This is a story about overcompensation...

I wrote yesterday about having a sex problem. Not a sex addiction, or anything kinky, but that I have too much sex because my fragile self-esteem depends upon it. I use sex as a form of reassurance, that I've banished my unhappy adolescent and late teen years, as well as my early twenties, safely into the past. I use sex as a form of proof that those bad times are never going to come back to bite me. I can never go back to those unhappy times.

There's something I need to talk about.

There's something I need to mention.

I'm not a fool.

I'm not so stupid and gullible that I believe every boast and every lie that was told, at school and at college, about how much sex everyone was getting. I'm not swayed by the common misconception that everybody else was at it [fucking] like rabbits. I'm not convinced by the gossip and the bragging and the boasts of sexual conquests, which circulated widely in the pressure-cooker of the school and college environment.

What I know are the facts.

I only care about the facts.

I don't really give a shit how much sex, how many blowjobs and how many hand-jobs were being had by my peer group. I don't really care how many sexual acts were actually carried out. These are facts that I'll never truly know.

What I DO know, without a shadow of a doubt, is that the vast majority of people's adolescent schooldays included having boyfriends/girlfriends, and all the associated relationship learning and development that's associated with that. The vast majority had crushes, thought they'd fallen in love, sent love notes, asked each other out, declared themselves to be couples, were known to be couples, called each other boyfriend and girlfriend, and had at least kisses and cuddles... intimacy and a relationship status.

What I DO know for a fact is that the vast majority of my peers learned about jealousy, cheating, breakups, reconciliations, relationship arguments and all the other things which turned them all into well-rounded average people: One giant homogenous mass of people who've all had a more-or-less identical experience of teenage love.

What I DO know for a fact is that my parents blocked my opportunity to go to university, where I might then have had the opportunity to start playing catch up. At school, there were too many thick-skulled knuckle-draggers, but at university I would have been amongst my own kind: The academic high-achievers; the bookworms; the geeks and the ones who were bullied outcasts, because our brains were highly developed, but something about us painted a target on our backs, making our lives a living hell, when mixed in with a vast number of no-hopers, with no aspirations.

School was simply a holding pen, before prison for the guys, or pram-pushing for the girls. Those savages needed to be left behind, and university would have been my opportunity to heal some of the trauma, but my parents blocked and sabotaged my attempts to go, despite the ease with which I obtained generous offers from very highly regarded academic institutions.

I'm incredibly bitter that I was separated from my dear friends in Oxford - a hyper-intelligent bunch who have achieved great things - and I was dumped into a school in the middle of fucking nowhere, where the best career opportunity was some kind of unskilled minimum-wage seasonal employment. The place we moved to from Oxford was a backwater dead end, because my parents are selfish dead-end loser alcoholic junkies, who never gave a shit about the consequences they were inflicting on my life; the opportunities they were actively denying me.

The picture of me is of me aboard my yacht, age 21, with my girlfriend.

Yeah, that's right, I bought a yacht when I was 21 years old.

I worked for a bank in Canary Wharf, London, earning £470 a day. I was 21 years old and I was earning £2,350 a week, and I owned a yacht, and I had a girlfriend. I was earning over £10,000 a month and I had a red sports car, a yacht... and most importantly, I had a girlfriend.

Can you see how insecure I was?

Can you see how materialistic I was?

For Christmas presents I used to buy people Fortnum & Mason luxury hampers. I flew business class and stayed in 5-star hotels. I was 21 years old.

I was a massively insecure, damaged, insecure person. I overcompensated by spending vast amounts of money on status symbols and living a making vulgar demonstrations of my wealth, because I was still a bullied kid... I was still a lonely bullied kid. I was still the kid who didn't have those kisses behind the bike sheds at school. I was still the kid who didn't ever have a girlfriend at school. I never asked anyone out, got asked out, fell in love, cheated, broke up.... I never had any of that, unlike almost everybody else in the whole entire world.

I used my brain to get a good job. Then I used by brain to get a better job. Then I used my brain to get an even better job, until the point where I was earning six-figures annually and I got all the status symbols to pro-up my fragile self-esteem. I got a "penis extension" red sportscar. I got a yacht. I ate in fancy restaurants and went on luxury holidays. All of it was a massive "FUCK YOU" to those awful years when I felt so unlovable; so unwanted... so rejected.

I don't even care about the sex, but it's symbolic for me. I have sex when I'm not horny - not in the mood - because it's a test... I want to know I can always have it, because it proves that I'm sexually attractive. It proves that without the sportscar, the yacht, the luxury holidays and the other status symbols, that somebody loves me. I need proof beyond all reasonable doubt that I'm now a person who people want in their lives, as a lover, as a boyfriend... as a husband.

Becoming a homeless, bankrupt, alcoholic, drug addict with mental health problems was a bit of a problem, but do you know what happened? I had some great relationships. I was homeless and living in a 14-bed hotel dormitory when I got together with an extremely attractive Italian girl, and we had a passionate romance. I was sleeping rough in a park when a wealthy Parisian woman fell in love with me and took me back to her fancy home in Notting Hill and nursed me back to health, despite my chronic drug addiction and incredibly unstable mental health.

I present myself now as exactly what I am: a penniless, mentally ill, recovering alcoholic, recovering drug addict, who lives a very precarious existence. I'm never far away from becoming homeless again, or being consumed by drug or alcohol abuse. I have no wealth anymore. I have nothing to offer. I'm not a 'catch'.

Because I feel so insecure about being 39 years old and not owning a luxury home, full of expensive furniture, with a sportscar parked on the driveway and a speedboat moored in the marina, all I'm left with is some kind of physical proof that I'm loved: does somebody want to fuck me, even though I'm a loser. I'm not even young and hot anymore. My hair is going grey and I'm carrying a few extra pounds of weight. I feel like I'm every woman's idea of a worst nightmare date: No cash, no assets, no flash car, no house... nothing to show for my 39 years on this planet. Why would anybody fall in love with me?

