BLIND MAN ON CRACK

Well, here goes, the big sell-out, the retitled book, the second lunge at fame.  Episode One of...

BLIND MAN ON CRACK

 

 

How Many Therapists Does It Take To Change A Life?

 

I was working for a counselling organisation in central London.  Our office, on the first floor of a converted church, overlooked a swathe of Regent’s Park.  A more pleasing vista one would struggle to find.  Across the lawn, peppered with flowerbeds, a psychology college loomed like a monolith to good mental health.  When empty, our high-ceilinged chamber retained some of the tranquillity of its pastoral past, but on a working day, with counsellors dropping off documents, dictating letters, and rushing in and out of the committee-room, the place could feel like a therapeutic railway-station.

 

I was the one below a stained-glass window depicting the return of the Prodigal Son, my desk a mess of leaflets and envelopes, big font on my computer-screen, magnifier for reading print, and white cane propped against the radiator.  Contrary to popular belief, when you lose your eyesight, as I did aged nine, you don’t necessarily become any of the following: an oracle, a pianist, a mean pinball-player, basket-weaver, or Stevie Wonder – nor do you develop sat-nav.  In my experience, you feel disconnected, pushed back from things, a blurred observer in a blurred world.  The visual cues that most people take for granted are gone.  Picking up a smile from a passer-by becomes a dreamed-of luxury.  No more eyes meeting across a smoky room, or smoke-free one.  Even in an intimate setting, feelings of low self-worth can rise up and grab the steering-wheel of self.  You might feel you’re saying all the right things, but if you can’t see whether or not the other person is even awake, paranoia can invade the empty spaces.  Seeing can be doubting as well as believing.

 

So, in my mid-twenties, having fallen short of other people’s dreams, not to mention my own, I found myself in clerical purgatory, agnostically praying daily for something, anything, to transfigure my life.  Polly, our manager, had a flexible approach to the concept of the working day, her innovative lunch-breaks encompassing both elevenses and afternoon tea.  Her hair, a New Age explosion of mottled ringlets, crazily framed a face that always seemed to care.  A concerned frown was her default expression, even if the news was good.  She’d waft in and out in charity-sector chic, hobnobbing with the higher echelons of the counselling profession.  Her secretary was Sally, sandbagged behind a desk that betrayed her business heritage.  She’d arrived from the cut-and-thrust of pharmaceuticals.  Her hair, grey with ambition, was tied back so tight that her nose was almost on her forehead.  Words like ‘workshop’ and ‘action’ were verbs to her.  To ‘workshop’ a thing was to think about it, to ‘action’ a thing, to do it.  You could even ‘breakfast’ something, at a push.  George was my ally in this temple to self-betterment, and looked like George Harrison around the time of Rubber Soul.  We’d offset the stress of repeated calls from people who’d forgotten to either meditate or medicate, by hanging round the water-cooler and slating our colleagues.  George played the guitar, had a girlfriend, and did the accounts, the first two of which I envied.

 

I’d been there about six months when Polly and the counsellors announced a new member of staff was needed.  An ad was placed in the Guardian for someone to fill an exciting role in an engaging environment.  A few weeks later, a psychology graduate called Emma arrived, and we became firm friends in the frenzied world of counselling provision.  She was alarmingly beautiful, willowy, with a blonde bob and a sweet, lilting Lancashire accent, made slightly husky by the occasional Marlboro Lite.  We liked similar things, Morrissey, Reeves and Mortimer, and bad game shows.  Many’s the summer lunch-hour we’d spend lounging on the lawn, deep in conversation, me in a state of extracurricular longing, wondering if she was too.  Then, baguettes consumed, we’d return to earn our crust, for the next day’s baguette.

 

