This is a story about social animals...

For solitary creatures, there are two drives that ensure they live long enough to reproduce: hunger and libido. If you didn't feel hungry, you'd be too busy fucking to stop and eat, so you'd die of starvation. In fact you'd probably die of starvation before you even reached sexual maturity. If you didn't have a sex drive, you'd be too busy gorging yourself on food to have sex.

There's a delicate balance between effort, pain and reward. In animal studies, laboratory tests have measured the amount of work - in calories - that an animal is prepared to do to get a food pellet. There's no point burning more calories than the reward, so animals will only work so hard for something to eat. Tests also showed that animals are prepared to suffer a certain amount of pain if they're hungry: lab rats will cross an electrified floor to get to a food pellet, even though it hurts their feet. The same goes for sex: the horny rats will work and put up with pain, in order to mate.

When we examine social animals, like us, the co-operative rewards are harder to understand. It's clear that individuals will die if they don't get enough food, and genes will die if individuals don't reproduce, but what's in it for us to be social? Well, the lone wolf is very unlikely to be able to hunt and kill prey on its own.

Dogs are the perfect animal to help us understand praise. A dog will fetch a stick for its owner, even though it gets no food or sex. Humans have figured out that if you can make a dog believe you're the alpha of the wolf pack, then the dog will go wild for your approval. Through body language cues, such as bared teeth or wagging tails, the message of social approval or disapproval can be sent. Dogs are evolved to seek praise, because it bonds their hunting pack together.

We can then start to see how different drugs affect our brains, through changes in our behaviour.

Let's start with amphetamines (speed, whizz, base, meth etc.)

Amphetamines suppress appetite. Because one side of the triangle has been suppressed, it leaves room for an increased sex drive and more pleasurable lovemaking. Addicts who inject crystal methamphetamine can masturbate or fuck (or both!) for 12 hours.

Heroin suppresses your sex drive. Heroin addicts can be perfectly functional people, who eat enough to stay healthy, but they're getting their kicks from the junk, so they don't need sex.

Cocaine removes your insecurity and need for praise. When you're high on coke, you know you're the best. Instead of nervously looking around to see who's approving and who's disapproving, you act as if you're the alpha of the pack; king of the hill; top dog.

Addictions are nothing more than a temporary perversion of our natural urges; survival instincts; drives. We simply retrain our brains to want drugs instead of food, sex and praise.

Last night, I couldn't sleep because I had cravings. I was lying awake, daydreaming about going to a dealer and buying the thing I was really craving. It was a craving like every craving I've ever had. The craving completely consumed me and I could hardly think about anything else. There was only one thing that my heart desired.

So, today I went to the [meat] dealer, and bought myself some [dried South African beef] product. I travelled across London with single-minded purpose: I was out to score and feed my addiction.

I can't emphasise enough how similar drug cravings are to feeling hungry or horny. The urges are identical. Drug cravings are indistinguishable from the natural urges that keep us alive. Saying "you've got no willpower" to somebody, while stuffing your face with a big pie, is ridiculous. How often have you given up food and how long have you fasted for? Try doing it for 28 days. Try doing it for 13 weeks. Try doing it for life.

Of course, if the brain can be trained to like something, it can also be untrained. Rabid animals get driven mad by hydrophobia: swallowing gives rabid animals painful spasms in their larynx, so they start to fear water even though they're desperately thirsty. There are several foods that are said to be an acquired taste: it takes some time for our brains to learn to associate the strange flavours with nourishment. Often, an upset stomach or a bout of food poisoning is enough to create a strong link in our brains that causes us to reject certain foods.

Alcoholics can break their addiction by taking medication that will make them throw up if they drink. This kind of negative conditioning can break the perverted programming of the brain. Instead of eagerly anticipating the reward of a 'buzz' every time you get drunk, you begin to associate alcoholic drinks with nausea.

Unfortunately, the programming can work in reverse. If you have lots of fantastic sex when you take drugs, you can then start to crave drugs every time you get horny. 'Normal' sex can start to feel uninteresting and not worth bothering with. Your libido becomes your enemy: driving you to seek drugs every time your nut-sack needs emptying.

I've been well aware for some time, that I need to stay on top of my libido or else it will work in harmony with residual drug cravings to overpower any freedom of choice that I supposedly have. "Willpower" and the feelings of guilt we have about all indulgences of our natural urges, are the attempts to impose morality on an entirely amoral thing: we have no control over our desires.

Yesterday was a new one on me: a hunger for food that was as strong as any drug craving I've ever experienced. Addiction works in strange and subtle ways, inhabiting your subconscious and trying to subvert your supposed freedom of choice. Lots of addicts will relapse 'by accident' because the levers being pulled in their brains are powerfully influenced by forces that we rarely acknowledge.

We rarely talk about showing off or trying to get a shag, but those things are far more influential on our world than almost anything except stuffing our faces with pies.

Tags: #addiction #drugs #alcohol

This is a story about a year in review...

Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I'll begin.

For anybody following along at home, there are a few highlights buried in the 600,000+ words I've written to date. There's some required reading for anybody making a study of my psyche.

I decided I wanted to write something more popular and so I drew some graphs explaining mood disorders, like bipolar. It was my most read blog post of 2016.

Along the same lines, I wrote about the onset of depression and attempts to treat it.

I wrote a letter to myself.

I was an inpatient on a secure psychiatric ward, so naturally I came up with a bizarre thought experiment. I even did a drawing of my quantum suicide experiment.

When I was bored out of my mind at work one day, I wrote a short story called The Factory.

If you ever wondered why I have a semicolon tattooed behind my ear, this is half the story.

Everything you never wanted to know about addiction.

But, is it art? This is a good example of me rambling while strung-out. I'm surprised I could even see the keyboard. I just like the title and it's a bit of a private joke, sorry.

There's a 3-part account of the time I lost my mind and started hearing voices.

That'll probably do. There's a lot to get through there.

Of course, there's also the first draft of my novel if you have time to read 53,000 words. I'm going to start editing it tomorrow, so any feedback would be gratefully received.

I've slightly bent the rules, because I have a bit of a warped sense of time, but these are all significant pieces of writing for me, that I associate with the events of 2016.

Happy New Year's Eve.

Tags: #writing #bipolar #depression #suicide #physics #addiction #mentalhealth

This is a story about compatibility...

Very often, when you're acutely aware that there's something that you need to avoid crashing into, you'll end up staring at it, unable to tear your eyes away. When riding a board or a bike, flying, driving or otherwise in motion, you tend to go in the direction you're looking. If you want to avoid a crash, you should look at a spot away from danger.

Is this the reason why we don't talk about taboo subjects, because we're worried about tempting fate? We turn our back on the ugly truth and try to pretend like everything's OK.

My Christmas stocking included some bath salts.

Clearly, Santa has the same dark sense of humour as me. That's great. I think humour is a fantastic way to exorcise the demons of the past. First comes talking, then understanding and finally you can laugh and joke about a topic that was originally quite painful and difficult to remember. Repressing memories and walking on eggshells is no way to move forward.

If we don't have honest conversations where we can talk about how we really think and feel, then we build up a load of sensitive topics. Secrets and lies lead to paranoia and weak relationships. Keeping schtum about my parents' drug use - when I was a child - was too much of a burden. Writing openly has been liberating and has allowed me to move on from shame and regret, to regain my self-esteem and confidence.

I remember a desperate scramble to cover up my admission to The Priory. My psychiatrist had made a referral to a "private hospital" for treatment of an acute episode of bipolar disorder. All perfectly true, but there was a certain economic use of the truth. What would most people think, if they found out that I was spending weeks in the UK's most notorious treatment specialist for drug & alcohol abuse? They would leap to the wrong conclusions, surely?

It's so bloody exhausting keeping up appearances. One must be aware of how things can be [mis]interpreted and people aren't likely to share their true thoughts and feelings: "better keep him away from the kids if he's mentally ill" or "I bet he's a raging alcoholic behind closed doors if he's been in The Priory".

