This is a story about a peaceful death...

Try this at home if you like: it's impossible to hold your breath until you pass out. Even if it were possible, your conscious decision to hold your breath would then be overridden when you were unconscious, so you would start breathing again.

Don't try this at home, because it's dangerous, but it probably won't kill you: if you take a plastic bag with no holes in it, and tape it around your neck so that no air can get in or out, pretty soon you'll start to hyperventilate. You're going to panic, and you're going to know that the plastic bag is stopping you from getting the fresh air you need, so you're going to tear a hole in that plastic bag. It's possible you could control that urge until you passed out, and then you'd soon die of asphyxiation, but if you remain conscious you'll find that the urge to take a breath of fresh air is overwhelming.

You'd think that it was a lack of oxygen that was causing this panicked desire to take a breath of fresh air, but you'd be wrong. What governs your overwhelming desire - panic - to take a breath after you've been deprived of fresh air, is something called the hypercapnic alarm response. It's actually elevated levels of CO₂ that are causing your brain to say "oh, shit, I'm about to suffocate".

If you were going to gas people to death, you could use chlorine. Chlorine gas will burn the lungs from the inside, when inhaled. The chlorine will combine with water in your lungs, to make hydrochloric acid, which will cause fatal internal chemical burns - your lungs will be so damaged, they're rendered useless. The pain would be excruciating, as the chlorine attacks your lungs, throat, larynx, eyes and other parts of your body that have some dampness. Death would be slow and painful, as you struggled to breathe with lungs that were being disolved by acid.

If you were going to gas people to death, you could use a nerve agent, like sarin or venomous agent X. These potent nerve agents interfere with muscular control. Without control of the muscle of your diaphragm, you are unable to breathe in and out. Dying with a nerve agent, you would be fully conscious of the fact that you couldn't breathe: that is to say you couldn't actually suck any air into your lungs, even though you desperately wanted to. You may lose other muscular control, and drop to the ground, twitching, but you would be fully conscious until you asphyxiated. More of a painless death than chlorine, but pretty awful to be unable to breathe in and out, even though you want and need to.

If you were going to gas people to death, you could use pure nitrogen. The air we breathe is 78% nitrogen, which is inert and innocuous. Food manufacturers fill your bags of crisps with pure nitrogen. So, if we breathe nitrogen all the time, how can you use it to gas people to death? Well, obviously in a room that's filled with 99% nitrogen, there's hardly a trace of oxygen - certainly not enough to keep you conscious and alive. Worryingly, the brain has no way of knowing that it's not getting enough oxygen, so you'd just pass out and asphyxiate rather unexpectedly. You'd start to get confused as your brain was deprived of oxygen. Your ability to think would be so impaired, you'd never figure out - through logic - that you were suffocating, before you passed out and died. In a way, you'd die stupid and ignorant.

If you were going to gas people to death, you could use carbon dioxide. CO₂ is readily available in the form of fire extinguishers. An over-zealous demonstration of a fire extinguisher in a small unventilated room, could leave you gasping for air, which is the effect intended on a fire: to deprive it of oxygen. You might unwittingly deprive yourself of oxygen. In a death chamber filled with CO₂ you would be hyperventilating - gasping for breath - until you eventually passed out and then finally asphyxiated after a few minutes. This to me, is the very worst kind of death. With the nerve gas, you'd want to gasp for air, but you wouldn't be able to. With nerve gas the other effects on your motor functions would be a distraction, as you twitched uncontrollably on the floor. However, with the CO₂ you'd be hopelessly sucking in lungfuls of gas, but feeling a rising sense of panic as you were acutely aware that you were in the process of suffocating. For most people, it would be the worst two or three minutes of their life: a terrible torturous way to die; cruel and unusual.

I've spent plenty of time in the high Alps and been to the summit of many mountains over 4,000 metres, which is about 13,000 feet. This altitude is classified as being "very high" which is the grade below "extreme". At the summit of Mont Blanc the percentage of available oxygen drops from 21% to 11%, which is roughly half what you normally breathe. You can breathe twice as fast to try and compensate, but there's a limit to the speed with which your body can absorb a lungful of oxygen. If you're breathing twice as fast, your body has half as long to absorb the available oxygen from that air. I know what it's like to be gasping for air, when my muscles were burning with lactic acid because they've not been able to get enough oxygen. I know what it's like to be slightly lightheaded and giddy, because my brain is not getting all the oxygen it needs. However, if you sit still and calm, lower your heart-rate and your respiration rate, you can soon get the oxygen levels in your blood back up to a safe percentage.

Deep sea divers know that to panic could be deadly. Panic is a fight-or-flight mode where your heart-rate and breathing increase, getting your blood full of oxygen so that your muscles can use it if you have to make a run for it. However, with only a finite amount of compressed gas to breathe and the necessity to ascend to the surface slowly, it's imperative that divers maintain a relaxed metabolic state, to preserve the precious oxygen in their tanks. To swim like crazy to the surface might mean you can take as many deep breaths of fresh air as you like, but bubbles of nitrogen in your bloodstream will have nucleated, and they will cause excruciating pain as they work their way through your body and can even kill you if they reach the brain - this is called "the bends".

I just found out that in Denmark, where most of our bacon comes from, they euthanise pigs using CO₂ which I find distressing, thinking that pigs have the same hypercapnic alarm response that we do. The pigs spend 4 minutes in a chamber filled with CO₂ and then they are unconscious or they have asphyxiated. They don't feel their throats being slit, which causes a massive drop in blood pressure, immediately rendering the brain as good as dead. However, I want to know if those pigs spent some of those 4 minutes, hyperventilating, panicking, trying to breathe in and out enough to not suffocate... hopelessly.

Genocide, ethnic cleansing, euthanasia and to some extent, animal slaughter, all raise questions about the suffering in the final moments before death. If I was going to rank the ways I'd choose to die, this would be my choice:

1. Massive laceration to the carotid artery - the drop in blood pressure would cause instant unconsciousness, and death would swiftly follow
2. Diamorphine or fentanyl overdose - while this effectively kills through respiratory arrest, which is the same as asphyxiation, you would almost certainly die quickly and painlessly, unconscious
3. Nitrogen (or other inert gas - e.g. helium) - to breathe this gas until you lost consciousness would require a certain amount of steely resolve, to not tear off the bag or mask. Completely painless, but requiring 2 or 3 minutes that would be psychologically unpleasant.
4. Potassium cyanide - this would produce a relatively swift and certain death, but there may be some minutes of pain and discomfort

The poisons arsenic, ricin and strychnine, along with the nerve agents botulinum, sarin and venomous agent X, would all have undesirably slow or indirect ways of killing you - for example, inhibiting your ability to breathe. To die by these deadly agents would be most undesirable, given the suffering in your final moments.

Point blank gunshots to the head can miss major blood vessels and parts of the brain that control your vital organs, and as such, very many people have survived attempted suicide using a gun. This is probably largely to do with Hollywood portrayals of suicides being committed by putting the gun in your mouth: liable to result in the bullet missing the spinal cord and anything else important, and just leaving a hole in the back of your head/neck. Painful, but not fatal.

Therefore, without the assistance from a person with anatomical and surgical knowledge, to sever your carotid artery, and without the access to the controlled (illegal) substances of diamorphine and fentanyl, your best option is to obtain a canister of wine preserver gas, a large plastic bag and some duct tape. Filling the bag with the gas, you would place it over your head, top up the gas as much as possible and then tape it airtight around your neck. You should lose consciousness within minutes and die soon after that - completely painlessly. A home remedy to euthanise yourself.

Many dentists who commit suicide breathe nitrous oxide - laughing gas - through a mask until they lose consciousness and asphyxiate.

The problem with a home made pill cocktail - opiates to stop your breathing and benzodiazepines and Z-drugs (zopiclone, zolpidem) to keep you unconscious - is that your stomach needs to break down many many pills and for their contents to enter your bloodstream rapidly, without you vomiting. Augmenting with alcohol may increase the ability of the opiates to stop you breathing, and assist in keeping you unconscious, but there is a fairly big time window where you might be discovered and there are a number of variables that make the result more unpredictable than is acceptable, if you've made the final decision to euthanise yourself.

As you can see, those who are thinking about ending a life have much to consider, even if it's just a pig to make bacon out of. I would prefer my pigs to be killed with pure nitrogen gas, than pure CO₂. In actual fact, even though the halal practice of slitting an animal's throat looks barbaric, it's very humane, for the reasons explained above - it would be my first choice, for myself.

Gas chambers, animal and human euthanasia - you're welcome.

Tags: #suicide

This is a story about pulling the wool over somebody's eyes...