As autumn drew in, my feelings for Emma grew, and I decided it was time to express myself, to tell her how I felt.  An airless afternoon dragged on, and the lights in the college opposite looked like little candles of hope.  Emma was loitering by my desk, as she often did, spinning my chair as I tried to type.  Swivelling assertively to face her, I said there was something I wanted to talk to her about, so ‘could we go for a drink after work?’  An hour later, there we were, tucked away in the corner of our local pub.  I went into sombre teenager mode, weighed down as I was by years of hard-won self-consciousness, but this time there would be no backing out, as there had been so many times before.  I had to tell her.  I was 28 – that’s what 28 year-olds do.  I asked her what she was doing at the weekend.  She said her boyfriend was coming to visit.  Well there’s a thing.  Just when you want to put yourself up for audition, you find the part’s already gone.  I felt cursed.  But I’d come this far, and was not going to turn back now.  I wasn’t sure I had the provisions for the return journey, without first reaching my goal.  But I felt obliged to pay some lip-service to this unwanted urchin on my path to glory.  ‘Oh really, what does he do?’ I asked, not caring.  ‘He’s a professional footballer,’ she replied.  I couldn’t trump that.  Clerical Assistant doesn’t have the same ring to it as Liverpool Striker.  Then she asked, ‘So what is it you want to talk to me about?’  I forced out some clumsy words, and she understood what I meant.  She wasn’t phased, but replied in a gentle and humorous way, adapting a Reeves and Mortimer phrase to soften the blow.  ‘Ben, you know that office-relationships are prohibited under the country-code.’  I was both disappointed and amused.  And that, for then, was that.  But at least I’d done something positive, expressed myself, reached out in the name of feeling equal, worthy of respect, yes, even love.  I’d spent years not telling anyone anything, so I gave myself a B+ for effort, D for outcome, and went home to ponder my wounds.

 

My flat overlooked the canal in Westbourne Park.  Milling around in domestic isolation, I did what I could to poeticise my loneliness and put some Smiths on, smoked a joint, watched Frasier, and went to bed.  How could Emma call herself a Morrissey fan without even having the decency to be single?  A few months later, I learned that her boyfriend played for Crewe, and it wasn’t long before she put him up for a free transfer, and that was the end of him.  But his demise was not my cue to go blundering in.  A friend had already filled the vacancy.

 

As the months dragged on, my feelings of isolation and inertia deepened.  My social life was pretty sketchy, and many an evening I’d spend stoned alone, and even though it was good to have George and Emma at work, the job itself was mind-numbing.  So, in a bout of self-respect, I decided I would see a counsellor.  After work, I had a look at our database and picked one out who was based in my neighbourhood.  There were therapists all over the place, so I narrowed it down to one whose name I liked, Louisette.  It had a Parisian feel to it, and conjured up bookish boulevards, Bohemians in conference outside cafés.  Her room was above an antique-shop in Notting Hill, and her profile said she’d worked with blind and partially sighted people.

 

So I hit the couch, except it was a folding canvas chair.  I spent most of my sessions regaling Louisette with tales of Emma, and my inability to get into a relationship.  I began talking about the effect of my sight-condition, the first time I’d really considered it a topic worth exploring.  I even touched on the subject of abuse experienced in my early teens, and the general direction my adult years had gone in as a result.  I also went to my GP asking for antidepressants.  After telling him I was unhappy, had no confidence, couldn’t move on, was lonely, and anxious all the time, he happily scribbled out a prescription.

 

After a week or two, the tablets began to help, but it wasn’t long before George and Emma moved on to new jobs, which marked a further downturn in my spirits.  There I was, forlorn and demotivated, alone in the office, with Sally talking in management-speak, and Polly coming and going, dumping a mailing on my desk, then swanning off for a three-hour lunch.  Whenever a counsellor came by, I’d put out as much good cheer as I could, hoping my chirpy demeanour would put them off the scent.  But one morning, an eminent psychiatrist gave me a bundle of papers to file.  I took them, and they fell all over the floor.  ‘Sorry,’ I said, shamefacedly scraping them up.  ‘There’s no need to be sorry,’ replied the urbane Hampstead shrink.  ‘Oh, I’m always sorry,’ I mumbled, prostrate before the filing-cabinet.  ‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ he quipped, in a way that felt like checkmate in a therapeutic game of chess.

 

Then, just to keep things interesting, I had to move out of my flat.  It was owned by a charity for blind and partially sighted people, and the deal was you could live there for three years.  My time was nearly up, but I’d made no plans to move on.  In the dying weeks of my tenancy, I did go and look at a flat in Notting Hill, a small room with a wardrobe, single-bed, and table and chair.  There was just enough room to enter and stand.  The landlord, who was about twelve, wanted more than I was already paying for my canal-view cell.  I asked him about cooking and washing, and he said the kitchen and bathroom were communal, shared with six other tenants.  I felt like throwing myself out the window, except I couldn’t get to it.  So it was vaguely fortunate when an old schoolmate, Josie, asked me if I wanted to move in with her, over in the wastelands between East London and Essex.  So this is what I did, for two main reasons, one, I had to move somewhere, and two, I fancied her.