Sex is the only thing that gives me any certainty at the moment. Sex is the only thing that props up my fragile self-esteem, because my life has fallen to pieces.

I don't care that I missed out on sex as a teenager. I care that I missed out on love.

Tags: #sex #childhood #bullying #career #insecurity

This is a story about feeling deprived...

I have a hangup about sex. My hangup is this: How do I know if I'm getting enough sex, unless I'm having more sex than I actually want?

The logic is actually fairly simple to explain. If I ever wanted sex and couldn't have it, then that would be proof that I'm not getting enough sex, right? Do you follow me? So, by making sure I always have more sex than I want, I guarantee that I'm not missing out. I guess it's a FOMO thing (Fear Of Missing Out).

Where my sex problem stems from is my adolescence, which was rather ruined by selfish and downright disgusting decisions made by my parents. My parents were fully aware that their wholly selfish decisions would have disastrous consequences on me and my life, but they just didn't give a fuck about me. They didn't have to suffer the consequences, so they didn't care.

Ultimately, I did not go through the learning and development phase that most adolescents do, where they start having boyfriends/girlfriends and figuring out how relationships work. I did not have the same experience as almost every teenager. My own teenaged years were quite ruined by my parents, and as such, I now have trauma: I have a hangup.

In order to know that I'm never again going to have to re-live those traumatic childhood years, I act in a way which is a reaction to the damage that was done to me.

Never again shall I feel so singled out, bullied, alone, isolated, shunned and a pariah. Never again shall I be the odd one out. Never again shall I be the one who misses out. Never again shall I be the only one who was deprived of large chunks of normal, healthy life, growing up.

Because of my hangup, I overcompensate.

My sex problem is not a kink. It's simply that I want more than I really want, just to reassure myself that I'm getting the maximum amount I can possibly get. I need to know I'm not going to feel as bad as I did, back in those dreadful years which traumatised me.

It's fairly simple really, and I suppose I could think my way around the problem. I suppose I could 'cure' myself of my trauma, now that I've identified the source of it. However, when I feel vulnerable and afraid, the damage is still there, and my compensatory behaviour is always the same.

I'm proud I outgrew my identity as the bullied outcast; the undesirable kid that nobody wanted to be anywhere near, lest they find themselves subject to the bullying too.

Of course, I had friends. A few of us outcasts were thrust together, to suffer our awful fate together: perhaps 3 or 4 of us outnumbered by 1,200 bullies, quite literally. I'm sure I'm writing with some hyperbole, given how traumatic the memories seem when I poke at them and re-live them, but the point still stands: It's fucking awful being the subject of so much bullying; so outnumbered... especially when your own parents have played a very big role in creating and maintaining that intolerable situation.

It's a strange sex problem to have, but at least it's not something totally weird, like wanting to get urine or faeces on me... not that I'm gonna judge you if that's your particular kink.

So, that's me.

Tags: #sex #bullying #school #friends

This is a story about life on the wagon...

At more-or-less the same time as one of my best friends drank himself to death, I stopped drinking. I'd like to say that I decided to stop drinking because it seemed like the right thing to do, given how alcoholism had destroyed the health of my friend and pretty much killed him, but it was actually due to more complicated, and much less noble reasons.

Alcohol comes in 'portions' more or less: Beer comes in cans or bottles and wine comes in a bottle. Portion control with beer seems like it should be easy enough, because one or two beers don't contain very much alcohol. Portion control with wine is a little harder, because a bottle of wine contains the same amount of alcohol as six and a half cans, as pictured.

The calculations, if you're interested, are based on the 750ml bottle of red wine, which has 14.5% alcohol by volume (ABV) and the 330ml cans of beer, which have 5% ABV.

I bought all this alcohol, even though I don't drink.

I bought the red wine, because it's an ingredient in a dish I make with red cabbage. The alcohol is evaporated during the cooking process.

I bought the beers, because I needed to replace some that I had 'borrowed' from somebody, back when I was drinking. The reason why the carton is open and some of the cans have gone is because my girlfriend also 'borrowed' some cans - she drinks whenever she wants, unlike me.

I want to drink.

I get home and I see this bottle of wine and these cans of beer, and it's very difficult not to allow myself a single glass or a single can, at the end of a long working day, or perhaps as a weekend treat. It's very difficult to justify my sobriety to myself.

I must remind myself of why I stopped drinking.

I stopped drinking because I couldn't stop drinking. One evening I drank all the beer I had bought for myself, then I drank all the beer I had bought for my girlfriend, then I drank some of the beer that didn't even belong to either of us. Then I smashed some stuff up and passed out. Apparently I did other stuff too, but I don't remember many of the details. I was blackout drunk. My memory has holes in it, although I do remember that it was enough for me to decide that I shouldn't drink anymore.

I didn't drink at all, except Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, and then I went on an outing to the beautiful Georgian spa town of Bath. In this picturesque setting, a group of us proceeded to embark upon an all-day drinking session. I was careful to only have one alcoholic drink for every three that they had, but later on in the evening they stopped drinking, while I carried on. I didn't drink much, but I was a little hung-over.

It's probably no co-incidence that I had little patience and a short temper following that drinking session, and while I was nursing my hangover I lost my cool and broke up with my girlfriend. I struggled to emotionally regulate and stay calm, while being somewhat provoked. I completely failed to defuse and de-escalate the situation, and instead I found myself packing my bags and storming off into the night.

I'd like to say that I've felt the benefits of sobriety, but I don't think I have. I've lost weight and I feel better about my appearance because of that weight loss, but I don't feel much healthier or that I have more energy and enthusiasm to be fit and active. I don't feel like my mood is improved. I don't feel like my sleep is improved. However, if I had continued to drink heavily every day, I expect that I would have continued to put on a lot of weight, and that my health would have slowly deteriorated.