Every day, between 6pm and 8pm, I get a visit from a different stranger. They all belong to Tower Hamlets' Community Mental Health Team, and specifically to the home treatment Crisis Team, but it must be a big team because I almost never see the same person more than once. Everybody's reaction is the same when I let them in: "wow! look at the view!".

The fact is, I have enough money to last me 2 more weeks, but then I'm not just skint... I'm actually insolvent. I have a lease that doesn't expire until September and I have to service various debts that I ran up, just trying to stay alive.

"Oh, you probably spent all your money on drugs" I hear you say.

Recently, I was on the dark web, looking for something for a friend - something to relieve pain that wasn't on offer on the NHS. Having located some vape oil, containing medical cannabis, I then couldn't resist the urge to continue window shopping. To my alarm, the worldwide supply of supercrack had dried up, due to the Chinese very effectively banning the production and sale of it.

There was one supplier - in the whole world - selling his remaining stock of supercrack. 10 grams. That amount of good quality cocaine might cost you £900. For 10 grams of supercrack, I paid the princely sum of $134.

How long do you think 10 grams of supercrack lasts? Well, we can work it out. A severe addiction might consume as much at 15 milligrams per day - that would be enough to not sleep for a whole day and night. So, easy maths then.... 10,000 divided by 15 = 667 days. One year and ten months, of daily drug abuse for $134. No. I did not spend my money on drugs.

So, back to the strangers in my home each evening. I sit them down on the sofa, next to the patio doors that lead onto the balcony.

Still somewhat wowed by the view, they can also see a number of expensive electronic trinkets lying around. The conclusion that is instantly drawn is that I'm not really in crisis, but in fact I'm wealthy, successful and totally in control of my life. They couldn't be more wrong.

I wrote about this the other day, but lurking behind the door into the kitchen, are a load of bottles for recycling. In theory, I've stopped drinking, but that's just a technicality. If you're in the grips of a mental health crisis or drug-induced behaviour, then you don't tend to have a glass of wine in front of the TV. Remarkably, I've had a bottle of white wine in the fridge, unopened, for over a week.

"Why don't you just have one glass and stop?" a psychiatrist asked me. I replied that oxygen would make the wine go off, so I needed to finish the bottle once it was open. She suggested a vacuum pump wine preserver, to which I replied that I bet I'd never be able to find one. The penny dropped, and she realised I was taking the piss. The reason why I don't stop is because I don't want to. Alcohol is an effective way of getting intoxicated, so you don't give a fuck about your problems... except I do seem to give a fuck in a strange way, because whenever I get ridiculously drunk, I punch my bathroom door so hard that it makes a hole in it. Then I wake up and think "why did I do that?" and I'm filled with regret.

Strangers who come in my house don't see my bedrooms. My main bedroom with the ensuite has got blood spots all over the floor from some accidental injury or something. There's lots of evidence that I imprisoned myself in that room, for some reason. In fact, there's lots of evidence outside the communal areas, that I've absolutely lost my mind at times.

Recently, being in possession of quite a good set of tools, as well as a box of screws, I set about attempting to screw a desk to the door of my spare bedroom, or something like that. The plan wasn't even clear to me. Once you lose more than about 3 nights of sleep, your priorities are quite corrupted. Instead of hydration, food and sleep, my focus switched to barricading the bedroom door. If you have a dark sense of humour, you may chuckle at the fact that as soon as I had completed my task, I then needed to undo my work because I needed to use the lavatory.

These are the kinds of things that are quite important if you want to understand just how sick I am, but the 'window dressing' which is my lounge, balcony and view, rather distracts from the piles and piles of dirty dishes, and overbrimming laundry baskets. The home visit team members walk away thinking "I must tell my colleagues about that awesome view", rather than "I must tell the doctor that the patient looked like he hadn't slept for days, or eaten much".

Can I fix things? I've pretty much given up hope. There just isn't time.

10 grams of supercrack certainly doesn't help, and I knew that a relapse would be one problem too many, on top of a giant shit sandwich. However, the things I've tried that are a sensible and realistic approach, have brought in way too little cash for way too much effort. I'd rather have my MacBook Air and iPad Pro, than a few pennies, even if they're surplus to requirements most of the time.

I could keep up appearances for friends and family, but I lived in fear of my work colleagues discovering that I suffered from mental illness for so long, that the exhaustion became unbearable. It was an open secret that I would be late to work during periods of depression, or not turn up at all. Everybody knew that I liked a drink, but I surrounded myself with other heavy drinkers. The problems worsened, and I had to run twice as fast to just to stand still. I came to London, knowing I could burn a bunch of bridges, and never exhaust all the options open to me, but it's bullshit, having to interview for jobs when you've got a 20 year career behind you and countless people who know you're good at what you do. Also, why shouldn't my friends know what's going on in my life. If they're true friends, they'll see that I'm still me, but I'm in crisis - they won't suddenly change their opinion of me, because of prejudice, although one close friend did and it broke my heart.

Don't lift up the rugs or look under anything: I've swept so many things under the carpet. Out of sight out of mind. I don't bear close scrutiny, but nobody looks very carefully anyway. First impressions count for everything.

After the insanity comes a further insanity - a paranoia that my flat is trashed and I'll never be able to bodge it up good enough to escape hefty bills for repairs that are completely over-inflated by the unscrupulous letting agents.

Where am I going to go? What am I going to do? The fact that you're asking those questions is the clue as to why I might wish to escape into alcoholic oblivion, or take supercrack. There are no easy answers. I know I keep going on about it, but the whole hospital/dialysis/job loss fiasco has left me questioning what the f**k I'm doing, working IT contracts in London, except for the staggering amount of money that it brings in. It doesn't compensate for the up-front stress, followed by the abject boredom and misery.

You'll probably find me sidling up to you in a bar in 20 years time - the known local drunk - and saying to you "I remember the time I lived by the River Thames and worked for the world's biggest companies" and you'll think that I'm some delusional twat.

I hope I just die before I suffer that indignity.

Tags: #mentalhealth #depression #alcohol #drugs #addiction

This is a story about habituation...

What a surprise! There's a small glass of wine left in the bottle today. How did I end up missing that? I normally drink the house dry, every single night. I've stopped buying gin, Pimms and other spirits, to avoid the temptation of a strong early-evening drink, to take the edge off the day; the nightcap that sends me to bed completely sozzled.

I'm not saying I've become some pious teetotaler who rather too proudly proclaims their abstinence, as if it makes them a better person somehow. I respect former alcoholics who know that once they pop they can't stop, but anybody who chooses not to eat or drink something because of their beliefs and values can bloody well keep it to themselves.

The French - during a water shortage - put up public notices saying "SAVE WATER: DRINK WINE". I fucking love the French.

I've been having my rocket fuel antidepressants for a few weeks now, but I'm sleeping 14 hours a day and I'm almost completely incapacitated by depression. The doc told me to take two pills a day, so I'm taking four, trying to speed things along a bit. The timing could not be worse. I need to be up and about, earning money, enjoying our all-too-brief British summer. Instead, I'm in bed with the curtains closed.

The friend who challenged me to 100 days of sobriety now takes 3 day breaks from drinking. I can't remember the last day where I didn't have any alcohol. Probably when I was in hospital, or maybe the day of the London Marathon, when I momentarily relapsed onto the really hard stuff: supercrack.

Perhaps that's one of the main reasons why I'm still depressed - it was only a month ago that I was convinced the sound of helicopters and yelling crowds, was an angry mob and the police, out to get me. Paranoia like that is awful. Supercrack is a Hell of a drug.

What a year. Starting well with a contract for Lloyds, but then suddenly my foot was numb and swollen. By the time I made it to Accident & Emergency, my whole left leg had swollen up. Acute kidney failure meant two weeks on dialysis and an operation to put a 25cm long rubber tube into a vein in my groin. Managed four days work then lost the contract - too sick to work. My flatmate had buggered off and owes me thousands of pounds in rent & bills; made a complete mess of my spare bedroom. Nobody knew why my foot was numb and I couldn't move it very much, despite being poked and prodded by various doctors. I was taking huge doses of opiates to manage the pain, and had to endure horrible withdrawal - nausea, cold sweats, diarrhoea - when I decided to try and get off the painkillers.

Gawd knows how long I've been taking Xanax and Valium for. I probably need a benzo detox. Opiate withdrawal is unpleasant but benzo withdrawal can kill you.

But, one step at a time. I'm going to try and only drink half a bottle of wine tonight. She wants to drink early and then stop; I want to drink late and then go to bed. It's going to be a test of my willpower, which is severely compromised by alcohol.

