ASTRONAUT ADRIFT

Hello, and thank you for coming.  You may know, the first 22 posts of this blog are the text of my ebook, 'How To Become A Crack Addict' (Jan to April 2013).  You can read that here if you wish, or buy the ebook for about £.3.35 or so on amazon.  If you do, I would really appreciate a review, because it has three positive ones to date, but all feedback is appreciated, and helps get the book a better profile, or whatever the technical term is.  Nowadays, this blog is the fairly frequent musings of myself, Benjamin of Turnham Green.  And here are today's cosmic conjurings...

ASTRONAUT ADRIFT

In addiction, I was like an astronaut, cocooned in my capsule, either getting high, or rueing the consequences of it.  Once in a while, I'd go for a little spacewalk, still lashed to the craft, floating just far enough to meet the evil alien that was delivering the craved-for goods.  There, against the blackness of space, we'd exchange our compatible currencies, and I'd reel myself back in, and the alien would go off to the nearest trainer-shop and buy some more footwear.  There, floating about in zero gravity, zero hope, I'd spark up my space-pipe, and get high for anything up to a few hours, at the end of which I'd use another drug to combat the comedown of the first, then try, and fail, to sleep, as the world span below like a slow, distraught parent, overseeing impotently my dismal mission.

Nowadays, however, for reasons almost beyond my ken, I'm not contacting that evil alien anymore, and I seem, if not quite happy, at least less sad to be pottering about my capsule, occasionally going outside to repair a panel, or polish the portholes.  But more and more I feel unfamiliar to myself, as do my circumstances.  When I dream, there in my slumber-tube, I often feel I'm floating serenely, though helplessly, away from my ship, and out into the dark, star-pocked void of space.  The sun, white and irresistible, blinds and warms, but still, when I rotate to face away from it, the infinite potential of the universe presents itself, and I wonder where, if anywhere, I'm going to end up.  I try to swim, but my efforts do nothing in terms of changing my trajectory, and I float like a discarded puppet towards I know not where.  I see a planet, a shifting disc, almost seeming within arm's reach, but in reality a lifetime or more away.  Where am I going?  Will I have the air to get there?

Yes, this life outside the capsule is new, unfamiliar, and I'm wary of it, but getting back to the cocoon isn't an option.  Sometimes I think I see the evil alien's ship, a grain of light darting across the blackness, on its way to serve up some spacedust to another gullible traveller.  I, meanwhile, drift, at the mercy of forces beyond my control, happy to least to be a prisoner of infinity, rather than a trapped soul in a tin can.

This is a song I wrote, if you would like to hear it:  Broken

And that is all I have to say today.

THE STATUE MOVES

Good day, and thank you for dropping by.  You may know, the first 22 posts of this blog are the text of my ebook 'How To Become A Crack Addict'.  You can read it here, or buy it on amazon as an ebook.  If you do buy it, for a mere three quid or so, then please do leave a review, because all feedback is appreciated.  Meanwhile, this blog is now the pretty frequent thoughts and musings of yours truly, Benjamin of Turnham Green.  And here is today's selection of profound thoughts...

THE STATUE MOVES

I'm quite depressed today, but in a good way.  As you may know, I spent twelve or so years smoking crack, and not really prospering at all, to understate things a little.  And even though I'm some months clean from that insidious substance, I can still feel torn within, half wanting to slowly, cautiously progress, day by day, week by week, to where I might have been, or perhaps to somewhere completely unprepared for.  But the other half of me, tangled and tied, tries, with velvet fist, to drag me down into the mire, where only appetite and remorse prevail.

I feel a bit like Ukraine, you'll be thrilled to know.  Part of me wants calm, consensus, patience, tolerance, but the other bit, mesmerised by the Putin within, wants force, appetite, autocracy, no dissent.  This inner-Vladimir still crows and cajoles from the dark Parliament inside.  If only I could just get along and live peaceably with myself.

The addict runs, hurtles even, to that point where ecstasy has faded before you've even registered it.  It's an amazingly static life for someone forever on the run.  It taunts the new, slower, more patient me, claiming I need to speed up, turn to it occasionally, if only as a reward for having proved I can live without it.  Ah, that beckoning Putin within, blocking my internet searches, flooding all the screens with propaganda, still likes to grandstand in the dark, whispering a message of hope, seductive, sinister, like a bullet with your name on that never gets fired.

And I think that's all I've got to say today, apart from here is one of my songs, which perhaps you'd like to hear:  I'm Too Tired To Kill You

See you tomorrow?

WOULD YOU LIKE CHOCOLATE ON YOUR CAPPUCCINO?

