatment three years ago. A woman talks about the old parts of herself she’s learnt to live with and ignore. Someone who’s voice was once stuck in their chest, picks up the microphone and talks of becoming a man, studying at university, being free from pain, being brave. And I am so proud to be part of this.

 There are faces that are mending, hopeful and full. Chubby where sullen cheeks once sat on grey sunken bones. Fresh with colour, eyes alive again. None of us want to go back there, back to the madness. We eat, spread ourselves busy across this space that now looks so small. Children play on a bouncy castle that sits on a piece of grass where I had sat and wept in hopelessness. Where I had felt this pain was forever and it was always. I scan the faces, the faces of the people who have dug themselves out. Spat out the dirt and scrubbed off the soil. And have come back here on a Saturday afternoon to keep fighting.

Some have relapsed and come back. My self-included, I’m almost six months again. We all say- ‘this time I’m doing something different, this time I have hope.’ That’s what today’s about- hope. The hope we find in each other. Because we know how dangerous this game of life can be. But today we are fighting. And it’s beautiful.

Back to Bristol and rain spits at the glass of the car window. I remember the fear I had of this city before. Terrified the place would steal me into its stinking underbelly. I’m not afraid of that any more.  

It went too quickly. I wanted to hold it longer. To crawl back into the space that saved me in the moment I needed to be saved to the most. To let it cover me in warmth. It’s a little bit like going home, like slipping into a memory or a dream or a world where time doesn’t exist at all because you’re back there and everything’s changed but nothing’s changed at all. Today is a tiny fragment of all the collected moments I’ve had so far. A day where the dots join up and new picture begins. 

worry

We worry a lot. About all sorts of things. ‘Did I lock the door?’ ‘Will so-and-so do well in their exam?’ ‘What will happen at doctors?’ and ‘HOW WILL I EVER GET TO THE LEVEL OF CAKE CREATION ON BAKE OFF?’ All sorts of worries – some big, some as small as questioning our own culinary skills. Often questions we don’t know the answer to but one day will. That’s the concrete truth in all this. We will have the answer, one day, maybe in a few hours or maybe in a year, but the answer will almost always come. So why, oh why, do we waste time with worry? Or perhaps if we are worried about someone’s health, panicked about the result, worried about the aftermath – what use is our worry to the person who is suffering?

And then there's the suffering that comes with our worrying. It might be small, but on occasion my worry has lead me to be slower at a job, it has caused arguments with family, it’s even made me accidentally smash a plate or a cup or a glass or some other smash-able object – and it has gone further than that. But that’s another story. The worry I’ve dealt with has caused me pain and also troubled and harmed the people around me. 

The basic fact though is that it is incredibly easy to stop these troublesome thoughts. The hardest part is realising that you can. We have control over what takes up space in our brains but of course we cannot necessarily control what enters them, but we can decide which thoughts stay and which thoughts get shoved out of the metaphorical skull door. Because worrying isn’t helpful to anyone. It’s harmful and painful. So now, how do we stop it? We just stop. We come to realise that almost everything that happens is out of our control, the health of a partner or the results of a test, they aren’t things we can change. We can’t be heroes. Unless of course you’re a doctor or a nurse then I suppose you are a hero and please keep up the bloody good work. You’re totally fabulous and you should not worry either, in fact, I have a theory that those in health care worry the least, because they cannot possibly have the time. They are possibly masters of the worry-less life.  There’s so much to worry about right now, big huge massive things – Trump's America, wars, austerity, hurricanes, you only have to switch on the news to be fraught with anxiety within seconds. But I ask you this, instead of letting that panic grow can you ask yourself – ‘What can I do to help this situation? Is it do-able? Can I change anything here?’ Perhaps you can, maybe you can slip on your dressing-gown and check if the door is really locked. Or you can sit with your distressed teenager while they revise, buttering them hot crumpets and making copious amounts of tea. But if the answer is ‘no’, if nothing can be done but waiting, or hoping, then have that hope, hope for better tomorrow, be more compassionate and kind and loving. And start by being kind to yourself and saying - ‘I accept this problem, but I cannot directly help, so I shall not worry because you sir, are a highly distressing thought and you will cause me pain.’ Let the thought dissolve with the knowledge that you did your best to be helpful. Centre your focus on something that IS helpful and continue your day. Because it is your day. And you have the power to make it a day to be proud of. Now I understand there are those worries that can’t get out the skull door, they’re too fat and cruel. So talk them out, find a friendly ear (a non-judgemental buddy), pick up the phone, chew it out till it’s shed it’s heavy weight and it’s no longer exhausting to carry around. Or write it out, paint it out, meditate it out, run it out, find your thing that frightens that thought away. You're so much stronger than that "thought" can ever be. Because the crux of it is, worrying is exhausting, it’s the mightiest, most pointless weight to carry and you have the power to put it down. It’s not always easy but it’s doable. My worries still come at me, but I give them a little shove when they squeak ‘you might never own a house,’ ‘have you seen your student debt?’, and 'what the hell are you doing with your life?' and I say- ‘that’s future Megan’s problem, how the hell do you expect me to be happy now, if I worry about all that stuff that I can’t change or that I'm already fighting for?’