If tonight goes well, I'll try and do three consecutive days with no booze; see if it helps my mood. I'm sure my liver will thank me - it's already pretty busy trying to process all those chemicals I put into my body; all those pretty pills.

It's true, the more someting is ubiquitous, the harder it is to abstain from it. I hadn't dabbled in drugs for a decade, when the Dark Web brought a drug superstore right into my living room. Little packages of joy coming through the letterbox, allegedly. It's easier to get booze though. If you really have the thirst for it, you can nip to your local convenience store or even have it delivered to your door in London, 24 hours a day.

They tell recovering addicts to delete all their dealers' numbers from their phone; avoid friends who are still using drugs; change your lifestyle to avoid reminders of the places you used to use drugs. But what if you only ever did drugs on your own? What if you never met a dealer in your life? What if you could never forget the steps to access the Dark Web?

Why am I so hard on myself when I'm dealing with so much? Addiction, hospitalisation, psychiatric wards, mental health conditions, painful injuries, money worries, people owing me lots of money, need to get another contract, need to get a new flatmate, need to fix stuff up, need to stabilise and get into a sustainable position.

Alcohol's probably the most health-destroying drug; the most dangerous to quit if you're dependent; the most ubiquitous; the drug I've been abusing for the longest.

One step at a time.

Tags: #alcohol #drugs #addiction #mentalhealth

This is a story about infidelity...

Yo ho ho and a bottle of Xanax. We're off to take a sailing trip across the Atlantic to New York. I'm nervous, but she's with me - she's also an experienced sailor - so I'm excited and I'm sure that between us we can manage the voyage. At first we are heading towards Dover. Why are we travelling East when we need to be sailing West? Then, we are becalmed and a fog descends. The water is glassy and flat and the sails flap uselessly. A road sign appears and it becomes apparent that we are in London, on a road. We are towing the yacht on a trailer. I rack my brains, trying to think of the best marina with a hoist to lift our yacht into the sea. I can't think straight.

This is a dream, obviously.

Next, I'm approaching a nightclub, skipping the queue outside and heading straight for the entrance. I present my left hand to the bouncer, who shines a torch on it. I brush past him so confidently, and he's not really paying attention, so he doesn't notice that I don't have an ink stamp that says I'm allowed in. Nobody challenges me. I go past the dance-floor and into another room. I notice somebody sucking on a glass tube with what looks like shards of gold, or maybe honeycomb, being ignited with a lighter. Then, an old schoolfriend wants to show me something he's making. He's pouring chemicals into a large jam jar. He's making shake-and-bake methamphetamine. The crystals aren't perfect shards of ice, but instead they're a milky mess. I know the drug will be potent, but the solvents and other chemicals used are deadly. I'm afraid, but also drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. Somebody has prepared some lines of a white powder; it's being passed around. I wake up.

My doctor warned me that my new depression treatment - California rocket fuel - would lead to vivid dreams, but I've always had a lot of dreams.

In a way, my new dreams are better than the old ones. When I used to dream before, they were basically all the same: I have some supercrack and I'm trying to find a private place to take it, but every time I think I'm safe from intrusion, and I'm about to snort a line, somebody interrupts me. Then begins a stressful game of hide-and-seek where I'm trying to escape the voyeurs who wish to intrude on my private drug use. I never actually manage to get any drugs up my nose before I wake up.

Of course, drugs are still my mistress. I've got a virtually unlimited supply of opiates, in the form of tramadol and codeine. I've got stacks of benzodiazepines, in the form of diazepam and Xanax. I've got loads of Z-drugs in the form of zopiclone and zolpidem. I've got pregablin, venlafaxine and mirtazepine. I've got Viagra and Cialis. None of these chemicals seem to make the blindest bit of difference to my depression, and they're certainly not my drug of choice: supercrack.

I go to the chemist, and I have to give two signatures, because they're giving me medications that are controlled substances - they're illegal to possess without a prescription. I'm handed a carrier bag that's bulging with boxes packed full of blister strips containing capsules full of chemicals, or pills that have been pressed into certain shapes and sizes, with numbers and letters imprinted on them. Everything is so colourful. If I lose a pill on the floor by accident, I can identify exactly what it is.

I get confused at night, as I swallow 6 pregablin capsules (white with black lettering), 2 venlafaxine tablets (round and dark orange), 2 mirtazepine tablets (small lozenge shaped, light orange), 2 zolpidem tablets (tiny white lozenges) and a Xanax (an oblong with "XANAX" imprinted on one side). Sometimes I also take a zopiclone if I can't sleep (round white tablet). When my leg was in pain, I would also take 2 co-codamol with 30mg of codeine in each tablet (large white lozenges) and 2 tramadol capsules (green and yellow). Trying to remember if I took everything, and make sure I don't take anything twice, is quite difficult. I'm almost at the point where I should prepare all my tablets and check I've got everything before I greedily gulp them down. I can now swallow 6 tablets at once, easily.

My real mistress, and the beast that's out to kill me - supercrack - is tamed at the moment. I know that a lapse would be disastrous in my financially precarious situation, but I'm also so doped up that my libido and craving for supercrack is under control... for now. I'm not a superstitious person, but I feel like I'm tempting fate just writing these words.

I don't bother keeping a tally of how long I've been 'clean'. It's a ridiculous idea. If a person quits one thing, they start doing something else. A former gambling addict might become obsessed with fitness and go to the gym 7 days a week. A smoker who quits will probably start eating more, to compensate for the loss.

It might seem logical that the longer you're addicted to something, the harder it will be to quit and stay 'clean' but nobody seems to realise that the more times you quit and have periods of abstinence, the better you get at quitting and resisting temptation. Medically, the binge & quit cycle of drug taking is the most damaging, because the binges are so extreme: days and days without sleep or food, and huge doses of really harmful drugs, when your poor body has just about recovered and was starting to get back to normality.

Of course, the really harmful stuff is to relationships. She doesn't mention it very often, but she's worried about the next time I just disappear off the face of the Earth, and reappear skinny, sleep-deprived and suffering from all the nasty side effects of supercrack: paranoia, obsessive-compulsive behaviour and panic attacks; not to mention tachycardia, malignant hyperthermia and rhabdomyolysis. I'm no stranger to hospitals and psych wards.

If you meet me in person, I seem polite, well presented, somewhat smart and certainly confident and self-assured. I can make smalltalk and feign interest in other people's lives. I remember the tiny details that people tell me, which I can see are important to them, so that I can bring them up if ever there's a lull in conversation; an uncomfortable silence. There's no chance you'd peg me as a 'druggie' or a 'stoner' or a 'junkie'. I take perverse pleasure in contradicting and confounding the stereotypes.

Despite my ability to confidently bullshit my way through life, I do wonder if I'm as seriously sick as my doctors tell me I am. They can't make their mind up whether I have treatment-resistant major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder or some dual or triple diagnosis of all of them, plus the substance abuse, of course.

On top of the chemical cocktails, there's a bottle of wine every night, just like every other middle-class professional. Lots of people would say that alcohol is part of the problem, but the last time I quit I quickly went hypomanic and lost my contract. Seems to be the story of my life: losing my contracts through ill-health. All the evidence points to chronic illness that makes me unfit to work, but my confident and upbeat attitude - plus my employability - has got me stuck in a groundhog day loop, where I work enough to pay the bills for a year, but then implode spectacularly and find myself without gainful employment, yet again.

Undoubtedly, my affair with supercrack wreaks havoc across every area of my life, but what about the depression? What about the hypomania? What about the fact I see everything in black and white, and I either love you or hate you? Even when I'm 'well' and functioning, I've still gotta be right: intellectual pride and arrogance.

I've committed to a new regimen of antidepressants, for the first time in years, so maybe my mood will improve if I can keep taking the pills regularly for 4 to 6 weeks... then we'll see if these blunt instruments of brain manipulation actually fucking work for once.

Meanwhile, money pours out of my bank account and the end of the runway gets ever closer, but the wheels of the aeroplane are still on the tarmac. If I can't psych myself up to overcome the depression, stress and anxiety enough to hide my problems and tackle the arduous task of getting another contract, I'm fucked. The house of cards will collapse quicker than you can say "fuck my life".

It's remarkable how much time I spend thinking about setting my affairs in order: making sure my life insurance pays out to my sister, making sure I've left instructions so that friends who've helped me out get repaid, making sure I've thrown away everything that's of no value, making sure that I've listed the details of all my bank accounts and creditors, making sure I've left enough money in my company so that my accountant can wind up the business and he gets paid, and also making sure that at least a teeny bit of my legacy is preserved: I've written a novel and this blog has about 600,000 words, plus photos. I always said I wanted to leave a smoking gun, in case anybody wanted to investigate how stress - mainly financial worries - can destroy a person and drive them to suicide. My biggest fear is being written off with a simple throwaway label: "mentally ill" or "substance abuse" or whatever... things are never as simple as that.