We're brought up to believe that our reputation is like a balloon: one little prick and it goes pop. We're scared to take time off work, because we'll have gaps on our CV that need to be explained. We're scared to share details of our private lives, lest our employers decide we're unreliable and judge us on preconceived notions. Who wants to work with a madman?

When it comes to dating, the same applies. Who wants to date somebody with flaws; defects? Who wants to take a risk on a ticking time bomb; an unsteady ship? And so, I should have found myself unemployable and undateable. "Take your pills, sit in the corner and shut up" says society.

However, if you ever meet me in a work or social context, you may gain the [false?] impression that I'm pleasant company: a healthy, happy and capable member of society, engaged in productive endeavours. Strangely, you might have the wool pulled over your eyes so much that you actually mistake me for a normal human being.

Surely this is thanks to the excellent medication that I take?

Well, no. I don't take any medication. I don't do therapy. I haven't had a course of electro-convulsive shock treatment. I don't even have a psychiatrist at the moment.

"But you're going to murder everybody if you don't take your pills."

Yes, that's right. I'm your worst nightmare. I'm out there, on the dating scene, luring unsuspecting vulnerable young women into my web. I'm a dangerous fantasist; a con-man. I'm so good at living a lie that I've constructed an elaborate fable that looks, smells, tastes and sounds very much like an authentic real life, but it's all fake. It can't be real. What about the secrets we now know?

If you take your secrets and turn them into jokes, you defuse that ticking time bomb... or at least that's my working hypothesis.

I certainly feel a lot happier knowing that I've met somebody with enough of a good sense of humour to make a joke on Christmas Day about my chequered past. I feel less sensitive, paranoid and insecure than ever before. I feel like I'm myself, and that's OK.

Maybe it's just a getting old thing: the realisation that we're all flawed in some way. We're all human. We all have weaknesses and strengths, and we all have history; baggage even. It seems better to wear my heart on my sleeve than present myself as some whiter than white, holier than thou saint who never put a foot wrong in their life.

I doubt I'll ever unify my professional and private identities, but I certainly don't regret jettisoning the traditional approach to dating. Honesty seems to have been the best policy in this case.

Tags: #dating #sex #bipolar #addiction

This is a story about family...

I was born in Aberystwyth, Wales. This is the first house I lived in. We moved around lots when I was growing up - I went to 8 different schools - so I don't really know where to call home. For me, home is where I make it: I have a grab bag in my apartment in London, with a tent and a sleeping bag. I'll survive, but there isn't a family home I would visit ever again. Homelessness is the only option.

I was wondering to myself earlier whether I'm a misanthrope or not. I certainly dislike the stress of rush hour travel and battling crowds. You must wonder why I live and work in London, where it's so densely populated, but I find that it has amazing people, food, culture and lots of jobs for my skills and experience. I live by the river and it's actually pretty quiet down on the Isle of Dogs, as is the Square Mile, where I often get contracts.

I've decided that I don't hate people, but a lot of people seem to hate me. Changing schools so much is disruptive to a child's life. Instead of learning how to make friends and become popular, there's little point if you're going to get yanked out of some place you're happy with and dumped somewhere else. It's fairly obvious that the more disrupted a child's environment, the more they will retreat inwards, in search of some stability and consistency.

Bullying was a big feature of my childhood. It was a daily feature of life until I went to college. It's easy to make a child into a bullying victim: just give them something that marks them out as different. Take a look at the way all the children in school are dressed and make sure you dress your kid differently: turn-ups on their trousers, a jumper when all the other kids are wearing blazers, Clarks shoes when all the other kids are wearing Doc Martens. If they're a girl, dress them like a boy and vice-versa. If they're a boy, make them ride a pink bicycle with ribbons on it. Et cetera, et cetera.

My parents' only hobby was drug taking. In their imagination, there were fucking unicorns and rainbows everywhere and everything they said was profound and important. In their minds they were hard working and intelligent. In reality, they were sat around in a dirty house, dribbling like morons and unable to say a single syllable that was understandable. Their brains were intoxicated by drugs and alcohol and they were antisocial: preferring to spend as much time as possible alone indoors with their drugs.

I'm not sure if my parents are misanthropes, but they sure as shit don't have any friends. They have each other and they seem to think that they're the two smartest people on the planet and everybody else is thick as pig shit. When I feign snobbery and arrogance, it's easy because I just imitate my parents. They used to talk about friends and colleagues behind their back. I would get in trouble if I ever let slip a "mum says..." which taught me about two-faced hateful nasty people.

It's kind of fun to gossip behind people's backs, but having been the victim of social exclusion, bullying and also witnessed the nasty nature of horrible people who say mean things about people behind closed doors, I now try to stop myself. I'm not getting up on my high horse and saying I'm morally superior: I just mean to say that I have strong feelings about it, as it's affected my life. It's almost as if I was the one who suffered for my parents' desire to be hostile to everyone.

There I am. It's fairly obvious from those murderous eyes that I'm pure evil and had been plotting to do all sorts of dastardly deeds, while I was a sperm and an egg.

"My girlfriend" is how my dad referred to my mum. He made me call him and my mum by their first names. I wasn't allowed to call them "Mum" and "Dad". There was open hostility towards me, as if I had planned to ruin their drug binge and screw up their easy carefree life; as if my birth was some pre-meditated malicious atrocity. That's a pretty freaky thing to accuse a small child of.

What else do I know about myself?

Well, I was lonely. I was so desperate for secure, loyal friendships, that I would get very overexcited when I got to spend time with friends. I was super intense and hyper: I had to pack in all the friendship I could, when the opportunity presented itself. Sleep was always of secondary concern to maximising the time available, so it was exhausting seeing me for the short intense bursts that my parents permitted.

A number of my childhood 'friends' were the children of people my parents deemed good enough to hang out with occasionally, because they liked to take drugs. My parents made all objective judgements of people based on whether they liked drugs or not, rather than on personality or intellect. My dad rather styled himself on a man known literally as Mister Mean, who charged his wife and young children rent to live in 'his' house. What a cunt.

The biggest event in my life was the birth of my sister, when I was 10 years old. Parents are supposed to be outnumbered. Children are supposed to grow up with brothers and sisters. It's fucking abusive to have lonely isolated miserable children. Guess what? Children like playing together. Children like being children with other children.

It occurred to me that we spend so much of our time and energy trying to get children to act like adults, which is disingenuous and bound to lead to frustration and misery all round. If you want adult company, go make friends with people your own age. Kids need to be kids, which means play and socialising with their peers. Punishing a child for being childish is abusive.

Yeah, I'm banding round the term 'abuse' quite freely and easily. I'm sorry if there's a very specific context in which you find that English word acceptable, but it has a definition that you're at liberty to look up in the dictionary if you need to. I'm calling things abusive, because they've had life-altering negative effects on me and caused prolonged periods of abject misery. If you've fucked up your child's chances to form meaningful, secure happy relationships and partake in society as a well-rounded individual, you've really fucking abused a kid, OK?

This is turning into a bit of a "poor me, poor me" whinefest, but it's the background of the who am I type stuff I've been thinking about. I know it's horribly egocentric, but tell me, which pill do I take to just forget about this stuff and move on?

"Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man" -- Aristotle

Finding myself unable to get along with my peers and finding my parents to be disappointed that I wasn't born as a grown adult independently wealthy Victorian butler, I eventually found that friends' parents and some teachers were very nice to me. Having been raised to act with 'maturity' many adults found my good manners and strong communication skills to be charming. While I could do nothing right at home, I found that the adult world was mainly about kissing arse and saying intelligent sounding things at the right time. Naturally, my peers saw me as aloof and arrogant, which I guess I was.