It's the middle of winter, so it's hard to measure the benefit of being sober. Perhaps come the summertime, I will feel my mood lift and my energy levels will be elevated, such that I feel like getting out and about. Certainly, if I was drinking heavily, I would be in no mood to make any travel plans or spend any time doing anything except watching TV and films, with a steady supply of alcoholic drinks.

Another thing to consider is that I heavily sedate myself with Xanax and use sleeping pills, so that I can remain functional and cope with the demands of my job, while also dealing with a mood disorder and a hatred for my profession which dates back as far as the very beginning of my life in corporate hell, over 20 years ago.

Perhaps when my debts are paid off, my housing is more secure, I'm more financially comfortable and I feel more settled at work and in the place where I'm living, then I'll be able to give up my chemical crutches and feel a lot healthier and happier. However, for the time being, I am getting what I need to cope in the form of a handful of calorie-free pills, which do far less health damage than the gallons of toxic alcoholic liquid which I used to guzzle.

Temptation is less of a problem than you'd think it would be, having realised that my body's natural thirst could be quenched with non-alcoholic fluids. I had programmed myself to associate wanting a drink, with wanting an alcoholic drink.

I successfully de-programmed my brain, so that I no longer craved hot drinks, which was surprisingly difficult but I managed it.

I suppose if I was very strict and disciplined I could completely de-program my craving for alcoholic beverages, but I know that it was a very long and hard process to eliminate tea and coffee from my life, as well as energy drinks and even coca-cola, which all contain caffeine.

I've even been slightly tempted to try fasting, allowing myself only water to drink for a period of a few days, because I often eat when I'm not really hungry, and I'd like to lose even more weight.

Ultimately, it might be vanity which provides the motivation for healthy living. I don't want to be fat with red-wine stained teeth and lips. I don't want to have a beer belly.

I'm happy knowing that I've "stopped the rot" to some extent, but I must admit that it's very hard to resist allowing myself to have a glass of red wine or a can of beer, after a long hard working week, on a Friday night. Would I be able to stop after just one though? Historically, I've never been able to drink in moderation.

As an epilogue, it should be noted that at my friend's funeral, a group of us, who used to drink heavily with the deceased, all got absolutely blind drunk until the hotel we were staying in refused to serve us any more alcohol. It's what my friend would have wanted.

Tags: #alcohol

This is a story about tailored medicine...

It's a subject I've written about at length before, but I was writing about my experiences with different mood stabilisers earlier today and I thought I would re-purpose that content for my blog, because I'm tired and I'm stressed, and it seems like a logical thing to do: To take something I wrote earlier and re-use it.

What I've written is in the style of advice given to somebody who's perhaps newly diagnosed as bipolar, or perhaps suspects that they have bipolar disorder. What I've written is from my own personal experiences. What I've written is not meant to be completely authoritative and factually correct, but I'm aware that it's my general writing style to present my opinions in a persuasive manner.

So, without further ado, let's get onto the list of bipolar mood stabilising medications I have known and loved (or hated, more like).

Quetiapine (Seroquel)

Horrible side effects, including weight gain, daytime sleepiness, dry mouth and constipation. When it takes effect, it's so strong that it's very hard to get to bed, or use the toilet in the middle of the night. Cannot be mixed with alcohol - the alcohol makes you feel very unwell.

Overall, this medication feels like being "heavily sedated" and it would be very difficult to carry on a normal life at dosages above 200mg. At dosages of 300mg or more, you'll be sleepy and dopey all the time. At dosages over 400mg, you'll be a shuffling zombie, good for nothing except dribbling in front of daytime TV.

Not compatible with having a job.

Aripiprazole (Abilify)

This medication had a strange side effect, where I lost fine motor control of my lips and seemed to produce excessive amounts of saliva. It was impossible to have a conversation with somebody without spraying them with spit, which was a horribly degrading experience for me.

Aripiprazole is very long-lived in the body, so it can take a week or more to wear off and get back to normal, even after taking this medication for only a couple of days (i.e. if you try it and you get bad side effects immediately, you'll have those side effects for a whole week at least).

Because of its very long half-life, I would have serious reservations about trying this one, except as a last resort.

Lamotrigine (Lamactil)

No side effects at first, but the dosage has to be increased very slowly with this one. Migrane headaches are a very common side effect, which I got, so I decided to stop taking it. The headaches are tolerable, I guess, because this is the medication with the fewest side effects.

Some psychiatrists might not consider lamotrigine to be a mood stabiliser, but in fact more of an antidepressant which is safe for bipolar people to take. It improves sleep quality so I think it's a good choice from amongst the fairly bleak options.

Also a good choice if you plan on attempting to have a normal job and work.

Olanzapine (Zyprexa)

Side effects include weight gain, daytime sleepiness and a general feeling of being drugged, but nowhere near as bad as quetiapine.

Very good at quickly stopping a manic episode, so it could arguably be used only when entering a manic phase, and then stopped a short while later, but this would require discipline.

Not recommended to take on a long-term basis.

Not compatible with having a normal job.

Sodium valproate (Depakote)

Dreadful side effects. Will turn you into a total shuffling, dribbling zombie and eventually you will get an irreversible kind of brain damage, which will cause you to make involuntary facial movements (a bit like a tic).

This is an awful drug, given to paranoid schizophrenics who are very severely sick (paranoia, hearing voices, hallucinations etc).

If you're on this, it's probably forcibly injected into you in a psychiatric institution. The injections last for 3 months. Don't ever let yourself get so unwell that this becomes necessary. Exhaust all the other options first.

Lithium

Very hard to get the dose right, and requires regular blood testing, which is annoying and inconvenient. Very effective and side effects are tolerable if you can get the dose perfect but it might take many years to find exactly the right dose, and it will be very destabilising if you start going too low with your dose - i.e. you might end up triggering manic episodes when you're simply trying to avoid side effects.

