The Wilderness Years.

How the fuck did I end up here – snorting cocaine of the hilariously fake breasts of a naked lap dancer? I barely know her, she's just a hanger on; just someone who likes to be close to the source of the drugs. I'm not quite the source but I'm close enough to be desirable company for various demographics of people with undesirable inclinations. The connections who move it up from the Liverpool ports seem to be incapable of meeting anywhere other than a strip club. I swear these dickheads watch Steven Seagal movies like they are instructional videos as opposed to the juvenile male ego fantasies written by men with uselessly small penises. I’d rather gargle piss than sleep with this damaged woman, but here I am anyway, just because this wretched dark carnival of hedonistic misery seems to have become the way my cocaine binges inevitably end. A gathering of lost souls who barely know each other converging at my flat in a simmering cauldron of drugs and despair. Like a ravenous anteater I snort more of Bogota’s finest up my already blocked sinuses, and all I can think is that she looks suspiciously like a snake struggling to digest a pair of flesh coloured bowling balls. Away from the dim lights of the “gentleman’s club” and in the harsh light beginning to seep through the cracks in my curtains you can see the lines in the face, the scars peering through the patchy fake tan. This week alone she has probably been on more laps than a recycled napkin. A once beautiful woman, now a parody of homogenized femininity – fake tits, fake tan, fake eyelashes; enough botox to insulate a loft in her lips. The rules of attraction boiled down to “off the shelf”consumerism. A woman whose only crime was making one or two too many bad choices to earn a living. This is also how I like to define myself - essentially a good guy who has made a few poor decisions. But that doesn't prevent the self loathing that I'm drowning in, the more these incidents are happening in a life which is spiraling out of control. I quickly realize that I don’t even know what the fucking day is, never mind the time. Should I be at work, in a meeting with a client? Who the fuck knows! The panic and paranoia start to seep through my blood stream, as the coke begins its obstacle course through a system filled with so much whisky and stimulants that I could probably kill an oak tree by simply taking a leak on it. Welcome to my world – please help me leave! I was addicted to cocaine, using and abusing it everyday. I always had enough secreted about my person to give a sniffer dog a coronary and enough in my house to put me in prison. On some occasions for a very long time. Ironically this was also the most professionally successful period of my life, head-hunted to work for one of the largest companies on earth, exclusively on the most prestigious projects. Superficially I was on top of the world, recognized as one of the best in my field, young , well educated and well paid. But under that meaningless sheen, all was not so shiny. I think everyone has a drug that they could be susceptible to; the one that will ruin your life if you find it. However, most people are smart enough not to try every morsel from the “all you can eat” drug buffet. I had experimented with everything available before I bumped into Cocaine. All the “downers” (hash, cannabis, Valium, heroin) don’t work when you have Major depressive Disorder and CPTSD. It just makes you feel even worse. more down, if you will. The “hallucinogenics” like LSD, acid and mushrooms are just fucking terrifying for the same reason. My particular brain type doesn’t mix with bad trips. The worst twelve hours I’ve ever experienced were tripping balls with the Blue Angels (Scottish Hells Angels) in a strange flat in Glasgow. I think these were the only cognitive destabilizers I only tried once. The “uppers” like speed and base were OK, those I could see the point of, but not enough that I ever sought them out. Not that I needed to seek them out. Hanging around in the Rock and Punk scene they were all around. One night a former associate chopped out a line of what I assumed was speed. It wasn’t. I didn’t care. I just knew that I had to feel like that again. Right now. I had found my brand – Coke, it’s the real thing. It takes all the social awkwardness of autism and reconfigures it with the digital dexterity of a Swiss watch maker. Social situations were no longer scary, I wasn’t the weird quiet one standing in the corner avoiding eye contact any more. I was transformed into a confident, witty, functioning human being. Every synapse in my brain firing a sparkling fountain of pleasure and creativity.* It was amazing. At least in the beginning. The honeymoon period of being high. All honeymoons end. This one ends leaving you looking like a hundred bad choices and a thousand bitter consequences. It would be wrong to say I regret all of it. I had some brilliant times and met some brilliant people. There were moments of beauty amongst all the wreckage, flowers growing in the gutter of wretchedness. The big “But” is that the only things I’ll never forgive myself for also happened in this period. And a lot of the equally broken people who lit candles to illuminate my darkness didn't survive. Footnote: * Dear reader, I was wrong. There is literally nothing more boring than a cocaine conversation.