It's easy to see how I got a head start in life: because I was lonely and isolated. I played on computers when others were playing with their brothers, sisters and friends. When I went to my first job interview, I wasn't intimidated because I felt more comfortable in the adult world than I did with children. When it came to making a good impression at work, people judged me on the fake image of maturity that I projected. In short: I seemed more grown-up than I was.

We're all a little insecure, but I desperately wanted loyal friends and a loving girlfriend. That lifelong damage that you do to a kid when you fuck up their childhood, means that they feel unloved, they don't know how to make friends, missed out on childhood sweethearts and feel distant from their peers. That shit carries over into adult life. Where's the confidence, the gregariousness, the outgoing nature? Where are you going to get that stuff, if all you know is bullying, isolation and disruption to your life that destroys every friendship you've ever cherished?

Every time I've been clingy, intense or a little too full-on... that's coming from that hole that was left in adolescence, where most people are swigging cider in the park and having fumbling trysts in the bushes.

But, I've also been affected by drugs. I'm not afraid of drugs. I don't have a healthy fear and respect of drugs, unlike people who've never been exposed to them. I'm in the situation of having in-depth knowledge of drug taking, but I'm surrounded by educated middle-class professionals who know nothing about drugs (except that if you inject a marijuana you will immediately murder a grandmother to steal her money).

It's crazy to think that the spotty, nerdy unpopular awkward geek who was bullied as fuck, took amphetamines and lost his virginity at the age of 15. Is it crazy? Well, a lot of people think drug taking is cool. It's seen by some simple-minded fools as an act of rebellion. Idiots see themselves as being part of a counter-culture movement, when they make themselves dumb and apathetic, spending their money on a trillion dollar commercial industry, never actually doing anything revolutionary or productive because they're sitting around indoors dribbling and babbling incoherently.

Doesn't it seem only natural that with insecurity and isolation, I would follow in the footsteps of my parents? It sounds like I'm blaming my parents for my addiction, but I'm not (directly). The debate about free will and our ability to make choices, is a complex one. 

"Boring! We've heard all this!"

Yes, but I'm retelling. I've been through Hell and I'm trying to understand everything myself. Through my writing, I'm coming to terms with a mind-boggling amount of experiences that I have to slot into place, in order to make sense of the world and where I fit within it. Life is not black & white; good & bad. I can't simplify things to the point of simply saying I'm a "bad kid" like my parents seemed to decide from very early on. Blaming myself for everything has gotten me nowhere.

No apology or even discussion was forthcoming from my parents, so it's up to me to figure everything out and make the correct judgements based on the evidence and rational investigation of the facts. Yes, it's nice and easy to jump on any one particular thing that seems to be the 'smoking gun' pointing to the fact that I must be an evil little shit sent from Hell to terrorise the world, but there comes a time when that story really doesn't stack up.

I've been wondering why I do a lot of looking back. I have very little control over the future. My future is bound up in the hands of decision makers, who will either give me a role that I'm qualified and experienced to do, in order to get the cash that's needed in this bullshit capitalist society. Otherwise, my life will be ripped to pieces by the vultures that prey on anybody who doesn't fit the mould.

Life's definitely a lot easier when you're not penniless, sick, homeless and addicted to drugs, but it's not as simple as that. What's your purpose? Who are you? What's your identity?

Being a vagrant is actually a fairly strong identity. There is something cool about being half-dead. There's something attractive about the hollow eyes, pale skin and skinny body of heroin chic isn't there? If you don't belong to a sports team; you weren't one of the popular ones at school; you aren't trying to get as many letters after your name as possible; you haven't conflated your professional and private identities... then who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing?

Drugs neatly encapsulate both identity and reward. Instead of getting small dopamine hits by bragging about your promotion at a dinner party, you can get a big dopamine hit by staying at home and taking drugs. Also, you feel that you 'belong' to a special club: you learn to identify other addicts and you feel a connection to them... a sense of belonging.

If you can roll a joint and you have weed, you'll have 'friends'. If you have enough money to buy cocaine, you'll have 'friends' and you'll want to share it because you're not an addict, right? Except you are.

I found - by accident - that drugs gave me the self-confidence that had been stolen from me by my parents. I was able to chat to girls. Pretty much most of the time that I had sex, it was on speed (amphetamine), mushrooms (psilocybin) or Ecstasy (MDMA).

Eventually, I discovered - through dangerous experimentation - a drug that was so powerful that it was a far superior substitute for my abusive ex. She was no longer needed. She was abusive, mean, selfish and unpleasant and I was very glad that the spell was broken, even though it cost me a period of addiction and a lot of money. I wasn't strong enough to leave her, without the drugs.

Now, I'm all cleaned up. I'm a good boy.

But, I'm left wondering about that whole purpose & identity thing.

Tags: #childhood #parents #divorce #drugs #addiction

This is a story about being well presented...

It was gone two o'clock in the afternoon and I was woken up by my phone ringing.

"You've forgotten haven't you?"

It transpired I had an interview in the tower of broken dreams for a contract with Megabank Plc. I was late and I had to get from Camden to Canary Wharf. A journey that would take at least 40 minutes.

"Get going and I'll make an excuse for you."

There was no way I was going to be able to get showered, put on my suit and get across London in an acceptable amount of time. There's only so long that a recruitment agent can stall for. There's late and there's ridiculously late. I went back to sleep.

The phone rang again.

"OK, they're going to wait for you. Are you on your way?"

I lied, saying that I was. I collapsed back on my bunk. How had I managed to keep my suit pristine? How had I managed to have a neat line pressed into my trousers? How had I managed to keep a shirt freshly laundered and uncreased? How had I managed to keep a pair of leather shoes so shiny? My interview outfit was hanging on the bunk bed in the hostel dormitory, ready to go. Reluctantly, I hauled myself off to the communal shower, shared with 13 other people. It was the middle of the day, so at least I didn't have to wait.

How long have I been doing this for?

Surviving by the skin of my teeth.

When you get ejected from the system, it doesn't know how to cope with you. There are valves, barriers, gatekeepers. It's a one way street. You can fall from grace, but there's no way back. Entrepreneurs brag about their bankruptcies. Startup founders brag about the mistakes they made. The world of career, reputation, CVs, references, credit checks, proof of address and security clearance doesn't have any way of coping with somebody who's going through hell. You're doomed to slide all the way down the greasy pole to the bottom, and stay there.

You literally have no idea how hard it is to get yourself off the streets and back into the system.

I've papered over the cracks pretty well. It's remarkable how beneficial it is having a place to live, but it still takes a huge amount of time to restabilise. You might take it for granted that you've got all your Direct Debits set up, your stuff all in one place and unpacked, and your life running fairly smoothly, but my life was smeared all over London's streets. I moved around so many times. So many things were lost or damaged.

Just renting an apartment was exhausting and destabilising. Living out of a suitcase and working on an incredibly stressful project, I was skating on thin ice. The added stress of the London rental market and dealing with a letting agent tipped me over the edge. I had a place to call home, but it cost me my health and my job.

Anyway, this isn't a sob story.

The point is, that when I pulled my overcoat out of the wardrobe for an interview, I could see very visually just how worn down I am: I'm in need of replacement parts. There are scars and war-wounds. The evidence of a very shit few years is still there, if anybody examines my life with any close scrutiny.

I'm wondering, just how obvious is it that I'm out of place? I'm not supposed to come back from the dead. People who've gone through what I've been through are not supposed to dust themselves down and resume their careers.

My suit -- that I proudly wore on Demo Day at the end of the Springboard technology accelerator program in Cambridge -- is now so threadbare that the dry cleaner told me they couldn't wash it more than a couple more times. I need a new pair of black shoes. I need a new overcoat. I need some new shirts.

I'm banking on the fact that scruffy engineers usually have their mind on the job rather than their appearance. I'm banking on my skills and experience carrying the day. I'm banking on people not looking too closely, and seeing that I'm looking a little worn out.

My fatigued business attire is a metaphor for me: past it; has-been; burnt out wreck; failure; loser.