 

One dazzling Saturday morning, two Australians rolled up in a removal-van and sped me across London, me perched precariously between them with no seatbelt.  They helped me unpack at the other end, which was no easy feat, as the flat was at the top of a rickety set of backstairs.  It was a struggle getting some things up, most notably my fridge, which, after a few attempts, we decided to leave downstairs.  Then, my Aussie friends having wished me well, I sat in the living-room and watched telly.  Nobody was in, but I knew from that moment I was not going to be happy there.  I think it was the swords and armour hanging in the hall, the skulls and aliens lined up on the bookcase, and the fact that within a matter of days I was being invited to mock-medieval banquets, where everyone dressed up and said ‘hail thee’ and ‘farewell’ to one another, for Josie and her friends were members of a historical re-enactment society.  I had Sally’s office-speak at work, and mock-medieval doggerel in the flat, and felt alienated from both.  Josie’s boyfriend resembled George Formby in a Robin Hood outfit, and the other flatmate, pallid as a vampire, looked like a Goth who hadn’t changed his t-shirt since 1988.  Josie, however, was a buxom Essex girl, whom I’d craved since school days, but never quite managed to ask out.  If they weren’t having a banquet, or out the back waving swords around, they might be scuttling around a derelict castle on a treasure-hunt, pitting their wits against bards from far-off leagues - but this at least meant they were out.

 

To make matters worse, the flat was above the local Conservative Club, and I had to pay rent to the miserable dogs.  It was not in good condition.  We were up in the attic, where parts of the floor were so warped that you couldn’t put anything down, else it would just roll away or fall over, and the place felt like a tinderbox waiting for a spark.  As for my stranded fridge, when the club secretary realised I couldn’t get it upstairs, her response was to drag it into their office to keep milk and biscuits in.  Reversing Robin Hood’s dictum, they seemed happy to take from the poor, and give to the rich, the rich in question being themselves.

 

My life had become a form of medieval torture.  The average weekend would be me in despair in my bedroom, the door of which wouldn’t close properly, listening to the vampire assembling a chain-mail vest in the living-room, a process which seemed to take months, week after week, the sound of pliers fastening one more silver hoop onto the bottom of his already lengthy metal smock.  I was also disillusioned with Josie.  I was jealous of her boyfriend, but unable to do anything about it, and bitter that she seemed to be in her element among these rapscallions.  Some of my happier moments were spent on the Central Line, because this meant I wasn’t bored at my desk, or brooding in the flat.  I felt isolated in both places, and just didn’t see an end to it, barring some kind of miracle, and there was no obvious sign of one of them.

A song: Tarantula
 

AFTER ADDICTION: There Is Such A Thing

By the way, thanks.

You can read my ebook 'How To Become A Crack Addict' here if you want, or you can purchase and 'own it' on amazon, if you stoop to those levels.  Otherwise, welcome to the rooftops I skid upon, Peter Pan, but pubescent, grieving the snow he sullies.

And there is the alleged Pan.

Sometimes I don't know if I'm too stoned, or not stoned enough.

Don't you?

I've gone on too longer already.  And yet not long enough.

Here is a picture to elucidate, perhaps:

I hope you like my suburban primitivism, if such a thing exists.  And, I don't know, but I'm not sure so this is art, Reader.  I mean, look at it.  Where's the effort to idea ratio?

Fear of magic?

We do comedy at the Duchess of Cambridge, Chiswick, London, every Wednesday, etc...here's the pub's beautiful link:

It has quite a Shakespearean courtyard, I feel...

Here is the pub from the front:

And here is a hint of the secret courtyard...

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AFTER ADDICTION: If There Is Such A Thing

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), which you can read here, or buy for £3 on Amazon, if you do that kind of thing.  Since then, it's random ramblings of yours truly, Benjamin Lo-Fi.  And here is today's ramble, so get your hiking-boots on...

AFTER ADDICTION:  If There Is Such A Thing

(The picture is the Duchess of Cambridge pub, where, currently, we have a comedy evening called 'Duch Ado About Nothing', every Wednesday.  It's on the cusp of Chiswick and Shepherd's Bush, London, if you're ever in the neighbourhood.  It's a lovely place, and does great sweet potato fries, too).