While most people are planning summer holidays and extended weekend breaks over the bank holiday weekend, I'm paralysed by the ever-approaching end of the runway, combined with debilitating stress and depression. Things look straightforward, because I've made life look like a walk in the park so far, but in fact I'm just very good at hiding the deteriorating situation, when my back's against the wall. Just because I can rescue myself in the nick of time, doesn't mean I can always do it, forever. I feel physically sick at the thought of the effort involved in doing what I do, all over again, even though it's a well-practiced tried-and-trusted formula.

Time just gets frittered away, which is fine when you're getting your regular salary and you spend most of your time at your desk just counting down to the weekend or your next holiday, but when you're in my situation, in a way, I'm dying. How do you think you'd feel if you were left penniless, homeless and with a bunch of vultures trying to take the clothes off your back? How do you think you'd feel if you know you can make everything alright again, if only you were well enough to work, but you feel sick and the thought of going back to the office caused you severe stress, anxiety and paralysed you; unable to cope or deal with the situation?

Tick tock goes the clock, and it doesn't stop. You have to run just to stand still. This is why it's so attractive to run away with my mistress and pretend my problems don't exist: escapism.

I want to escape this invisible prison.

Tags: #drugs #depression #suicide #mentalhealth #career

This is a story about a disappearing act...

Jesus could turn water into wine. I can turn wine into water, urea and a small amount of faeces. I can do the same with gin. It's a miracle!

Miracles and acts of faith are supposed to cause the skeptical to be surprised. I myself, was very surprised to see that a couple of bottles of gin have disappeared without a trace. Where is it all going?

I've lost all portion control.

With beers, I can tell you how many cans or bottles I've had. I think to myself "if I have that 5th pint, I'm going to feel like shit tomorrow".

With wine, when you start measuring it in bottles - plural - then you're in trouble. Two bottles of wine is shitloads of alcohol. The problem is that three large glasses of wine finishes a bottle, so I think "I'll open another bottle and just have one glass and leave the rest" except that I don't ever leave wine undrunk.

With spirits, I have no means of accurate measurement. A 'finger' of gin in a glass is a substantially different volume, depending which finger I use and which glass I'm pouring into. I actually have no idea how much hard liquor I'm consuming, versus wine and beer. I totally lose all portion control.

When I'm sharing a bottle of wine, secretly I know that I'm drinking faster and filling my glass a little higher, but I still only count the number of bottles consumed. Two bottles between two means that I only drank one bottle of wine, therefore I can have that extra drink, for some perverse reason.

I don't get the shakes. I don't have to have an 'eye-opener' drink in the morning. I don't pour vodka on my cornflakes. However, I guess it's a fine line. I can't remember how many consecutive days I've drunk a substantial amount of alcohol. Who's counting?

The recycling is mostly empty green glass bottles, and I shamefully dump disproportionate loads, while my temperant neighbours have diligently washed out their kale smoothie bottles and neatly folded up the cardboard box that contained organic vegetables.

These warning signs don't escape my notice, but sobriety achieved nothing. What did I prove, being sober for over a hundred days, just for a challenge? I do need to get my drinking under control though.

In a way, walking up to the corner shop for a £1 can of lager kept me in check. There was a small amount of effort involved, and the social pressures of not being drunk and disorderly in the streets (or the shops). If I was too pissed to stagger to the off-licence and get another can, then I'd had my fill and it was time for bed. I would wager that I drank less when I was homeless. It's the middle-class respectability and covert nature of drinking at home in the company of other well-heeled individuals that makes it all OK, provided you don't go over the top.

We speak in hushed whispers about that one friend or relative who's slightly too eager to reach for the bottle and refill everyone's glasses, filling his or her own to the brim. "Are they OK?" we wonder, and then we reassure one another "I'm sure they've got it under control".

It's the drinking alone that'll get you. To be released on your own recognisance is a dangerous situation. One, two, skip a few, ninety-nine, one hundred. Who's counting anyway?

So, my 'special squash' and nightcaps will have to go, and then perhaps I'll have the demon drink under control a little bit. A bottle of wine a night seems to be about the middle-class average anyway. How the hell is a person supposed to cope with this stressful world without wine?

Goodbye gin, my only true friend.

Tags: #alcohol

This is a story about being a groupie...

On the steps of the podium stand the winners of the 2007 Poole Animal Windfest. There is a girl and a boy for 3rd and 2nd place. If you look closely, where is the boy who won 1st place?

In 2007 I was involved in building part of the software system that processed over a quadrillion dollars worth of toxic bullshit for JPMorgan, in a single year. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad job and they didn't treat me badly. In fact they kept a private driver waiting down by the seashore; engine running; waiting for the kitesurfing competition to finish. Then I jumped in the Mercedes with smoked glass windows and we sped off to Heathrow for me to catch a flight. I didn't even have time to wash the salt off my skin or sand out of my hair... or collect my prize for winning the competition.

There used to be a time when JPMorgan's main office in Bournemouth had squash courts and a gym onsite. There was a bar. There were enough car parking spaces for everybody, so everybody drove to work. Then, they grew; and they grew; and they grew. Investment banks were - and still are - ludicrously profitable. The IT budget that paid for my little team of 30-odd people was circa $10m per annum. You're never quite sure what the real numbers are though, when you work for an organisation with 130,000 direct employees.

Slowly, prefabricated office buildings sprang up on parts of the car park. The bar, gym and squash courts were turned into office space. That was OK. We still had several tennis courts and a sports centre nearby with badminton courts and 5-a-side football pitches. You could park nearby in an overflow car park. It was still a great place to work, and nobody had a fucking clue what they were doing or what impact it would have on the world, unless they really stopped and thought about it.

I've always been one of those pain-in-the-ass employees who does stop and think about the ramifications of everything that's being done. When it turned out that senior management had decided to support outsourcing a lot of our software development, I was very vocal about my displeasure and concerns. I was a thorn in the side of everybody more senior than me, in the hope of JPMorgan seeing sense: cheaper employees do not equate to cost savings. You get what you pay for.

So, I got landed with a stinker of a project. To train up about 20 brand new offshore employees, in Mumbai, and also to build a piece of software that was not only late, but was a critical component in a global initiative to get all the toxic bullshit warehoused in one place - a depository - so it could be figured out who the fuck owed who what, and how much? Who was holding the toxic debt? Who was bankrupt?

How big is a million dollars?

$1,000,000

It's hard to say, but it's probably a few times bigger than the value of your house, or twenty times bigger than your salary. Now, let's multiply that by a thousand.

$1,000,000,000

Now what you're looking at is a billion dollars. 1% of a billion dollars is $10 million. You'd be pretty happy with $10 million, wouldn't you? That'd set you up for life. Now, let's multiply that by a thousand.

$1,000,000,000,000

This is quite obviously a trillion dollars. 5 trillion dollars is the value of all the world's 'money' - the cash in your pocket, the coins in your purse, your bank balance etc. etc. Now, let's multiply that by a thousand.

$1,000,000,000,000,000

We've reached a quadrillion dollars. 1% of a quadrillion dollars is $10 trillion, which is twice as much as all the 'money' in existence. So, how the fuck does JPMorgan process over a quadrillion dollars in a single year? Two answers for you: 1) Derivatives 2) Financial crisis of 2007/8

A derivative is a financial instrument that derives its 'value' from an underlying security. By security, I mean something tangible: a fucking house or a metal coin that has its value stamped on it. Derivatives are just pieces of paper that say "in the event X, I will pay Y"... for example "if the stock market goes up, the value of this derivative goes up ten times as much". Derivatives contracts have been created that have become more valuable than all the 'money' in the world. As much as a thousand times more valuable. This is just worthless paper, and nobody has the money to pay up: insufficient collateral.

I know, right? Don't stop and think about this stuff too much. Nobody else did. There was too much money to be made.

So I get landed this stinker of a project, drive off from the beach at Sandbanks to Heathrow airport in a luxury car, in order to train 20 or so Indians on how to build a piece of software that's going to be instrumental in the Financial Crisis of 2007/8. I'm an engineer. I solve problems. I stopped thinking about the madness of outsourcing to India when JPMorgan was already plenty profitable. I stopped thinking about the madness of there being quadrillions of dollars worth of derivatives contracts, when there was only $5 trillion of money in existence. I started thinking about software designs and who I had in my new team to build this software system.