Lithium causes irreversible health damage when used long term, and is therefore "life limiting" in a way - it might reduce your lifespan by 5 years or more, which is obviously a high price to pay.

General Comments

Psychiatrists will tell you that you need to commit to a medication for at least 3 months, in order to feel the therapeutic effects and for the side effects to wear off. I have tried all the medications listed above for 3 months or more, and the side effects never wore off. The side effects were intolerable for all the medications, except lamotrigine.

If you take these medications for longer than a few weeks (with the exception of lamotrigine) then you cannot stop taking them abruptly. If you suddenly stop taking these medications, you will have horrible rebound mania and possibly psychosis too (hearing voices etc). However, I have successfully 'weaned' (i.e. tapered) myself off all these medications, without too many problems.

The worst manic episodes I've had have been when stopping quetiapine and olanzapine abruptly. When I've tapered off the medications slowly, my mood has been fine and I've not had any problems. In fact, every time I've stopped taking a medication, I've felt much better, because the side effects are so awful.

I would advise you to consider olanzapine as a treatment for acute episodes of mania... i.e. you should have some ready to take, and when you start to go manic then start taking it to make sure your mania doesn't spiral out of control.

I would also advise you to consider lamotrigine as first or second choice. I believe many busy working professionals with bipolar disorder find lamotrigine to be a good medication, because it has few side effects.

Psychiatrists will probably pressure you to be on a stronger medication, which is likely to be an atypical antipsychotic (quetiapine, aripiprazole, olanzapine, sodium valproate, risperidone, clozapine) but all of these will have very profound side effects, most notably making you feel tired and sleepy, lethargic, foggy-headed, confused, increasing your appetite and reducing your sex drive. It's personal choice, but I find those side effects unacceptable.

Alternatives to Medication

Alternatively, you can use good lifestyle choices to manage bipolar: no alcohol, no caffeine, strict bedtimes, strict work:life balance, exercise, good diet. You will probably need some trusted people around you who can let you know when your speech is becoming more pressured, you're getting irritable, perhaps you're getting a little obsessive about projects, becoming more impulsive and taking more risks... essentially, when you're heading into a manic episode, which could escalate. I find that getting 8 to 10 hours sleep each night, no more and no less, helps me to keep my mood stable. I also find that my manic episodes are much less of a problem since I quit caffeine. Recreational drugs are a terrible terrible idea, and completely incompatible with bipolar, unfortunately, especially the stimulants: legal high powders, speed, coke, crystal meth, meow meow, M-CAT, mephedrone, monkey dust etc. etc.

Stressful life events can be very triggering for mania, as well as the temptation to work hard because of a job change, promotion or exciting project. It takes a lot of careful planning to ensure that stress is kept to a minimum and work:life balance is preserved. If you want to get obsessed with anything, make it exercise and the great outdoors.

In Conclusion

I'm living a functional and complete life, with a full-time job, managing to have good relationships, managing my money, not engaging in risky behaviours or otherwise suffering many problems with my bipolar disorder. I have depressions, which are sometimes bad enough to cause me to take some time off work, but only a few days here and there. I have hypomanic episodes, where I can spend a lot of money and make impulsive decisions. However, considering that I don't take any mood stabilising medications for my bipolar disorder, my mood is remarkably stable and almost everybody would consider me to be successfully managing my condition, without having any particularly adverse effects on my quality of life.

I can highly recommend trying to go medication free, or spending a lot of time trying different medications and tweaking the dosage, because life is so much better when you're not drugged up to the eyeballs with powerful psychiatric chemicals, which radically alter you and your personality, with horrible side effects.

I'm not antipsychiatry per se, but I would advise people to make very well informed decisions and remind your clinicians that it's your body, so it's your rules, and like with every profession, there are people who are brilliant at their jobs and there are people who are not so great. You need to educate yourself so that you know whether you're getting good advice or not. You can't just trust everybody who calls themselves a doctor.

Mental health is complex. Bipolar disorder is complex. People are complex. We are all individuals and we have individual needs and individual unique circumstances. Tailor your solution to meet your needs.

Tags: #bipolar #medication #mentalhealth

This is a story about the path of least resistance...

What's wrong with putting in the minimum amount of effort? What's wrong with cramming for a test the night before, instead of working hard every single day? What's wrong with only working when your boss is around to see what you're doing? What's wrong with cutting corners? What's wrong with any of it, provided the end result is the same?

Are the top grades I got in my exams any less valuable than the top grades achieved by the "good" students who always put in lots of effort the whole time?

Are the pay rises and promotions I get in the workplace any less valuable than the career achievements of the hard workers, who put in a great deal of effort that goes unnoticed and unrecognised?

The things that I didn't bother to do, that nobody really cared about anyway, so nobody even noticed that I didn't do... does it matter that I didn't do those things?

At the end of the day, the end results are the same. When I'm reduced to a piece of paper with my qualifications written on it, nobody has any idea how hard I worked - or didn't work - to achieve my qualifications. When I'm reduced to a job title, a salary and a few performance objectives, nobody has any idea whether I'm a productive, energetic, conscientious and diligent employee, or whether I'm a professional slacker.

In fact, isn't it better if I'm getting maximum pay for minimum effort? Haven't I somehow won at the game of life, if I've avoided all that pointless unnecessary work, and yet I get all the rewards which were supposed to be reserved for the hard workers? The ones who put in the effort should be proportionately rewarded, right?

Life doesn't seem to work like that.

Tags: #career

This is a story about re-relapse...

The title of this blog post, the hyphenated nonsensical word "re-relapse" and the image of an oral syringe which I happened to spot lying on the floor of a hospital, are all intended to set the tone of this piece: Everything you think you know about drug addicts is probably wrong, especially when referring to "drug addicts" as a collective group of mostly identical people.