In the bleak, cobweb-clad world of twelve-step fellowships, I found myself strung up on a twitching web of all-or-nothing thinking.  Don't get me wrong, I can only talk from personal experience, and from the attitudes I choose to adopt, and practise adopting as time goes by.  When I first attended a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, it was a dim, tranquil room, with a tank of tropical fish lighting up one corner, topping off the scene.  There were about a dozen of us, one or two females who 'seemed interesting' to my slightly addled mind, but, all the same, it was one of the strings that tugged me, puppet-like, back a few days later.

At that first meeting, I thought I'd arrived in a panacea, a place I could return to, again and again if needed, to tap into the happy defiance I thought I'd found.  The readings, the mellow sharing, even the tea and custard-cream, left me feeling pretty chilled.  Even the joining hands bit, and the reciting of the serenity-prayer, didn't put me off that much.  Perhaps that was testimony to how desperate I was feeling, because I'm not a natural joiner-inner.  Even at a gig, when I like the band as much as everyone else, I still feel as if any collective behaviour could be one step away from the formation of some kind of cult, or a Fourth Reich.  But even so, I went home and defiantly listened to 'Irish Blood, English Heart' by Morrissey, and actually felt free from what was normal at that time, that flat, resigned, dead-end kind of feeling, that, even with the evidence of my addiction all around me, the empty fridge, barren cupboard, and husk of a flat, was my default state.  I even had thirty quid or so in the bank, and I didn't feel like blowing it on a couple of bits of crack, and a smudge of heroin to come down with.  I really believed I'd arrived somewhere special, and I had...but I don't think it was a 'special place' for me, at least not in the long-run.

I committed heresy more than once in a meeting, by saying that, although I wanted to quit crack, I didn't really want to stop drinking, or smoking the odd spliff, because these weren't a problem to me.  I got various responses, such as 'drink will lead you back to crack', 'alcohol and cannabis are still mind-altering substances' (and therefore off the 'complete abstinence' menu), 'drinking and smoking puff is still avoiding your feelings, mate', and many variations on these themes.  There was, it seemed, no middle ground, and it's not nice finding yourself in the midst of a 'support group', trying to be honest, but discovering your honesty is sacrilege, too off-message.

That initial glow of positivity I felt after that first meeting disappeared within weeks, although I continued going back to meetings for several years (and may again), but it got to the point where I was turning up just for the tea'n'biscuits.  Things had got so bad at one point, I suppose about six years ago, where I turned up for a meeting and, when the person taking it was out the room, I pocketed a load of biscuits for later, because I literally had nothing in the kitchen.  By this point, I didn't know who or what to blame, or turn to.  My life was use when my benefits came in, spend them in a day, go to bed for three, then cadge twenty or thirty pounds of my ailing, suffering, worrying mum, to tide me over 'til the next money-day.  It wasn't a good life, yet still I thought I looked ok, even with a puffy, blotchy face, old t-shirt flapping about, and jeans like two cloth cylinders hanging from a beltless waist.

I write this partly because I met someone from one of those first meetings on the street a few days ago.  He spotted me first (I wouldn't have spotted him, because of my limited eyesight), and I felt instantly awkward, in case he wanted to know 'how I was doing', 'was I still going to meetings', etc, etc...

But, when he approached, in the brilliant light of the milk-aisle of Tesco Express, even I could see that he didn't look good.  Ghostly stubble veiled the lower half of a saggy-looking face, and the coat he had on didn't look appropriate for the kind of day it was, making me think he'd put it on because it was one of a very select selection of clothes currently hanging in his wardrobe (if he still had one).  'It's Ben, isn't it?' he said.  'Yeah, that's right,' I replied, 'Daniel...'  I had remembered his name, at least.  'Are you still going to the meetings?  You look well,' he observed, in a warm tone.  I told him I'd been to a few, because I was now thinking that he might benefit from doing the same.  When I arrived in that first meeting, he'd picked up a celebratory key-ring for being six months, or maybe nine, clean.

He told me that he'd been going to lots of meetings until a few months back, when he relapsed soon after his girlfriend starting drinking again (also from 'the fellowship), and now they were both back in a state, begging, fighting, their flat gradually becoming a stop-off point for anyone who'd scored, and wanted a quick place to smoke, or inject.  I've heard it said, although I'm not sure it's universally true, that when you get time clean, then relapse, you don't pick up where you left off, but where you would have been if you'd been using throughout.  I don't think there are any universal truths about anyone's relationship with drugs, drink, or whatever.  For a time, I got three months clean of crack, but leaned quite heavily on red wine and cannabis, relapsed on crack, and then it took me another six months to get away from it again, with plenty of self-will, and support, and that time, because I'd joined a meditation group, I found myself a little calmer, and wiser.