how much for my life

I search ‘drug rehabilitation’, there are hundreds that flash up; beautiful buildings, clinical rooms, promises of a life lived like a hotel. Hidden price tags. I try again- ‘free rehab,’ up pops adverts like package holidays on a website- ‘At home detox, only £1295’, ‘7 day residential detox £2500’, LATEST OFFERS screaming from the screen like Tomas Cook’s Tenerife get away. Pay for your pain because you are the pain in society, that’s what I hear. It’s what I see in the streets, clay faces, glazed eyes, ignored. Prisons full of the aches and no escape. Almost as if our answer is in our bank balance, blind the side lines and tunnel vision to debt and empty pockets.  

I called up Bristol Wellbeing when I was low, lower than low, needed to talk to someone again. Half an hour of questions and heart and soul pouring, rated the highest on the depression “scale”. A call back months later to tell me they couldn’t help me because I am a drug addict. Because I have a disease that separates me from the rest of humanity. But this story is small, mine is small and I am lucky. I talk to recovery friends, they talk of waiting lists and bedsits and mould and mattresses on floors, park benches, fear. Hospital beds that kick from underneath them when the shaking is dulled and slowed by medication.

I understand that it’s our responsibility to get clean. Recovery is a choice, but how can you choose when no one is giving you the option? The utter bleakness of this illness is reflected in the way it’s treated. The best treatment to seems to be the hardest to find, almost a secret. It feels like our freedom is sold to us. Our lives are sold back to us. I praise the NHS, love the NHS but drug rehabilitation isn’t really provided by them at all. Just detox after detox. The irony of doctors pumping more drugs into our systems to get us clean, detoxing our bodies when the toxins are in our brains. We know more now, we are smarter than this now. Aren’t we? Can’t we look back over the years at what’s worked and what hasn’t.

I overdosed twice. I was pumped out and pumped in and once my body was better, I was sent home. But I was sick, sick stained, ready to die. Had I not been so lucky I would have. I went to a private rehab, a private rehab that cost £10,000 a month. £10,000 that my family didn’t have but they were able to find in precious people. What could I have done? Being ill is a luxury for the wealthy and dying is almost a certainty for the poor.  Recently I read that there were no beds in any mental health wards on the NHS. None. Zero. Nothing. There are stories of people being put in beds miles from home, teenagers and children separated from their families. It’s not enough. Not good enough at all. Because this isn’t just about addiction, this is about mental health. When will mental health be considered just health? When will it no longer be segregated and covered in barbed wire, for horror films to written about, fear to be spread with, lives to be played with.

The vulnerable have always been taken advantage of. The dreadful cost of the Grenfell fire was only felt by the poor and the hiding. Addicts are vulnerable, their disease tells them they want to die. It lies to them and it’s a terrifying place to be. There are free ways to escape the pain, but the place between using and that safety is a long and tough stretch during which there is very little support. Charities do incredible things, staffed with experienced survivors who know how hands should be held, know that addiction is forever and therefore treatment must be forever. But they are few and far between – underfunded and overshadowed by the promise of quick release, by a week in hospital which may seem more appealing than confronting demons. Getting sober is a battle, a bloody and hideous battle. It’s horrible and scary and we cannot do it alone. Why must that mean that we pay through skin and bone to be well? Why must that mean, just because this illness takes such an ugly shape, that we ignore it on our streets?

