A CRUEL HEALING

Notes from A Cruel Healing

On becoming an addict

From an early age I became involved in alcohol, drugs, crime and violence. I am not sure if it was in this order, it may have been the violence first, considering the sectarianism that divided my community and the entrenched gang culture, it probably was. I quickly found that I could not do life unless I was under the influence of some mood-altering substance. ...So for most of my life I was on everything but rollerskates.  

I was always part of a sub-culture, gang culture, criminal culture. Then I began to receive the first of many prison sentences, I became part of the jail culture. After that I became addicted to class A drugs and that lead me to London’s homeless culture. Out on wintry nights, stoned out my brains, looking for dry cardboard to cover me as I sleep. Living the dream huh?  

It was extremely difficult for me to change, by my twenties I believed I couldn't. From childhood I have been aware of an internal conflict that has preoccupied me. Among the prevailing choices of education and employment my classmates decided they were joining the factory workforce. I thought that I should be among the lads happily ambling up to the factory gates but I was overwhelmed by feelings of not being part of the group. My desires were impeded by this conflict of wanting to be part of the group but believing I was separate from it. This distressed me and I always felt discontented with no clarity pertaining to a sense of identity. I felt inadequate. I felt inept. I spent a lot of my time covering these feelings and presenting a facade of competence to my family, friends and every other relationship I entered into. When I tried to understand why I experienced consistent feelings of inadequacy the reflection accompanying this would reveal ideas that were unpalatable to me. I would swiftly batten down the hatches of my thought processes regarding the theories that surfaced during my melancholic introspection. I found it hard to accept that I may be different, or mentally ill, or need counselling, or that I may be weaker than my contemporaries, or not strong like my eleven older brothers. I became frustrated with being unable to act on any ideas that emerged during the periods I spent looking for some rationale to my toxic feelings. An extremely simple idea- and am sure people reading this are asking why I did not use this idea- is to quite simply speak to someone about the feelings that caused me great discomfort. I vaguely recognised during my teens that overwhelming anxiety was the obstacle to discussing my feelings with another person.  Fear of losing face, fear of being laughed at, ridiculed, of being seen as weak, of not being seen as part of the group, of being rejected. The shame I felt throughout my childhood that continued into my adulthood had, I later identified in therapy during my recovery, stemmed from harbouring feelings which though I could not fully define or understand I had come to believe were perverse, unclean and extremely immoral. I used these extreme terms to identify the unnatural state I became convinced my emotions were in, to express myself to an outsider, the therapist, and to principally after therapeutic exploration label the overwhelming sense of guilt I felt most of the time.  I had been aware of these feelings from an early age. Then however I had no inclination to even begin to consider a link between them and my addiction. From these feelings, stemming like branches from a tree trunk extended further feelings of awkwardness and discontentment. Altogether this made it difficult for me to relate easily to others; so much so that I never felt at one with anyone, not an equal nor connected fully in any way. This restricted my relationships with people from developing to an intimate level. This caused me to remain guarded and never really fully trust people. The feelings I have described I kept under wraps and I maintained an emotional distance that enabled me to function in a relationship without experiencing feelings of anxiety to any great measure.

However anxiety did not leave me completely and keeping it at bay was always a preoccupation of mine. I learned to trap my feelings of anxiety in my stomach, along with my feelings of shame, pushed and punched them down along the length of my intestine until they were deeply cored and held them there, like constantly holding a ball under water. I remained like this throughout my teenage years and into my adulthood without ever considering that I may have had other more extensive and varied emotional resources that could provide me with the capacity to alter my mental attitude. I believed I would always feel this way. After many years travelling with this emotional baggage; whenever I tried to make relationships more positive, feeling healthier and relaxed with another person, I always eventually came to the same place deep within me. This was the place of shame that in my adulthood had now developed into self-loathing.

The die was cast!

I concluded that at some time oblivious to me I had, emotionally, crossed the Rubicon. From that moment the civil war raging inside me had started and must, so convinced was I then, continue.

I cite the feelings I have described as being part of my inability to achieve a sense of well being and to feel any sense of achievement, to manage emotional pain and to achieve and realise the connection of intense affection.

This experience, I believe, is part of the tapestry that becomes woven into the illness of addiction. On becoming an addict these threads, relevant and significant, will always make up part of the picture.