Daniel asked me if I could lend him (like I was going to see him any time soon) a couple of quid.  He already had two cans in his hand, but wanted to get some lasagne, or some such sludgy ready-meal from the reduced cabinet.  I gave him it, and said I'd better be on my way because I had a friend waiting at home, which was a lie.

So Daniel and I shook hands, his rough, mine loose, not wanting to get too entwined, and I said 'I hope you can get back into meetings, maybe, if you find them helpful...it's not about pride, lots of people relapse, no one'll be on your case...' or words to that effect, and he said he would go back.  I reminded him of the drug-service round the corner, like some walking 'good rehab guide'.  Our hands disentwined, and I went towards the exit, he to the checkout, ready-meal and cans in hand.

I haven't seen him since.  Don't know if I will.  But, twelve-steps or not, I think the bottom-line of substance use, or abuse, is personal choice.  It's just my opinion, but if we start classifying problematic using as a 'disease of addiction', we sidestep the fact that it is always a choice whether or not to have a drink, smoke, or whatever, and I know from personal experience, and choice, that it is possible to give up one drug, but continue, occasionally, to have a drink, or even a bit of cannabis, or pot as I believe the kids call it.  That's my personal choice.  I may choose to go without them, too.  I may not.

I don't know if that shambling little anecdote was of use to anyone, but I suppose I'm just trying to say that everyone's different, and sometimes the twelve-step fellowship, Narcotics Anonymous being my main experience of one, can seem a bit 'one size fits all', and that can contribute to people denying themselves their right to selfhood, independent thinking, considering alternatives, etc.  Obviously, I don't want anyone to go down the pan on drugs, and if someone goes the NA way, it's not for me to try and dismantle it, it's their personal choice, and may have saved their life - and I guess it's better to live in a uniform than die in your own clothes.

Here's one of my songs, just in case you have a spare two minutes twenty seconds.  It's called Windswept - just click on the name and it goes to my youtube channel.  There are more songs, and comedy postings to come - arguably.

Anyway, that's enough of me.  Until next time...

AFTER ADDICTION: From Drugs Hell To Comedy Purgatory

Hi, and thanks 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', which you can read here, or buy for £3 on Amazon, if you prefer.  It has three very good reviews, I'm pleased to say, but I would like more reviews, good or otherwise.  Nowadays, the blog is the kinda twice-weekly musings of yours truly, Benjamin Lo-Fi, singer, writer, songwriter, and comedy performer (arguably).  I usually write these blog entries, but I'm trying to resuscitate, or maybe just suscitate, the little comedy soiree I organise in the pub over the road from me, at the Duchess of Cambridge.  Here are two pieces to camera, one by me, tired of a day of worrying and trying to whip up audience, and one from Professor Brian Cox, floppy-fringed stargazer, who wishes to endorse the evening, due to having good taste in the absurd.  I hope you can bring yourself/selves to muster a little sympathy for my cause, and, if you can, come along to one Wednesday evening to what is, even if I say so myself, an original, friendly, and funny evening of comedy antics.

Here is my bit to camera:

And here is Professor Brian Cox's much more succinct endorsement of the soiree:

Thanks for dropping by.  See you very soon.

Best wishes, Benjamin Lo-Fi.

AFTER ADDICTION: The Precipice

Hello, and thanks 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' (Jan to April 2013), or you can buy it on amazon if you want.  If you do, please leave a review - I would really appreciate that.  Nowadays, I add to this blog as and when it seems relevant, or safe to do so.

THE PRECIPICE

Being only semi-virtuous, I have not taken full notice of those who peddle the twelve-step message of 'complete abstinence from all mind-altering substances'.  I haven't smoked crack for some months now, and feel quietly confident that I'm not secretly planning to any time soon - but this decision is ongoing, needs monitoring, refreshing, and rebooting.  It seems to me that if you avoid all mind-altering substances, then strictly you shouldn't eat, take medicine (even responsibly), and certainly shouldn't choose to unwind with a spliff or a glass of wine.  Of course, it's personal choice in the end.  Some might argue that any sensory 'indulgence' is an avoidance of emotions one should be addressing, whilst others, like me, think that I'm doing quite a bit of emotion-monitoring, and, like most people, can occasionally justify a bit of a trip.  All things in moderation, including moderation, as a counsellor of mine once said.