Obviously, I don't believe that. It's nothing that a shopping trip couldn't solve, but if I'm doomed to failure, splashing cash on fancy clothes and shoes would be a waste of money. I can't quite bring myself to have the double-whammy of having the office doors slammed in my face, and having to look at a lovely new suit and overcoat gathering dust in the wardrobe.

I managed to get a good contract earlier in the year, despite my shitty business attire. I considered covering up the semicolon tattoo behind my ear with a sticking plaster, but I risked it. Nobody ever commented on my tattoo for that whole project. Perhaps we only see what we want to see. The superficiality making smalltalk and pretending to get along with our work colleagues: we barely take in what we're seeing.

Why on earth would anybody suspect that I have some secrets? Why would they think I have a dark past? What reason would they have to believe that the man in a suit and a 19+ year career in IT might have had a troubled period?

"So, tell me about mental illness, divorce, drug addiction, homelessness, near-bankruptcy, the loss or destruction of nearly everything you own and the other shit that doesn't seem to have made it onto your CV."

That just hasn't come up... yet.

Tags: #career

This is a story about rambling...

I'm self-censoring. I've written entirely without a filter for well over a year, but now I'm holding back. I'm watching my words. As a wise friend advised me, I'm writing as if my girlfriend's mother was reading this... almost. I'm certainly writing with a certain amount of self-consciousness that I haven't had for the best part of a year.

When I wrote my book, it was easy. I was in the land of fiction, so I could therefore always say "I made that up" if something didn't go down too well. However, my blog has always been a mad blend of 'stream of consciousness' stuff, unflinchingly honest biographical accounts of mental illness, homelessness, addiction, sex, masturbation and all the other gory details that we repress as deeply as we can possibly can. I'm struggling to switch modes.

I'm starting to build up a list of things that I want to write about again, but I'm a bit bored of it to be honest. I've wound myself up and stressed myself out. I've wailed at the moon and yelled at the top of my lungs... and then the world fractured anyway. The bleeding-heart liberals -- who care about social justice, equality, fairness and preventing the regression of the human species into some kind of disgusting bestial form -- have been beaten by the populists, the racists, the bigots, the xenophobes, the sexists, the chauvinists. Basically, the hand-wringing appeals to human decency have reached a cul-de-sac. I'm bored of being reasonable, rational, measured, fair and even-handed.

The other thing that's fun to write about is the stuff that challenges assumptions and prejudice. I like being polite, well-mannered and well spoken enough to lull people into a false sense of security. "It's OK, he's one of us" they say, and then I unleash the punchline: "Ha! Ha! I'm actually a mentally ill homeless bum benefits-scrounger junkie addict unemployed loser". To be honest, it's the kind of joke you can only do once, and then it's not funny anymore.

I know what I've written to date has been horrifically repetitive. I've laboured some of the same points over and over again. I had open wounds. I was hurting. My self esteem, confidence, self-worth: they were all destroyed. I was caught up with ethical conflicts and I wanted to burn bridges that led back to anywhere I shouldn't go. I was bitter and angry. I found a platform to vocalise my side of the story, and put some balance back into the world. I was like a little yapping dog, barking "don't tread on me" as people who sat in idle comfort and security ganged up on me when I was sick and vulnerable. Writing was my megaphone, to shout down a mob of bullies.

I've ended up with a few things worth preserving, by good luck or good judgement. Most of the former rather than the latter, I think. I don't want to screw up a relationship that's going really well. I've started to reconnect with friends and have some stability. I've got a lovely apartment and I've managed to offload a third scrounger twat who thought they were going to live on my dime, not paying rent and bills. I'm well positioned to be able to get another couple of contracts that should bring me the financial security that I deserve.

Deserve??!? So entitled!

Where do you want to draw the line? Am I entitled to oxygen, water, food? What about shelter, warmth? If you think that kids should be grateful to their parents for having sex, you're a special kind of stupid, aren't you?

Oh God, I've really taken this "rambling" thing to heart, haven't I?

I think I understand why people write fiction now. Having a fictional outlet allowed me to deal with a load of shit that was bothering me, while also demanding that I fit it to a narrative. I was able to write with structure and express concepts that I'd written about at length, but it was much more cohesive and coherent than trying to write these [supposedly] single-topic blog posts that often go off-piste.

Anyway, I don't know why I'm yapping on. My writing serves me well as a kind of heartbeat to let my friends know I'm still alive and kicking, but I need to think about why else I'm writing. Am I a social justice crusader? Am I lifting the lid on mental health and addiction treatment? Am I campaigning for housing reform? Am I a fiction writer?

I guess if I get another job I'll be writing because I'm bored as fuck.

Tags: #writing

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

27. The Syringe

"FRL-V4" was an act of desperation. He had exhausted every prescription drug that he could buy from overseas. He then tried every research chemical that he could find. The Internet revealed a world of "psychonauts" conducting drug experimentation on themselves. He felt like a human guinea pig anyway, having had a cocktail of different medications prescribed to him by his doctors, all of which had terrible side effects. He was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.

When he received his first delivery from Frog Eye Wares, he assumed they had accurately weighed out half a gram: 500 milligrams. He poured out the contents of a small plastic bag labelled "TOXIC: NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION" onto a dinner plate. Then he divided the pile of powder into two equal piles of 250 milligrams each. He divided one of those piles in two, which he assumed must approximately weigh 125 milligrams. Scooping up one small pile of powder, he transferred it to a second dinner plate. Then, he made five lines of powder, each of the same length and width. All of this was done by eye. By his estimation, a single line weighed 25 milligrams.

Taking a rolled up bank note, he snorted half a line up his right nostril. This was the first time he'd insufflated something since the one and only time he'd tried cocaine, at a house party 8 years earlier. The cocaine gave him a feeling of numbness in-between his eyes and down the back of his throat. He could taste a drip from his nasal cavity, but it was not unpleasant and the numbness spread around his mouth in his saliva a little. The "FRL-V4" powder made his eyes water with pain. There was an extremely bitter taste and the smell of solvents filled his nose.

His face flushed, his pulse raced, he needed a bowel movement. In the bathroom, dropping his trousers, he noticed his penis had shrunk as if it was freezing cold. Washing his hands, he looked at himself in the mirror. His pupils were gigantic and jet black; he was sweating. Panicking slightly that he had taken too much of the drug, he rinsed his nose out with some cold water and tried to spit out the residue that seemed to coat the back of his throat.

He'd spent the day feeling productive. He had cleaned the house and had then started playing a computer game until he noticed that it had got dark. Then, he started to feel a sense of panic. 9 hours had elapsed since he had taken the drug and he worried that the effects weren't wearing off. He looked at his watch; then he looked at his watch again. Time was passing incredibly slowly. He started to stare at the face of his watch; the second hand was barely moving. He could feel his heartbeat starting to race. He started to feel like he couldn't breathe; as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the air and he couldn't catch his breath.

That was when he decided to snort the other half of the line.

He'd done a lot of research on the Internet and he knew that some of the drugs he was likely to encounter were "fiendishly" addictive. Most of the negative things that he read seemed to be associated with people having long sleepless binges. It seemed logical to him that the thing to do was to avoid "re-dosing". He would limit himself to a fixed daily dose and that way he would avoid the dreadful binges and the path to addiction that he had read about. However, he hadn't been able to calm down and was feeling really awful. He half considered going to hospital, but instead, he decided to double down.

Snorting with his left nostril, the pain brought tears to his eyes again. Soon, he felt a lot better. The panic attack subsided.

He hadn't eaten all day and he thought he should try and force some food down. Making himself a sandwich, it seemed incredibly dry. He hardly had any saliva to swallow. Everything tasted really strange and unpalatable. He had absolutely no appetite. Realising he'd hardly drunk anything, he gulped down some orange juice, which was pleasant enough. His stomach hurt and he retched a little, but the nausea quickly passed.

