» Addicted

Warning!
Long, very unfunny post ahead.

Several years ago, I began to have troubles with depression. Whilst I was at University I was (mostly) able to stay on top of it, but after I graduated I plunged head-first into full on despair.

I was not really equiped or ready to deal with it, so I did what many a depressed person before me has done, and heavily self-medicated (or, to put it in real terms, drank myself into oblivion at every given oppertunity). This was exasserbated by the fact that I worked in an off-licence (or liquor store, depending on your nationality).

I became very adept at hiding what I was doing. I would travel from pub to pub, only having one or two drinks in each one. I would always have a book, so that I wouldn't just be sitting there (I also had a notebook, and some of what I wrote in there simply terrifies me). I was spending hundreds of pounds - pounds I couldn't afford - a month on booze, and managed to max out my credit card (they actually reduced my limit because I wasn't able to pay it off). I would miss rent payments, bills, everything, because I had spent all my money on liquid death.

I also became very good at stealing from work. I probably averaged one or two stolen bottles a week, and it was never pinned on me.

What I did during this period, I simply do not know. Whole months of my memory are missing, as I would wake up hungover - usually in my clothes - at one or two in the afternoon and head off to work, have a couple of drinks there (yup, couldn't even last a couple of hours), then when I closed head off to the nearest boozer. There are people who know me from this period - I have no idea who they are. There are people who hate me for crimes against them I have no memory of committing. I alienated friends by repeatedly phoning at 3am, and then making no sense as I slurred gibberish over and over. If I was working a morning shift, it was about a 50/50 chance that I would sleep in and not open the shop. It's a miracle I wasn't fired.

Oh, and it made me physically disgusting - not washing, not washing my rather long and very greasy hair, not brushing my teeth, pissing myself, shitting myself once or twice.

This lasted about a year.

Then, one evening that I recall surprisingly clearly, I found myself on a rooftop, and the only reason I didn't jump off was that it was not high enough to finish me off.

That memory terrified me in the morning, so I called my doctor (three years later than I should have) and began the long process of straightening myself out.

Which I have, more or less. I am no longer in therapy, no longer on medication. I am still, however, in a serious pile of financial poo.

I don't drink nearly so much as I did, now. However, I still drink a lot, lot more than I should. Every now and then it just digs away in the back of my mind - smokers will recognise the urge, the desperate need, and nothing will put it off, nothing at all. I still give in sometimes, and buy myself a bottle or two of wine when I am in the house alone. I have to watch myself when I am out socially, as I am pathalogically unable to just have one or two. Once I've started, if I am not incredibly careful, I will be bounding for the finish line like Sebastian Coe.

It says something about me that I no longer notice hangovers, unless they are killer, in which case I may just moan once or twice.

I am trying. I am really trying to stop this. I am getting better at it, gradually. I think, in particular, health concerns are the biggest factor. But it's always there, the unceasing voice in the back of my head: "Go on, you know you'll like it. You'll feel better. Just one, to relax you. Go on..."

I don't know if it's ever going to leave, and that scares me to death.
(Fri 19th Dec 2008, 11:07, More)

» Hypocrisy

Freedom of Religion
I have a massive bugbear about this. I am an atheist - NOT AN AGNOSTIC! Rather than saying 'I don't believe in a god', I prefer to say 'I believe there is no god'. It is a belief system in its own right.

Now, I have no issue with other people believing whatever they will. I am also quite fond of a theological debate. However, I get really, REALLY pissed off when people say to me something along the lines of 'well, I think maybe you should give God another try' in the most smugly patronising voice in the world, or otherwise attempt to convert me.

I suppose I am probably over-reacting, but it comes from the realisation that I am not covered (as it were) by freedom of religion. Despite having a belief, it is not an organised religion, and therefore open to attack from all sides. If, however, I turn to a Bible-basher and say 'well, I think maybe you should give atheism another try', the screaming about freedom of religion can be heard in space...

I did once manage a great comeback though. Back when The Passion of the Christ came out, a lot of Bible-bashers came out of the woodwork trying to get everyone to go see it. A couple of them occasionally got a bit aggressive about it. I remember one who put a flier in my face, and when I politely declined and walked past, he shouted at me 'HE DIED FOR YOU, YOU KNOW!'

At which point I stopped, turned around and pointed out: 'Mel Gibson hasn't died for fucking anyone', before strolling away from his spluttering outrage.
(Fri 20th Feb 2009, 14:13, More)

» Cringe!

Thank God it wasn't my Mum...
Once upon a time, an (almost) innocent 15-year-old Mole was cycling home from school when something caught his eye. It couldn't be... not in a bush... but that's such a cliche! Everybody knows that doesn't happen in real life!

Yup, it was a fully formed grot-mag, just sitting there in the branches, all inviting. I popped it in my bag (hidden between textbooks) and cycled home somewhat faster than usual.