So, in my state of semi-virtue, I was in the 24-hour shop one night last week, getting a bottle of wine and some Amber Leaf tobacco, and I noticed, even with my limited eyesight, a guy, standing there, looking at the crisps, calculating out loud which he could afford.  Doritos, 99p, Monster Munch, £1, but smaller bag, Quavers 40p, big bag, but insubstantial.  He noticed my white cane, and asked me if I was okay.  I was, pretty much.  He looked very thin, like a breadstick in baggy black clothing.  Somehow, I took the initiative, and asked him if he wanted a bit of cash.  I gave him a few pound coins, and he thanked me in a high-pitched, though gravelly voice, saying, 'I can get some breakfast in the morning now.'

We left the shop together, and when he deduced I lived in the local flats for blind people, he offered to walk me home, although I didn't need him to.  He told me he'd been thrown out by his mum, even though he was forty or so, and was now sofa-surfing from friend to friend.  He said he'd not been able to see his daughter, which was destroying him, and made him turn more and more to drugs, which was the reason he wasn't allowed to see his daughter in the first place.  I pictured him going round and round on a carousel, awkwardly lighting and smoking his crack-pipe, as the gaudy, marbled horses bobbed up and down, and the steam-organ blared a fun-time tune.  More of a misery-go-round than a merry one.

He certainly had the air of someone in the thick of addiction, gaunt, confessional in tone, with an air of resignation and self-pity, heavy on his back like a rucksack.  Even so, a part of me got to thinking, plotting, planning...mmm, maybe I've earned a little break, a night off - after all, I've no major commitments in the days ahead - I could go to ground, or bed, and recover at my leisure, the Discovery Channel muttering in the corner, night and day, about Hitler, pyramids, and ancient aliens.  Truth is, I don't think I'd get back in the habit of it, if I did use again.  And he seemed quite trustworthy...

But what would be the point?  Shambling alongside me in the shade, he seemed so authentically sad that he reminded me of how I'd end up if I did 'pick up'...mentally flat, clinically bored, victimmed up, sorry for myself, remorseful, worried about money, blotchy skin kicking in like a subtle Jackson Pollock on cheeks and chin.

As we neared the lights of my building, he asked if I wanted to swap numbers.  My mobile was indoors, so I gave him my number with one digit wrong.  I said, 'I'd invite you in, but I have company...'  He understood, and replied that he was going back to his mate's, and had walked me home because he believed in karma.  So maybe, one day, even in another life, someone will walk him home (if he has one).

All things in moderation, including moderation.  This may sound like a tightrope to some people, and perhaps it is, but surely it's all about personal choice.  If I slip, and tumble into the gorge, someone can stand there jeering, chiding, patronising, follow me home without my knowledge, make frightening calls from a withheld number, because judgment is easy.  But no two people are the same, and I feel the twelve-step ideal of 'complete abstinence' is fine if you choose it, but a myth nonetheless, because the mind's always altering, even if you're sitting as still as a Hindu god in a state of near-Nirvana.

It was my birthday at the weekend and, for the first time in years, I actually managed to invite a handful of people to the pub over the road.  At times, as eight or so of us chatted round a table, I was verging on feeling almost happy - they certainly do some nice sweet potato fries there.  I felt appreciative of everyone's presence, and their presents.  The landlord and staff there seem to like me, too.  I organise a comedy evening there, every Wednesday.  It's the Duchess of Cambridge, in Chiswick, London.  So if you're ever passing, do drop in, especially on a Wednesday night, when our comedy soiree should be in full swing.  The postcode is W6 0XF, and you can ring 'em on 0203 602 5456.  It's near Stamford Brook tube, on the District Line.  It has a suntrap of a courtyard, hearty selection of ales, succulent wines, and don't forget the sweet potato fries.

So there we are - I actually managed to have a little birthday gathering, which did involve ale, and sweet potato fries.  It was probably the best birthday I've had since I was about six, which was forty years ago, so I guess that's a kind of result, kind of a joy of the semi-recovery I've managed, so far, to cobble together.