I could easily wander into the territory of blathering on about "we're not all the same, you know" and other such clichés, but instead I thought I'd simply tell you the story of my re-relapse.

I guess how I became a drug addict again is far less interesting and important than why, so I'm actually going to explain some of the who and the what which means my story makes sense, I hope.

Back in November 2018 - less than 3 months ago - I was a drug addict. I also booked some flights to Mexico for my girlfriend and I, so that we could spend Christmas and New Year on the beach. This presented a problem: How does a drug addict go on holiday?

When I went on holiday to Turkey for a week in October 2018, I literally went cold turkey, which I thought was really funny because I had travelled to Turkey for a hot holiday during the cold UK autumn. The irony of it had a kind of poetic deliciousness, which I couldn't resist. Besides, I wasn't that much of a drug addict at the time.

During that week in Turkey, I struggled to sleep at first, without the drugs which I had become addicted to. Then I became incredibly tired and lethargic due to lack of sleep, and I didn't leave my hotel room for 3 days. However, by the end of the holiday I was able to enjoy some sunshine and I was also 'clean' - I was no longer a drug addict.

Now we must ask: If I had managed to get 'clean' and beat my drug addiction, why would I relapse? The answer is quite simple and straightforward really: Because I am using drugs as a coping mechanism for my ordinary day-to-day circumstances.

What about Mexico?

I had planned a 2-week holiday with my girlfriend, to Mexico, which would have been far more enjoyable than the holiday to Turkey, except for the fact that my drug addiction had escalated. I'm not sure what was so particularly awful about November, except that the UK weather was getting even colder and more miserable, but I found it necessary to augment my existing drug addiction with additional substances.

I did not want to travel through two international airports carrying controlled substances, for which I did not have a prescription. In the UK, it's a criminal offence to be in possession of certain medicines, unless you have a prescription. I did not have a prescription. One of the medicines which I needed to transport with me to Mexico via transatlantic flight, in order to maintain my drug addiction, was unfortunately illegal to possess in the UK without a prescription.

What was I going to do?

I procrastinated for a long while, and then with 3 weeks until the scheduled departure of our flight to Mexico, I decided to start reducing my dose a little bit every day. I tapered myself off one of the medications I was addicted to - Xanax - until I was no longer addicted to it, so I was then able to travel without being at risk of prosecution for trafficking narcotics across international borders.

Essentially, I got 'clean' again. Yet again. I've gotten 'clean' so many times.

Oh, did I mention that I also quit drinking?

Yeah. Don't try to quit Xanax in the space of 3 weeks if you're addicted to it. If you're addicted to Xanax, you need to taper down your dose really slowly or else you'll have problems.

I had problems.

I drank 9 pints (5 litres) of very strong beer and I don't remember many of the details, except that I went bat shit crazy and smashed some stuff up. I was pretty much blackout drunk, so my memory is very patchy. I was out of control. I was a mess. The worrying thing is how little of it I remember.

So, I quit drinking soon after I started trying to quit Xanax. Mixing alcohol and Xanax is a bad idea, but drinking alcohol while quitting Xanax is a disastrous idea.

However, quitting alcohol and Xanax, when you're addicted to both... that's hell.

I had 3 weeks where I felt like the world was about to end and life was not worth living. I had 3 weeks where I was absolutely convinced that every conceivable disaster was lurking just around the corner. I had 3 weeks of the most unbearably awful anxiety.

Then I went to Mexico.

Turns out you can just buy Xanax over-the-counter in a pharmacy in Mexico if you smile nicely and pay in cash. Obviously, I was well aware that it's illegal to sell Xanax in Mexico, but I was also well aware that it wasn't illegal for me to buy it or possess it. So, I bought a bottle of Xanax from a Mexican pharmacy, and I resumed my drug addiction. Xanax is branded Tafil in Mexico by the way... if you ever need to get some.

Then, at the end of my holiday in Mexico, which was awesome by the way, I threw the leftover tablets in the bottle into the trash, at the airport.

Since my holiday, my life has continued pretty much as normal. I don't drink - I've managed to remain almost completely sober since I quit alcohol back in December. My life is also normal, insofar as I'm a drug addict.

Every night I take a sleeping pill and a tranquilliser, and I do so because I need sleep and I need to be tranquil. My life circumstances dictate my need for the substances I use.

I imagine that I will become completely 'clean' and 'sober' again one day, but for the time being, I need to endure some pretty horrible life circumstances, and I find that the drugs I'm addicted to are helping me to cope, even though it's commonly thought that all drug addiction is automatically a bad thing.

What I wish for is not to be 'clean' and 'sober' but for the circumstances of my life to be more pleasant and favourable to a life without the 'crutches' of drugs, but what I wish for seems mostly impossible, at the moment. I can't achieve the impossible. I have to work within the limits which I'm constrained by. I have no control over most things in my life, which cause me a great deal of discomfort and unhappiness, but I've found my coping mechanisms which work.

The end.

Tags: #addiction #medication

This is a story about the less glamorous jobs...

Some very simple things in my life are surprisingly difficult to organise and cause a great deal of anxiety. The accumulation of things which most people would consider trivial, is a consequence of a phase of my life which I should not probably be living through.

Those who have stuck together with their peer group, going through school, further education, higher eduction, university and forays into academic realms beyond, have had a well-trodden path to follow, which has made it extremely easy to go along with the herd.

Society corrals us through life, into jobs, relationships, and the process of "settling" somewhere. We become attached to a place, either because it's where close family live, where we spent the bulk of our time studying, or perhaps because it was where we spent the bulk of our career.

The weight of expectation placed upon us by our families, friends and the media, pushes us towards marriage and children.

We're carried along by a rapidly flowing river, with the currents too strong for us to swim against. The bulk of our destiny is inevitable, not free will or choice, like we would like to believe.