The night passed with more computer games and he was surprised to see morning light. Trying to avoid looking at his watch for as long as possible, he knew that there was panic rising in him again. What was he going to do? He hadn't slept in 24 hours. This was quickly turning into a binge. He decided to snort another half a line, to get through the day and then sleep at his normal bedtime that night.

The passage of time was so much accelerated during the segments where he was under the influence of the drug that, whatever he was doing, he found that he was still doing it hours and hours later. He wasn't normally a big fan of computer games, but he had almost completed the one he had been playing. On the pretence of completing the game, he snorted another half a line.

Feeling a little sleepy in the small hours of the morning, he decided to doze. He slept and then suddenly awoke feeling hyper alert. He was acutely aware of the sound of his own breathing, his heart beating, every noise in and outside the house. He could hear the ticking of his watch and time had slowed almost to a crawl. His pulse raced and he was terrified that he was going to have a heart attack. He lay perfectly still on the sofa and tried to calm himself down, controlling his breathing. He fought rising panic for what felt like an agonisingly long period of time before deciding that he had to distract himself. He decided to go out for a walk.

It was a bright morning, still quiet before the commuter rush. He turned left out of his front door and walked 50 metres before deciding that there would be too many people on the main road. He headed the other way, past his house and got halfway down his road before he panicked that he was getting too far away from home if he needed to hide himself away or wait for an ambulance. He walked slowly back at first and then worried that his neighbours were probably watching his strange behaviour, so he hurried back home. Inside, he paced around downstairs, unable to settle himself.

Sitting down at the dining room table, he started to scribble a note explaining what he had done. Screwing up that piece of paper, he started to write down all the medications he had taken without a prescription: dates and dosages. Grabbing more sheets of paper, he wrote a whole set of notes, explaining every doctor's appointment, outpatient visit and inpatient admission that he could remember, along with diagnoses and medications he had been prescribed. On a final sheet of paper he explained that he had bought a research chemical called "FRL-V4" from the internet, but he didn't know what the active ingredient was. He wrote that he feared he had overdosed, damaged his heart or had some kind of allergic reaction. He wrote: "I've had an unplanned binge and I think I'm getting addicted."

Neil knew the idea that you could become addicted the first time you ever tried a drug was ridiculous. There was no such thing as something that was instantly addictive. However, he knew that he'd jettisoned his plan to only take a fixed known dosage and never to binge. He knew that he wanted to take more of the drug, but he also didn't want to take any more because it obviously caused him to have massive panic attacks.

At some point while he was writing, he had calmed down. He now felt quite good; he was flooded with a sense of relief. The feelings of dread and the near-certainty that he was going to die - or at the very least be rushed off to hospital - had dissipated and he spent the afternoon having a shower and eating a little. His appetite and tiredness returned that evening and he slept for nearly 14 uninterrupted hours. When he awoke he felt mostly normal, hungry and a little depressed. However, the drug played on his mind more than he was comfortable admitting to himself.

Having had such a scary experience with the panic attacks, he wanted to flush the remaining powder he had left. Strangely, the memories that stuck in his mind most clearly were how much relief he felt when the panic attacks were finally over, as well as the relief he felt from the panic when he snorted another half a line. Fatefully, he did not flush the powder.

He managed to delay almost a week before he took the drug again. Addiction did not become a daily habit. He seemed unable to snort half a line and then put up with the panic attacks. His binges would last two or three days, until the panic would be accompanied by enough sleep deprivation to bring sleep. As he got more and more tired, he would sleep through the worst of the comedown. In a way, he was functional, because he would eat and sleep to catch up in-between his binges. However, he knew that his life now revolved around taking drugs and addiction had taken hold.

Taking to the Internet to research the unknown chemical that had its hooks in him, he discovered a thread of discussion where people were speculating what the active ingredients in "FRL-V4" were. There seemed to be consensus that it had to contain one of the most feared and notorious 'designer' drugs. Searching online, there were no shortage of horror stories about this chemical, nicknamed "Peony". News stories reported one man had chewed off a tramp's face and a Dot Com billionaire had murdered his girlfriend, while under the influence.

Unwittingly, he was committing the names of these chemicals and where they came from - Chinese laboratories - to memory, while he struggled with addiction and also tried to find information about some less harmful substitute that would help him escape his predicament.

To obtain the pure chemical form of "Peony" would be incredibly dangerous, because it was so potent, but he could try to substitute it with similar drugs that were less addictive and caused fewer side effects. It would take a couple of weeks for deliveries from China to reach him. In the meantime, his addiction raged and he started to go on binges lasting four or five days.

When his weighing scales and the first of his Chinese orders were delivered, things did not improve. He was exhausted and sloppy with his measurements. He had become used to estimating his doses by eye. Snorting a big line of "FRL-V4" and a medium sized one did not make much difference. The difference between 5 milligrams and 10 milligrams of something that was 99% pure made a huge difference. His binges started to last for over a week, because he would be kept awake for days at a time when he snorted a single line of the potent chemicals.

Feeling his life was totally out of control and it would not be long before an overdose meant death or hospitalisation, Neil decided that he was a lost cause. The idea of running away to the caravan started to obsess him. He wanted to spare Lara and his family the distress of finding him dead from his addiction.

He had promised himself that he would never cross one line with his addiction: he would never inject drugs. It was a strange thing to have decided, but everything he'd read suggested that injecting drug users were generally in their death throes. However, he had taken a syringe with him to the caravan.

By dissolving chemicals in half a litre of water, he had an exactly one milligram of drug per millilitre of water. Sucking up the chemical solution into a syringe, he could measure a dose quite accurately without his weighing scales. He didn't even need a hypodermic needle: he could simply swallow the liquid. His stomach acid would destroy about 50% of the chemical, but half of it would reach his bloodstream.

Desperate for something to drink, Neil now reached for a glass bottle that he had dissolved drugs into. The water had reacted with the chemical and seemed to have destroyed it. He took a couple of big glugs from the bottle.

Without any means of measuring the weight of his doses accurately, Neil had been playing Russian Roulette with his life. A small dose could have no effect at all and a large dose would leave him with stimulant psychosis for days, as well as putting incredible strain on his heart. It was miraculous that he had survived so long.

In a state of drug-induced insanity, every bit of powder in the caravan had been consumed, accidentally spilled or destroyed. Neil had been clean for a few days, but he was in such a damaged state that he hadn't had the energy to limp to his van or to the country lane where he might be discovered by a passing driver.

Now, he felt a sharpness return to his mind. His injuries hurt less. His back and joints didn't seem to ache so badly. He felt his limbs start to get lighter. The water had reduced the potency of the drug, but it hadn't destroyed it altogether. Neil was able to sit up and move around. He felt like he could get to the van.

Next chapter...

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

26. Descent

She could hear the car crawl to a slow and follow her at walking pace. She had grown accustomed to the sensation of being stalked, stared at. She could feel a pair of eyes burning a hole in the back of her head. With the subtlest of movements she looked out of the corner of her eye at the road. She didn't recognise the vehicle or the driver. There seemed to be somebody in the passenger seat too. The car drew level with her and the passenger wound down their window. She glimpsed short hair full of styling gel, a white tracksuit and prepared herself for unwelcome sexual advances from a dimwitted numbskull.

"Hey!" came a surprisingly hushed call.

"Psst!"

This was not how things usually went. Normally lecherous creeps would lead with their best line, full of false flattery and often beer-induced bravado.

"Hey you!"

It was irritating, but a different and more measured approach from what she was used to. She was sure that as soon as she even acknowledged their existence, they would launch their full chat-up offensive. This was just the preamble.

"Hey!"

She was sure that their patience would quickly evaporate and she would be loudly cursed as a "stuck up bitch" and the car would roar off into the distance with its loud exhaust and bass-heavy music thumping out from their souped-up boy-racer chariot.