Hello again, or for the first time.  Just in case you're not aware, the first 22 posts of this blog are the text of my ebook, 'How To Become A Crack Addict' (Jan to April 2013), which you can read here, or buy for three quid or so on amazon, in the form of an ebook, or for a kindle.  Nowadays, this blog is the fairly frequent musings of me, and I am Benjamin of Turnham Green.  And here is today's helping of Benjamin of Turnham Green, that's me...

 

WOULD YOU LIKE CHOCOLATE ON YOUR CAPPUCCINO?

 

Time was when this was the most important question I'd be asked.  Now, although it's not the most important, it is the most regular.  I used to go to my local coffee-shop (a well-known chain) on money-days, hoping that somehow I'd be able to hold the day together, and not go and use crack.  The theory was that if I could at least look bookish midmorning, something might kick in and make the rest of the day bookish too.  Or maybe I'd have a really good idea, go home and begin a book, or some extraordinary piece of art, a song, anything but crack, with its inevitable, agonising comedown.

It rarely succeeded.  Some days I'd haunt the coffee-shop when I was broke, usually because I'd used crack a day or two before.  Without money, as you know, it's hard to get anything.  I used to fake the stamps on my loyalty-card, to get a free cappuccino - a faint red felt-tip crescent usually passed as a feeble stamping from a previous, perhaps puny barista.  Then, innocent as you like, I'd receive a free drink of my choosing, would sit down, read my braille book, and hope, pray even, for that special idea that would change my life, get me out of addiction, and despair.  Or maybe I'd pray for that watershed meeting, made sweeter by coincidence, with whoever happened to be at the next table...a woman who, due to knowing nothing about me, found me interesting...or would it be a publisher, who, by my general loquaciousness, would sign me up there and then, begging for the rights to my drugs hell, which I'd already disclosed, a few sentences into our chat.

But, more often than not, I'd just sit there, reluctantly reading something in braille, like Beowulf, or Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, neither that uplifting, resenting the fact that I'd come to a point in my life where I was faking stamps on my loyalty-card, peering blurrily at the world which seemed another dimension from the one I inhabited.

But now, I hope you'll agree, I've changed, been reconfigured, am trying, striving for something I don't even care much if I reach, because now I'm so serene that I know it's the travelling that matters, not the arriving.  Oh, how I hate the cult of arrival.

And at least, on my caffeine-pocked pilgrimage, I don't stamp my card anymore for a fake cappuccino.  I pay may way now.  I'm transfigured.

Please come back, because I have abandonment issues.

And please hear my song, which is here:  Cappuccino Morning

And that is all I have to say today.

LUXURY PROBLEM

Good day, and thank you for coming.  You might already know that the first 22 posts of this blog are the text of my ebook 'How To Become A Crack Addict' (from Jan to April 2013).  You can also buy it for a modest fee on amazon, which I heartily encourage, and, if you do, please do leave a review, whatever you think of it, as all feedback is precious to me.  Meanwhile, here is today's scintillating entry of the blog, and a link to a song of mine on youtube at the end, if you're still awake...

LUXURY PROBLEM

One of my favourite clichés from the months, nay, years I spent haunting the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous, and other twelve-step congregations.  But today I had one...a luxury problem, that is.

I was in Nero, a well-known coffee-shop near to my exclusive pad, when I realised I needed the loo (possibly brought on by my Americano (which I'd nearly finished)).  Was I to go toilet, and return to my drink?  Or should I finish it, and then go?  I had to factor in the fact that the drink, about half an hour old, had been bathing in strong sunlight, as shone through the southwest-facing window (it was around four in the afternoon (for optimum shine)).  Feeling torn, perplexed, and peeved, I felt it was best to take my toilet, and return to enjoy the last inch of my Americano without the nagging from below hampering my enjoyment of it.  And so I did.  On my return, I savoured another ten to fifteen minutes at table, reading my braille Old Curiosity Shop, and sipping with a newfound nonchalance my still-warm Americano.  And I didn't even feel that guilty about spending someone else's holiday, possibly yours, for the thousandth day of this peculiar sabbatical.

And, to return to my theme, this was indeed a luxury problem.  In the thick of my using, I probably wouldn't have even got to Nero, that well-known coffee-shop near my bijou cabin, nor would I have been reading in braille my Dickens, nor would I have even been thankful of the sun's beams tweaking through the glass, warming both me and my beverage.

And the people who work there are so friendly, and I didn't really mind that I'd been in there virtually every day of the year, so far.  They do a chocolate bear now, you know, called Bruno.

