This is a story about being hounded to death...

One week ago, I was shovelling pills into my mouth, washed down with pints of white wine. The LD50 is the lethal dose that will kill 50% of the test subjects. Lethal doses are normally calculated in milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Tramadol is quite a reliable way to kill yourself, with plenty of examples of successful suicides in the literature, for anybody who wishes to trawl the medical journals.

Most opiates will cause respiratory arrest. Tramadol seems to kill more often through serotonin syndrome, according to what I read in advance of my suicide attempt. I can tell you exactly what it feels like, to reach your wits end, decide to end your life, and follow through with the necessary steps. I can tell you exactly what it feels like, during the periods of consciousness, as you die.

Once I had downed all the capsules and their gelatin shells had started to dissolve, I started to become quite intoxicated, thanks in no small part to the wine I used to wash my legally prescribed pain medication - tramadol - down my throat. Of course, I had stockpiled the capsules, which is not what my doctor had anticipated I would do, when they wrote the prescription, but I was getting a box each visit to the pharmacist, with each box containing plenty to end my life.

I decided to send out some final Tweets, when I believed I was beyond the point of no return. I have no idea whether I inadvertantly saved my own life or not, by alerting my social media contacts to the fact that I was on my way to meet my maker.

Discussion of what pushed me over the edge is not really warranted here, suffice to say that I simply had nothing in reserve when my fragile embryonic new life in this Northern city started to crumble. I had given 100% to my new job, my new girlfriend and my new friends. I had no safety net, when the slender threads that supported me, snapped suddenly.

Firstly, it should be noted that it takes quite a long time for your stomach and large intestine to process enough capsules for you to start to experience the onset of a fatal overdose. I had imagined that 40 minutes would be plenty for the first wave of powerful tramadol to hit me, and to make me unconscious or at least delerious and incoherent. I was wrong - I was able to send out several Tweets that actually seem to make sense now - one week later - as well as being gramatically OK and without spelling mistakes.

Secondly, it should be noted that the ideal scenario of falling asleep and not waking up, did not happen at all. I did get waves of soporific effect from both the alcohol and the tramadol, but I imagine that the adrenalin of knowing I was on my way to the grave kept me mostly conscious. My eyelids would get heavy and my head would drop, but my body fought to stay alive and I kept jerking awake.

Thirdly, I have horrible snatches of memory. I can remember exactly what it was like to fill my mouth with capsules, and gulp them down with wine from a pint glass. I remember how agonisingly long it took to empty out all the packets into the box, which I used as a kind of cup, from which to tip a load of tramadol into my mouth before swallowing it. I can remember the emergency services battering their way into the bathroom, where I had slumped in the dark, waiting to die. I can remember telling them where all the empty pill packets were.

I can remember telling somebody - was it somebody at the hospital? - who my doctor was and exactly what overdose I had taken. I can remember the very worst moment, when the hospital told me that death was likely to be slow and painful, not the unconscious affair I had imagined.

I can remember when I started to have seizures. I can remember begging the hospital not to treat me with activated charcoal; not to pump my stomach; not to resuscitate me if I went into cardiac arrest. I can remember coming round after 12+ hours under sedation, breathing with a ventilator. I had a tube coming out of my nose, one down my throat and one up my dick - I had been intubated, catheterised and had several canulas installed, including an arterial one that was measuring my blood pressure. It felt like I had snot running down my face, but it was just a tube that was being used to put stuff into my stomach to neutralise the deadly chemicals.

I can remember a nurse or a doctor came and asked me a question, and I tried to reply but I couldn't. Every time I tried to speak, my lungs pushed air against the ventilator, and I would be left momentairily be gasping for air until I allowed the machine to breathe for me again.

I can remember a different nurse or doctor reassured me that I would be able to speak once the tube had been pulled out of my throat, where it was impeding my vocal chords. I was so relieved, because it was deeply distressing to lose my ability to talk and have moments where I couldn't breathe.

I can remember being asked how I felt about the fact I had survived an overdose that should have been fatal. I felt terrible about telling the hard-working intensive-care nurse or doctor that nothing had changed... in fact things were worse than ever, as I imagined that the overdose would have caused horrific organ damage. I expressed in no uncertain terms that I still wanted to die.

I can remember drifting in and out of consciousness. From Saturday night to Tuesday morning, I had no idea whether I was in A&E resus, intensive care or the high dependency unit. I can vaguely recall being told, but the memories seem all out of sequence, and dreamlike - quite unreal.

I can remember being wheeled into a general hospital ward at some point on Tuesday, and then wheeled off to my own private room. I can remember slowly regaining some mental capacity. I can remember a visit from a psychiatrist, where I again expressed my distress with my situation and fear that I would not be able to guarantee my own safety - what had improved since I had tried to end my own life? Nothing. In fact, my situation had worstened: I had no idea what kind of state my apartment would be in when I got home - my wallet, keys, phone and other personal effects had gone missing. It seemed unthinkable that I would have to face potentially being locked out of my apartment, with no money or credit cards on me, and no means of contacting anybody.

When I did finally make it back home, things were worse than I had even imagined. My laptop and digital camera had been stolen. Every single prescribed medication had been stripped from my shelves and drawers and cupboards. There was one single solitary pregabalin capsule, almost left mockingly on my bedroom floor which lay in disgraceful mess. I need pregabalin for nerve damage in my left ankle/foot... as a non-opiod painkiller. I desperately needed some of the zopiclone that I had stockpiled, in order to sleep after such a horrific ordeal. These are not dangerous medications, ironically. I had moved myself off the tramadol, because it was not desirable to use it as a long-term painkiller. I had stockpiles of zopiclone, because it was useful for these very eventualities. The home treatment team had thrown bucketloads at me, because sleep is so important for good mental health. Where was all my prescription medication?

There was no sign of my mobile phone anywhere, and without my wallet and laptop, I was completely stuffed in terms of being able to get a message to anybody. From Saturday night until around 3 or 4am on Wednesday morning, I had been completely cut off from the world... mostly unconscious, and without access to telephone, email or social media.

Wednesday daytime, the way I was treated at the office - where I went to store the few valuables that had not been stolen - was extremely odd; if not downright rude and unpleasant. It was most unsettling indeed to be treated so oddly at my place of work, especially after surviving a suicide attempt and having suffered a burgulary. I was also fighting off panic attacks and pain, because my legally prescribed medications had been stolen too.

After a quite baffling experience at the office, where I was ushered out of the door as if I was an interloper, the CEO of the company I had been doing consultancy work for, spoke to me to say that he would be very happy to see me for a beer, but that I could spend the rest of the week sorting out everything that now dauntingly lay ahead of me: repairing the damage from the break-in and replacing the stolen items. Life is profoundly difficult without your credit and debit cards, mobile phone and laptop.

I managed to get an emergency prescription for 7 days of pregabalin and zopicline, so that I could restabilise my medication regimen. I managed to get enough cash out from the bank to replace my laptop, but not my smartphone or pay for repairs to my flat. I was starting to be overwhelmed with the enormity of the task that was expected of me: for a suicide survivor to carry on with their life as if nothing had happened. My home felt violated and insecure. There was something weird going on at work. It was deeply unsettling.

Gladly, I was re-admitted to hospital at Accident & Emergency, because I was driven into crisis by the horrendous near-death experience, only to then find that my two most valuable and prized possessions - my smartphone and laptop - had been stolen, and my flat had been ransacked; my front door and bathroom door were smashed up; the place had been turned upside down.

The fact that I was discharged from hospital and ended up back at my trashed apartment at 3 or 4am on Wednesday morning is something that should never have come to pass. What the fuck are you doing discharging a suicidal person in crisis, into a situation where they've got more on their plate than they can handle? How the fuck am I going to go back to life as normal, without my smartphone, laptop or a secure home to keep myself and my possessions in? How the fuck am I going to get through life without the pain medication for my nerve damage, and sleep medication for the horrendously stressful circumstances.

Being re-admitted to hospital - first the Accident & Emergency department, and then psychiatric hospital - was inevitable, and essential for my safety and wellbeing.

I could have bounced back, but the strange experience at the office and the amount of things I had to sort out due to theft or loss, was simply too much for somebody as sick as I was then.

I managed to get a replacement debit card for my business bank account, and make some cash withdrawals using my passport, but after replacing my mobile phone and laptop I had very little money left; I was exhausted stressed and in no mood to return to my home that not only felt violated, but also not a secure place to keep myself and my valuables.

My very worst fear was realised: that of finding myself completely alone in this Northern city with nobody to turn to for support. Without a smartphone, I felt completely cut off from social media. By some strange co-incidence, my work colleagues were both out of town. This was the perfect storm. This was exactly what I never wanted to ever happen - to be isolated and alone.

I thought about throwing myself off a high building, or under a bus. In the end, I finally made it back to where I should have been allowed to stay: the safety of hospital. Surviving a suicide attempt is a big deal, and then to have shit to deal with at work and home, was horrendous.

My memory about how I arrived back in hospital is just as fucked up as you'd expect of somebody who's been through a near-death experience and survived, but only barely. I'm not sure what's real and what's dream. I feel like I died all over again. I have these strange memories of trying to replace my mobile phone, laptop and get enough cash out of the bank to replace my iPhone too. I can remember waking up on a hospital trolley and re-orienting myself with reality... there were lots of things that I could vaguely remember, but they seemed to be from a different life. Had I died and had my heart restarted? Certainly, there was a period where I was sure I was dreaming. Perhaps I was still having seizures, because of the unbelievable disturbance to the stability of my life, including the regularity with which I was able to take my medications and soothe my jangled nerves with alcohol.

I write to you now, in stone cold sobriety. My alcohol consumption has been practically zero for a whole week... cut at a rate that would easily cause problems, especially considering that all the other medications that I have been prescribed have been very irregularly given to me too. Rebound insomnia from suddenly stopping zopiclone would be expected. Suddenly stopping pregabalin will have terrible consequences, as with any of the GABA agonists. I'm surprised I haven't had MORE seizures or perhaps even been killed by the sudden withdrawal of medications that I had become physically dependent on, as well as alcohol. You can't just suddenly stop drinking and taking the pills that I had been prescribed - you have to taper down gently.

In a way, I'm in a good situation now that I'm off all the alcohol and most of the meds that I had become dependent on. My sleep is terrible, I'm in a lot of pain, and I'm overwhelmed by anxiety and a general sense of unease, but it's good to not be drinking so much and having to take pills just to stay calm through some incredibly stressful events.