My car needs servicing, I need a haircut, I need a new belt, there is administrative paperwork which must be submitted to a government agency, there are numerous annual insurance policies which require renewal. I am continually harried and harassed for my time and money, by an unending queue of people who won't leave me in peace.

I try to comply with the demands of so-called 'normal' society but I find that there are gatekeepers everywhere, intent on frustrating me, delaying me, or thwarting me altogether.

I attempt to do my job to the best of my abilities, and I feel guilty about doing non-work tasks during my working day. I attempt to invest time each day in relationships outside my workplace: friends and family. Once commuting time, meal preparation time, housework time, washing time, hygiene time and all the other mandatory deductions from my leisure time have been made, there are then the other tasks: The letters to open, which no doubt demand money with menaces, or require me to fill in some ridiculous form and mail it, so that a bureaucrat somewhere can justify their job.

My photo album contains a depressing number of photographs which are not of pleasant things I've observed, but do in fact contain details I need for the operation of a fairly simple and humble life. The picture above is of one of my tyres, so that I could find a place to fit my car with the correct ones.

My photo album contains numerous pictures of my passport, driving license, bank statements, utility bills, council tax bills and other official documents, which are regularly demanded as proof of my identity. I spend my life perpetually proving that I exist and satisfying other demands of gatekeepers, who would prefer to see me homeless, penniless and destitute.

I suppose I'm not alone in this farcical existence, but it gives me little comfort to know that many of us - those who don't have the security of a permanent job and the ownership of our home - are constantly asked to jump through so many hoops.

My perceptions might be warped, but I feel like I'm more time poor than ever, which isn't supposed to be the case for a childless man who has been working a full-time career for over two decades.

I'll stop moaning now and get back to my administrative tasks.

Tags: #admin #taxes #timepoor #timekeeping #leisure #work

This is a story about the rentier class...

I spend a lot of time dealing with brain-dead individuals who think they should get paid a lot of money for jobs they're thoroughly incompetent at, as well as being so utterly unbelievably stupid that they would put a Terms of Service contract onto their website, which was stolen from a fast-food restaurant.

Unfortunately I have to deal with lettings agents who think it's OK to charge the best part of £400 or more, for putting a document in a photocopier and then filling in a couple of blanks, such as the name of the tenant and the amount of rent payable.

Like, I mean, how much do you actually think you should get paid for filling in 5 pieces of information onto a document you don't understand, and doing a bit of photocopying.

The UK government has helpfully provided a very nice model contract, for anybody who is looking to rent out their home. This document includes all kinds of useful guidance, such as "it's not OK to demand sex in lieu of rent" for f**kwits who think they can write whatever the hell they want into a contract, and it somehow supersedes the laws of the country.

You cannot, for example, draw up a contract that allows you to punch me, stab me and/or kill me, and avoid punishment for the crime, because I signed a so-called waiver. I cannot waive my rights using civil law. The criminal laws of the country will always take precedence over any contract law. That is to say that my statutory rights are not affected by any bullshit piece of paper that I sign.

When you buy a pair of shoes, you'll sometimes sign a piece of paper that says you can't return them and get a refund. However, that doesn't affect your statutory rights, and you're quite within your legal rights to return the shoes if they're faulty or defective in some way.

The law defends us from all sorts of unscrupulous unethical chancers who want our money but don't want to work for it - in short, they want our money, but they're not going to do any work to get it. Those people are called the rentier class who believe they're entitled to money for nothing.

The rentier class piss me off.

I just want to have a place to live. I want to have a secure home. That's all I want.

Here is an email, which I took the time to research and write on my goddam Sunday afternoon, when I'm supposed to be relaxing:

Dear XXX XXXX,

Many thanks for showing me around XXXXXXX on Saturday afternoon, and your prompt reply to my queries was greatly appreciated. I am interested in renting the property as it adequately met my requirements, but I felt I should write to you with regards to keeping a pet cat. The answer you supplied is not satisfactory I'm afraid.

I must draw you, your agency and the landlord's attention to the matter of UK law, when it comes to the keeping of pets. The Consumer Rights Act (2015) stipulates that the keeping of a pet cannot be reasonably refused, unless the pet would cause a nuisance to the occupiers of neighbouring properties or significantly increase wear and tear to the property. According to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations (1999) The Office of Fair Trading deems a “No Pets” clause unlawful.

The law is very clear: "[a] landlord cannot exercise a blanket ban on pets". Your quote "the Landlord has stipulated No Pets at the property" which is an incontrovertible piece of written evidence of unlawful behaviour on the part of the landlord, you and your agency.

The property is unfurnished and has hard floors throughout, such that the keeping of a cat would clearly not increase wear and tear to the property. A cat would certainly not cause a nuisance to the occupiers of neighbouring properties. I noticed several neighbourhood cats during my visit to the property.

Given that the landlord has unreasonably refused for me to keep a cat at the property, which is an unlawful contravention of The Consumer Rights Act (2015) as a goodwill gesture I am prepared to offer a modest increase to the deposit and an additional contract clause whereby the tenant accepts any responsibility for pet damage to the property. This would give the landlord an exceptionally high level of protection, for the incredibly unlikely event that an ordinary domestic cat might cause damage or additional wear and tear. This extra money would be held in the Deposit Protection Scheme (DPS) in addition to the substantial deposit already proposed by your agency.

Naturally, the Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreement would be amended, so that it is contractually stipulated that the keeping of one single cat was permitted. Any additional pets would require consent from the landlord, which is standard practice.

It is not my intention to turn the landlord's property into a zoo. It would be perfectly reasonable - for example - for the landlord to refuse the keeping of a large dog, which would be likely to bark loudly and thus cause annoyance to the neighbours.