And here is a song in tribute to coffee-shops and cappuccinos everywhere...
The Coffee Shop Of Dreams

And that's all I have to say today, if that's ok.  Tomorrow?

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE

Hello, and thanks for dropping by.  You might already know that the first 22 posts of this blog are the text of my ebook 'How To Become A Crack Addict' (Jan to April 2013).  You can also buy this as an ebook by searching the title on amazon.  If you do, I would be really grateful for a review - there are three already, and another would be good.  As for now, this blog is the frequent musings of yours truly, Benjamin of Turnham Green, your loyal blogger, and ex-drug-addict, or something like that.  And here is today's helping...

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE

Possibly one of my favourite clichés, though I don't have many.

I find it hard to believe that some people are more intrinsically impatient than others.  I'm pretty sure that I have been, at different times in my life, both very patient, and utterly impulsive.  I can remember, for example, studying hard and long for my exams at school, knowing that each rereading of my notes would only perhaps instil another small fact, or half-fact, into my mind, and that perhaps only for a few hours or so.  But I plugged away, doggedly some might say, hoping that something would come of this repeated behaviour, over the months ahead.  Equally, I can remember, with scary recentness, my inability to abstain from crack for, literally, minutes, let alone hours or days and beyond.  Now, I see both these states of being as choices, at some level, rather than expressions of 'who I was'.

If it wasn't me choosing to score crack, regardless of the consequences, then who was it, what was it?  It certainly wasn't, in my view, a 'disease' that dictated my conduct until such time that I 'surrendered' to it, and followed the 'suggestions' in my twelve-step guide.  Yes, there is wisdom in such books, I do believe, but there is also fantasy, perhaps born of the early 20th-century American form of Christianity that informed, and still informs, the books of AA, NA, and the other 'anonymous fellowships'.  I chose to study, and continue styding for my exams, I chose to score crack, and smoke it, knowing how I would feel after.

I guess it's important, for me at least, right now, to express and acknowledge this, because I can look back on my using as a 'special time', i.e. a time where normal rules didn't apply, like when the laws of physics go awry on the event horizon of a black hole.  No, they were not special in any sense other than they were a time when I was using, against my better judgment, maybe, but using because I chose to - because, if I didn't chose, who, or what, did?  And there's this Ockham's Law thing, isn't there, which promotes the notion of choosing the most likely answer to any conundrum, until such time that something else becomes the most likely answer.

Perhaps this sounds like waffle, but at least I know now that I can't blame anything much for that fact, apart from the fact that I have chosen to write this, chosen not to reread it, and chosen to risk the fact that you, and even I, at a later date, might call it waffle.  If it is, then at least I've only wasted ten minutes of my time, compared with ten-plus years wasted on crack, and its consequences.  How much of your time have I wasted?  I choose not to answer that.

And that is all I have to say today.  Thank you for reading.  See you soon, I hope.

Oh, and this is a song I chose to write:  I'm Too Tired To Kill You

BEWILDERNESS

Hi, thanks for dropping in.  You may know, the first 22 posts of this blog (Jan to April 2013) are the text of my ebook, 'How To Become A Crack Addict'.  You can read it here, or buy the ebook on amazon if you prefer.  If you do, please leave a review, because all feedback is appreciated.  From then on, this blog is the frequent musings of yours truly, Benjamin of Turnham Green.  And here is today's muesli...

 

 

BEWILDERNESS

Some months clean from crack, and in reasonable mental health (as far as I can tell), I find myself as bewildered now as I was in the depths of my addiction.

Only two years ago, roughly to the day, I was using as compulsively, and dangerously as ever I did.  I can clearly remember a day when my mum came to visit, and I contrived to squeeze a tenner out of her by the most outlandish means.  I already had fifteen, but wanted twenty-five, so I could, on her departure, go round the corner and get two bits of crack and a poxy five-pound bit of heroin.  There was I, and my mum, when I went into the bathroom, texted a using associate, asking her to ring me in a minute and ask for a tenner that I 'owe' her.  I did this so as when I returned into the living-room, where my mum was, my phone would go, I'd pick it up, and have the live call from Kashka, requesting the tenner.  It was such a childish, petty, and contrived deception that when I think about it now, I wonder if I'm still that person, if I would still do such a thing.  I like to think I wouldn't (unless I was using, of course, and then all bets would probably be off).  But the call came, I pretended in front of my mum that Kashka was asking for the money, even putting her on to my mum, to confirm the request, adding that her partner, Gregory, hadn't been working for a bit, and so the money was needed.