It seems that the homeless addict loses his or her right to be human. People pass a person who has passed out in filthy clothes but if that person was suited, briefcase in hand, they would be much more ready to help. Why do we lose our souls because of our bank balance? Everything else is treated, but our mental health is so often ignored. It’s not good enough. Our heroes are crowned – the famous drug survivors, the ones who sparkle in their sobriety and use their celebrity to shout about how good it feels to be clean. We need Russell Brand and his ilk – he inspires and he is proof that there is another ‘country’ on the other side of the demon bridge but he is a one-off and most of us don’t have his wonderful money and confidence to help to blast away the agonies.

In the meantime, the ‘crack head’ on the corner is blamed, belittled, berated and perhaps worst of all, invisible. He will keep scoring until he dies unless someone ‘sees’ him and his many many ‘friends’. The people who could make a real change need to dust off their glasses, look straight at these struggling souls who are just minutes away from being you and me and come up with some real answers.

http://www.charislondon.org/home/4541859091

http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/

http://www.cauk.org.uk/index.asp

http://ukna.org/

https://www.focus12.co.uk/

I wanted to say something

I sit on the step at the front of my house and smoke a cigarette, midday emptiness, peaceful. I sip my tea and flick through Facebook. On my newsfeed is a rash of Labour red, in my social media bubble I am squishy and warm with hope that all might be fixed.

I watch a man who staggers up the road with sticky fag rolling fingers. Fumbling curly tobacco.

In the window next to me, I have blue tacked my media bubble- ‘vote Labour.’

He stops and sways.

‘Are you voting Labour?’ Squinty, eyeballed, stutter.

‘Yes.’ I answer.

He rocks on roller-skate soles. Wriggly insides trying to be stabled.

‘What about the fucking immigrants?’ Gurgling mumble. I am silent. ‘That one at number ten’s a bitch.’

‘Yes, she’s not very nice.’ I try and reply.

‘David Cameron was alright. With that security he had.’

I sort of hum, because I don’t know what to say.

‘What do you think of it all?’ He asks.

‘I think, it’s really scary.’ He doesn’t think I mean what I really mean so his smile is met with my creased forehead.

Something invisible and solid falls between us.

He stops, I wait. I want him to leave, I don’t feel safe.

In his drunken eyes, I see mine from sometimes last year or the year before.

He sprinkles more tobacco on the floor.

‘You haven’t got a vape then?’

‘No.’ I say.

He mumbles, heavy haze and walks away.

I should have said more, something else, something stronger.

Behind my screen I can talk high and strong and brave and power. But face to face, when it really matters I crumble. And I think that is exactly where they want us to be.    

I wonder, has anyone been changed by a tweet or a poster, or is it just for our own self-righteous satisfaction? Aren’t we all so solid in our views?  

My sponsor arrives. When she leaves, I think of the man who past my step on the street, broken by a need that might kill him. In a world that won’t heal him. 

word hero

Do you get those moments, where you think- ‘how the fuck has that much time passed? Only yesterday I was playing Harry Potter on a beach in fancy pink cord flares and a Tammy Girl tee-shirt and now the worlds a mess I actually need to do something about it.’ Or ‘it wasn’t that long ago that I was broken?’ Sometimes life stacks up and you suddenly realise that chapters have filled pages so much faster than you thought possible. Memories that were seconds ago are oh so quickly years in the past. We know this. You know how time works. But it never fails to shock me that it hasn’t stopped. How does it all keep going, isn’t time tired yet? Then of course, I’d only want it to stop it in a Bernard’s Watch way, you know, so I could start it again, because I relish that kind of control.

I have been writing about my brain for almost two years now, and sometimes I worry* I’ve run out, dried out, exhausted those letters on my keyboard. Because all the talk of recovery and therapy and brains has become my normality. It can be so thick and so boring, like paying a gas bill or purchasing a bus ticket, but worst of all, it can feel like it defines me. It doesn’t. Each of us suffers are so much more than our troubles, some of us are really good at bowling, not me, I’m terrible at it. But you see my point. 