My request is most reasonable and the UK courts will robustly defend my legal right to keep a pet cat. I hope you will forgive me for reminding you again that it is not lawful for a landlord to "exercise a blanket ban on pets and should not turn a request down without good reason". 

I humbly suggest you and your agency thoroughly familiarise yourself with the laws of England and Wales pertaining to landlords, tenants and letting agents, such that your future business is conducted lawfully. The necessary statutes which you and your agency should familiarise yourself with are: The Landlord and Tenant Act (1985), Consumer Contracts Regulations (1999) and Consumer Rights Act (2015).

I advise you to inform your client of any laws which he or she might not have been aware of, such that any more unlawful behaviour might be avoided in future. Perhaps you might then be so kind as to respond again to my question about keeping a pet cat, when you are next able to speak to your client.

It disappoints me that your agency who charge fees of £311.54 for the simple preparation of an Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreement, should be so woefully ill-informed of the laws of the United Kingdom. Ignorance of the law is no defence in court. I am especially disappointed that you are charging a substantial professional fees for your services, when you are conspiring with your clients to break the law.

My advice is offered at the cost of a leisurely Sunday I could have spent spent relaxing, so I hope you appreciate the effort I have made in providing you with a comprehensive summary of how to conduct your business and advise your clients, without breaking the laws of England and Wales, which would be financially costly and reputationally damaging. Consider my free advice to be a goodwill gift.

I assure you that my only intention is to rent a property, with the statutory protections afforded to me by UK law, such that my right to live in peaceful enjoyment of the property as my home is not legally infringed. It seems like a reasonable request to me. Would you agree?

I trust this message finds you well and I hope to receive a reply at your earliest convenience.

I hope you had a good weekend.

Kind regards,

Nick

That's my politest possible way of saying you can't fuck with me, you rentier class c**t. And demanding to enjoy the same freedom in life that those who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth get. We should not have a two-tier society, where the rentier class don't have to work, and the rentier class should not make unreasonable demands, such as disallowing the proletariat the comfort of having a pet.

Rant over.

Tags: #home #renting #homeless #apartment #capitalism

This is a story about the wilderness...

Why am I not more rich and comfortable? Why don't I have financial security and a home which nobody can evict me from? Why do all my years of experience and all the massive multinational corporations on my CV assure me a comfortable standard of living?

Conversely, why haven't I ended up with a criminal record? Why haven't I ended up in jail? Why am I not dead?

Why am I not bankrupt? Why am I not sleeping rough? Why am I not an alcoholic or a drug addict?

Why is my physical health OK? Why is my mental health OK?

I've picked up my life and carried on as if nothing happened, but something very major did happen.

Luckily I had a head-start of 3 or 4 years on my peer group, at least in terms of career progression and the accumulation of wealth. When we do the math, it seems I'm no more than 1 or 2 years behind where I should be, and I'm rapidly catching up again.

I get frustrated that it's going to take a couple of years before I'm back in the position - in material terms - which matches my skillset and experience. I get frustrated that there's no way that I can accelerate the process of clawing my way back to the position in society which I used to occupy.

I could have arrived back at a position of health, wealth and prosperity much sooner, but my experiences during my wilderness years have altered me for life. Most people live in terror of loss: Losing money, losing assets, losing relationships and damaging their reputation. I learned during the difficult wilderness years that the world is a big enough place that even the most madcap escapades go entirely unnoticed.

It is with great pleasure and pride that I am returning myself to a position of status which gradually begins to approach the status I held before my fall from grace.

Is it shallow and vain and pretentious, to wish to maintain our status in society?

Bullshit.

At first, it was an adventure to sell my house, sell my car, give away all my possessions, sleep rough and truly start my life all over again. I felt a great sense of relief that I was unburdened by the constant worry that what I had worked so hard to get and to achieve, would be stolen or damaged. It was liberating and I had the time of my life, truly free from any sense of responsibilities or duties. I entrusted my fate to good fortune, and a healthy dollop of my own wit and ingenuity.

Then, I realised that my wide-eyed innocence and trust in people laid me wide open to exploitation. I'm sure I hardly had any money stolen off me by other homeless people, but as I began to get my life back on track, I found that there are an entitled, spoiled, brattish, immoral group of people who've never known suffering or deprivation, and they see it as their birthright to dip their hand into my wallet, instead of paying their own way. I attracted a lot of freeloaders, who had no guilt or conscience, when it came to stealing from me - these were people who've never slept rough; these were people who've never known what it's like to lose everything, and they never will, because they're spoiled brats who can telephone their mothers and fathers and receive massive cash handouts. Those freeloaders will never have setbacks in their lifetimes, because they're from wealthy, generous, loving families.

It's a source of great shame and damage to my self-esteem that I drive a very battered and rusty old car, and that I live in rented home in one of the poorest areas of the country. It's a source of great shame and embarrassment that I have indebted myself in order to pay my rent and bills, simply to house myself and feed myself. It's a source of constant worry and anxiety that my work colleagues might wonder why one of their "superstar" consultants dresses in worn-out clothes and gives away other clues which hint that the wealth they would expect me to have, is not present: I'm poor.

It's shit being poor. It's shit being poor when you work in a world where everybody who does my job as well as I do is not poor. The loss of status should not be underestimated.

When a man loses status, he is highly likely to lose his life.

It's one of the hardest things to do, to recover from a major setback, which has ruined your finances, your secure housing, your material possessions, like your new car and your nice clothes. The hard thing is knowing that everybody can see that you fucked up and it takes years and years and years to put things right. Some people will never be able to recover.

My recovery is not about mental health. My recovery is not about alcohol. My recovery is not about drugs. My recovery is about self-esteem, which is damaged so drastically, and is so hard to repair, that for most people they will just give up and kill themselves. It's a fatal blow.