My mum, about 80 at this point, gave me the tenner, checking with concern that I would take it round to them as soon as she left, and wouldn't misappropriate it.  I assured her I'd take it safely round.  Then, when she left, as soon as her train pulled out of the station, I almost raced to Kashka's place to spend my twenty-five quid.  This felt as compulsory, as natural, considering the context, as breathing.  My stomach was churning about for about an hour before she left, and I had to go to the loo once or twice, and then, when she left, I couldn't get away quick enough.  Needless to say, my twenty-five quid lasted me about half an hour, with an inadequate cushioning provided by the smudge of heroin to follow.

Now, after months of faltering progress, I'm in the fortunate position of not feeling, or behaving like that.  But I'm as bewildered about this as I was about being in such a state.  Years passed, with me using compulsively at the very moment money dropped into my account, regardless of the danger, or consequences.  I might struggle a bit, as an overture to using, but my head would be an agonising haze, my gut in turmoil, and I knew I was going to use, whether it was in one hour, or two.  Now, by no means 'out of the wood', I am beginning to get up in the morning, not even thinking about whether it's a 'money day' or not, without having to hope against hope that, somehow, I wouldn't use that day (knowing, however, that I would).  I no longer am at the cashpoint at two in the morning, literally waiting for the cash to drop into my account.  I no longer have my guts fall out as soon as it's a possibility that I could use.  I might have told you (if not, I'll tell you now), I was once on my way to a twelve-step meeting, on the bus down the road, and the urge to go and score was so strong, so physically insistent, that I actually shat myself on the bus, and had to go into MacDonald's and chuck my shit-filled pants in the tampon-bin in the disabled toilet.  Yes, that's how cutting-edge my using got.  I then went a scored round the corner, still smelling faintly of shit.  Needless to say, I didn't make it to the twelve-step meeting that day.

Now I don't go through this.  I can think to use, about using, muse on the subject sometimes a little too dangerously, a little too in a spirit of euphoric recall, or euphoric projection, imagining how a use-up might be now, after some months clean.  Could I, as I've seen a few people do, use responsibly now, once a month or so, do it right, get a pipe, rather than wander around Shepherd's Bush until I meet someone I can score through.  Maybe I could just buy a couple of bits of crack and a bit of heroin, come home, watch a shopping-channel and/or some porn, and have a safe little session on my own.  And I do believe I probably could do that.  But, I don't really want to risk it, and nor do I want to wake up the next day with the compulsory hangover that even a couple of bits of crack gives me.  I must have spent tens of thousands of pounds of my own, and other people's money, on all that, and I'm not sure I really want to line the pockets of my local vendors anymore.  So, even despite myself, I'm holding a line, not going there, being 'vigilant'.  And yes, I'm still having a tumbler of red wine some nights, eating a bit of weed, playing the odd 80s arcade game, writing a bit, tinkling on my keyboard (a gift of recovery, as they say), and leading a relatively normal life, without empty cupboards, without constant money worries, depression, remorse, rage and fear of the telephone ringing.

Even though I hate the clichés, in particular if they rhyme, I'm trying to adopt an 'attitude of gratitude', rather than snipe against all I've lost, still mourn, and miss.  Yes, I sit here with my relatively new computer, nice blue rug beside me, denim armchair and beanbag awaiting, and food in the cupboard, enough for a doomsday-prepper, as it goes.  I still have an overdraft, but at least I have a choice of trousers to put on in the morning, a few nice liquid-soaps in the bathroom, and a nice laminated Audrey Hepburn above the bath, too.

Perhaps Audrey is my higher power.  If so, then I'm an Audreyist, an occasionally content, bewildered, better-nourished 'addict', sorry, 'functioning addict', sorry, person.

And this is a song I wrote, if you'd like to listen...
Tarantula

And that's all for today, thank.  See you tomorrow?

LOVE AMONG THE WHEELYBINS

Hi, and thanks for dropping by.  As you may know, the first 22 posts of this blog are the text of my ebook, 'How To Become A Crack Addict' (Jan to April 2013).  You can read it here, or buy the ebook on amazon, if you prefer.  If you do, I would really, really appreciate a review, because there are three positive ones so far, but all feedback is craved, and appreciated.  I've got a friend coming round in a bit, so here is a quick story I wrote a few years ago, entitled 'Love Among The Wheelybins'.  At the bottom, there is a song of the same name, which you can listen to on youtube if you click on the link.  It's by me, obviously...it's quite dark...

LOVE AMONG THE WHEELYBINS

At the end of an alleyway behind the Shepherd’s Bush branch of Superdrug, we find Kenny, the illegal alien, a Carribean beanpole with mashed-up teeth and a tendency to take too long to score.  We find Tom, middleclass emotional cripple, who’s finding his job in counselling increasingly hard to hold down, having been introduced to crack by a working-girl he visited one night when lonely, angry, and all pent up.  Picture also Faith, toothless nightgirl, skinny as only years of chasing crack can make you, saved from the grave by an almost-daily diet of chicken and Snickers.

