It was 2011. I was about to enter what they call recovery. I had no idea it was called recovery. If someone had told me I was going into recovery, I might have asked, ‘What is it I’m meant to be recovering?’ I wasn’t recovering anything, I was finding things I’d never had. It was discovery. I packed everything I owned into a small suitcase and my trusty old, cider-stained rucksack. I said goodbye to the people in the hostel I lived in. Marcel, my wide-eyed and lost next door neighbour was very sincere in his goodbye. Even a little puzzled. The underpaid staff wished me luck. I handed in my keys and off I went, wearily pulling my material life behind me for the thirty minute walk to the Basement on Parr Street.
When I got to the Basement there was a white mini bus waiting, with a little steel trailer attached. Waiting next to the trailer were seven nervous men, all smiles and darting eyes, about to spend the next two weeks with each other. I tried to accept what I’d got myself into. I wasn’t going to fit in, I knew that. It was about getting somewhere other than the barrel full of shit I was in. And I looked like I’d been in barrel full of shit for a while. We all did. We loaded our stuff and were gone, a van full of Walking Dead extras. Guiding us through our sobering extravaganza was Donna the woman who ran the Basement detox and was a recovering addict, Sue a holistic therapist, Jimmy a support worker who was recovering addict, and Tommy a volunteer who was a recovering addict.
We drove to a big cottage near Berwyn, Llangollen, Wales. We were in the middle of nowhere not just because it was peaceful, but because there was nowhere to get any mind-altering goodies. Even the local pub, The Sun Inn, had been advised against serving any thirsty, desperate looking Scousers. Being on a detox didn’t mean we weren’t allowed to drink though. For the first few days we got pissed. It was a reduction detox, a method which weans alcoholics off the drink for the first few days so as not to shock their system. The liquid menu for the first full day was half a litre of sherry and a can of Skol Super four times a day – breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper. The amount was reduced over the next three or four days depending on how much a person regularly drank, and how long they’d been drinking.
We were happy, the first couple of nights everyone was pissed. It was when the ale reduced to next to nothing that things got tough. The others were decent though, there were no real problems. Other than the obvious ones we were all carrying in our wounded bodies.
I was a quiet, trying-to-be-stern-looking, pasty, inward-facing loner with no social skills to speak of and a chest full of quivering earth. But I was determined that they were the first days of the rest of my life, and I was spending them with a mish-mash of people who’d all been through similar things in different ways. Many of us had lost people we’d loved in sad, tragic, even horrific ways. We’d all been taught that being hard was best. We all had skinheads, they were easy to look after, no combing or washing needed. Our haircuts were also better at making us appear as though we might snap if looked at in the wrong way.
Getting pissed the first couple of days gave me something to hide behind, but there was huge anticipation at what would come next. It was like knowing that imminently I’d be shot into space but first I was having a nice spa day with plenty of food and muscle relaxants. Jimmy, the gruff support worker, and Tommy the hyper-surrealist, keen fisher and volunteer, said that once the ale was taken away it was likely we’d feel the need to cry. Cry? Nah, mate. Not a crier me – the group oozed that sentiment. I think some of us were curious and scared about the magic of tears without a substance to bring them on. I know wanted it. I wanted tears. I wanted that feeling, the one I’d been trying and conjure by cutting or burning myself.
The day came, my last drink. Anxiety, racing brain, fear, mania. I hadn’t slept properly because sharing a room made me paranoid. I didn’t like the early mornings. Up at 7:30am, breakfast at 8am. To me that was practically army routine. Thank fuck the army knocked me back on the basis of mental health when I’d applied a few years before. I thought the army would be good for me, away from the world, away from drink and drugs. I now know it would have probably fucked me up more. When not being ordered around by a man who looks like a screaming, veiny penis, all there is to do in the army is drink, snort coke, and be uber-masculine (to the point where it all seems a bit violently homo-erotic). It would have made a mess of someone like me.
I wish I could say my last drink was a single malt aged twenty years. That I’d drunk it from a crystal glass, swirling it, inhaling the aroma of my near demise. Unfortunately, my last drink was a can of lukewarm Carlsberg I drank while I sat thankfully alone on top of a picnic table on a chilly early-afternoon whilst listening to the sheep bleat in the field next to me. It really did sound like they were talking to each other, or maybe me. What would their message be if they were talking to me? Maybe they were asking me to stay, to live in the relative safety of the towering Welsh hills. Or maybe they were telling me to fuck off with my shit lager. I hate Carlsberg, so inoffensive and unchallenging to the senses. It sickened me. I was used to drinking things that made me gag on the first swig, or set my belly on fire. Carlsberg was just shit lemonade. Totally non consequential. But I tried to make the most of it. And as I slowly sipped that can I became all philosophical and thought about the insignificance of a man drinking his last beer in a world that hustles and bustles and gets on with it regardless. I was insignificant in it all, didn’t matter to any of it. I only mattered insofar as I made myself matter, and if I wanted my future to be a better one I had to be the one willing myself through it. I was the part of the universe that would make my life better, the rest of existence didn’t give a shit. Maybe that was what the sheep were telling me.