One of the reasons I keep trying and I keep writing, is because I want to be one of the few people who's lived to tell the tale of coming back from such a major setback. Plenty of people have survived, but few have gone on to thrive. I want to tell the story of regaining my pride and my dignity, and of being indistinguishable from a person who didn't spend 5 lost years in the wilderness.

This is our little secret. Every day I pay off a little bit more of my debt and I fix up a little bit more of my life. Every day I become a little bit more like the person I would've been, if it hadn't been for my missing 5 years. This is our secret, because the joke is on those people who have absolutely no idea what I've been through.

At work, I feel so proud that I'm doing valuable work and I'm almost back to being as good as I always thought I was going to be, by the time I reached the age I am. I'm so proud of the work I do. I'm so pleased that my brain and my natural aptitudes and the talents I was fortuitously given, are being put to good use and I feel as competent and capable as anybody. I don't feel damaged, and that's so important for my self-esteem.

This isn't about pride. This isn't about regret. This is about the damaging effect that loss of status can have on a man, with fatal consequences.

Tags: #career #suicide

This is a story about prostitution...

It is fashionable to describe a female prostitute as a victim, which is a claim we should examine more closely. Certainly, few of us would choose sex work instead of a so-called dream job but what would that dream job need to look like, in order to fit the bill?

The bill.

How is a person supposed to pay for a crack, meth and/or heroin addiction on ordinary wages? How is a person with the chaotic lifestyle of a drug addict supposed to be organised enough to travel to work, arrive on time, and be presentable enough for a regular job?

Turn tricks. Score. Get high. Repeat.

If we examine the behaviour of an average low-income law-abiding productive member of society, we can see the same pattern of behaviour: Work a job which is thoroughly unpleasant, get paid at the end of the week, immediately spend the money on a binge drinking session, and then start all over again.

If we examine the behaviour of a high-income professional in a so-called 'good' job, we can see the same pattern of behaviour: An entire career which feels like a dead-end bullshit job, getting paid at the end of the month and immediately spending all the money on status symbols - the house, the car - in a never-ending cycle of performance reviews, pathetic promotions, job interviews and pitiful pay-rises.

"Do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life" is more applicable to heroin addiction than it is to the pursuit of a dream job that doesn't actually exist.

What did those saintly Oxfam charity workers - who were presumably working in their dream job - infamously end up spending the charity's money on? Prostitutes.

Did we conveniently forget that sex work is well paid with flexible hours? Did we conveniently forget that somebody without academic qualifications can do sex work without having to attend a job interview? Did we conveniently forget that those who have criminal records or other black marks against their name, such that they would find themselves excluded from conventional employment, are able to earn money doing sex work?

Also, do we wish to disbelieve all the very many sex workers who tell us that they choose sex work of their own free will?

Women choose to be prostitutes for very many reasons, but some of the reasons we choose to ignore include the gratification, the reward of the job. Just as a chef likes to delight diners with gastronomic creations, and takes great pride in their work, can the same not be said of prostitutes: That they like to give pleasure? Should we simply forget the fact that sex is a biological imperative, which carries pleasurable rewards: It feels nice to fuck. We get a dopamine hit from having sex, just like eating, drinking, smoking, drinking tea & coffee and all the other vices.

Of course, it's true that if sex is your job, sometimes sex isn't sex... it's just work. We are all very familiar with those times that work isn't pleasurable. In fact, work is often unbearable.

"Oh but prostitution is so unbearable" I hear you cry. It's so relatable, the idea of an ugly fat, sweaty, smelly man, with bad breath, doing something so intimate with us - "to us" - that we struggle to imagine anything worse, short of painful torture. And yet we must confront this truth: You get a lot of buck for your bang.

If we examine every way of making money, we find an relationship between how much we get paid and how much exploitation is involved. The more unethical and exploitative something is, the more lucrative it is.

A company boss might earn a thousand times more than his employees, but this is because he or she is prepared to inflict misery and suffering upon everyone who toils on his or her behalf. A software engineer developing artificial intelligence might earn a very high salary, but this is because he or she is prepared to ignore the potential negative consequences to society. A university professor might enjoy a very intellectually stimulating life, but this is because he or she is prepared to turn a blind eye to the exploitation of the developing world, and its economic enslavement, to support a life of such incredible privilege.

We must distinguish between the slaves, the exploiters, and those who sit somewhere in-between.

We must acknowledge that, in the majority of cases where a man pays a woman for sex, she exploits the fact that he wants more sex than he can get for free, while he exploits the fact that she wants money to pay for drugs, sold by disadvantaged drug dealers who exploit the only money-earning route available to them. The drugs come from countries that are desperately impoverished, deliberately so that the labour and natural resources of those countries can be exploited by the men, who exploit the man, who exploits the man, who exploits the man, who exploits the man who's eventually managed to save up enough of his money to pay a woman for sex.

Do you really know what the company you work for is up to? Do you really know where the money in your paycheque came from?

If you follow the money, you'll see that most of the so-called economy is a massive money-laundering scheme, involving banks, accountancy firms, law firms and numerous shill enterprises, funded with dirty money, which originated in weapons, war, slavery and waste of natural resources. If you're not a slave - working for nothing - then you're probably an exploiter, so who are you to say who is doing the most exploitation?

Those who have the luxury of time to sit around pointing the finger and wringing their hands about 'victims' they know nothing about, are probably the ones who are the biggest beneficiaries of human exploitation, for how else did they achieve their opportunity for such idle talk?

Wouldn't we all dearly love to idly pontificate in some revered institution, and get paid for our trouble? Wouldn't we all choose to think, write, talk and create art, instead our daily toil, if we were given the choice?

I respect the prostitute. I respect anybody who has figured out how to get money and get what they want, by exploiting the minimum number of people. Give me your money, here is your sex. It's a simple transaction of two-way exploitation: No victim, both are slaves.

We're all junkies and prostitutes, in one way or another.

Tags: #sex