My housing, employment and general situation is dreadful. I'm being royally dicked over by everybody who has sensed that I'm in a vulnerable state. It's an abosoute disgrace, how people have tried to put the boot in and deal the final death blow to me, when I was already bruised and bloodied and at death's door.

I'm in psych hospital until Monday at least, which is a blessed relief. I have a room with a door that hasn't been kicked in and has a fairly sturdy lock, with which to protect my valuables. I get three hot meals a day and there's plenty of hot water. There are loads of mental health professionals on hand if I was feeling suicidal again.

Sadly, I am having to turn to the law to defend me from mental health discrimination, illegal eviction, and hopefully recover my valuables that were lost or stolen due to negligence. At least I am in a safe place from which to defend myself. Justice will prevail.

I think it's outrageous that I was ever declared fit and well enough to be let out of hospital, especially given the ransacked shithole I had to go back home to, and the mistreatment I received at work. However, I am also sympathetic towards the police, who have a difficult job to do, as well as to the fact that I have received a substantial amount of hospital care, to save my life.

There's a fairly simple ethical guiding principle here though: don't fuck with vulnerable people. I'm pretty mad that I'm the one with the stolen iPhone, MacBook, the battered and bruised body, the missing medications and having faced some terrible stress, on top of the situation that was already so horribly desperate that it drove me to try to end my own life. Nobody is coming to me and offering me compensation of any kind, despite my phone and laptop being supposedly covered under a company insurance policy.

I have a fully functioning conscience - a moral compass - and I am trying to set matters straight that I am responsible for. Even in the midst of what might have been the final hour or two that I walked upon this Earth, I still had concern for rectifying certain things, and I still do. I'm being treated like shit, but I don't feel that entitles me to treat others like shit. I'm in a horrible situation, but I'll do what I can from where I can... although I do expect to be treated fairly and in accordance with the contractual obligations, housing obligations and obligations to not be discriminated against because of my mental health crisis. The door swings both ways, and I take my ethical conduct very seriously.

Sadly, the law and solicitors of various flavours are being involved, which means I can do little until they're back at work again on Monday. I need to proceed through the official channels, seeing as I'm being beaten with a legal stick. I'm outraged that my housing and income is under threat, simply because the opportunistic shits that I've been doing some work for have sensed an opportunity to try and scam me.

I wish everybody would just do the right thing, or offer to rectify things when they have made a mistake.

Anyway, as you can tell, I'm feeling quite sorry for myself, given the shitshow of my life. My guardian angel has arrived in the nick of time to help me stay afloat, but I'm still battered, bruised, organ damaged, hospitalised, under threat of illegal eviction, my client is in breach of contract with unpaid invoices, my employment offer has been withdrawn due to mental health discrimination, and the dreadful ordeal on Tues/Weds with being released from hospital too early, has pretty much fucked any chance of recovering my delicate poise. Everything was so fucking fragile, and it burned down in the blink of an eye.

Fundamentally, where is my girlfriend, my friends - my support network - as well as my work colleagues, income, housing and all the other pieces of the puzzle that make a liveable life? All I can see are circling vultures, greedily eyeing me up as a piece of carrion.

At least we have a decent legal system here in the UK and justice will prevail eventually. Nobody can get away with acting unethically and abusing vulnerable people. I'm safe in hospital. I can defend myself from here.

Finally... I got my replacement laptop working and I'm back online.

Without the structure of being able to capture images and compose my thoughts on the pages of this blog, I've been rather cut adrift. Without my social media contacts, I've felt totally isolated and that nobody knows what I'm going through, although my guardian angel has bridged the gap very well, so I must give a great deal of thanks to her.

Nobody knows just how close to the edge you are until it's too late. What an absolute shitshow.

Tags: #mentalhealth #suicide

This is a story about mass consumption...

"I need to stop drinking so much" I think to myself ridiculously frequently. Alcoholic drinks are very fattening and I'm not doing enough exercise. A combination of a sedentary job, depression and a physical injury, have conspired to give me every possible excuse I need, to spend my spare time in a state of intoxication. Banks grease the wheels of commerce - so we are taught in economic theory - and alcohol is the oily lubricant for every kind of social situation imaginable: births, weddings, celebrations & commiserations. I doubt the United Kingdom would achieve a fraction of its productivity, without the motivation of knowing we can have a beer or a glass of wine, when the working day is done.

It should come as no surprise to you that having lived on the ragged edge my whole live - an adrenalin junkie and extreme sport enthusiast - I would turn every knob and dial up to "11", give it 110% and to take things TO THE MAX, yeah!

The UK's chief medical officer recommends that I drink no more than 140ml of alcohol per week, which is 20ml per day. A conservative estimate for my current alcohol consumption would be 100ml per day, which is 5 times the recommended healthy limit. Each week, instead of drinking 140ml, I am drinking 700ml at least.

I have 3 pints of 4.8% strength beer after work, with my colleagues. An imperial pint is 568ml, and 4.8% of 568ml is 27ml. My daily allowance is 20ml of alcohol, so a single pint of beer already exceeds my daily drinking allowance by 35%. By the time I've drunk all three pints, I've had 82ml out of my weekly allowance of 140ml - 59% gone in a single social outing, and just 41% left for the rest of the week.

I have a bottle of wine at the weekend - a two glasses on Saturday, and a glass with my Sunday lunch. Wine bottles contain 750ml, and wine is around 13% ABV, so therefore that adds up to 98ml more alcohol, on top of the the 82ml I already drank, making a total of 180ml for the week - an excess of 40ml versus my recommended weekly allowance, which is 29% more than I'm supposed to consume.

The reality is that I easily drink two pints of beer or ⅔ of a bottle of wine each day. 14 pints of beer contains 382ml of alcohol. 3.5 litres of wine contains 455ml of alcohol.

Does that make me an alcoholic, you must be wondering.

My psychiatrist accused me of being an alcoholic, to which I replied "pish and fibble; what flabbergasting nonsense". We can do some easy calculations, to work out if I am an alcoholic or not.

Let's take the worst-case scenario where I consume 100ml of alcohol per day. Ethanol is metabolised at a constant rate in the human body. That is to say, the quantity of blood in your alcohol-stream does not follow some kind of exponential decay calculation. Assuming I drink for 4 hours each evening, by around 6am in the morning, I'm completely sober. This means that I'm stone cold sober for 13 hours out of 24, which is 54% of the time. This simple mathematics shows that I'm not an alcoholic, quod erat demonstrandum.

My psychiatrist is clearly not capable of recalling her basic medical training, which would have taught her that alcohol is metabolised by the liver in a completely different way to more complex molecules. Very specific proteins and enzymes are required to chemically decompose inorganic (i.e. invented in a laboratory) medications. We can do a simple test, to again prove whether I'm an alcoholic or not.

Again, taking the worst-case scenario where I consume 100ml of alcohol per day, if I was to abruptly stop drinking alcoholic beverages, we should expect me to exhibit alcohol withdrawal syndrome within a few days of sobriety. Assuming that I suddenly ceased all alcohol consumption, I should - at the very bare minimum - get shaky hands and other physical symptoms that would prove that my body has become physically dependent on alcohol. The fact of the matter is that I can stop drinking for 2 or 3 days, and suffer no ill effects beyond a psychological craving for intoxicating liquor. This simple test, again shows that I'm not alcoholic, QED.

Despite the failings of my highly qualified physician - my psychiatrist - who has specialised in the alteration of brain function through the blunt instruments of psychoactive medications, she unarguably stumbled upon a truth in amidst her lazy and untrue accusations of alcoholism: I do drink too much.

Another definition of an alcoholic or an addict, is somebody whose life is adversely affected by drink or drugs, but who does not respond to the negative consequences in a rational manner. If you put your hand in a fire it hurts, right? So, why would you put your hand in the fire again? The perverse behavioural pattern of continuing to act in a way that is undeniably harmful, has also come to be recognised as another definition of alcoholism and addiction.

One only needs to consider the question "why do people smoke?" to see that there is grey between the lines. Smoking is expensive, makes you smell, stains your teeth and makes your mouth taste unpleasant to any non-smoker whom you kiss [with tongues and stuff] - these are the immediate consequences of smoking tobacco. In the medium term, smoking will give you a revolting phlegmy cough as well as literally burning enough cash to purchase a reasonable quality second-hand motor vehicle, or enjoy several foreign holidays. In the long-term, emphysema and lung cancer will bury smokers in an early grave.

It's oft-quoted that "the liver is the only organ in the human body that can repair itself" but this is patently untrue. Chronic cirrhosis - scarring of the liver - will not heal itself. Conversely, many drug addicts who have overdosed and been declared "brain dead" have gone on to make full recoveries, despite a consensus of medical opinion that life support should be withdrawn. The BBC commissioned Louis Theroux to make a series of documentaries about life in Los Angeles, and the episode entitled "Edge of Life" recorded the 'miraculous' recovery of a man whose brain was deprived of oxygen for at least 12 minutes, which is well beyond the limits of what we believe any human to be able to withstand.

Many of those who have been unfortunate enough to be a victim of a stroke, will go on to recover the ability to speak, walk and recover other functions that were lost as a result of brain injury - this is underpinned by the inherently plastic nature of the brain. Plasticity does not mean 'made of plastic' - it means adaptable to change, including the ability to recover from trauma.

An alcoholic may easily consume a litre of vodka per day - perhaps some 400ml of alcohol - which would equate to 2,800ml of alcohol per week. Given that the recommended weekly intake for a man or woman is just 140ml, alcoholics - of whom there are very many - consume at least 20 times as much alcohol as they should do, according to the UK's top doc.

It seems unsurprising that somebody who drinks to an incredible level of excess - where they are intoxicated from the moment they wake up to the moment they lay their head to rest - should sustain an injury to their liver, rendering the organ irreparably damaged.

This essay does not seek to argue that I would not benefit - in terms of my physical and mental health - by abstaining from alcohol consumption. However, one must be mindful that drinking is endemic in UK culture and to be a non-drinker would impose significant societal pressures and judgements upon me. I have, in the past, been falsely accused of being a "recovering alcoholic" merely for the reason that I chose to be teetotal for a period of over a hundred consecutive days. I decided to be alcohol abstinent for a competitive challenge - one of my best friends had completed a period of 100 days of sobriety. In the end, I beat his sober-streak by 20 days.

If you're concerned about your alcohol consumption, drug habit or the quantity of psychoactive medications that you guzzle into the cavernous hole in your face every day, then you should simply ask yourself this one question:

Are you shovelling more and more mind-altering substances into your body each day, or have you found a steady quantity that satiates your want and need for intoxication?