Since I've got some time away from crack, and the people and places associated with it, things have sometimes felt very empty, but it's a genuine emptiness, perhaps the emptiness I was partly trying to fill with crack.  And, on the whole, people, professional and personal, have shown much patience and compassion.  I've even been reading a self-help book, and finding it helpful - but that's for another day.

So anyway, I guess the moral of this story is 'you can walk to the edge of the precipice, but it's up to you whether you jump or not' - or maybe it has no moral at all.

Thanks for dropping by.

Here's the latest trailer for our comedy night, featuring Daniel Craig, as James Conned.

AFTER ADDICTION: My Lovely Charity Shop

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), which you can buy on amazon, if you do that sort of thing.  Since then, this blog's, albeit sporadically, mutated through different little phases, arriving, with a stumble or two, at the present day, which I am daring to call, at least for now, 'After Addiction'.  Some might say that no such time exists, once one has been engulfed by the filthy rotten disease of addiction, but, for colloquial purposes at least, I am calling the current period of my life 'After Addiction'.  Also, it might be that someone out there, in Taiwan, Ukraine, or another far-flung place, is wanting to know what people do 'after addiction', or even wondering what they might do themselves 'after addiction'.

So, having used that phrase plenty of times now, I shall tell you a little about how it is, some months away from the strangely monstrous, impulsive, arch-betrayer that is crack-cocaine.  I noticed someone searched for 'ex crack addict blog' and stumbled on these pages, so maybe there's room for a bit of happy talk, here and there.

MY LOVELY CHARITY SHOP

I'm so virtuous now, I'm the kind of person your keyworker would wheel out to give a talk in the local needle-exchange, to encourage and inspire the bedraggled clientele, let them know there's a world beyond the bin-chute, the basement-steps, that it is possible to say that final farewell to the stairwell.  I've been volunteering in a local 'boutique' charity shop for a few months now, just a day a week, as you do, a kind of penance, but more as a way of feeling vaguely useful, meeting new people, facing a few social and working-world fears I've been shunning for years.  As you may know, I am a registered blind person (I have the official certificate), although I have some residual sight that I can use in short bouts, with the aid of strong magnification.  Up until recently, I've been making myself useful steaming frocks and such out the back, taking in donations, counting the pieces in jigsaws to ensure they're complete, and making teas and coffees.  I had done a bit of work at the till, out front, but it wasn't very easy to see, even with my magnifiers and such.  But today, we got a new till, and it's like being in the International Space-Station, I don't mind telling you.  It's touchscreen, which can be tricky when you can't see much, but, luckily for me, it's really clear and has large, nicely contrasting numbers and touchpads on it - in short, with my glasses, close up, I can now do transactions without going into a flap, or having to ring the bell to get the manager to come and help.  I even did a few card-transactions without a hiccup, too, which had me feeling pretty good.  It's clear I can't see much, so people are generally understanding and sympathetic, anyway.  Thing is, you see, when you're a 'disabled person' here in the UK, you can get help for equipment, and other things, from the government, but only when you're entering a fulltime paid job, not a part-time voluntary one, which limits the opportunities of a lot of people with sight, and other problems.  Also, today we had the misfortune of voting in a new, unfettered Conservative government who are hell-bent on cutting benefits for poorer people rather than asking richer people and companies to make more of a contribution.  But then, as you probably know, that's what 'conservatives' do around the world, so far as I can tell.  So, in short, I'm lucky to be able to make use of my sight, and my self, in this new setting.  I never thought I'd glean so much glee from operating a cash-register, but, well, when I left, till-roll all correct, I sauntered home with the real rush-hour crowd, and actually felt like I'd done something vaguely worthwhile - and I'm meeting a few nice people too.  Win win, which is much better than whine whine, I find.

But why do I garner you with this account?  Well, I guess because I just want to keep some kind of journal of things, for anyone to look at if they want, and also to patronise and pat on the head those who may be struggling in the thick of addiction, near-paralysed in its thick, stodgy mire, hoping to reach the shore before the slow mud drags them under.  I know that mud, and I can still get stuck, stop, find myself just sitting, thinking about writing, going somewhere, writing some music, doing something creative to release the trapped bird in soulcage that craves a tree to perch in.

I guess my lovely charity shop is one of my new, current perches, and I'm chirping within most of the time I'm there - I think to chirp out loud would distract and confuse both customers and colleagues.  But inly I chirrup, like a chirpy chaffinch bobbing on a twig, a charity twig.