However, after all of that, I realised there is more to say, because you don’t go into recovery all shiny and new, sometimes it all fucks up, sometimes it doesn't. It is constant and ongoing. Sometimes being in recovery feels like I’ve found the secret. Like I and all the others, who stand with courage against the monsters in our brains, know something that no one else knows. I’m not even sure what it is, possibly that we can get better, or that we already are, I’m not sure. But it can feel like a super power. Going through the pain and learning how to feel it and not let it kill you. That’s heroic, fuck it, we are super heroes, we are the Batman’s and Wonder Woman’s of this sometimes seemingly post-apocalyptic world. Sometimes it’s not heroic at all though, sometimes the pain creeps in and we forget how to operate. Our capes and our tool box of brain fixing things are abandoned. But on the good days, we are Superman. We find hope in little tiny hidden places. We make the choice to be happy, it’s not as easy as waking up in the morning and saying, ‘I’m going to be happy,’ and putting on that ‘Friday feeling’ playlist on Spotify. It’s could be running away from day time TV into yoga studios, or coffee shops with friends, or (maybe possibly) the gym. Then of course, it’s talking, loud and strong and brave until stories that once made blood burn veins turn from The Shinning to Sharknado. Then it’s up to you, people or high powers, you can choice. Make your film a comedy; the only difference between Ghostbusters and Paranormal Activity is how the character’s deal with the ghosts, (sort of). Laugh, because time does that thing where it catches you, sneaks up behind you and makes you forget the child that still lives in you. They need listening to sometimes, when they need to be loved and looked after. Maybe not the times when they want to eat their body weight in Chewits or get upset because you dropped a 99 flake that cost two pounds twenty, (actually ice cream spillage is totally valued) but mostly listen when they are scared, hear them when they ask for help and courageously take them to it. You can, you’re a super hero. 

*(I also worry that there are so many more important things to write about, but I am writing about them, just in play form- http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2917150 )

Brighton streets.

Clubs will continue to churn out turned up tunes into the blackness of night.
Milk madness that pours thick.
Crowds will continue to chew their gums
and hum, and swallow sickly, sweet, bitter, regret.
At first, among the groups of gurning gangs I stand with awkward feet
that don't seem to want to move with the beat.
But flicker with my sober anxiety.
People push and pierce ear drums with screams and repetitive monotony.
They have forgotten their ability to be.
Smoking I meet new faces who offer me drinks.
With twists of shame and smile I shake my head.
I laugh with the people who remind me of a life I once lead.
Bitter sweet.
The ones less wasted become new friends.
Inside I waste apologies with excuse me.
All elbows and bones shoving the soul.
But in my sobriety I dance and laugh with friends who surround me. Normality.
My ears still ring as I begin the journey home.
But we sing.
My room does not spin as I hit soft sheets.
Waking next morning with memories of a night to store in my head,
flick back to when the thoughts of drinks and drugs take up space in my brain. It's getting easier.
My eyes are wide and I am tipping on pride as I play the previous day in my mind,
with a smile.
And I do not ache or feel shame.
I do not cringe with pain as I check my funds of my phone.
I don't mean this to sound like puffed up pride. Stuffy superiority.
I'm just finding how this space of 23 fits with me. Where I can feel at peace.
Sober nights aren't always easy. They are often edging to impossible.
Making early tearful nights probable. Empty sleep eyes.
But I'm finding the line.
Knowing when it's time to say not tonight.
But on Brighton streets I get it right.

fix

I had let my sadness from losing someone I loved define me. Then I let my mistakes pile up. My mistakes held hands with my using. My brain melting in to a smoke filled mess. A damp mold behind my skull. It stank. Toxic. Feeling rotten to my core. So damaged, so destroyed that the chaos was my comfort. The sadness was my blanket and I was wrapped up in all of it. Forgetting everything else around me. There is a sense of loss when I think back. A sadness that I am no longer in that. I know how strange that might sound. There was just a certain freedom in not caring at all for my life. Not caring because I felt I was totally beyond repair. The person who I was, no matter how dark and twisted, that was me. I was the girl who fucked up. The one who caused chaos with white dust and angry intoxication. The one who didn’t care. Not one little bit. Inside, of course, I cared deeply about the people around me. Loved with all my internal organs, but what is the point of love if it is only felt on the inside and never shared, not even with myself. I stuffed that love so far down to the ground it barely touched my toes.