At some point, I was seduced. I was seduced by limo travel, private drivers, 7-star hotels, business class flights, everything paid for on expenses, company credit cards. I was seduced by everybody telling me what an important project it was, and what an honour it was to be in charge - the manager - when I was only 27 years old; so young & ambitious. Giddy with this seduction, I started to see the world in different colours. Things were rose tinted. I was sucked in. It was like I was dreaming.

A year later, I'd woken up from a nightmare where I'd played a significant role in helping the Investment Banks to hold the world to ransom. "Pay up, or we'll crash the global economy and plunge the world into a depression that will make the 1930's look like nothing" they said. And the ransom was paid. Every government; every central bank coughed up hundreds of billions, so the bullshit could continue and none of the bullshitters had to lose a cent. In fact, the only people I knew who lost their jobs were the ones who were replaced by Indians I trained.

I started thinking again. Big mistake.

I took to the bottle. I drank every lunchtime and every evening. I was drunk most of the time. How could JPMorgan sack me or even reprimand me? What they'd paid me to do; what they'd asked me to do... they could never make that right. They just let me do whatever I wanted, which was mostly to go to the pub and get drunk. Nobody ever questioned it.

As Bear Stearns was being taken over by JPMorgan - asset stripped under the auspices of being 'rescued' - I'd had enough. Building software for banks made me sick. I was sick at what they did to their own people. I was sick of what the industry was doing to the world. I was sick of producing nothing of value; helping nobody except the lucky few who knew how the con-job worked.

Don't get me wrong, I should have looked the other way; kept taking the fat bonus cheques and big salary; kept those golden handcuffs on - loose enough that they never chafe - but I wanted to get as far away from it as possible. The whole thing left me feeling like I had blood on my hands. Every company that went bankrupt; every person who lost their job; every home repossessed; every suicide due to financial worries... I was one of the co-conspirators who fleeced them out of their money and assets.

Some colleagues stayed, but most of the cynical ones - like me - drifted away. Some died or at least nearly did, as they beat themselves up with alcohol for their sins. JPMorgan paid for a lot of people to go to The Priory to dry out. Those who couldn't face working again were pensioned off early. You only had to work for a year, and then you were covered by a generous insurance policy so you never had to work again. Occupational health were busy, getting rid of an entire generation of engineers who had built the bedrock foundations of the global financial services empire, now shakily propped up using public money. Masses of public money.

Ten years on, I watch in horror as those hastily made repairs to a fundamentally broken system start to crumble.

Record high national debt and record low tax receipts. Our economy is 80% financial services - an industry that's booming if you haven't noticed. You probably haven't noticed unless you work in the Square Mile or Canary Wharf. You've probably seen stagnant wages, a lack of jobs and insecure employment, such as zero-hours contracts. There's always a McJob, if your self esteem is finally fully eroded by the capitalists.

Brexit had a frontman - Nigel Farage - who was a trader from the City. Brexit had billionaire donors, like the stockbroker Peter Hargreaves, who literally said "insecurity is fantastic" - referring to his desire to see workers abused by their employers, in the interest of profits.

I don't wish to segue into commentary on current affairs, but you have to be aware who you're dealing with. Who's putting words in your mouth? Who's planting ideas in your head, through the newspapers and TV channels they own?

You have to wake up out of your nightmare.

Tags: #politics #banking #capitalism

This is a story about Nick Grant...

Here's where I start and end each day. My side is the far side with all the pillows. This is how morning begins, with the gathering of pillows to prop myself up in bed. You can also tell this is a morning photo, because of the dressing gown casually tossed aside. Also, because it's day and not night. I spend most of my life in bed.

Here you can see the charger for my laptop within grabbing distance of the bed. Normally the laptop would be within grabbing distance too. My day would usually start with checking my phone for Facebook notifications, WhatsApp messages, Twitter notifications and emails that don't look too scary, like I'd actually have to do anything about them.

I don't normally get up at 'breakfast' time, but this is what I would eat if I could be bothered to boil water, pour it into a pot and stir for a couple of minutes. Sounds like hard work to me. I would normally go for two slices of buttered toast, which I would take back to bed, in order to get crumbs everywhere for that lovely scratchy feel when trying to sleep.

Ah, I see you've found my floordrobe. Here are clothes that are clean, or at least appear clean and don't have any sick or pooh on them. It's against my religious beliefs to eat lunch in a dressing gown, so I normally don the garment which is on the top of the pile, having checked for sick and pooh. Then I saunter into the kitchen to see what I can have for lunch, requiring the least effort.

Mmmmm... it's brunch. Breakfast is a drink - a protein shake with the aforementioned oats, but all you have to do is shake the bottle. Lunch is also a kind of drink - soup - but you have to microwave it for 6 whole minutes or else it's not pleasant to drink like the protein shake. Also, do not drink the soup in big gulps straight from the container like you would with the shake... or at least not until it's cooled down.

All that getting dressed and microwaving has left me ravenous. I have supplemented my brunch with several packets of crisps and enough cheese to clog most ordinary people's arteries. As you can see, I'm still very busy doing things on my laptop that don't earn me any money.

Right, time to do something producti... wait a minute. There's hundreds of Sky TV channels, Apple TV, Netflix, Amazon Video, Now TV and BBC iPlayer. Let's find something educational to watch. Perhaps a documentary about history or something.

I suppose I could read a book; expand my mind; grow my intellec... wait a second. THERE'S A MAN AND HE'S GOT A FUCKING DOG. HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS? I can see how my afternoon is going to be spent. This is what a productive day at home looks like... TO THE MAX.

Fucking books everywhere. It's the academic equivalent of flopping your dick out at a dinner party and saying "pretty impressive, huh?". Fuck off books. I have to find out what happens to that man. And his dog. It's important.

Awww the dog owners keep giving their dogs little treats. I think I deserve a snack. It has been a stressful day. So many snacks; so little time. All your snacks are belong to me.

I should really go out; get some exercise. You can't eat as much as I do when you're not doing any physical activity all day. I'd better check what it looks like out there. There might be a blizzard, or a hurricane. There might be robbers or nuclear fallout. Nobody ever got killed to death while watching TV, did they?

Ah there it is - the outside. In fact, I am outside on the balcony. This surely counts as going outside AND exercise. That will do for the day. I'm exhausted. Looks a bit dodgy down there - I'm sure it's wall-to-wall robbers. That sky is threatening too - I'm sure that hurricane is going to arrive any minute now. Safety first; time to go back inside where it's safe.

People have been talking about "the hum" for years now. Well, I found out what it is. This fucking thing hums 24 hours a day. You can hear it even with all the double glazed windows and doors shut. Well, I suppose that's why this flat only cost a gazzilion pounds instead of a bazzilion pounds. London... the place where you're grateful to live with a fucking loud humming noise, just to own a tiny flat. My flat's valued at twice as much as this one and doesn't have a hum and it's bigger... but I couldn't afford to buy it.

I never drink before midday, but sadly that only applies on weekends and holidays. I've got to wait until 6pm and there's no white wine or gin left, and the red wine will stain my teeth, which will be a dead giveaway that I've been on the booze all afternoon. I suppose I can just look at it longingly.

I might just wait here in the hallway for her to get home. I'm lonely. Why does she have to work and pay the mortgage and buy everything I eat and cook and clean and take care of my every whim? Perhaps this is why some cultures allow multiple wives. I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed my own harem. I'm sure men would be in favour of bigamy if we held a referendum, which is at least 50% of the vote.

This is kind of like Big Brother Live, except you only see a contestant very occasionally and very briefly, as they walk down the corridor. Admittedly, I don't think that Endemol are going to pay me very much for the rights to produce the programme. It's entertaining me a bit though, and maybe I will be here at the very moment she arrives home. If I just wait here... will my patience hold out?

I said I was going to cook tonight. I'm making meatball fornication. I've got balls and I'm going to fornicate. Seriously though, here is a meal on top of a stove. I can cook and everything. I'm a modern man.

Only kidding. If I was actually going to prepare a meal, it would be a microwave ready meal. I was kidding about the preparing meals thing too. She's cooking chicken fajitas, and I'm under strict instructions not to eat the ingredients which are in the fridg... oh fuck. I ate the cheddar. No grated cheese for us on our fajitas. Oh well; I did eat quite a lot of cheese earlier, so at least *I* haven't missed out.

Hurrah! She's home. That deserves a toast. I'm going to drink all the alcoholz. Gin & tonic followed by white wine as an aperitif, then red wine with dinner and dessert, and then 'special squash' which can only be made while she's in the toilet. Sadly, the noise of me unscrewing a bottle cap means I normally get busted. Also, I reek of booze.