While you fret about eating a 'balanced' diet and being 'healthy' you forget that for 4,000,000,000 years, organisms - just like us - have had to cope with a world that's too hot, too cold, too acidic, too alkaline, too oxygen rich, too carbon-dioxide rich, too sulphurous, too contaminated with arsenic & other toxins, and generally fucking hostile to anything that we define as 'alive'. Humans inherit all of the many abilities to deal with everything from the icy wastes of the frozen poles to the dry & scorching sandy deserts.

The ubiquity of alcohol represents the antidote to the curse of becoming self-aware; the torment of perceiving our own mortality; the torture of realising that life is fucking bullshit, and we all die alone. If we don't go crazy we'll lose our minds.

I do not seek to dissuade alcoholics from seeking treatment, nor do I encourage anybody to recklessly endanger their health. I would hope that any reader who has been able to follow the thread of my thesis to this point, would be able to see that I'm mounting a robust attack on those who seek to perpetrate alarmist & sensationalistic nonsense, onto a populace who have been harmlessly intoxicating themselves since well before any form of any recorded history.

If you are teetotal, I applaud you and I advise you to maintain your alcohol-free existence, but you probably possesses some characteristics that predispose you towards abstinence, not shared by your brethren who imbibe intoxicating liquor. Please; do not smugly think of yourself as morally superior.

By happy accident, I never addicted myself to nicotine, so I look upon smokers with a detached sense of amazement that tiny quantities of a plant alkaloid - in the order of a grain of salt - can induce antisocial behaviours in those who are in the vice-like grip of nicotine: a chemical compound whose psychoactive properties are formidable. I apply a cool objective reasoning that I am able to enjoy, to other addictions that I do and do not partake in.

It's Friday, and in the time that it has taken me to compose this essay, I have consumed 35% of my weekly alcohol allowance.

Cheers!

Tags: #alcohol

This is a story about changing beyond recognition...

This 25 year old Londoner was hopelessly addicted to kitesurfing, and had secured a job in Bournemouth, where he would work mornings and evenings, leaving his afternoons free to go to the beach. Working for a huge international organisation, he had secured a ludicrously good deal - salary and relocation allowance - and the Human Resources (HR) people who he negotiated with had no idea that the real prize was to be able to kitesurf every day.

Despite being confident and outgoing, he was hiding crushing insecurities about his attractiveness to the opposite sex - a complete lack of self-esteem - and was struggling to find the girl of his dreams, who would be the cherry on top of a lovely cake. Being a hopeless romantic, and pretty inexperienced despite his 25 years on this Earth, he could fall in love at the drop of a hat and be heartbroken when a simple fling didn't turn into anything more serious.

Overcoming his ineptitude with women, he got together with a girl who looked perfect on paper and she was a pretty and petite blonde. He was smitten. She was a science graduate and a computer programmer. She even worked for a client that he'd worked for 6 years before, and he knew many of her colleagues.

In the words of one of his best friends, she was a "conversion project". He would teach her to kitesurf, and then they could travel the world together, chasing warm wind, soft sand and water that was mirror flat or had perfect waves. Brazil, Venezuela, Cape Verde, South Africa, The Canary Islands... there was an endless list of exciting countries to visit with this beautiful girl, and kitesurf together.

There she was, giving it a damn good go in Poole Harbour, under his tuition. Why she was wearing a buoyancy aid in water that's so shallow you can stand up in it, was anybody's guess, but I guess it made her feel more confident. Kitesurfing in those days was super dangerous - the emergency release mechanisms were just being developed, and if you let go of the bar, you'd be dragged along out of control, like being tied to the back of a speedboat being driven by a maniac, until you crashed into one of those harbourside houses.

After a year, he decided to propose. He asked her dad's permission. He did all the things that he thought he should do: buy a house, get married, get a pet, have kids. Thankfully - for the kids' sake - they stopped short of doing that last one. Just looking after their a cat had a very strong bonding effect. Their cat is probably the reason they stayed together as long as they did.

They got married in Hawaii, of course. He was allowed to wear flip flops, but not board shorts. In fact, he had a tough time from bridezilla for almost the whole trip until he put his foot down and said he just wanted to sit by the pool or on the beach, drinking ice cold beverages. She wanted to be sightseeing in a decrepit camper van that they weren't insured to drive. He checked them into a luxury hotel, which cost a small fortune - it was Christmas time after all - and finally, for a brief moment, he had a tiny bit of holiday relaxation.

Notably, they didn't take their kites or kiteboards. Travelling with a wedding dress and linen suit was a teeny bit difficult, but not as hard as lugging a 30kg bag that's nearly as tall as person. However, Hawaii has wind, waves. warm water and beautiful sandy beaches. Barely a few hundred metres from where Barack Obama was spending his holiday break, our missing young man was forced to try pole dancing (windsurfing) for the first time, in desperation to get his 'fix'. There was the shame and indignity of being a beginner windsurfer he was an experienced kitesurfer in a paradise location, who could have been having the time of his life.

After landing at London Heathrow, after over 20 hours of flight time, it turned out that his new wife had used an online booking website to arrange the taxi home, but had not accounted for the fact that they would be away over New Year's Eve. An innocent mistake, but it left them stranded, exhausted, in the middle of the night.

Within a month, he was in private hospital. It was all too much for him. She would rage and throw tantrums when things didn't go her way. He would bite his tongue and try to fix everything. The pressure to please her was unbearable... but it was never enough. He'd bought her a hot tub because she said she had loved having one in California. He'd shown her the world, staying in the best hotels and eating in the best restaurants. He'd married her in one of the most romantic destinations you could ever choose, and he'd even agreed not to wear board shorts. She was threatening divorce while he was sending her a different flower every day, from hospital, to show he still loved her. Despite him being a generous lover, she was on 'no strings attached' dating websites, looking for sex.

If crêpes Suzette, flambéed at your table, with the best views of any restaurant in Malta, is not enough to whisk a girl of her feet, he was left bamboozled as to how he could possibly please her. He was completely naïve, believing that if he treated her like a princess, she would love him as much as he loved her. He was wrong. It hurt and he was heartbroken.

It made no sense. People would come to their summer garden parties and be served home-made burgers and marinated chicken, plus endless varieties of sausages hot off the barbecue, while a range of delicious salads that she had prepared, were laid on for the vegetarians and to garnish the plates with. Fire pits and patio heaters kept people warm after the sun went down, and there was the hot tub kept at a toasty 38 degrees (100 degrees Fahrenheit).

It made no sense. People would come out for trips on his boat to see one of the largest natural harbours in the world. Him and his wife were a natural host and hostess. They were a great team when they were entertaining guests.

For her birthday one year, he took her in his boat up the Wareham River, moored up outside The Priory Hotel, and they ate lunch on the patio, which was some of the finest dining in Dorset - cooked by Michelin star standard chefs - with beautifully manicured lawns leading down to the river bank.

Why they quarrelled and grew apart is a mystery. She wanted to learn to sail and he was an RYA dinghy sailing instructor and experienced yacht skipper. She wanted to rock climb and he had the qualifications and experience to teach her. She wanted to climb mountains, and he had spent months in the high Alps and was a mountain leader (guide) experienced in dealing with emergencies, working with groups of varying ability, and acclimatising to altitude. He taught her how to snowboard and was grinning from ear to ear when she followed him off piste without a moment of hesitation.

However, he was baffled and slightly insulted that she spent a lot of money to go and learn from other people. He'd taken her sailing multiple times, and taught her a lot. He'd taken her rock climbing, and shown her the ropes; pardon the pun. He'd taken her into the mountains and shown her the basics of navigation, safety, route planning and even how to retreat when things don't go to plan. That's our missing man and his ex-wife, in every picture above except the mountain one. where he's the one taking taking the photo.

He was, undoubtably, looking for the love of his life, but married the wrong person. Friends warned him that him & her weren't a good match. "The poison dwarf" was too hot to handle, especially for a sensitive guy who was relatively inexperienced with women and still nurtured the Disney "happily ever after" idea of finding true love. He mounted a kindness offensive - an attempt to satisfy her every whim, her every ambition, but yet it still wasn't enough. He was delicate. She was aggressive.

It made him sick - mentally unwell - all this arguing and rejection. He wanted to just grab her and squeeze her tight until she felt safe and loved. Maybe that was the problem: she felt trapped and smothered. They met when she was only 23, which I guess is quite young, considering that he proposed when she was only 24. For their parents' generation, that would not have been unusual, and he did things the old fashioned way: buying a house to start a family. However, she complained she hadn't seen enough of the world; experienced enough of life's adventures. He set out to rectify this, but what she was really saying is "I'm not ready to be a one-dick woman just yet".

His best friend coined the phrase "conversion project", which is to take a girl and turn her into a kitesurfer; a sailor, a climber; a mountaineer. This friend literally asked "are you ready to be a one vagina man?". Soon after that, this friend went on a trip to sow his wild oats across Scandinavia, before coming home to marry the poor girl who'd had to tolerate this temporary break-up in the full knowledge that his motive was completely unreasonable. They're a happy couple with twins and a lovely house now, so maybe he was right. At the time, his wife wanted to punch his friend in the face or testicles, or probably both.

Before his petite blonde wife, the happy smiling 25 year old - pictured when our story began - had tried to make it work with a kitesurfer who lived 186 miles away, and nowhere near the sea. He'd tried to make it work with other kitesurfer girls too. An incredibly beautiful Burmese kitesurfer girl seemed to be flirting with him when she was on holiday with him in Sardinia, but he was so shy and inexperienced, he didn't dare try to kiss her.

Our missing man tried to make it work with his wife, again and agan and again and again, and eventually it broke him. He broke down and sank into depression, bipolar disorder, alcohol abuse and made a stupid mistake which was his ultimate demise: the abuse of legal highs. This was the beginning of the end.

In the chaos, confusion, stress and trauma of divorce, selling his house, saving his most precious possessions, leaving the town he'd called home for 8 years and all his friends... all mixed in with toxic additives like mental health problems, addiction and alcoholism, he was a little lost boy. He's been missing for nearly 11 years. There have been times when somebody who appeared to be him popped up briefly, but like an apparition, he melted away into nothingness again.

Is it any wonder that he disappeared? He gave so much of himself away - his love - trying to make relationships work; trying to make girls feel special and cherished and loved and like princesses; trying to please; loving unconditionally.