Being in recovery has forced me to recreate myself. At first putting the blocks of my life back together was exciting, interesting. Searching and discovering the things that I like. Listening to music again. Reading books. Finding things. Reconnecting. But all of a sudden I feel like I’m searching in the dark. Like I’m totally lost. I can’t tell you who I am now. I feel like I’m blindly grasping at the air. Trying to feed my soul but only clutching my own empty hands. I’m trying on outfits and none of them seem to fit. Everything I try feels like that itchy jumper you get for Christmas; spiky, sharp. My skin doesn’t fit. I would like to fit again in my own skin.  Everything frightens me and leaves me lonely. And loneliness is so ugly. It’s bare and cold and no matter who stands ready to fight it, it doesn’t seem to leave till IT wants to. Each morning it clings to my shoulders, stuck to me. I must drag this gut retching maggot around with me. The maggot and my beast and all my sickening memories seem to thrive together. Like a virus. And my regrets are piled high. So much fuel. From the drunken stories that past my lips without a stop and think to friends who only deserved kindness. To walking away when I should have stayed. The people I’ve hurt.

Somewhere in this piece there is a realization. That to recreate myself, to be in comfort once again I must repair. So now recovery welcomes a new mission, a new fight. I must fix what I have broken outside of me to mend my insides. A battle I guess I knew I would always have to face.

six.

When I was six I danced in a white tutu. The vest part stained from my clumsy joy of food. My little round belly stretched out around my middle like a balloon. I wasn’t the most agile dancer but nothing would deter me from spreading my arms wide, stretching my chubby little legs, pointing my toes and bounding around the house haphazardly. To a classical CD that I’d plucked from my dad’s collection. I would dance just because it was exactly what I wanted to do and it made bubbles of joy tickle up my spine.

When I was six I would sneak outside and fight through jungles, ride horses through the Highlands of Scotland, make camp fires. Discover places where the creatures of dreams would tell me tales of worlds beyond my own. Digg with sticks to try and find the heat of Australia in rainy Bristol. Turn clouds into wales and dragons. Ride my bike across American highways.

 When I was six I wanted to unravel all the mystery’s in the world. Play every part. Fierce red head full of question and sharp determination. 

When I was six I would spin around in circles with my best friend. Laughter would pour from our lungs. The world would roll in circles so much faster than it had ever done before. With dizzy happiness. Adventures. That zest for life. That something you have when you're so brand new in the world.  

When I was six I’d climbed upstairs with sleep in my eyes but of course I did not want to sleep. My sisters and I caused chaos with cold feet and peppermint breath. Letting our world be our game, as all children do. When I was six I didn’t want to sleep for fear of wasting time. For fear of missing the grown up hours. For fear of not seeing what the world looked like when it turned black. I peeked through the banisters and drank in the sound of my parent’s whispers. Breathed in the almost silent ache of the house that had been so alive in the light. Crawled to the warmth of my bed with disappointed surrender at the end of it all. Tired and full.

Six months ago today a suitcase was put in my sister’s cars. We drove. To the place where I would spend a month healing. Where I would learn how pull apart the rattling poison behind my skull. Suck it out like a snake bite and spit it into the gutter. Where I would find my calm. Where I would meet some of the most wonderful people.  

I wanted to travel back to a different six to celebrate this one. A six that reminds me that I wasn't always an addict. I wasn't always troubled. By that reminding I have hope. I'm not sure how much sense that makes to you, but it helps me to see that there are a million different parts that make me who I am and being an addict is just a slice of that.  

Before rehab I never wanted to be clean and sober. I'd found a pattern in my life that almost felt comfortable. But it wasn't. I was slowly killing myself. I was forgetting the people around me. I was forgetting who I was. I was forgetting me at six.

being

I am on medication for depression.