Time for bed. I'd better just take my medication. They all say "do not consume alcohol while taking this medication" but that's just advice, right, like traffic lights when you're on a bike. The doctor also told me not to take the maximum dose of tramadol and not to take it at the same time as the codeine but what the fuck does that jumped up twat know with their fucking 5 years of training. Fuck off. I'm also prescribing myself a combination of zopiclone, xanax and diazepam... all at doses well exceeding what those stingy bastard doctors will give me. It's the only way to get a decent night's sleep. Note: there's the dexedrine to help me wake up from my lethal cocktail of drugs, assuming I haven't died in my sleep.

"I'm just going to turn the fan on" she says just before we switch out the lights AS IF THE FUCKING HUM WASN'T BAD ENOUGH. Why was I even born? Why must I suffer like this? I must have been a paedophile in a previous life or something. YES, PLEASE! MORE NOISE WHILE I TRY AND SLEEP. Then the drugs kick in and the next thing I know she's kissing me goodbye before she leaves to go to her so-called job that earns the so-called money that pays the so-called mortgage and bills.

As you can tell, I'm the breadwinner and the brains of the operation round here. Man of the house; master of my domain.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my life.

Tags: #career #london

This is a story about whether it's right to stay with an alcoholic and/or an addict...

Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink. Like every alcoholic and/or addict I have a million and one reasons why I had one too many bottles of wine, or why I lapsed or relapsed into drug addiction.

I mentioned on Facebook earlier today that I rearranged the furniture in a hotel room in Bournemouth, right at the very worst most moment of my divorce. If you think that "worst moment of my divorce" caveat is me getting my excuses in early, then you're wrong. Let's get this straight: I didn't break anything or chuck a telly out of the window, but I made a lot of extra work for housekeeping.

I was actually so concerned that I was in such a bad frame of mind that I was actually going to throw a telly out of the window, so I phoned the duty solicitor. The duty solicitor gets phoned after you've been arrested, if you don't have your own solicitor.  I had not been arrested, but I didn't like the way things were going.

The duty solicitor was rather bemused by a person ringing up to chat about things before they're arrested.... in anticipation. He said that he didn't think the police would arrest me, and I should probably just ring friends and family. I was loathe to involve friends & family in a mess that I had made.

Eventually, having tried several other local solicitors, I rang the family solicitor, who phoned my Mum, who told my Dad to phone me. He was exceedingly unhappy that one of his longest friends had suggested that I might be in the need of a bit of support during a messy divorce.

I rang my friend Tim, who texted an ex police constable, who confirmed that the police would not press charges given the circumstances. Tim came to the hotel, and said it wasn't bad at all and we could fix it up in 5 or 10 minutes, but I just wanted to get home.

Despite a couple of offers of financial compensation for any inconvenience or damage the hotel manager laughed, being rather experiences with the wrecked hotel rooms due to the large amount of stag dos who visit Bournemouth. His housekeeping staff had not even commented. However, I still feel guilty about that today.

That was December 2013.

Let's make one thing really clear before we go on. My ex wife did not addict me to drugs. She's not responsible for any of my addiction: then or now.

My startup company fell to bits because I was under unbearable pressure to deliver Investment Banker lifestyle on startup wages, and base my company in Bournemouth, where there are no angel investors, no venture capitalists, no startup scene, no customers, it was over 2 hours away from my co-founder and his new baby girl. It was an irreconcilable problem, with my ex-wife being least willing to compromise despite having a job she could work anywhere in the country. But, that's not her fault. It's my fault. It's my fault that I made myself CEO instead of my co-founder. It's my fault I couldn't handle the pressure. It's my fault I wasn't strong enough to leave a toxic unsupportive relationship.

Drugs - legal highs - appeared on the scene in the autumn, as I sat at home, desperately depressed about the situation. I had already tried about 5 different antidepressants by this point, and had even moved on to trying over 10 extremely rare antidepressants that are extremely rarely prescribed, even in treatment-resistant depression cases.

It's not like I didn't recognise the problem. I accessed local drug & alcohol drop in centres, where I sat listening to teenaged alcoholic prostitutes talking about their children being taken into care, knowing that I owned my own home, cars, boats, hot tub, summer houses and had tens of thousands of pounds in the bank. I left, because it feel like sheer selfishness to deprive the time that could be given to somebody more needy.

I spent a day in a residential rehab as a day patient. By the end of the day, I had brushed up all the leaves, done all the washing up, hoovered, mopped and done just about everybody's weekly chores. The people's lives were fascinating, but most of the day was drinking tea & coffee and sitting around.

I don't know if I was successfully hiding my habit, but I gave a talk to a bunch of startup founders in London, and a few came over and said they'd heard me speak in Cambridge, and they thought my public speaking had improved a lot. Go figure.

The only real problem for hiding my habit was school holidays - my ex being an educator - when I wouldn't have the daytime to take drugs. Christmas holiday was unspeakably awful, with me sneaking off in the middle of the night to take drugs.

Getting clean and staying clean is my sole responsibility, but I found it telling that the only book on addiction my ex read parts of was called "Nag your loved one sober".

After Christmas, my ex demanded that my parents take me away. Naturally, they resisted and I resisted. My dad came down, and my ex had been nagging our mutual GP about how hard it was on her to deal with my addiction. Deal with my addiction? She didn't even know about it until a week earlier, when I struggled to hide it during the school holidays.

I was completely spooked by the sudden appearance of my dad and my GP, through no request of my own. The idea of leaving my home, my friends and everything else I'd spent years building around myself, to go live in a house I'd never lived in, trapped in a village where I didn't know anybody. That's fucking offensive.

Anyway, the psychiatrist I saw just before I left Bournemouth told me to taper off the legal highs gradually - over the course of 6 to 8 weeks - because nobody knew what withdrawal would be like.

Having gotten rid of me to my parents' house, my ex then refused to take my phone-calls and generally treated me like dog dirt.

I would say, that if it turns out you're dating an addict and/or alcoholic, you should make a decision - based on how long you've been together - as to whether they're the type who's going to bleed you dry and move onto the next unwitting victim, whether you're prepared to help them - and trust me, it's really fucking hard - or whether it's your moral duty to help them because they became unwell while they were your husband, wife or long term partner.

Anyway, my ex continued to be a right ***** until someone who isn't me hacked her email account and found out that no sooner had I left MY house, she had been dating other people. I confronted her with her infidelity, and she started treating me like a human again. Unfortunately, I thought a leopard could change its spots, so I spent £4,000 on flights to Hawaii to get married and £3,000 on an engagement ring. As you can tell, I'm the kind of junkie who spends all their money on themselves.

I struggled with sobriety, but held down a couple of good jobs and continued to be a good provider. My ex could have called off the wedding at any point.

The wedding, which was supposed to be stress-free with no guests, somehow became one of the most stressful things I've ever had to deal with. The whole holiday was ruined by my bridezilla. In the end, I threw a tantrum and said I could no longer deal with teepees and camper vans that break down and other eclectic but stressful shit that I had to organise, and booked us into the $800 a night Hilton. I had cocktails by the pool and it was bliss, but there were two days until we had to go home.

I relapsed as soon as we got home. It didn't help that my then-wife had booked a taxi online, specifying the wrong year. We could have stayed at Heathrow and waited for 4 hours, but having been on a plane for most of a day, I wanted to get home: unexpected £180 taxi ride in a black cab that I managed to negotiate.

My then-wife must have ordered my parents to come and 'deal' with me, because my dad marched into my house and said "you're an addict. you're an addict. Can't you see you're a dirty addict?" which was rich coming from a man with a history of drug use. That's not the kind of treatment you should ever receive in your own home, nor did it take account of the fact that I'd been in a lot of correspondence with several specialist psychiatrists who could deal with my specific condition: dual diagnosis. I was bipolar before I was a junkie, and the two do not complement each other well.

My mum had decided that she could 'smell' drugs on me. Unless she has a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer for a nose, she is wrong. You can smell smoke and cannabis on somebody's clothes, but drugs that you snort, swallow and inject are excreted through kidneys and faeces. It's a completely disproven hypothesis. Anyway, My then-wife did nothing to vouch for my sobriety when my mum had a go at me on my sister's wedding day (I was clean).

I'd gone back to working at JPMorgan, and they coughed up £12k for me to go to The Priory for 28 days, without a single qualm. My general psychiatrist had said I needed treatment in a therapeutic environment, which clearly my home was not. My then-wife said that she'd divorce me if I followed his advice and got treatment, and that she'd rather be a widow than a divorcee.

On my first day at The Priory, I phoned the local florist near our home, and asked them to leave a different flower each day under the windscreen wiper of my then-wife's car, before she left for work. She however, joined the dating sites again and decided not to visit or phone me.