When I finally opened it, heart beating so hard for fear of being caught I thought it might explode, I couldn't believe my luck. It was completely unsullied! No pages stuck together, no suspect stains, no missing pages, nothing. Absolutely brilliant. To this day, I cannot quite figure out why someone would seemingly buy some porn, take it out for a fifteen minute stroll, and then leave it sitting there for some plucky young thing to take away. Whoever it was, I thank them.

Of course, I boasted about it to my friends like nobody's business. They would come round specifically to look at it. I would even sell them their favourite pages (aren't teenage boys hillarious?) - except for Claire. I loved Claire. Still do, in a little way.

Anyway, around this time there was a guy, J, who really annoyed me, but I didn't have it in me to tell him. So he thought we were friends. He had an infuriating habit of coming round to my house uninvited EVERY SODDING AFTERNOON to play on my computer. So there we are in the front room, J on the computer, me doing my homework, nobody else home, when he asks to see the mag. Sure, why not? After a while of cheerfully perusing lady-bits, he returns to the games, and I to my work.

A little later, nature calls. Being a cautious Mole, I say "if you see my Mum pulling up outside, hide the mag back in my room".

I attend to my lavatorial needs.

Upon exit, mother dearest is in the kitchen. She's not upset or angry, so clearly J has done what I asked.

Several hours later, J gone, dinner eaten, my sister and I are watching television in the living room, when in walks my Dad.

"Harry, I've got something you really want to see..."
"Really, what?"
"Just come and see."

Intrigued, but slightly annoyed at my programme being interrupted, I got up to follow him, as did my sister.

"No, not you Molette."
"But I want to see!"
"No, you don't."

So Molette sits back down, and I follow my Dad into the front room. He turns to me and, with a slight glint in his eye and the stirings of a smirk on the corner of his mouth, says "Pick up that cushion" and leaves the room.

Perplexed now, I lift the cushion...

COME OVER MY LOVELY TITS!!! stares back at me.

Yup, J had simply shoved it under a cushion - the first cushion anyone would move if they wanted to sit down - and then not told me. Dad had gone in to read a book, and had something of a surprise waiting for him.

Smuggling it back upstairs with my Mum on the landing wasn't much fun either. Nor were my sister's enquiries as to what the mystery was (my face nearly combusted from blushing).

Still, I'm bloody glad it was my Dad. My Mum got upset when, a couple of years later, she realised I had a couple of copies of FHM (I'm sorry, I'm sorry - I was 18, ok?) - and it was up to my other sister to reassure her it wasn't really pornography...

Apologies for length. I'll go lurk again now.

*Lurks*
(Mon 1st Dec 2008, 16:45, More)

» Nativity Plays

When I was 5
my class were to be the shepherds and the sheep. We were each allowed to choose which. This resulted in 27 shepherds looking after 2 sheep.
(Fri 27th Mar 2009, 15:41, More)

» Pubs

PROTEST!!!
Ok, so it was a club, not a pub, but this is my proudest ever moment in a drinking establishment...

When I first arrived at University, I was thrilled to see that the Union nightclub was actually really rather good. I've seen many others which appear to just be a space in the Union building where someone's jerry-rigged a couple of lights and speakers, but not this one. No, this was a proper three-floor, bloody good quality club (despite being full of students).

At the start of my first year, every Tuesday was rock night. This involved all three floors being open, great music, live bands, the works. Then, throughout the year, bit by bit it began closing down. First the bands stopped appearing. Then the top floor shut. Then the basement floor (the big, proper dance-floor) shut, leaving only the middle open.

Now, in fairness, it had been waning in popularity and presumably it was not economically viable to keep it as it had once been. But it was damn annoying.

Finally, the end of the year came around, and EVERYONE who had ever been piled into the one little floor that was left open, for a big goodbye rock-out. The place was absolutely rammed. People were going nuts. Everyone was having the time of their lives...

... when the sound cut out. Mid-song. And the flourescent 'bugger off home now' lights came on. An hour early.

Everyone screamed in animalistic outrage, and turned to the DJs, though it soon became clear that they had no warning.

It was the bastard management. They'd been systematically stripping down my favourite night of the week, and now they were denying us our final hour. Well I wasn't going to take it! Not any more! I was going to show them what I was made of!

I sat down.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I did this more as a joke than anything else. But then my mates sat down. And then the guys next to us... and next to them...

And before you knew it there were hundreds of us. We were chanting, singing, ripping posters off the walls (using the ones advertising it open til 2am as placards). It even got to the point where I was sat on the DJ desk leading the chanting: "Fascists! 2am! Fascists! 2am!"

Fascists? Really??? Oh well...

But we obviously did something right, as they eventually relented and let us have one last song! Result!

Four years as a student and that's the only protest I ever took part in.

Oh, somehow I not only avoided getting banned, but the following couple of years the management went out of their way to help when my band arranged live music nights. I often wonder what they would have said if they realised who we were...
(Fri 6th Feb 2009, 16:51, More)