This blog contains the bitterness; the accusations of wrongdoing - the evidence of the inexcusable and terrible behaviour that was perpetrated against the author. This blog tells the story of why that young man went missing, and why he's still missing. Perhaps why he'll never be found. If he's missing, perhaps, you shouldn't search for him.

Perhaps there's no place in this world for a naïve little boy who has so much love to give, but nobody to give it to. So many times in life he was left reeling, hurt and wondering what he did wrong, when all he tried to do was to be as nice as he could possibly be. Perhaps that silly little boy got it all wrong, and life's not about being nice and kind to people; it's about using people and getting what you want at all costs. The boy was not made for this world - he was like an alien from another planet.

Look at this old man. Look at the sadness that he tries to hide, but something in his eyes betrays him. He knows he's nothing like that happy smiling 25 year old young man, photographed 12 years ago. He knows that all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put him back together again. He knows that whatever it was that happened, it damaged him badly. Unconditional love, infectious happiness, a sense of contentment and the enthusiastic exuberance that characterised our missing little lost boy, are qualities that this old man doesn't possess - they're completely different people.

It's a tragedy when we lose somebody who brought fun & excitement, adventure & exhilaration, thrills & spills, into people's lives. It's a tragedy when many lives are touched - improved - and then we lose that person.

I don't think we'll ever find him though. He's gone forever.

Tags: #relationships #depression #bipolar #mentalhealth #alcohol #drugs #suicide

This is a story about gratitude...

In happier times, I could cycle through a tunnel under the River Thames to go and see her. During a blissfully warm Indian summer, we courted on the hills above the capital, enjoying spectacular panoramic views across London: far better than even my overpriced central London apartment can provide. Sipping Prosecco out of plastic glasses and eating Marks & Spencer finger food, it was clear that our borderline alcoholism and gluttony made us a well-matched pair, or so it seemed as we muddled through the tail end of summer, autumn and the winter.

This is not a portmortem of our relationship. If anybody was looking for that, including her, I would hope they'd read So Lonely, which gives some insight into my half of the story of our breakup: a story that would never get told to her mum, brother, best friends and work colleagues. Instead, I'm a pariah. No; worse... I have instigated protective instincts that only a short time before extended to me, as a loosely connected family member: her partner and somebody fully committed to a lifelong future together. Her brother hates me, I assume.

There's the unresolved issue of the fact that I loved that she had some association with politics, by fluke of her career, while I had made political matters the core of my thinking; political ideologies were the thing I most passionately believed in. When I write pieces which show that my thinking is ahead of the pack - unencumbered by the corrupting influence of living and working too close to the very elites who have grown apart from the electorate - I can't help but wonder what my former best friend, lover and lifelong partner, would have to say, with the benefit of her amazing intellect... but she also benefits from her privileged position of having to do nothing more than to turn up at an office each day, to soak up the status quo and entrenched beliefs of the Westminster bubble. I hoped she would read Labour's Catch 22, especially as it predated Graham Jones and Gloria De Piero's rebellion over Labour arrogance that Corbyn's popularity will be enough to sweep the party to power at the next general election.

Before continuing further, it's important to note that I'm boxing up my belongings, putting them into storage, and it's likely that I will be leaving this city of nearly 9 million inhabitants - where bumping into somebody you know is incredibly improbable - and she should know that I respect our agreement to leave each other in peace; to move on with our lives, despite the pain and heartache of a breakup. I could be in a city in the North of the country, or I could even be abroad: the chance that we should ever meet again is close to zero percent.

It should be noted that she used to read everything I wrote, proofread it, help edit it, provide feedback and even helped shaped the plot of my debut novel. This is the first thing I want to say thank you for doing, whether she reads this or not.

I'm doing this in a kind of reverse order of importance, so the next thing I'm thankful for is her tolerance and even good humour, over things that very few partners could be so kind and understanding about. She might not have understood what bath salts were at first; she might not have understood that I suffer from a dual diagnosis, which makes understanding me a whole lot harder than buying the Amazon bestseller on bipolar disorder, but she damn well did buy that book. By way of a comparison, my ex-wife bought the book "Nag your Loved one Sober". That epitomises of the difference between my relationship with my my ex-wife and a loving relationship.

The next thing I've got to give thanks for is how she listened & observed. My walls were bare even though I had a photo of nearly 20 of my best friends, a photo of me that reminds me I was a young cool kitesurfer dude once, and a photo of an animal I have always professed a desire to keep as a pet. The frames that hold these pictures were part of a Christmas bonanza of gifts that I'm now bursting into to tears thinking about. Not so much because of the thoughtful gifts - although this was without question the best Christmas of my adult life - but because I was brought into the fold of a bonded and caring family and received so much love, care and acceptance.

Early in the New Year, I secured a new IT contract. Sadly, I sat on my leg and caused a kind of crush injury normally only seen in car accidents and building collapses. My kidneys stopped working and I found myself as a high dependency case in hospital, on dialysis. She burnt herself out trying to look after me for weeks, but not only that, she marshalled the troops: my friends and her family, in order to make me feel loved and supported. In all the multiple hospitalisations I've suffered over the last few years, I'd never received a single get well card and one of only two visitors came to demand I returned a copy of the keys to his house after a suicide attempt [not in his house]. It's imperative that I thank her [and her family] for their efforts in returning me to good health, through love and support.

Apart from raccoons, squirrels are another animal that I'm mad about. I guess that, living in London, squirrels are a cute animal that has gotten so used to human contact that they come right up to you and take things out of your hands, if you pretend to have food for them. If you do have food for the squirrels, they'll crawl all over you and put up with a certain amount of petting, even though they're wild. With the collapse of my second attempt at domestic bliss - my marriage to my ex-wife - my cat had to go live with my parents, from whom I'm estranged. I'm thankful that she gave me a third period of domestic bliss, with Mr Squiz as our inanimate pet [who she bought for me]. The lovely bedclothes, quilt and pillows are all thanks to her. She made me feel loved, and that I could love again.

No domestic bliss is complete without the trimmings of high quality kitchenwares and other day-to-day luxury items. Everthing from my tatty tea towels to my budget Ikea cutlery received a quiet makeover. My cheap-brand supermarket goods were replaced with the best that Marks & Spencer and Waitrose have to offer the upper-middle-class consumer and I started to develop a penchant for lime cordial made with 30% Mexican limes... available exclusively in the top-tier supermarkets. The hoi polloi have never tasted such delicious concentrated drink products, nor have they used John Lewis' or Joseph & Joseph homewares... they haven't lived. I must be thankful to her - without even a hint of sarcasm - for giving me a simidgin of a taste of the finer things in life.

Our final quarel might seem rather ludicrous to you. It resulted in me slicing deep gashes into the length of my forearm and making footprints in my own blood, on her walls. The only thing you can really know from this is that I was incredibly unwell, but you could also infer that there was something that was deeply important to me, about whatever was going on. It's very hard to understand people who are in an extreme mental health crisis, but my crisis was deepened and exacerbated by her decision to try and ignore me. I had tried and failed to walk to the local shop - a very short distance away - wearing my Brazilian Havaiana flip-flops, but due to the aforementioned leg injury, my left foot is completely numb and I'm unable to even feel if my big toe has become dislocated, which it easily can because of damage to my tendons. This is all highly complicated, but you should know that I've spent months each year wearing those Brazilian flip flops, and they had become intricately linked to my identity. She had offered - a parting gift if you like - to buy me a pair of summer shoes, which I could wear with my numb left foot. The Camper shoes pictured offer a wide footbed, allowing my toes to spread naturally: otherwise I would have no idea if I was getting a blister on one side or the other of my foot. She will probably never understand how important these shoes were to me; nor how important it was that she at least humour me, when our relationship had fractured and virtually disintegrated. She seemingly made an overnight change in how much care and attention that she lavished on me, in what was supposed to be a love to last until our dying days. My final thank you is for something that looks purely cosmetic or materialistic, but she eventually had the faith to make a final pyrrhic effort and expense, which she would never see any benefit of, to get me those shoes. I wear those shoes every day and the quality of life improvement they have brought me would astound anybody who hasn't experienced partial loss of the use of a limb or extremity, and the loss of the choices they get to make about their attire. This is more than simple vanity: it's identity, which is tightly bound up with self-esteem.

To write the best part of 2,000 words, in thanks to a partner who you've promised - mutually - to never be in contact with ever again, seems to plumb the depths of insanity, but while she has her resurgent career, I've had a close shave with being hospitalised and have been visited at home every day by somebody checking to see if I'm still alive. I'm not saying it's been a cakewalk for her, but she hurled herself back into her career, which was both therapeutic as well as beneficial to her ongoing job aspirations.

I'm not completely insane, and I know from the analytics of my website when I've had a visitor which is her, in all likelihood. I want to honour our "no communication" and "move on with our lives" agreement, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have have the evidence to show that somebody's had a peek to see if I'm still alive.

What I need to do is lick my wounds; to try to forgive myself for acts that were driven by mental illness; to try and accept that her choice to break our no-communication agreement was for the private swallowing of her pride and to publicly swallow her pride and for any reconciliation to take place, would be unthinkable when she thinks of herself as some kind of minor celebrity.

While that final paragraph might seem bitter and harsh, given the thankful tone of everything I've just written, perhaps it's just part of the baggage that I struggle with, alone. With any breakup, there will be unanswered questions and what ifs. With any breakup, it's hard not to look backwards until the next love of your life enters the picture. I really hope that nothing I've said would detract from my overall gratitude that I met her, shared time with her, had hope for the future with her, felt loved by her and ultimately had my life enriched by her.

It's rather tragic, but where in life can you say you don't find tragedy and regret: tragedy in what might have been if only things had played out slightly differently?

Tags: #relationships

This is a story about pulling the wool over somebody's eyes...

Every day, between 6pm and 8pm, I get a visit from a different stranger. They all belong to Tower Hamlets' Community Mental Health Team, and specifically to the home treatment Crisis Team, but it must be a big team because I almost never see the same person more than once. Everybody's reaction is the same when I let them in: "wow! look at the view!".

The fact is, I have enough money to last me 2 more weeks, but then I'm not just skint... I'm actually insolvent. I have a lease that doesn't expire until September and I have to service various debts that I ran up, just trying to stay alive.

"Oh, you probably spent all your money on drugs" I hear you say.

Recently, I was on the dark web, looking for something for a friend - something to relieve pain that wasn't on offer on the NHS. Having located some vape oil, containing medical cannabis, I then couldn't resist the urge to continue window shopping. To my alarm, the worldwide supply of supercrack had dried up, due to the Chinese very effectively banning the production and sale of it.