During my stay at The Priory, we established that I was not well supported at home, and indeed, perhaps my relationship did not contain the prerequisite levels of respect, love, care, compassion etc. etc.

I panicked on day 27 of rehab, realising I had to divorce my wife, sell our house and decide what I was going to do next with my life. I spent the day talking to a few friends about different ideas, and returned for my final day a lot happier.

Straight after that was the birth of my niece. My loving then-wife did not attend. In fact. I remember her once being extremely put out that my grandmother had the temerity to die at an inconvenient moment. I think my friends had been right all along: she really was "the poison dwarf".

Anyway, after being under virtual house arrest, where I must admit I abused a lot of drugs as I tried to grapple with the magnitude of selling a house and downsizing. Probably moving to London. The friends who would take sides. Having to get a new job. I got fed up with my then-wife making me feel absolutely terrified by her unjustified rage and abuse, so I took to cocooning myself into a single room of our ample 3-bedroomed house, and even built myself a man cave in our summer house. She was never content to leave me be, and would hammer and scream all the time at whichever door I cowered behind.

Then, I sent an SOS email to our parents, to come and force our separation. I was starving. I had no toilet, no shower. Do you think that's the way that people get clean & sober?

My friend Posh Will kindly offered his spare bedroom to get back into London life. I was clean & sober, riding my bike all over London, incorporating a new company and touting for consultancy work. I was entrepreneur-in-residence at PlayFair capital and I was loving the London startup scene. I was making new friends and I quickly got a beautiful new girlfriend. I know I wasn't the first to commit adultery, because someone who isn't me hacked my then-wife's email and found out she was fucking a married man with kids.

Then, divorce turned nasty. A six week house sale turned into a six month sale, simply because my then wife wanted to drag it out, knowing I had no income yet in London. She kept making me do the 4 hour round trip to Bournemouth to do trivial things she could do herself, like get estate agent valuations. Finally, we arrive in December 2013, where I went to a hotel because our house was sold but I was so angry and frustrated by my wife dragging out the sale to the point I almost ran out of money, I was going to trash the place.

Sure, I then did a 5 days of a 10 day detox, at a place where they didn't know what a detox was, or how to deal with somebody with a benzo habit. I then did 7 weeks at a proper residential rehab. My parents were on my no-contact banned list, but my mum still wrote to me with Louise's divorce demands. I told her from the start I wanted to rent out the house, defer the divorce and deal with it all when I had my health. When she refused, I said take whatever you want, but just don't drag it out. If I wasn't the kind of person who assumes that everybody's OK deep down, I'd say that it was all because she's a vindictive, abusive, greedy, *****.

Anyway, after a mix-up at my parents about what day of the week it was, my dad demanded that I get dressed in front of him and leave immediately. I agreed to leaving immediately, but I refused to get dressed in front of him, on the grounds that it would be one of the most degrading things you could ever ask a person to do. He manhandled me and a mirror got knocked off the wall, slicing my shin muscle in half along with 4 tendons and 2 nerves. Only then did he allow me to get dressed in privacy.

After my operation, I was taking fentanyl and tramadol - both strong opiate painkillers - for the pain, and yet I managed to avoid becoming addicted to these drugs. Having to wear a plaster cast kinda means you're going to have to destroy a nice business suit, and who wants to hire somebody who's sick?

My friends said it was time for me to get a place of my own, although I was still on crutches. I rented a room nearby. I went for dinner with Posh Will, and I was honest with him about my addiction struggles, and his attitude towards me changed visibly immediately. Our friendship was almost ruined, because he had such strong preconceived notions about what drug addiction is. He virtually accused me of being at risk of coming round to his house to steal stuff to feed my habit. I had the money from the sale of my house and some successful Bitcoin investments. I didn't need to steal from my friends. I cried myself to sleep and then tried to commit suicide.

Hospital discharged me, but I'd lost my flat, so I was homeless. I lived in hostels and Kensington Gardens. I guarantee you that not many people get clean from drugs when they're homeless.

Anyway, I finally got a great group of friends at a hostel in Camden, and a beautiful girlfriend. Those were some of the happiest months of my life. I also got an IT contract for Barclays and a room in a student house in Swiss Cottage.

I did have a couple of 'lapses' on mild drugs, but I was clean and I was happy. Then Barclays terminated my contract and I was evicted (the landlord was selling the apartment).

I tried to put a brave face on things and have a happy family Christmas, but I'd broken up with my girlfriend, lost half my friends, lost my contract, was homeless again. A lovely family in Ireland saved my life, looking after me at one of the most depressing and vulnerable times of my life.

At the suggestion of Posh Will - ironically - I stayed in a hostel in Shoreditch. Initially I had a whole dorm to myself, but when they realised I had an OK personality and was a long-term resident, they moved me to the infamous 'Ward P'. The drink and the drugs were off the scale in that place. I had to leave because I was off my face around the clock, but it seemed normal because everybody was.

I started staying in AirBnB places, because they were homely and I could do short [but expensive] lets. I'd recently reconnected with an old friend, so it was nice to live near him, in the East End.

I was running out of money again, so I stayed in a really awful hotel that's covered quite extensively in the blog post called Finsbury Park Fun Run.

That got me back to the Camden Hostel, but I was still hopelessly re-addicted to drugs. Trust me, it's hard to hide a drug habit in a 'regular' tourist hostel, and the tourists don't really love it if you're acting all weird because you're so strung out you can't even see straight.

Somehow, I managed to land the HSBC contract.

I ran out of money. Working for HSBC while living in a hostel is just not possible either. More drugs - whole week AWOL from work. Got away with it.

Stayed clean all the way to Christmas pretty much. I was a wreck on Christmas Day. I hadn't eaten for days. My Kiwi sofa surfer had kindly cooked the turkey but he'd pretty much cremated it, and it'd taken him hours to coax me out of my bedroom. Still, it was super kind of him to cook the world's most depressing Christmas lunch.

Then drugs, drugs, drugs to March 21st. I had a bag that could quite easily have kept me supplied for 3 years. That's the problem with being rich and choosing a cheap and powerful drug - you're never going to run out.

Are you spotting a theme yet?

January, February and March are my nightmare months. If I'm off kitesurfing at some exotic location, no problem. If I'm working a contract, no problem.

This year, I've had acute kidney failure and severe and ongoing leg/foot trauma AND the loss of my contract at Lloyds to deal with. However, I had the best Christmas ever and I'm also dating the world's most amazing girlfriend, so perhaps these things should cancel each other out?

I have to think about drugs at the moment, because my leg is so damaged that I need a cocktail of strong opiate painkilllers, nerve blockers and a sleep aid, just to be able to partially function. I wake up every 4 hours in the night in excruciating agony.

Through the urgent need to re-stock on painkillers, I found myself back on the Dark Web. It was a stupid move. I kinda knew I'd never be able to resist the urge to go window shopping. I tried to order weaker drugs that might satisfy the craving that was instigated by nothing more than buying other products, but lapse and relapse were inevitable.

My most amazing girlfriend in the whole wide world is somebody I could spend 100% of my time with, and never get tired of her company. We like the same trashy TV. We enjoy the same high-brow movies. We both have an insatiable appetite for feature-length documentaries. We love London. We love the same things and we love each other.

Why then would I relapse onto incredibly dangerous and destructive drugs?

The watchword you need to look for here is trigger. When I was with my ex-wife, if she ever went on holiday on her own - which is something she did regularly during the death throes of our relationship - it built a Pavlovian association with an opportunity to take drugs without having an aggressive abusive ***** attempting to kick my prison door in and screaming horrible things at me.

I found a black market seller who would supply just enough for me to have a moment of fun, but not enough for me to end up in a destructive binge. Then that supplier disappeared, and I ended up buying the next smallest bag I could find: 100 to 200 mild to medium strength doses.

The net result is that I spent all yesterday evening and all last night trying to jam my locked bathroom door closed with a pair of nail tweezers, because I was convinced that angry neighbours had phoned the police, and even a mob had formed outside my apartment, ready to heckle me when the police led me from the building, cuffed in shame.

That's a net result of two things:

1. Having more than you need of a highly addictive drug is bound to lead to a binge
2. It's impossible to measure milligram doses of drugs without excellent scales. The difference between no effect, and psychotic overdose, can not be seen by the human eye

I sold my scales because I've successfully been having long periods of abstinence, and it makes sense to get rid of drug paraphernalia that could 'trigger' a craving.

Of course, I should have controlled my craving. Of course, I knew what the worst-case scenario would be. Of course, it seems to suggest that the love of my beautiful girlfriend is not enough.