I have been on and off. 

Tried so many types.

Different variations. 

Cocktails. 

A pick-a-mix of anti depressants, sleeping pills, anti anxiety, and so on. 

Meds that dull the senses. That stop tears in their tracks. That hold me. That let me sleep. My medication lets me 'be'. It takes the racing heart and sweaty palms out of ordering coffee. It lets my head creep up from staring at the floor. It takes some of my pain away. On the darkest of days it gives me a slice of light. It gives me the ability to be. This medication helps me and many others turn days of despair into days where getting out of bed is a possibility. 

However there is a foggy stigma when it comes my little tablets. It rears it's ugly head whenever this subject is mentioned. And I am angry. I am angry that mental illness can sometimes hold hands with shame. I have felt that shame. I have clasped my mouth closed with quivering hands when I should have shouted the loudest. I have whispered when I should have screamed. I have said those words 'no, I doing fine' hoping someone would hear the hidden meaning, that had sunk so deep I didn't even know how to breathe. This stigma scares me. This stigma must leave. 

No one smuggles in a secret Lemsip when they have a cold. No one asks a patient in a coma if they've tried 'getting up.' No one tells someone with a broken leg 'to go running.' So why do we do this with mental illness? Why do people tell me to 'cheer up' when there is something damaged in my brain? Just because it's not visible does not mean it's not there. And the stark reality is that people die. These illnesses are vicious. They kill. If a little pill can stop that, if medication can save a life, or even just make a life livable. Then it must be okay. It has to be. 

It might not be the only answer. Medication is not the one and only. There are therapies. There are other answers. It just so happens that it helps me. And that is okay. 

we will not forget who we are. 

five.

As the days turn into weeks and tumble into months. The person I once was moves further and further away. The person that had only one thing on their mind. I have waved good bye. And the person I’m becoming is turning scars into thicker skin. I want to say that it gets easier. That it stops being so hard. Maybe in some ways it does. In some ways I learn a little more each day about how to live in recovery. 

It would be a lie to say 'I don't miss it'. Because I do. I write excuses in my brain. Wait for a bad day to push the 'fuck it' button. It's a little like there's a conflict in my mind. Between the old me and the new. But for the last five months the new me has been winning and I hope it will continue to. I don't ever what to let her lose. 

But the waves of aches and pains that once drove me to put chemicals in my brain still arrive in tidal storm. The crave is sketched so deep into my bones that I don’t think it will ever leave. It pulls me out when I’m in peace. When the cravings click their ugly battle cries I shut my eyes. I remember that I almost died. I silence the lies that whisper in my mind 'you need this.' Because the life I have now I am living, and I am loving.

Five months and I am okay. And I’d like to thank you all for every inch of your love and support.

and it's over.

One more sober mile stone. It can be done. 

The festive season was something I was dreading with all of my being. I was terrified I wouldn't make it through clean and sober. In reality I feel like it's made me stronger. Made me heal that little bit more. Helped me put together a few more of the pieces of myself that I lost. With the help of my small army of loved ones, I made it through. 

Over Christmas I locked the doors of my family home and only snuck out to see some fierce and loyal friends when things weren’t too dark. My family once again stood guard around me when I dipped further into that bone aching fog of depression. They dragged me out of it by never leaving my side. Christmas day; calm arrived just in time. We ate too much food and watched shit TV, in perfect tradition. And when that beast addiction tapping at the back of my skull became too fucking loud I reached out to the people around me and of course they were, as always, ready to fight. I am forever thankful. 

For once, on New Years Eve I wasn't a teeth grinding, staggering, mess. I didn't wake up on the very first day of the year with black ink in my brain rather than memories, a nose full of chalky cocaine, or a sadness clutching my shoulders, digging it's claws into my neck. Instead, I waved good bye to 2015 with the biggest smile. With tummy turning happiness, surrounded by friends who never left my side. I held up my middle finger to last year. And oh so gladly waved it the fuck good bye. I had a well and truly wonderful night and woke up with memories to remember. So I enter this year feeling hopeful. Feeling ready to move on. Ready for an adventure. And I can’t bloody wait. 

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.