There was one supplier - in the whole world - selling his remaining stock of supercrack. 10 grams. That amount of good quality cocaine might cost you £900. For 10 grams of supercrack, I paid the princely sum of $134.

How long do you think 10 grams of supercrack lasts? Well, we can work it out. A severe addiction might consume as much at 15 milligrams per day - that would be enough to not sleep for a whole day and night. So, easy maths then.... 10,000 divided by 15 = 667 days. One year and ten months, of daily drug abuse for $134. No. I did not spend my money on drugs.

So, back to the strangers in my home each evening. I sit them down on the sofa, next to the patio doors that lead onto the balcony.

Still somewhat wowed by the view, they can also see a number of expensive electronic trinkets lying around. The conclusion that is instantly drawn is that I'm not really in crisis, but in fact I'm wealthy, successful and totally in control of my life. They couldn't be more wrong.

I wrote about this the other day, but lurking behind the door into the kitchen, are a load of bottles for recycling. In theory, I've stopped drinking, but that's just a technicality. If you're in the grips of a mental health crisis or drug-induced behaviour, then you don't tend to have a glass of wine in front of the TV. Remarkably, I've had a bottle of white wine in the fridge, unopened, for over a week.

"Why don't you just have one glass and stop?" a psychiatrist asked me. I replied that oxygen would make the wine go off, so I needed to finish the bottle once it was open. She suggested a vacuum pump wine preserver, to which I replied that I bet I'd never be able to find one. The penny dropped, and she realised I was taking the piss. The reason why I don't stop is because I don't want to. Alcohol is an effective way of getting intoxicated, so you don't give a fuck about your problems... except I do seem to give a fuck in a strange way, because whenever I get ridiculously drunk, I punch my bathroom door so hard that it makes a hole in it. Then I wake up and think "why did I do that?" and I'm filled with regret.

Strangers who come in my house don't see my bedrooms. My main bedroom with the ensuite has got blood spots all over the floor from some accidental injury or something. There's lots of evidence that I imprisoned myself in that room, for some reason. In fact, there's lots of evidence outside the communal areas, that I've absolutely lost my mind at times.

Recently, being in possession of quite a good set of tools, as well as a box of screws, I set about attempting to screw a desk to the door of my spare bedroom, or something like that. The plan wasn't even clear to me. Once you lose more than about 3 nights of sleep, your priorities are quite corrupted. Instead of hydration, food and sleep, my focus switched to barricading the bedroom door. If you have a dark sense of humour, you may chuckle at the fact that as soon as I had completed my task, I then needed to undo my work because I needed to use the lavatory.

These are the kinds of things that are quite important if you want to understand just how sick I am, but the 'window dressing' which is my lounge, balcony and view, rather distracts from the piles and piles of dirty dishes, and overbrimming laundry baskets. The home visit team members walk away thinking "I must tell my colleagues about that awesome view", rather than "I must tell the doctor that the patient looked like he hadn't slept for days, or eaten much".

Can I fix things? I've pretty much given up hope. There just isn't time.

10 grams of supercrack certainly doesn't help, and I knew that a relapse would be one problem too many, on top of a giant shit sandwich. However, the things I've tried that are a sensible and realistic approach, have brought in way too little cash for way too much effort. I'd rather have my MacBook Air and iPad Pro, than a few pennies, even if they're surplus to requirements most of the time.

I could keep up appearances for friends and family, but I lived in fear of my work colleagues discovering that I suffered from mental illness for so long, that the exhaustion became unbearable. It was an open secret that I would be late to work during periods of depression, or not turn up at all. Everybody knew that I liked a drink, but I surrounded myself with other heavy drinkers. The problems worsened, and I had to run twice as fast to just to stand still. I came to London, knowing I could burn a bunch of bridges, and never exhaust all the options open to me, but it's bullshit, having to interview for jobs when you've got a 20 year career behind you and countless people who know you're good at what you do. Also, why shouldn't my friends know what's going on in my life. If they're true friends, they'll see that I'm still me, but I'm in crisis - they won't suddenly change their opinion of me, because of prejudice, although one close friend did and it broke my heart.

Don't lift up the rugs or look under anything: I've swept so many things under the carpet. Out of sight out of mind. I don't bear close scrutiny, but nobody looks very carefully anyway. First impressions count for everything.

After the insanity comes a further insanity - a paranoia that my flat is trashed and I'll never be able to bodge it up good enough to escape hefty bills for repairs that are completely over-inflated by the unscrupulous letting agents.

Where am I going to go? What am I going to do? The fact that you're asking those questions is the clue as to why I might wish to escape into alcoholic oblivion, or take supercrack. There are no easy answers. I know I keep going on about it, but the whole hospital/dialysis/job loss fiasco has left me questioning what the f**k I'm doing, working IT contracts in London, except for the staggering amount of money that it brings in. It doesn't compensate for the up-front stress, followed by the abject boredom and misery.

You'll probably find me sidling up to you in a bar in 20 years time - the known local drunk - and saying to you "I remember the time I lived by the River Thames and worked for the world's biggest companies" and you'll think that I'm some delusional twat.

I hope I just die before I suffer that indignity.

Tags: #mentalhealth #depression #alcohol #drugs #addiction

This is a story about sun tans...

For orientation purposes, that's the bottom of the Isle of Dogs, where I live. I'm standing South of the Thames, taking the photograph, facing due North. You can see the towers of Canary Wharf in the distance. My apartment block is around the corner to the left, where the river meanders into central London. The O2 centre and the Thames Barrier are downstream to the right. You can't see the right-hand sweep of the river in this photograph, but the river goes North-South on both sides of the Isle of Dogs, which isn't really an island at all. Go figure.

This relaxed trip to the supermarket should have been a jolly affair, where I was free to peruse the shelves for all manner of tasty goodies. After sex comes food and fine wine. What other joys are there in life except for hard drugs? Childbirth you might say, but birth gives rise to responsibilities, guilt. At the moment, I'm my own man: no boss is going to chastise me for taking a leisurely stroll during working hours; no mother of my child is going to be angry that I'm not bearing my fair share of the burden of childrearing. I can kill myself and not leave a trace.

When I was working, I used to manage my moods using my skin tone. The more tanned I was, the more relaxed, happy and easy-going I was. Starting to go pale and pasty sounded alarm bells in my head that caused me to book a nice two-week break somewhere hot & sunny. Why the hell do I live somewhere that is engulfed in grey clouds 90% of the time? Probably because I never care about the weather outside when I'm working.

At the moment, I'm white as a ghost. People who knew me during happier times would barely recognise me without my all-year-round tan. Perhaps being untanned is good though at the moment: the scars that run the length of my forearms don't really show. I cut with a razor blade, which was so sharp that my skin healed with very thin scars. I can see the scars. I know what they mean.

Sun tanning is like meditation. It can be forced relaxation, if you're really determined to lay down some skin tone. At times, it's a byproduct of simply being in a hot country doing outdoor adventure sports. Even in the UK, you can pick up quite a tan if you're out on the water all the time - where you get twice as much radiation due to the reflection of the sun's rays. It's not quick, easy and painless. There will be times where you overcook yourself, and you'll have to apply moisturiser carefully for the next week. There will be times where you've got a lovely brown front, but your back is white as white. If you wear sunglasses you'll get panda eyes; if you don't you'll get squint lines (and possibly damage your eyes).

Who's that white guy wearing sunglasses?

My kitesurfing friends would meet an unrecognisable version of me today. Gone is the laid back surfer type guy with sun-bleached hair and clothes, rough hands and olive skin. Instead, comes a bundle of stress and nervous energy - or lack of energy - who seems defeated and stuck in a rut, ruminating over and over about what might have been but never was; growing old disgracefully and inelegantly; making a buffoon of himself. Who is this tramp, more suited for swigging cans of strong lager and bottles of cider in the park and fighting over cigarette butts and pennies? Who is this jester, who would turn his own legacy into some kind of running gag? A joke, but not a funny one. Just sad and pathetic, and unapproachable. "Leave him be, there's nothing we can do for him" they say to each other; the people he once travelled the world with in search of the trade winds.

Relaunching myself was supposed to be a third time lucky affair, following the same winning formula of highly paid IT contracts for banks in London, plus kitesurfing holidays to hot & windy countries. It was a costly relaunch. A small amount of money to get scrubbed up and respectable for Barclays. A slightly larger amount of money to get hosed down and straightened out for HSBC. Then, an absolutely incredible amount to finally launch myself far enough to complete a contract for a very happy client and even take a kitesurfing holiday smack bang in the middle of it - see picture above. Regrettably the momentum wasn't continued and I started to get obsessed with the idea of finding love and achieving something in life to be proud of: writing a novel.

I can't afford to be sitting around, taking in the river views and strolling along, taking my time, while the gap in my CV grows ever larger; my skills get rustier; my fear of failure grows; my anticipation of the misery of paying back the money it cost to simply stand still, drives a stake through my heart. Vanquished, I feel.

Two of my friends have had triplets this year, at about the same time. Just about all of my friends have left London, settled down and had kids. Down on the South Coast, an old colleague offered me work. I know that there is plenty of sand, surf and wind to be had in Dorset, as well as the potential for some much needed income, but what about love; what about proving everyone wrong and making it work against the odds? I'm almost forcing the hands of the clock back so I can have it all - the wealthy lifestyle, the loving wife and at some point later, the kids - despite the fact I'm 37 years old and I really haven't got time after two failed attempts and a third that I didn't capitalise on.

Bournemouth, Dorset. My nemesis. I could so easily get trapped down there. Imagine the conversation I'd have with my ex-wife if I bumped into her:

Ex: "Hi"

Me: "Hi"

Ex: "How're you?"

Me: "Depressed and desperate"

Ex: "I thought you were earning insane amounts of money in London"

Me: "I was, then I wasn't, then I was, then I wasn't, then I was and finally I gave up"

Ex: "Oh"

Me: "How are you doing?"

Ex: "Met a great guy. We bought a nice house. Just about to have our second kid. We both work part-time"

Me: "Yeah, I remember that was always the plan <sigh>"

Ex: "Well, good luck"

Me: "Actually, can you phone the mental health crisis team for me, please, because I think I'm going to stab myself in the neck with a plastic fork"

Ex: "Look, we got divorced and I'm not involved in your shit anymore. Look at the mess you're making of the supermarket floor"

* she storms off *

Me: <gurgling noises>

* our hero collapses dead in a pool of his own blood, his jugular vein severed by the plastic cutlery that accompanies a supermarket takeaway salad *

That's pretty much how I imagine how it goes, hence never going back there. Hence being terrified of being sectioned there and being seen by former friends and colleagues, shuffling along heavily medicated up to my eyeballs as the staff members of St Ann's Psychiatric Hospital take the crazies out for a walk, to get some fresh air.