"Nah, she doesn't want to know" said the passenger. It looked as though he was addressing somebody in the back seat. Lara risked another glance backwards and sure enough, there was another passenger, slumped low with their coat pulled up high around their face as if they were trying to hide.

"He says he knows you" the passenger tried again.

"Who?" asked Lara, now looking in through the car window and surveying the scene, while keeping walking.

"Sam" said the passenger, pointing his thumb at the back seat. "He's sick. He needs some help getting into his flat."

"Why can't you do it?"

"We're just giving him a lift home. We've got to be somewhere else, pronto. We ain't got time."

"Some friends, you are." Lara mocked.

"Look, just help make sure he gets in OK, can you? We could just dump him nearby, but there's no telling if he'll get into his place on his own in the state he's in."

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's just had too much to drink."

"That's a really shitty thing to do to your friend. To just dump him like that."

"He's not exactly a friend. We hang out, but it's not like that. We're doing him a big favour driving him home."

"Yeah, BIG favour" said Lara sarcastically.

She couldn't help herself peering in the back windows at Sam. He was very dimly aware of what was going on. His head drooped and his eyes were closed, but he wasn't asleep. He didn't look boisterously drunk or like he was going to throw up. He was just intoxicated.

"Alright how far away is it?"

"Just down in the town centre. Jump in."

Sam was reasonably well co-ordinated and not slurring his words. He didn't even smell of alcohol. He could walk and talk without staggering, but he kept slipping into a catatonic state. His sentences would tail off and he would be half-asleep on his feet. As long as she kept repeatedly reminding him where they were and what they were doing, she could coax him towards his front door.

"Come on, Sam. Nearly home!"

"What? Eh? Oh" he said, as he seemed to remember what he was doing and take a few more steps, opening his eyes a fraction. He leant on the front door, dozing.

"Get your keys out, Sam. We're at your flat. This is where you live, right?"

"Yeah, uh. Right" he fumbled in his pockets and unsteadily directed his key at the lock.

With the door flung wide open, Sam made a bee line for his day bed and collapsed on it face down, before rolling into a slightly more comfortable position. Lara was still stood at the threshold, gazing into the large loft apartment, taking it all in.

"OK, I'm going to close this door and go home now."

"Don't go. I need you" Sam said, holding up a hand and beckoning her in.

Lara took a few steps towards the day bed.

"What do you need me here for? You're home now."

Sam patted the bed next to him. Lara didn't get the sense that he was trying to get her to sleep with him, but that he wanted her to sit. She sat awkwardly on the edge of the futon.

"You're home safe now. You can go to sleep. You'll feel better when you wake up."

Sam now opened his eyes much wider and tried to look at her. There was a kind of fear that played across his face.

"You can't let me sleep. I'll die" he said.

"What are you talking about."

"If I fall asleep, I'll stop breathing."

"If that's true it sounds like you need an ambulance."

"No!"

"Why not? What's wrong?"

"Overdose." he said, with the effort of his honest admission seemingly causing him to slump. He relaxed. His face was tranquil. Lara leant over him. He was breathing, but very shallow.

"I'm going to go phone 999. You need to go to hospital" Lara stood up and walked towards the door.

"Nooo! Stay with me" Sam called out, reaching towards her from where he lay. She hesitated at the door and looked back. "I'll be OK soon. Just stay with me a little while."

Babysitting him while he fought through a near-fatal overdose, Lara was torn. She could see his lips getting slightly purple as she fought to keep him conscious enough to keep breathing. In waves, he would get so relaxed and comatose that he would sleep peacefully and could barely be roused. She would be close to running for help. Then, he would come round a little, gasping for air and she would plead for him to stay alert and keep breathing. She knew instinctively that in the time it took her to go away, find a phone and give the address, he could very easily slip away. It took little more than an hour before he started to come round, but it felt far longer.

The experience shook them both and Sam said that he never wanted to risk dying like that again. At first, he was resolute that he needed to quit heroin and that the close call was the wake-up call he needed. He was so grateful to Lara for keeping him alive and for avoiding a hospitalisation. Then, he explained that his body would start to go into a painful withdrawal and he would feel like he "needed" his next fix. Quitting wasn't so easy and he'd need to wean himself off. Would she help him?

He genuinely meant everything he said.

In reality, Lara became his regular babysitter, so that Sam could shoot up big doses of heroin, knowing that there was somebody there to keep him safe if he overdosed. At first, Lara didn't know it. She felt that she was helping him to get cleaned up and off the dope, but after months going round to his apartment almost daily, it was clear he wasn't giving up any time soon.

She adored his tortured soul and his fascinating life. She loved their asexual relationship, which still had a kind of comfortable intimacy. Sam's first love was heroin, but Lara didn't mind being his mistress. She felt like she could make a difference.

Eventually they quarrelled. He had no intention of ever quitting, she said. He did, but it was hard, he explained. He said he'd try harder, but he started to be more secretive. He hid his habit and Lara knew it.

"You'll always keep using if I stay with you" were the last words she ever said to him. He didn't even reply. His eyes were filled with tears, but he knew the truth. Perhaps he would quit one day, but that wasn't the path that their relationship had followed. He used and she was there to keep him safe. That was the way it had been since day one and that was the way it was always going to stay.

She'd gone back to the apartment on the pretence of picking up some things she'd left there, but really she was checking up on him. Making sure that he was OK. He was so alone. His mum had left when he was little and his dad had died leaving him the inheritance that paid for his apartment and his drug habit, but he had no real friends: only drug dealers and addicts hoping to mooch off him. He was no fool, so he didn't indulge the parasites. He had nobody.

Lara knew right away that it was different from the other overdoses that she'd witnessed. There was no life left in his body. He'd been dead for some time.

Poor little rich boy. He had a kind of infamy amongst the local drug users, with many plotting to rob and cheat him out of money. He was even known to the police as a tragic addict: a dead man walking.

By the time she had left him, she was prepared for the worst. Or at least, she thought she was. Of course his death was more traumatic than she could ever have imagined, but she knew that the burden of his life was more responsibility than she should ever have been asked to shoulder. She could forgive herself, but always wondered if things could have turned out differently.

Neil's behaviour was completely different. He seemed in control, even though he was unhappy. It was Neil's desperate wish to be happy and productive again that made him so different from Sam. The addiction that she'd known had no end to it. Without a doubt, Sam would take heroin forever, given an unlimited supply and no consequences. Neil was different. He only ever took his pills begrudgingly and always talked about "recovery". His mental health problems were just a blip, in his eyes. Medication was a means to an end: like a plaster cast on a broken limb, helping it heal.

It seemed unthinkable to Lara, the idea that Neil had lost control and was slumped somewhere, dead from an overdose. She'd known so many years of him being steady and dependable. She'd seen him go through depression and psychotic episodes. However, he didn't seem to be hiding a drug habit and it seemed unimaginable that he could have been consumed by an addiction so quickly that she would never have seen it creeping up. The evidence suggested that somebody flicked a switch and her fiancée went insane. It was impossible to know somebody so well and for them to hide a whole other side of their personality. She knew what addicts were like when they hid their habits.

She confronted Colin.

"You're not telling me everything."

He sighed. "What you don't know can't hurt you."

"If there's stuff you've found out, I want to know."

"I think we just need to let Neil go and keep our best memories of him intact."

"What do you know?" asked Lara, now looking horrified.

"It's a lot worse than we thought" replied Colin with a grim expression.

"I really do want to know absolutely everything."

"He was taking some highly addictive drugs. I'm sure he's gone now. We should probably talk about some kind of memorial service."

"I guessed as much. I've been reading about those legal highs and they're nasty. Not many deaths though."

"Yes, but he was getting some really dangerous ones direct from China at 99% purity. I'm almost certain he overdosed."

"How do you know?"

"I found some traces at the house. I'm so sorry, Lara. I've been waiting and hoping that the body will be found, so we can grieve properly, you know?" said Colin, his eyes pricking with tears.