There's all sorts of characters there, and we even get the odd shoplifter, or attempted shoplifter, a drunk art-dealer, a woman who brings everything back, and a guy who takes more fag-breaks than a laboratory monkey...of which more tomorrow, or the day after.  I haven't been writing many songs lately, because I've started a little comedy night in my local pub, so here for your entertainment is one of the little adverts I made for it, courtesy of a Brian Cox mask and a silly voice (Brian Cox is a British astronomer/TV presenter, just in case you didn't know).

So anyway, thanks for letting me share.

Here is Brian's ad...

You can find our comedy page on Facebook too.  It's in the pub in west London called the Duchess of Cambridge, so our evening is called 'Duch Ado About Nothing' (for want of a better pun).

See you tomorrow...thanks again.

'YOU'RE COMING TO A CROSSING, BE CAREFUL'

Hi, 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), which you can read here or buy on amazon, if you prefer.  Now, the blog is the sporadic emissions of yours truly, Benjamin of Turnham Green (aka Benjamin Lo-Fi).  And here is today's emission...

'YOU'RE COMING TO A CROSSING, BE CAREFUL'

  Having just emerged from a genderless entertainer's door, at dawn, in light drizzle, crystalline, full of the joys of spring, I made my way home, perfectly calibrated, neither walking too fast, nor too slow.  I was, in short, the perfect citizen, albeit at dawn, in light drizzle.
  But that crystal...it was the drug that made me realise what a load of rubbish crack is.  If only I'd been fast-tracked to crystal meth at the start of my career, I could have saved a hell of a lot of money, time, and misery.  Crack, two minutes high for a fiver, crystal, six hours high for fifty quid or so.  It was a no-brainer.  You didn't need to be a chartered accountant to work that out.
  But what a high, for the desperate, lonely man, with a contorted sense of entitlement, and a sex-life still thrashing about in isolation, like a wounded serpent in the humid, cruel jungle of adolescence - fierce, full of desire, bloated, bursting with it.

  Lucky I wasn't doing anything the next day...

  Twelve hours gawping at porn, frantically forwarding various vignettes to their denouement, scrolling down images as if stalking the perfect pornographic image, never finding it, but enjoying the search all the same.  But oh, it was as if my hand was glued to my penis, and I wouldn't allow myself to come, to free myself from this prison of beautiful anticipation - it was as if I knew that would mark the end of the affair, and therefore, potentially, reflection, even remorse, a return to that meek, seemingly outgoing, but knotted-up guy the world normally knew.  No, I wouldn't, I couldn't stop.  Hour after hour, scroll, scroll, forward, forward, cheer, jeer, salute, watch again, but never arrive, never, never arrive...

  It was like, 'Well, now I've put down crack, I can settle down, resume some kind of normalcy...'  But then they went and invented a new drug, apparently higher up the league than crack, and that had to be for a reason.  So I had to try it.  One hour in a genderless entertainer's boudoir, and twelve back at mine, one hand on the mouse, the other frantically fending off flaccidity somewhere below the keyboard.

  Then, after a few sweats and chills came and went, and a strange phase that felt like the back of my brain had been removed, I gently sensed I was getting just a little bit tired.  I was running out of images to click on, pop-ups everywhere, and my tabs a tawdry grid of unrequited decades, compressed into a day's worth of torrid surfing, even I was thinking of rest, sleep even, rather than more of this by-now pasty concoction of stimulation, and simulation.

  Wanked out, to no avail, I went to the medicine cabinet, and took something to direct me towards sleep, and lay me down.

  Slept like a reclining aristocrat on one of those stone plinths you get, and woke with a slight start, still strangely empty, ten or so hours later, a part of me still in the chase, but at least not bankrupt, at least not utterly bereft of serotonin, as crack would have left me.  I even got up - went for a coffee - did some shopping - even bought a candleholder - clearly I hadn't become some fiend.
  Then, as I left the charity shop, I came to a narrow road when an old Irish lady said, seemingly for no reason, 'You're coming to a crossing, be careful.'  Ok, I carry a white cane, but I can see a bit, was walking along quite happily, it was crowded, there was no obvious hazard in view, or reason for her warning.  But, all the same, I took her advice, and still am.

  Haven't written much music lately, but have bought software that allows me to upload it more easily now, which, for me, is like landing on the moon.  So, just in case you have a spare 1 minute 42 seconds, here is one of my songs:  Get Out Of My Room - until next time.

Thank you for dropping by.