Bournemouth is not a place where you want to be suffering from mental health problems, addiction or alcoholism: they're too well prepared. They'll swoop on you and the system will just scoop you up and absorb you. You'll become part of the horde of other dreamers who made their way to the seaside, but found that it's a dead-end: the sea is an impassible barrier.

London's tried to eject me every which way it can, but it hasn't succeeded. I feel slightly bloody minded in staying, despite the risk to my life, but I also think that if I kill myself, I've at least got one thing to be really proud of: I fought off those who wanted to see me swept out, like I was some leaf that blew into your house. I got back to London, and in some ways, I made it work.

Rest in peace, me.

Tags: #suicide #london #career

This is a story about being a groupie...

On the steps of the podium stand the winners of the 2007 Poole Animal Windfest. There is a girl and a boy for 3rd and 2nd place. If you look closely, where is the boy who won 1st place?

In 2007 I was involved in building part of the software system that processed over a quadrillion dollars worth of toxic bullshit for JPMorgan, in a single year. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad job and they didn't treat me badly. In fact they kept a private driver waiting down by the seashore; engine running; waiting for the kitesurfing competition to finish. Then I jumped in the Mercedes with smoked glass windows and we sped off to Heathrow for me to catch a flight. I didn't even have time to wash the salt off my skin or sand out of my hair... or collect my prize for winning the competition.

There used to be a time when JPMorgan's main office in Bournemouth had squash courts and a gym onsite. There was a bar. There were enough car parking spaces for everybody, so everybody drove to work. Then, they grew; and they grew; and they grew. Investment banks were - and still are - ludicrously profitable. The IT budget that paid for my little team of 30-odd people was circa $10m per annum. You're never quite sure what the real numbers are though, when you work for an organisation with 130,000 direct employees.

Slowly, prefabricated office buildings sprang up on parts of the car park. The bar, gym and squash courts were turned into office space. That was OK. We still had several tennis courts and a sports centre nearby with badminton courts and 5-a-side football pitches. You could park nearby in an overflow car park. It was still a great place to work, and nobody had a fucking clue what they were doing or what impact it would have on the world, unless they really stopped and thought about it.

I've always been one of those pain-in-the-ass employees who does stop and think about the ramifications of everything that's being done. When it turned out that senior management had decided to support outsourcing a lot of our software development, I was very vocal about my displeasure and concerns. I was a thorn in the side of everybody more senior than me, in the hope of JPMorgan seeing sense: cheaper employees do not equate to cost savings. You get what you pay for.

So, I got landed with a stinker of a project. To train up about 20 brand new offshore employees, in Mumbai, and also to build a piece of software that was not only late, but was a critical component in a global initiative to get all the toxic bullshit warehoused in one place - a depository - so it could be figured out who the fuck owed who what, and how much? Who was holding the toxic debt? Who was bankrupt?

How big is a million dollars?

$1,000,000

It's hard to say, but it's probably a few times bigger than the value of your house, or twenty times bigger than your salary. Now, let's multiply that by a thousand.

$1,000,000,000

Now what you're looking at is a billion dollars. 1% of a billion dollars is $10 million. You'd be pretty happy with $10 million, wouldn't you? That'd set you up for life. Now, let's multiply that by a thousand.

$1,000,000,000,000

This is quite obviously a trillion dollars. 5 trillion dollars is the value of all the world's 'money' - the cash in your pocket, the coins in your purse, your bank balance etc. etc. Now, let's multiply that by a thousand.

$1,000,000,000,000,000

We've reached a quadrillion dollars. 1% of a quadrillion dollars is $10 trillion, which is twice as much as all the 'money' in existence. So, how the fuck does JPMorgan process over a quadrillion dollars in a single year? Two answers for you: 1) Derivatives 2) Financial crisis of 2007/8

A derivative is a financial instrument that derives its 'value' from an underlying security. By security, I mean something tangible: a fucking house or a metal coin that has its value stamped on it. Derivatives are just pieces of paper that say "in the event X, I will pay Y"... for example "if the stock market goes up, the value of this derivative goes up ten times as much". Derivatives contracts have been created that have become more valuable than all the 'money' in the world. As much as a thousand times more valuable. This is just worthless paper, and nobody has the money to pay up: insufficient collateral.

I know, right? Don't stop and think about this stuff too much. Nobody else did. There was too much money to be made.

So I get landed this stinker of a project, drive off from the beach at Sandbanks to Heathrow airport in a luxury car, in order to train 20 or so Indians on how to build a piece of software that's going to be instrumental in the Financial Crisis of 2007/8. I'm an engineer. I solve problems. I stopped thinking about the madness of outsourcing to India when JPMorgan was already plenty profitable. I stopped thinking about the madness of there being quadrillions of dollars worth of derivatives contracts, when there was only $5 trillion of money in existence. I started thinking about software designs and who I had in my new team to build this software system.

At some point, I was seduced. I was seduced by limo travel, private drivers, 7-star hotels, business class flights, everything paid for on expenses, company credit cards. I was seduced by everybody telling me what an important project it was, and what an honour it was to be in charge - the manager - when I was only 27 years old; so young & ambitious. Giddy with this seduction, I started to see the world in different colours. Things were rose tinted. I was sucked in. It was like I was dreaming.

A year later, I'd woken up from a nightmare where I'd played a significant role in helping the Investment Banks to hold the world to ransom. "Pay up, or we'll crash the global economy and plunge the world into a depression that will make the 1930's look like nothing" they said. And the ransom was paid. Every government; every central bank coughed up hundreds of billions, so the bullshit could continue and none of the bullshitters had to lose a cent. In fact, the only people I knew who lost their jobs were the ones who were replaced by Indians I trained.

I started thinking again. Big mistake.

I took to the bottle. I drank every lunchtime and every evening. I was drunk most of the time. How could JPMorgan sack me or even reprimand me? What they'd paid me to do; what they'd asked me to do... they could never make that right. They just let me do whatever I wanted, which was mostly to go to the pub and get drunk. Nobody ever questioned it.

As Bear Stearns was being taken over by JPMorgan - asset stripped under the auspices of being 'rescued' - I'd had enough. Building software for banks made me sick. I was sick at what they did to their own people. I was sick of what the industry was doing to the world. I was sick of producing nothing of value; helping nobody except the lucky few who knew how the con-job worked.

Don't get me wrong, I should have looked the other way; kept taking the fat bonus cheques and big salary; kept those golden handcuffs on - loose enough that they never chafe - but I wanted to get as far away from it as possible. The whole thing left me feeling like I had blood on my hands. Every company that went bankrupt; every person who lost their job; every home repossessed; every suicide due to financial worries... I was one of the co-conspirators who fleeced them out of their money and assets.

Some colleagues stayed, but most of the cynical ones - like me - drifted away. Some died or at least nearly did, as they beat themselves up with alcohol for their sins. JPMorgan paid for a lot of people to go to The Priory to dry out. Those who couldn't face working again were pensioned off early. You only had to work for a year, and then you were covered by a generous insurance policy so you never had to work again. Occupational health were busy, getting rid of an entire generation of engineers who had built the bedrock foundations of the global financial services empire, now shakily propped up using public money. Masses of public money.

Ten years on, I watch in horror as those hastily made repairs to a fundamentally broken system start to crumble.

Record high national debt and record low tax receipts. Our economy is 80% financial services - an industry that's booming if you haven't noticed. You probably haven't noticed unless you work in the Square Mile or Canary Wharf. You've probably seen stagnant wages, a lack of jobs and insecure employment, such as zero-hours contracts. There's always a McJob, if your self esteem is finally fully eroded by the capitalists.

Brexit had a frontman - Nigel Farage - who was a trader from the City. Brexit had billionaire donors, like the stockbroker Peter Hargreaves, who literally said "insecurity is fantastic" - referring to his desire to see workers abused by their employers, in the interest of profits.

I don't wish to segue into commentary on current affairs, but you have to be aware who you're dealing with. Who's putting words in your mouth? Who's planting ideas in your head, through the newspapers and TV channels they own?

You have to wake up out of your nightmare.

Tags: #politics #banking #capitalism

This is a story about decisive weapons....

Would I rather have the pilot of my plane, the driver of my bus, taxi or train, as a completely drug-free 'clean' individual, or would I rather that they had taken 5mg of dextroamphetamine before our journey? The answer is the latter, obviously, because they will be more alert, have improved ability to concentrate and faster reaction times.

US fighter jet pilots routinely use 'go' pills before a mission, which confer the abilities above, as well as allowing them to fly longer missions with less risk of dangerous sleepiness. Many road accidents are caused by people falling asleep at the wheel. Coffee will only give you a tiny fraction of the benefits of a 'go' pill.

Do you find that after a really important day at work, where you had to be at the top of your game, and you were firing on all cylinders; perhaps you had a bunch of coffee to keep you sharp.... do you find that you're still buzzing when you get home, and you have trouble switching off and going to sleep?

Coffee - especially the super-strong stuff we seem to drink in London and New York - can contain up to 300 to 400mg of caffeine, in for example a Pret-a-Manger strong cappuccino.

The problem with caffeine is that it's a bit of a crude stimulant with lots of extrapyramidal side effects. That is to say, as you increase the dose of caffeine, most people can't tolerate the way it makes them feel. Interestingly, intravenously, amphetamine addicts can't tell the difference between amphetamine and caffeine. Also, most intravenous amphetamine users believe they are being chased by 'them' - the police, men in black, shadow people, ninjas, whatever - but these side effects are just part of the fun.

So, the beauty of the 'go' pill is that it seems that I get all those desirable effects, with no side effects. You would be completely unable to tell that I was under the influence of 5mg of dextroamphetamine. Recreational use of amphetamines is normally quite obvious to spot: talking too fast, sweating, dilated pupils, restlessness, jerky unnatural movement. No side effects? Well, not quite.

US fighter jet pilots use 'no-go' pills at the end of a mission. Having been kept awake and alert for hours, it's now time to go to sleep or at least chill the fuck out. Sleep can be difficult without a 'no-go' pill.