"You're a good man, Colin. I don't blame you for not telling me" replied Lara, hugging him.

Next chapter...

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

25. The Scales

The crisis team - part of the community mental health team - social services and the police had all been quite helpful when Neil had originally gone missing. The police had quickly discovered that Neil had left his phone, wallet and passport behind. All the services were very concerned about Neil's welfare and had attempted to establish his last known movements as well as searching for him. Because Neil was considered a vulnerable person at risk of suicide, there had been a lot of initial effort, focus and attention on helping Lara, Colin and the family to make sure he was found safe and well.

With all avenues exhausted, there was little more that any of the services could do unless new information emerged. Lara and Colin were main points of contact, liaising with a police detective who was in charge of the ongoing - but parked - investigation.

Frustrated with a lack of progress, two highly regarded private investigators were contacted by Colin. After initial discussions they decided that there was insufficient evidence for them to be able to pursue the case. The truth was that nobody really wanted to touch the case, because of the number of government bodies already involved: National Health Service, mental health services, the police and social services.

Colin had eventually taken matters in to his own hands and gone to the house to look for more clues, when he found the transactions that had led him to the ongoing prosecution of the businesswoman and her associates. Once he'd found the names of the defendants, it was a simple case of searching the register of directors and finding the trading address of their company in the public records.

Now, he was back at the house once again. He regretted involving Lara so closely, but she wanted to play an active role and had discovered vital information that he himself - a grey-haired man in his sixties - would have been unlikely to have been able to extract from anybody embroiled in the court case.

Colin had sounded out friends - retired police officers, solicitors and even a judge - about bringing their own case to court. "Not a hope in hell" were the exact words of one former Justice of the Peace. His sentiments were pretty much echoed by everybody else Colin consulted informally.

"Imagine if a person was selling rat poison as heroin" said Bill, the retired judge. "Now, if that person was to sell rat poison in place of sugar, they might be convicted of murder or manslaughter. But as soon as they sell it as heroin, they'll be convicted for supply of a controlled substance, even though rat poison is not illegal to sell per se."

"But that's insane! Surely the charge of murder should take precedence over the charge of supplying a controlled substance" protested Colin.

"Well, it's about the buyer. If the buyer thought they were buying heroin, then nobody really cares whether that junkie dies. The seller will be convicted as a drug dealer, not a murderer."

"So the law really doesn't care whether you sell a junkie sugar, caffeine, heroin or rat poison?" asked Colin.

"Yep."

"What if the buyer didn't know what they were getting?"

"What did they actually buy?" Bill asked.

"A controlled substance."

"What was it sold as?"

"A chemical for laboratory research."

"There's no chance it could have been confused for a foodstuff? Was it marked as hazardous? Unfit for human consumption?"

"Yeah. It's not like it was sold as sugar or anything" Colin replied.

"Well then, the only conviction you could possibly get would be for supply of a controlled substance."

To make matters worse, everybody advised Colin not to mention the drug use to the police. One whiff of drug abuse and the case would be filed in a dustbin marked 'lost cause junkie'.

Back at the house searching for more clues, he looked high and low before finally he decided to search the attic. Boxes of Christmas decorations and long-neglected exercise equipment, the attic contained very little else except for a disused hot water cylinder and a galvanised metal cold water tank. There was a chipboard lid on the tank and Colin noticed that it was an inch or so out of place, overhanging on one corner. Lifting the lid, there was a green plastic box floating inside with a black plastic handle.

In the kitchen, Colin towelled off the green box so it was clean and dry and took it through to the dining room. Unclasping the two black plastic latches, the lid was stuck tight until the airtight and dust proof seal released the pressure. Inside the box was grey foam to protect the delicate instrument contained within: a laboratory-grade weighing scale.

Normal kitchen scales might tell you the weight of something in grams, but not very accurately. If you needed to weigh 10 grams - approximately the same as a one pound coin - then your kitchen scales would be woefully inadequate. Even fine balance scales with small weights would struggle to weigh anything lighter than a gram. Some digital scales could weigh one tenth of a gram with reasonable accuracy: 0.1g. The scales that Colin had found could weigh at a sub-milligram accuracy. Less than 0.001 grams. Even breathing on the instrument or standing too near the table on a wooden floor would cause measurement fluctuations, so there was a special stand, cover and calibration weights to ensure the readings were accurate. The "quick reference" instruction manual inside the case was a hefty pamphlet.

There were some spatulas and a metal dish inside the green box. A tiny amount of light brownish powder residue was visible on the foam that held the dish and the spatulas. There was also a very small plastic resealable bag which was almost empty except for the tiniest residue of powder in the corners.

Colin spent the whole next day searching the Internet and phoning testing facilities, before he finally located a laboratory that would be able to swab and test the tiny traces of drugs that he had found. Using gas chromatography mass spectrometry, the lab was able to then search the 'signature' of the chemical compounds and to find a match in their database.

After sending the scales by courier to the lab in the Netherlands, it took 3 weeks before he got the results emailed to him. There was no conclusive match, but there were several compounds that were 97% similar to chemicals that were held in their database. He had been warned that a 99% match was the highest that he could expect anyway, so it was a good start.

Searching the Internet, he found detailed online encyclopedia entries for two chemicals, as well as a brief summary of a third. The compounds were stimulants from three different families of drugs. Two had been developed and patented in the 1950's and 1960's, but had never been marketed to the public because of serious side effects. Colin found a shorter acronym form of the full chemical name of each of the three compounds and started to search the Internet for more information.

Quickly, Colin was immersed in a world of online discussion forums. Thousands of Internet users from around the globe were talking about their experiences of self-experimentation with chemical compounds that had been abandoned by pharmaceutical companies or not even patented. Some of the chemicals had only been thought of as theoretically possible, but a laboratory somewhere in the world was cooking up these drugs for people to buy and try on themselves.

He couldn't read any more. What he saw was immediately horrifying. Hundreds of stories of addiction and horrible psychotic episodes, health damage and hospitalisations. Internet users were swapping stories about how awful these chemicals were and that they were the most addictive drugs they'd ever tried. Many lamented the day they ever first experimented. One message stood out as clearly as the obvious warning to never take these substances: accurate measurement was the difference between desired effects and overdose.

Perhaps Neil had two sets of scales, but one set alone was worth almost £1,000. If he had overdosed at home, surely he would have been found there along with his scales?

From what Colin had read, a powerful dose of those drugs was just 0.005 grams. If Neil had half a gram delivered from China, that would be 100 doses. The effects would last well over 12 hours. That meant Neil would have been on a nonstop drug binge for 50 days with just one free sample, assuming he was measuring accurately.

He felt sick. His son had got mixed up with something so dangerous that it had overwhelmed him and taken his life in the blink of an eye. There was no way to sugar coat this. Was there even any point in telling Lara and the family that Neil had been completely consumed by addiction and stimulant psychosis? In less than 6 weeks these powerful Chinese drugs caused him to flee his home to his final resting place.

Next chapter...

Contents

Chapter 1: The Caravan

Chapter 2: Invisible Illness

Chapter 3: The Forest

Chapter 4: Prosaic

Chapter 5: The Van

Chapter 6: Into the Unknown

Chapter 7: The Journey

Chapter 8: Infamy

Chapter 9: The Villages

Chapter 10: Waiting Room

Chapter 11: The Shadow People

Chapter 12: Enough Rope

Chapter 13: The Post Offices

Chapter 14: Unsuitable Friends

Chapter 15: The Chase

Chapter 16: Self Inflicted

Chapter 17: The Holiday

Chapter 18: Psychosis, Madness, Insanity and Lunacy

Chapter 19: The Hospitals

Chapter 20: Segmentation

Chapter 21: The Cell

Chapter 22: Wells of Silence

Chapter 23: The Box

Chapter 24: Jailbird

Chapter 25: The Scales

Chapter 26: Descent

Chapter 27: The Syringe

Chapter 28: Anonymity

Chapter 29: The Imposter

Chapter 30: Wish You Were Here

23. The Box

At the house, Neil's dad, Colin, was going through his son's stuff. There was a winter coat folded up at the bottom of the wardrobe on top of a pile of jumpers. Colin took the coat out, put it on a hanger and hung it up. He found some space in the chest of drawers and started to re-fold and put away the thick wooly jumpers. At the bottom of the pile, there was a shoebox shoved right to the back of the wardrobe. He took the shoebox downstairs and sat down with it at the dining room table.