I sensed time around me ticking away as normal, I tried to hold the moment close to me like I’d never done before. Moments that normally stuck with me were bad ones – moments that’d shocked me, embarrassed me, or traumatised me. Memories froze in time to haunt me at their will. But that moment, the last drink, I wanted to grab and pull in. Make it a setting to revisit in my mind’s eye. I started to think about what had brought me there. About the deep hate I had for the world, and how I couldn’t really hate what I didn’t know. I tried to think concretely about what the future might hold and drew nothing but fear and anxiety. I moved on. I was going to break the chain. The me I knew existed in there, the artist, the thinker, the friend, the lover. I wanted them to be real. An empty, green, lager can was the start. The sun was low, it was breezy, the hills made me feel safe. The city was waiting. That’d be the real test, but for the next ten days the green hills were there to hide me. I crushed the can in my hand, took one more look around me, and went inside.
A day or two after, we were all sober. That’s when the work began. There was no telly allowed, there was time for films in the evening, but daytimes were for workshops, cooking, going for walks, talking, getting the wood fires going. The workshops were normally based around dealing with emotions, how to help others, what our triggers for relapse might be. Eight men who could blag, fight, steal, and generally bungle our chaotic way through the miserable world were lost for words when it came to sharing how vulnerable we might really feel. Some were in downright denial. Two of them said there were no triggers, nothing made them the way they were, it is what it is. One of them in particular went as far to deny he ever felt sad, his conclusion was that he didn’t even have emotions. Another one clammed up for a long time, never going further than saying he was struggling. Then one day he burst into tears talking about how he was worried for his son, who was three or four at the time, and was unwell. All he wanted was to help his son through life and was scared he wouldn’t be able to. Two others were distant, but down to earth. They said anything they were feeling wasn’t going to be shared at the table. There was a small, skinny man who seemed quite confused. I knew he was scared to share much of what went on beneath the surface, because I felt the same. I saw a reflection of myself in his hunched, shifty, body language.
I couldn’t share my real feelings at first, it felt completely alien to share feelings without banter, ale, the safety net of being able to walk away. But after a day or two of workshops I did it. I told how I felt scared, vulnerable, like I didn’t know what the world had in store for me. I felt like someone or something was out to get me even though I was far away from any danger. I was probably the safest I’d been for a long time, but actually feeling safe wasn’t something my head would afford me.
As the days went on my panic and sense of impending doom, weakness, and utter despair had the top soil removed and roots were exposed. Sitting at the dinner table one evening I stared out of the windows, acting as if I was looking at something in the darkness. Really I was going over and over scary scenarios, confirming to myself that everyone hated me. I was worthless, all I’d ever done with my life was fuck it up. Fuck me! Fuck, why? Die, just die. Don’t even think. It hurt. Chest pains. Head gone. Messed up. No one else felt like me. Everyone was better than me. The little outcast, alien, hermit. Chewing through my skin. Sweating. I couldn’t run to the offy or to the dealer. I couldn’t stuff my face with cake and sweets and crisps. I was fucked.
Even when distracted by my constant fear I heard a lot when people thought I wasn’t listening. I saw a lot when people thought I wasn’t looking – it comes from a childhood of always being on high alert. And something happened which pulled me out of the window-staring act, I heard Donna whisper to Sue, the holistic therapist, ‘He’s trapped in his head.’ Hearing that was a revelation. Someone had seen me. Someone had done what very few people had ever done, they noticed. They saw inside, beyond the act. I didn’t flinch. Didn’t move a muscle. Had to stay in character.
The cottage we stayed in had something to do with the families of the Tate and Lyle sugar company. One day this foppish, handsome, Hugh Grant-but-a-farmer type came and planted apple trees with us. He brought the saplings, the manure, the feed. Those of us who were fit to do so went to work digging and planting these little fellas on the grass bank along the drive at the side of the cottage. We loved it. We had pick axes to break the soil, shovels to dig. We whacked in the support logs for the saplings to be tied to. It was hard work, but I found an abundance of physical energy for it. If I could go to the ends of the earth to get a drink or a weed, then planting some trees was a piece of piss. It was a transfer of motivation and reward. Mentally, it was hard. Every time I spoke to this lovely Hugh Grant guy I felt like he hated me. My perception was all askew, I’d interpret any body language or vocal communication that wasn’t explicitly positive as a sign of extreme dislike for me.
A few days later Hugh Grant man came back with a brass placard screwed to a big, grey rock. On it was engraved the name of the people who’d planted the trees, and the date they’d been planted. The trees are still there today. It was a lovely thing for Hugh Grant man to do off his own back.
The van ride home to the big city was surreal. I’d had an experience I’d never had before, with people I still didn’t really know. We’d shared our space, cooked for each other, smoked, laughed, and silently fumed together hidden amongst the sheep for two weeks. When I’d needed to I’d went and listened to the little brook by the cottage. I felt small and safe focusing on the sound of the trickling water amidst the vacant greenery. At night I’d stared at the magnificent stars and remembered that at the end of the day we’re all a bit miraculous, but never the less ultimately fucked, in the big soup. I didn’t want to leave. I could have lived out the rest of my days there, I thought.
As far as I know, four of the people from the residential have since died. Three detoxees died due to drug related illnesses or accidents. And Jimmy, the support worker, passed away due to a sudden cardiac arrest. Others relapsed but are now back in recovery and getting some time under their belts.
Just another aging, traumatised millennial. Exploring trauma, mental health, addiction and "recovery" through the voice of lived experience.
Bad Glue for Broken Bones 