My personal 'no-go' cocktail allegedly contains Xanax (alprazolam) and zopiclone, which have hypnotic, sedative, muscle relaxant and anxiolytic properties. To be honest, you could probably get to sleep naturally if you took your 'go' pill as soon as you got up, but it's pretty exhausting spending a full day in a highly alert state.

Isn't it madness, me taking all these pills? Shouldn't I just go 'clean'? Isn't it best that I'm completely drug-free?

Do you remember when you quit smoking? You chewed a lot of gum, ate a lot more, drank more tea and coffee. Do you remember when the kids were little and life was really stressful? You drank a lot more gin. Do you remember when there was that project with a really tight deadline and you were working really hard; drinking lots of coffee? You were drinking lots of wine in the evenings to relax. Basically, humans will compensate to make sure things remain balanced. If you hurt your foot, you might find your back is aching, because you've shifted your body weight to one side, to put less pressure on your injury.

My injury's a brain injury and the best thing you can do for the brain is to allow it to find its own equilibrium. However, life must go on. My brain's telling me to go to sleep in a dark room for a month or two, but I need to attend hospital appointments, do the administration for my company, line up my next IT contract, find a new flatmate, move money around and make sure the cash keeps flowing and doesn't run out.

A bit of dextroamphetamine is an effective antidepressant and helps fight any supercrack cravings. It's like methadone for a supercrack addict.

I'm on a mission to get back to coffee and wine as my 'go' and 'no-go' substances. I actually worked really hard to break my caffeine addiction, and now I only drink caffeinated drinks on extremely rare occasions. I'm certainly not habituated into having my morning coffee or cups of tea throughout the day, like the majority of adults are. This is how addiction works: you don't cure the addiction, you just replace it with something else. There was a time when I loved playing with toy cars. I had hundreds of them, and I played with them all the time. Then, I got a computer, and I loved playing computer games... and the process of swapping one addiction for another continued. I'll be just fine and dandy with some tasty food, wine to wash it down with, TV and film to distract me and a girl to put my arm around and take to bed for some rumpy-pumpy later on. That ought to just about tick all my boxes.

In the last two weeks, I broke my addiction to two opiates - tramadol & codeine - and I've obviously been off the supercrack for the best part of a week now. That's fairly impressive. Please forgive me for having the occasional G&T, glass of wine and my little 'go' and 'no-go' pills, just to keep the pedals turning.

I've got a torn muscle and ligament, damaged nerve and fractured ulna (bone in my arm) but I spend most of the day with no pain relief at all. It's only at night that for some reason all these injuries start feeling super painful and I might take a couple of co-codamol.

Interestingly, amongst the opiates, heroin was named because it was thought it would have military applications, making soldiers more heroic. Heroin addicts certainly do seem to be prepared to do almost anything to get their fix and not get junk sick. I guess the idea was perhaps to addict the soldiers, and then deny them their heroin until they had done their mission. I can't really imagine it'd be a great idea to have a platoon of men who are pretty much just dribbling and half-asleep. The Nazis had the better idea, giving their soldiers crystal meth. The nickname "marching powder" for cocaine is literally what it sounds like: cocaine was given to soldiers so that they could go on longer marches. You might think of the pharmaceutical industry as concerned only with the treatment of disease, but they have profited handsomely from military concoctions.

Adding fluoride to the water supply has made a major impact on the rates of tooth decay. Drug evangelists have touted LSD and MDMA as other candidate chemicals to be added to our drinking water. The idea being that criminal and aggressive behaviour might be replaced with love and empathy, or the 'sheeple' might have their consciousness expanded. For clarity: I do not endorse such ideas.

"Go to the doctor" is now a synonym for "go get some pills". People are extremely disappointed if they don't come away from a doctor's appointment with a prescription for some lotion or potion. The reflexive response of people if you ever say you are in pain, is to offer you aspirin, paracetamol, ibuprofen or preparations containing codeine (e.g. co-codamol and Solpadeine). People have looked at me in shock and horror, when I tell them that I don't take any medication for the incurable mutative virus: the common cold. What part of incurable didn't you understand?

Many people with mental health issues are asked "did you take your pills today?" or told "maybe you should up your dose" by people with no medical training or expertise, who they simply encounter in their day to day life, such as family members, friends and work colleagues.

We should be mindful that psychopharmacology is only 60 or 70 years old at most, as a fairly advanced field with the accompanying branch of medicine: psychiatry. Before psychiatry, chemists could offer preparations containing opium, cocaine, cannabis; all of which treat symptoms, not underlying issues. We will look back 50 or 100 years from now, and laugh at how primitive our medicine was... especially when it comes to addiction, mental health and the psychoactive compounds.

One final thought: if the majority of us are taking medication for depression, stress and anxiety, are we sick or are we actually victims of a sick society?

Tags: #drugs #addiction #medication #mentalhealth

This is a story about what happens when the slender thread that holds Damocles' sword dangling above, is severed...

I live a highly leveraged life. When things go well, I can find my savings replenished, debts repaid and the threat of destitution lifted. When things go badly, I can quickly find myself in distress.

Something went 'twang!' in my leg. I'm not sure whether it was muscle tearing, tendon snapping, or something else, but I stood up from where I had been seated on the floor for a couple of hours, and my foot and calf were partially numb and I had lost some range of movement.

That injury - or perhaps damage to an old injury - happened two days before I was due to start a new contract. I needed that new contract. I needed the income from that new contract to pay the rent, bills, service debts, pay friends back who lent me money and generally get on top of a deteriorating financial situation. I was very close to running out of money.

Unfortunately, my leg and foot got worse, not better. There was lots of swelling and I stopped urinating. It was pretty clear that my kidneys had shut down. I had to go to hospital.

The company that hired me said they'd delay my start date by one week. I thought that would be adequate, if I could be quickly discharged. Then, I realised that it was going to take more than a week of treatment to get my kidneys going again. I delayed my start date by another 3 days, and then 2 more days. In the end, there was a total delay of just two weeks, which doesn't sound too bad to me, considering just how sick I'd been in hospital.

I had to discharge myself against medical advice on the weekend before I started my new job. My foot was still swollen and I was taking a lot of painkillers. My kidneys still weren't working efficiently, and the hospital wanted to keep me on dialysis.

I clomped into that new job, wearing an ankle splint that held my floppy foot in place, and expanded enough to not put pressure on the swelling. I worked a couple of days with the ankle splint, and then switched over to a slipper and a crutch. A slipper was the only footwear I could find that would stretch enough to accomodate the swelling.

I worked 4 days and made a good first impression. I put in a lot of effort into hitting the ground running. Unfortunately, I had to go back to hospital for blood tests and potentially more dialysis. I got the all clear from the hospital, which was a big relief. However, nobody had done anything to fix my leg/foot and I hadn't even been able to get my painkiller prescription refilled.

The following Monday morning, I was taking a cocktail of whatever medication I'd managed to get my hands on. We had a meeting where we all stood up. I was unsteady on my feet. My mind was cloudy. It was fairly obvious that I was unduly affected by medication, right at that unfortunate moment. My boss suggested I take another week off work, to recover properly. I was incredibly grateful for that.

I spent a week in bed, popping painkillers. My foot improved to the point where I could wear a normal shoe and I didn't need a crutch, although my walking was rather ungainly. On the Monday I went back again, the adrenalin of the situation carried me through that all important first meeting and everything seemed to be going OK.

Then, nausea surged up inside me. I spent the whole morning, feeling like I was about to throw up at any minute. I had all kinds of meetings to attend and I had to sit there, feeling sick, just keeping my mouth shut about it and pretending to be OK.

At lunchtime, I forced down a can of cola, knowing it contained some anti-emetic chemicals that might calm my nausea.

Things were not improving and a colleague asked how things were going. I said that the day had started OK, but I'd been struggling a bit. I said I'd be OK.

My boss called an informal meeting with me and asked if everything was OK. I explained that I felt everything was fine in the morning, but then I'd been having waves of nausea. I said that I really didn't need to go home or anything and that everything would probably be OK. I really didn't feel fine. I felt sick and I wanted to lie down. My boss suggested I take some more time off, and come back when I was feeling better. I had secretly wanted to go home and lie down that afternoon. I was grateful to not have to sit bolt upright at a desk, feeling so sick. I said I'd be back the next day, or the day after at the latest. Colleagues cheerily waved goodbye.

When I got outside the office, I didn't feel relieved. I felt like I might have been tricked into taking the bait. I felt like I had fallen at the final hurdle. I felt like I had failed a final test. I should have toughed it out. It felt like I gave up too easily. It felt wrong.

I got home and collapsed into bed. By this point I was sweating hot & cold as well as overcome by nausea. It was a slight relief to be able to lie down in a quiet darkened bedroom. Then, I noticed a bunch of missed calls from my agent. I immediately knew what that would be about.

I wanted to put it off but I decided to face speaking to the agent right away. Using the layers of complexity of end-client, consultancy and agency arrangements, they cooked up some cock-and-bull story that was basically: "Whatever your boss said about going back to work when you're feeling better, that's not the case. You're not going back to work. Your contract is terminated".

I earned 4 days money. That was enough to pay for a month's rent & bills.

There's no way I can apply & interview for another another contract, get the legal and accountancy things set up, start working, submit my invoices and get paid, before I run out of cash.

My foot's still busted and I'm still taking painkillers - albeit at a much lower dose now - and I'm not exactly in much of a fit state to start work, let alone face another gruelling battle to find and win a new contract.

There's just no way the numbers add up. There's just no way I can be lucky enough to pay this month's rent - which is due in 4 days time - and get my cashflow moving again fast enough to not run out of money entirely.

I need to move all my stuff into storage and leave my apartment. I need to try and get the lettings agent to find somebody to take over the apartment from me, or else lose my deposit.

I need to box up all my stuff, and get the hell out of my home. I just can't afford it. I've run out of runway.

Where I'm going to live, I don't know. What I'm going to do next, I don't know.

My confidence has taken a huge dent, and I can't see myself facing gruelling interview panels anymore. I can't see myself suffering the highs and lows of the job market, after such a horrific recent ordeal. I can't see any kind of way that things are going to get sorted out, without total collapse and destruction.

Suffice to say, depression and suicidal thoughts stalk me at every turn. Of course I just want to die. Of course I don't want to lose my home and suffer the indignity of being destitute. I can't face the stress of fighting back from nothing again. I've been to the bottom and back, and I know I can do it, but do I want to repeat that? No way. I'm exhausted. I'd rather just lay down and die.