The shoebox was nearly full to the brim with medication boxes. These were not plain white cardboard boxes that pharmacies gave out prescriptions in, but glossy retail boxes with logos of the pharmaceutical companies and drug brand names emblazoned on them in bright colours. The medications had smarmy names like Abilify and Effexor, suggesting they would confer abilities or be effective.

Some of the boxes had text that was predominantly in Arabic or Cyrillic script, and it was hard to tell exactly what the medication was.

As well as the boxed medications, there were also pills in blister strips that had their ingredients and dosage printed on the silver foil. Some of them had pharmacist's instructions printed in purple ink directly onto the unboxed strips, along with the price, in Indian Rupees.

Finally, there was a big plastic bag filled with mixed loose pills. Some pills were round, others were lozenge shaped, a few were in capsules and others were diamond or triangular shaped. All the pills and capsules had letters and numbers stamped or printed onto them. The pills were mainly white, blue, pale yellow, pink and aquamarine. The capsulses were half green and half yellow or half red and half white.

In a notebook Colin started to write down all the names and dosages of the boxed and blister packed medications. The boxed medications all had two names, but the pills in the strips mainly seemed to only have one ingredient printed on their foil. He then wrote down a description for each of the loose pills: "Round, light pink, GG925".

There were nearly 30 different medications in that shoebox, none of which looked likely to have been prescribed by Neil's doctors.

Going into the box room, Colin now located a small filing cabinet where Neil kept his old bank statements and credit card bills. He returned to the dining room table with a stack of paper that was dated within the last year. The bank statements mostly had recurring direct debit payments for things like mobile phone and Internet. A quick scan through the credit card bills found a few transactions in foreign currencies. It was wholly unclear what the payments were for from the various merchant names.

He went back to the filing cabinet and pulled out all the credit card bills for a two year period, ensuring he had every single one. Then, he found all the bank statements and credit card bills in a big pile of unopened mail. It was no surprise to find that there was no money spent on the credit card after Neil's disappearance.

Putting everything in chronological order, he marked any suspicious transactions on the statements. There were one or two foreign currency transactions on every statement for 6 consecutive months. Immediately after that, some payments to "Frog Eye Wares Ltd" caught Colin's eye. The transactions were all for the same amount - £27.90 - and there were 3 on one statement and 4 on the next: 7 in total.

The credit card transactions ended 6 weeks before Neil had disappeared. Going back to the bank statements, there were two payments to Western Union of circa £150 and daily spending that seemed to always be just over £55, as well as regular cash withdrawals for £50. In a little over a month, Neil appeared to have siphoned off nearly £2,500 from his current account, either getting cashback at local shops and pubs, or at an ATM.

Doing some quick calculations, Colin estimated that his son had spent about £1,300 in foreign currency transactions that he assumed must have been to buy medications from overseas. Neil also seemed to have diverted approximately £3,000 somewhere else, over a 6 week period. "Any problems with drugs or debts?" Lara and the family had all been asked by police officers and private investigators when he went missing. There was no way that this paltry sum of money suggested either. Neil's parents weren't rich, but they would have lent him a couple of thousand without a single question if he'd asked. Besides, Neil's bank account still had money in it and he only had a few hundred pounds of credit card debt.

When Colin was opening Neil's post, he'd made a pile for Lara, but he'd spotted another pile on a sideboard that Neil must have stacked up before he disappeared. Looking through the first few letters, they were all addressed to Lara, but he decided to go through the pile in case there was anything for Neil mixed in with it. He was questioning the futility of the exercise when he found a single piece of paper folded in half.

INVOICE

...

FRL-V4-0.5G £25.00

Postage £2.90

TOTAL: £27.90

Paid in full, with thanks.

...

A credit card card receipt for £27.90 was stapled to the invoice, with "customer not present" printed on it. There didn't seem to be a telephone number or an address anywhere on the invoice, just a website: For all enquiries go to www.frogeyewares.co.uk.

Back at the filing cabinet for a third visit, Colin pulled out Neil's mobile phone bills. Some really old ones were itemised with every number and how much the call cost, but the ones from recent years simply showed the amount for line rental and the total amount for call charges.

Unplugging Neil's laptop which was sat charging on a desk in the box room, he coiled the cables and took it downstairs. Returning the shoe box to the wardrobe upstairs, he turned off all the lights and left the house with the invoice tucked into his notebook, the laptop and its charger.

Back at the family home, Colin booted up the laptop and managed to log in using a password that Lara had suggested. She had suggested several of Neil's possible passwords, as well as some variations, but the first one on the list worked. Colin was no computer expert but his job in the civil service had required him to be reasonably IT proficient, so he was able to search for any documents on the computer, check Neil's email inbox and Internet browsing history. The laptop was completely blank, as if it had never been used from the day it was bought.

Using his own computer, Colin now started searching the Internet. The first thing he tried to do was to visit the website from the invoice.

"This website is now closed." was displayed in plain white text on a green background. Nothing more, nothing less.

Searching for "FRL-V4-0.5G" produced no results. Shortening the search terms to "FRL-V4" the Internet suggested a website about a seaport in France. This seemed unlikely to have been sold 7 times, and for less than £30. The acronym "FRL" turned out to have a multitude of uses, none of which offered any promising leads. It was a dead end.

Finally, searching for "frog eye wares" turned up two hits: one was a County Court website and the other was an article from a local newspaper from that area. The court website would not show the result when it was clicked on, displaying instead a "page not found" error message. The newspaper said that a local businesswoman and two of her associates had been arrested and were standing trial in connection with the frogeyewares.co.uk website. There were no details except the date of the article, which was 3 months old.

It was getting late and phoning the court or the newspaper would have to wait until Monday morning.

Now, searching for each of the names of the medications in his notebook, Colin found that the boxed ones were a mixture of antidepressants and atypical antipsychotics with antidepressant effects. The pills in the blister packs were medications more commonly prescribed for narcolepsy and attention-deficit disorders.

Finding out what the loose pills were was a much harder challenge, but there was a website with an excellent search facility that allowed the shape, colour and any markings on the pill to be input. For white round pills, the results were reliable, but for pills that were pinkish or greenish, or of more exotic shapes, there weren't any results. Searching for the markings alone found a lot of results, but Colin ploughed through the pages and narrowed it down to a likely set of candidates.

With a list of active ingredients from the pills, he then searched the Internet to find out what kind of medications they were. There were anxiety drugs, sleeping pills, painkillers, analgesics and more ADHD medication. There were also treatments for fatigue, lethargy and the promotion of weight loss through appetite suppression. A significant number of the active ingredients were listed as controlled substances.

Perhaps Neil did have a drug problem, but if so, why had he left these precious pills behind and how had he managed to hide and pay for an addiction so cheaply? Neil would have lied, cheated, stolen and gone into debt before he disappeared without a trace. Drug problems spiralled. The evidence was undeniable: Neil had been illegally in possession of a number of controlled medications with abuse potential. However, he didn't appear to have been buying them or taking them in great enough quantity to suggest drug abuse.

Not wanting to upset Lara and family with incomplete theories, conjecture and inconclusive evidence, Colin decided to keep quiet over the weekend and pick up his investigation again on Monday morning. He was frustrated and confused, but he was a patient and methodical man, calm and stoical in a crisis.

Next chapter...