Tom was skulking around for over an hour looking for someone to score through when, about to lose hope, he stumbled on Kenny and Faith exiting Costcutters.  Kenny offered him a blaze on a ‘try some, buy some’ basis, and within moments they were out of sight, down that narrow alleyway they all three knew from previous times when gagging for a pipe.  There they lurked by a cluster of grimy wheelybins, metal sentries at the base of a fire-escape leading up into a tarry black sky - a discreet little spot, a tiny white shard in your latest A to Z, where mainstream eyes don’t pry.

Kenny and Faith are old hands at their respective roles now.  He wants a favour, a sexual one, of course, accompanied by a good old lash on the pipe.  But Faith hasn’t stayed alive for thirty years, dishing out favours in bathrooms, bin-chutes and basements, without learning the rules of that infernal and eternal game of ‘gissa blowjob, gissa pipe, gissa blowjob, gissa pipe…’  She gives nothing away for nothing.

Kenny takes a lash, and down goes Faith, unzips his paltry jeans, reaches in, and there’s his ghastly dick on display in the dinge, wrinkled and limp.  She’s really got her work cut out tonight.  And after a minute or two it’s clear the coke has played its insidious trick again – however Faith toils, Kenny’s cumming in his head, but things are just not happening down below.  ‘Are you finding it hard to get hard, love?’ she asks, like some darkside Samaritan.  ‘It’s the white,’ claims Kenny, taking matters into his own hands.  He’ll get a hard-on if it kills him – which it might – his heart’s pounding around 120 a minute.  He still craves that meeting of ecstasies, that point where two rivers of dark treacle coalesce, foam into rapids, and smash torrentially down the rocks of death-defying delight.  Yes, he still hankers after that unholy grail, where the high of the orgasm tallies with the high of the white.

‘Gissa pipe,’ says Faith, looking up like the gargoyle of seduction she knows he longs to see.  He loads up a big one with a cruel nonchalance, then licks it himself.  But Faith’s far from defeated, for she knows he’s now at his weakest.  ‘Gissa pipe darling,’ she pines.  He sets one up, offers it her, lights it, and watches her suck hungrily on the smashed-up biro that juts from the Evian bottle in his greasy maulers.  She leans back, takes her buzz, lets out the smoke.  He eases her back into position, and abnormal service is resumed.

Tom, marginal in a marginal world, gazes jealously on, still waiting for his intro.  ‘Sorry to ask, but could you do me a pipe when you’re free?’ he enquires with flaccid politeness.  He can’t let go of his passive realworld etiquette, even in this amoral nook, where mainstream eyes don’t pry.  ‘Gimme five minutes with my woman,’ lords Kenny, knowing that his favourite cashcow won’t be going anywhere when there’s still a rock on offer.  So, resentfully patient, Tom sits down at the bottom of the fire-escape, and waits.  A sliver of him wishes he had the guts to get up and go, but the rest of him whispers, ‘it won’t be long, it won’t be long…’

But take away the pipe and this trio would probably never have met.  And soon their separate existences are to resume.  After a night of back-and-forthing to score, via Tom’s cashpoint, of course, the party finally grinds to a halt, and our brave threesome come scuttling from the shadows into the sharp light of the morning rush-hour, and resume their disparate lives.

Stooped and gloomy, our hapless middleclass hero paces home along heavily peopled pavements, feeling like an alien on his own planet.  In ten minutes he’ll be staring angrily at porn on his laptop, until crashing into bed and praying for sleep, and to wake up unscathed at some point later in the day.

Kenny, meanwhile, striding down some unsalubrious sidestreet, feels in his pocket for the twenty stone he saw fit to hold hostage.  A couple of tenners console him further that he’s probably got another couple of hours smoking in him.  Who can he go to who won’t be on him for pipe after pipe?  The alley’s out of bounds now – Superdrug uses those bins during waking hours.

Faith, bleary-eyed and beaten, returns to her pitch near Costcutters, which she violently protects, lays out her coat for coins to be thrown on, falls asleep, and dreams.

Perchance our three travellers will meet again, round the back of Superdrug perhaps, where the steely wheelies loom, where the fire-escape zigzags up into an oil-black sky, where mainstream eyes don’t pry.

And here is the song, 'Love Among The Wheelybins'...

Love Among The Wheelybins

And that's pretty much all I have to say today.  Back tomorrow...