I was touched by the outpouring of support on Facebook, during my acute kidney failure. I'm aware that there's someone in my life who's grown very close to me. I have a sister, a niece. However, I can't picture any kind of recovery from this point. I just can't see a route forward, to any kind of position that I'll be able to tolerate. Things are going to get wrecked, and things are going to be almost impossible to repair and replace. That kind of devastating blow is a hard one to take and come back from.

Right now, I'm just avoiding dealing with reality. I'm sleeping, watching feature length documentaries and generally trying to bury my head in the sand.

Everything is far too overwhelming, and I know that my thoughts will automatically leap to the conclusion that suicide is the best option.

She was amazing while I was in hospital. In fact she's been amazing full stop. But, it's been exhausting and stressful for her, and it's negatively impacted her life, her health and her great career. I'm dragging her down. I'm bad news. She's genuinely going to be better off without me, now that I lost that contract and all hope is sunk.

I'm not going to make the argument anymore today, but that's what I'm going to make my next few blog posts about: an attempt to persuade you that the humane thing to do is to let me escape any further pointless suffering, and to spare the drawn-out pain that those who care about me will witness, as my life gets ripped to pieces by the vultures.

Fine margins. Things can come down to the finest of margins. One little thread goes snap, and a whole life comes crashing down.

It's the beginning of the end.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about repeatedly making the same mistakes...

Do you remember all those times that you were made to say sorry when you were a kid? Maybe you were a bit of a bully and you kicked sand in somebody's face or pushed someone into the swimming pool. Maybe you were a bit of a thief and you tried to steal other children's toys. Maybe you were a bit violent, and got into an argument with somebody at school or playgroup, and you hit or kicked them.

You can't make somebody sorry. You can force them to say words which the dictionary defines as apologetic, but that's got nothing to do with them actually feeling sorry. In my experience, forcing a child to apologise to another child, could often result in later reprisals that far exceed the original offence. Plus, receiving an insincere apology - under duress - only serves to further demonstrate a lack of remorse.

Also, children may not yet have learned about taboo subjects, political correctness, proper comportment, social faux-pas, tact and a whole load of other subtle nuances in adult behaviour. Some adults may only ever reach a behavioural level that marginally exceeds that of a child. Some adults may believe that their behaviour epitomises the gold standard that we should all aspire to attain.

I spent some of my childhood in Oxford. The area we lived in was being gentrified. Among our neighbours were an MP, a City trader, a consultant heart surgeon and other high achievers. Also living in the neighbourhood, were poor people, who weren't there because it was an affordable up-and-coming trendy part of central Oxford, but because they lived in council houses... sorry, I mean social housing.

The nearest child of a similar age, lived at number 4, and we lived at number 10. There was also a boy who lived at number 1, on the opposite side of the street, but not much further up the road than number 4. The boy at number 1 was from a poor family who lived in social housing. The boy at number 4 was from a family that believed they had attained the aforementioned 'gold standard' behavioural attributes.

At number 4, there were two girls and a boy. The eldest girl was a little older than me and the boy was a little younger. We spent a lot of time playing together on the street outside their house, where their parents could keep an eye on us. Not that the 'gold standard' was shining brightly on the day their eldest ran across the road and got hit by a car, or when their youngest drank bleach from the cupboard under the sink. 

The development of a child's sense of morality and good behaviour might evolve thusly: I want that cake; I want that cake but I know I will get in trouble if I take it; I want that cake and I don't understand why I have to wait and I only get a portion of the cake; I want that cake, and I want all the portions of the whole cake; I want that cake, I want as many portions as I'm allowed, and I resent anybody else who has a portion; I want that cake, and I understand that too much makes me sick; I want that cake, and it seems to be social convention that cake is shared.

Therefore, we can see that the behaviour of a child who has eaten their own portion of cake and has now stolen another child's, might not follow adult morality and logic. Imagine if the cake is a birthday cake, and it's the birthday of the cake 'thief' child. Adult logic says the cake is for everyone to share, we should eat in moderation, and taking from somebody else is stealing. Child logic - the birthday child - says that the cake is theirs, because it's their birthday, but they consent to cake being shared out because that's established social convention, but taking any unattended cake is fair game, because it's all the birthday child's cake.

Some 'bad' behaviour is actually natural and normal for a child, who is not equipped with all the knowledge and experience that an adult has, of tact, political correctness, taboos and subjects that require a lot of historical context, before they start to make sense. Here's a test for you: are children racist?

If you put 29 little kids in a room with an obviously handicapped child, what are the kids going to remember, if you ask them individually at a later time? More importantly, what are they going to say? If the kids laugh at the handicapped kid, does that mean they'll laugh and point at people in wheelchairs when they're adults? If the kids imitate the handicapped kid, are they mocking people with disabilities?

If you put 29 white privileged little kids with a little black kid, what are the kids going to notice and remember? If they all single out the black kid, does that mean they're all racist, or does it mean they've got eyes? Children haven't learned the 'colourblind' behaviour that adults are supposed to have.

By the time you reach adulthood, you've learned to pretend not to notice that brain damaged person, strapped into a chair, making weird noises. You've learned to pretend not to notice if the skin all over somebody's entire body, is a substantially different colour from yours. You've learned not to stare, not to point, not to vocalise your observations, except with extreme care and subtlety.

Older children will develop empathy; a sense of care for those around them. Older children will find it rewarding to please their peers and adults, by sharing. Older children learn that other people can own things too, and that it's wrong to take somebody else's things. Older children become better at communicating, negotiating and controlling their emotions; physical violence and arguments become rare, replaced by reasoned debate.

Remember all those insincere apologies you had to give? Remember all those times when an adult made you share your sweets, but they were yours and you wanted them all yourself? 

"I'm sorry, it won't happen again" 

I hear adults say this all the time.

Firstly, they're not sorry. A genuine apology starts with empathy for the victim, leading to remorse, guilt and then some words to express regret, encompassing the remorse and the guilt. An apology starts with a painful conversation, where you have to face your victim and not only understand any physical consequences, but also understand the emotional impact - including the severity - for the victim.

Secondly, they're not going to change. We make promises all the time to change, improve, stop doing something, start doing something... whatever. By the time we reach adulthood, we're really well practiced at saying what we think the other person wants to hear, so they're placated and they'll leave us alone.

Change is hard.

You can't change to please somebody, or comply with an order to change. If you're already fat, you need to stop getting fatter and you need to lose weight - two difficult changes - and your aim is to avoid potential health complications, as advised by your doctor. If you smoke, you know the health risks, but you've smoked a lot of cigarettes and never got lung cancer, so your first-hand experience has more bearing than any statistics about future risks. What motivation is there in mitigating future risk, when there is nice food and cigarettes right now?

You can't change because of a threat, or otherwise under duress. Change is hard, as we discussed, and it's made so much harder when every slip-up is magnified by the thought that failure to change would result in terrible consequences. If you can try and fail, and have another go, you might eventually succeed. Changing to avoid a terrible punishment, creates unbearable pressure, makes a catastrophe out of every minor setback, discouraging any attempts to keep trying.

You can't change because you want to. Change for change's sake? That makes no sense. You change because you have to, such as a serious medical problem that mandates an immediate lifestyle change, or else you'll die.

You'll change when you're not even noticing. You'll change when what you care about in life, your passions and your priorities change. You'll change when you're having fun, doing things you enjoy, doing things you're motivated by.

Who do you want to change? Is it your wayward brother, your drunkard father, your lazy friend, your unreliable co-worker, your drug addict boyfriend?

Stop assuming that they should think and act like a model adult - or indeed pressuring them to be and reprimanding them when they're not - and presume instead that they are more like a child. You might not like it, but joining the long queue of people hectoring a person to act more adult, causes them to act more childish. When everybody disrespects you, patronises you and tells you what to think and how to act, then less responsible and more selfish behaviour is inevitable, as well as disengaging your brain and letting others do all the thinking for you.

Stop seeing the same mistakes happening again and again. They're not mistakes. Another person's perspective is completely different from yours. Yeah, he's drinking himself to death. Yeah, his wife's going to leave him and take the kids if he doesn't stop drinking. Yeah, he's wasting loads of money and he can't get a job when he stinks of booze. Yeah, countless doctors have told him the damage he's doing to his body. Yeah, he crashed his car, lost his license. So what? Of course those things matter, but in his mind, that stuff's already happened; he's resigned himself to his fate; you can't threaten him with anything worse than he's already prepared for.

We spend so much time and energy trying to turn our children into adults. Learning to be an adult is the fine art of knowing when to lie (often), be honest (rarely) and keep your mouth shut and your thoughts to yourself (most of the time). The right clothes and good manners do most of the hard work. Then, you just need to be serious, dour, solemn and boring. "Grow up!" and "stop being so childish" are phrases that epitomise a parenting style that thrashes any semblance of natural immaturity into an appearance of premature adulthood. Constant rebuke for failure to demonstrate adult qualities, eventually creates a deceptive character: polite, courteous, formal, apparently mature and responsible, certainly confident and capable. But, how quickly it all unravels when a thread is pulled.

Why the strange behaviour? Why do drugs & alcohol feature so often? Where is the social life? Where are the fond recollections of the halcyon days of school? So many avoidable conflicts leading to unnecessary losses of highly paid jobs. Suddenly so irresponsible, unreliable. Tired and preoccupied by thoughts of death, followed by peals of laughter at puerile humour aimed at children. Everything always on the verge of total disaster.

If you harass and harangue - a pair of old bullies outnumbering the victim, two against one - until you seemingly get what you always wanted: your child has turned out successful enough to give you bragging rights with your friends. Climbing the career ladder at high speed, switching companies all the time. Girlfriends, social groups, best friends, former work colleagues - nothing seems to last, and it all seems to be moving too fast to keep up.

Does it not seem obvious that drugs have become my loyal friend, who'll never leave me and never let me down? Does it not seem obvious that I've had it hammered into my skull, for far too many years, that life is miserable, full of endless boring responsibilities, and then you die?

Will I ever learn from my mistakes? You're asking the wrong question. I don't see any mistakes, but I see a lot of learning. Will I ever see the error of my ways and change my behaviour? It's you who has failed to see the changes in my behaviour. The only error I made was trying to be a sensible, serious, responsible adult.

I've got so much to lose at the moment, but I already lost so much and learnt how to get it back. I've come back from the brink so many times now. I don't want to keep starting over. I'm not scared of things like kidney failure. I'm scared of things like being bored out of my brain doing things I've done a million times before, to the point where I fuck up a perfectly good job and end up going round the cycle again.

My idea of change right now is to start drinking wine again.

Tags: #drugs #alcohol #career