All I can say in my defence is that my life is pretty depressing right now. I'm on such strong pain relief that I can barely even concentrate on writing. I'm not well enough to go back to work. I've been stressed about running out of money and being evicted.

Life is also awesome right now, because me and my incredibly fetching and intelligent and knowledgeable girlfriend both have riverside apartments, and we take turns to spend nights watching sunrises and sunsets.

She has a really difficult decision to make right now. My longest period of abstinence from drugs is what? 9 months, since becoming addicted. My longest period of sobriety was 121 days. All my money has been frittered away on private healthcare, periods where I was too unwell to work, and yes - perhaps as much a 5% - has been spent on drugs. Would you choose somebody like that for your boyfriend?

Alright, so my drug habit isn't going to lead me to a life of crime. I've been cautioned by the police 4 times, but there's not much point in wrecking my career because I'm an addict is there, when I'm not shoplifting, dealing drugs, robbing, doing fraud or committing any other crime.

However, this weekend has shown that I still have the capacity to get myself in a life threatening mess. I was ready to stab myself in the carotid artery this morning, rather than have my life ruined by a criminal record and have all that shame on top of what has already been a pretty awful February and March.

Of course, nobody can deny that I brought this on myself and that the behaviour is just the same as it was over the last few years. Is my addiction getting better? It's certainly not cured.

If you want to know if my addiction is getting better, you could look at my medical records for 2014. I was an inpatient for 14 weeks. You could consider the fact that the longest period I had without my drug of choice was 2 weeks, for the first couple of years. You could consider the fact that I'm in a meaningful relationship with a kind, caring and compassionate girlfriend who's sympathetic and well informed. I'm not lying to her to have a drug habit behind her back. I've lied to her twice when she went away on holiday, both times shortly after I had lost a contract and was a bit depressed.

Ask yourself, am I worth knowing as a friend? I could drop a dirty HIV or hepatitis infected syringe in your kid's playpen. I might replace your salt with cocaine for a prank. I'll probably take money out of the purse and wallet of everybody in your house. I'll nick anything that isn't nailed down. All I want to talk about is drugs drugs drugs and my life story's not interesting because it just goes addiction addiction addiction. I'll bring shame on your family and you'll get in trouble just because you're friends with me. Not worth it, is it?

What about dating a junkie? Well, everything they say is a lie, and you won't like having sex with them all the time because you know they're probably thinking about a syringe of heroin while they're doing it to you. They'll take all your money and ask for more. Nobody ever got cured of drink & drugs. Death's too good for 'em.

I do feel terrible about the lies [two] and the betrayal of trust. Also, she knows that a binge could easily hospitalise or kill me. She's also trying to have a relaxing holiday break, but she knows I'm sick, haven't had any sleep and haven't had anything to eat.

She can't watch me like a hawk all the time. She can't spy on me using webcams when she's on holiday. She doesn't know what I get up to at home when she's at work.

Why take a risk on a loser with such a poor track record?

I've told her if she wants to break up with me, I'll fight to save the relationship, but I won't just say anything to talk her out of it. I actually advised her to break up with me, because I'm a month or two away from earning money again, I've got depression, bipolar and maybe even borderline personality disorder, along with the death sentence of dual diagnosis. Would you want your kids to have those faulty genes? Would you want your family to find out one day that you've been dating a loser?

Anyway, that's where I am right now.

No amount of stick will stop anybody from taking drink or drugs. I need to find a social group to regularly attend. I need to get out of the house more. Through socialising will come enjoyment of even more people's company, as well as routine. There will be new opportunities. Maybe a new hobby? I'll get a new contract and throw myself into work. Once the money starts rolling in, me and her can have holidays and plan adventures.

Could I replace everything and everybody in my life with supercrack? Almost. It is pretty fucking good. Still, how much money would you need? Even if you lived in a tent, I still reckon food & drink would cost you £150-200k over your shortened lifespan. I do however think you get sick of it after a while, but the bastard thing is so fucking good when you go back to it after a little break.

What can I tell you? That's the truth?

So am I honestly comparing a night with the love of my life, with a sniff of supercrack? No. The comparison is facile. If you choose the tent dwelling supercrack life, there's no coming back from that. Also, I've never been in such a good relationship in my life: it just keeps getting better and better.

One final question to ask yourself? Even if you think you have the perfect partner, perfect friends, perfect job and generally perfect life... do you still occasionally do something that looks totally insane in the context of your amazing life, like get too drunk, or take a recreational drug even though you never do drugs? Do you think the fact that you do that, means you love your partner any less?

Tags: #drugs #addiction

This is a story about repeatedly making the same mistakes...

Do you remember all those times that you were made to say sorry when you were a kid? Maybe you were a bit of a bully and you kicked sand in somebody's face or pushed someone into the swimming pool. Maybe you were a bit of a thief and you tried to steal other children's toys. Maybe you were a bit violent, and got into an argument with somebody at school or playgroup, and you hit or kicked them.

You can't make somebody sorry. You can force them to say words which the dictionary defines as apologetic, but that's got nothing to do with them actually feeling sorry. In my experience, forcing a child to apologise to another child, could often result in later reprisals that far exceed the original offence. Plus, receiving an insincere apology - under duress - only serves to further demonstrate a lack of remorse.

Also, children may not yet have learned about taboo subjects, political correctness, proper comportment, social faux-pas, tact and a whole load of other subtle nuances in adult behaviour. Some adults may only ever reach a behavioural level that marginally exceeds that of a child. Some adults may believe that their behaviour epitomises the gold standard that we should all aspire to attain.

I spent some of my childhood in Oxford. The area we lived in was being gentrified. Among our neighbours were an MP, a City trader, a consultant heart surgeon and other high achievers. Also living in the neighbourhood, were poor people, who weren't there because it was an affordable up-and-coming trendy part of central Oxford, but because they lived in council houses... sorry, I mean social housing.

The nearest child of a similar age, lived at number 4, and we lived at number 10. There was also a boy who lived at number 1, on the opposite side of the street, but not much further up the road than number 4. The boy at number 1 was from a poor family who lived in social housing. The boy at number 4 was from a family that believed they had attained the aforementioned 'gold standard' behavioural attributes.

At number 4, there were two girls and a boy. The eldest girl was a little older than me and the boy was a little younger. We spent a lot of time playing together on the street outside their house, where their parents could keep an eye on us. Not that the 'gold standard' was shining brightly on the day their eldest ran across the road and got hit by a car, or when their youngest drank bleach from the cupboard under the sink. 

The development of a child's sense of morality and good behaviour might evolve thusly: I want that cake; I want that cake but I know I will get in trouble if I take it; I want that cake and I don't understand why I have to wait and I only get a portion of the cake; I want that cake, and I want all the portions of the whole cake; I want that cake, I want as many portions as I'm allowed, and I resent anybody else who has a portion; I want that cake, and I understand that too much makes me sick; I want that cake, and it seems to be social convention that cake is shared.

Therefore, we can see that the behaviour of a child who has eaten their own portion of cake and has now stolen another child's, might not follow adult morality and logic. Imagine if the cake is a birthday cake, and it's the birthday of the cake 'thief' child. Adult logic says the cake is for everyone to share, we should eat in moderation, and taking from somebody else is stealing. Child logic - the birthday child - says that the cake is theirs, because it's their birthday, but they consent to cake being shared out because that's established social convention, but taking any unattended cake is fair game, because it's all the birthday child's cake.

Some 'bad' behaviour is actually natural and normal for a child, who is not equipped with all the knowledge and experience that an adult has, of tact, political correctness, taboos and subjects that require a lot of historical context, before they start to make sense. Here's a test for you: are children racist?

If you put 29 little kids in a room with an obviously handicapped child, what are the kids going to remember, if you ask them individually at a later time? More importantly, what are they going to say? If the kids laugh at the handicapped kid, does that mean they'll laugh and point at people in wheelchairs when they're adults? If the kids imitate the handicapped kid, are they mocking people with disabilities?

If you put 29 white privileged little kids with a little black kid, what are the kids going to notice and remember? If they all single out the black kid, does that mean they're all racist, or does it mean they've got eyes? Children haven't learned the 'colourblind' behaviour that adults are supposed to have.

By the time you reach adulthood, you've learned to pretend not to notice that brain damaged person, strapped into a chair, making weird noises. You've learned to pretend not to notice if the skin all over somebody's entire body, is a substantially different colour from yours. You've learned not to stare, not to point, not to vocalise your observations, except with extreme care and subtlety.

Older children will develop empathy; a sense of care for those around them. Older children will find it rewarding to please their peers and adults, by sharing. Older children learn that other people can own things too, and that it's wrong to take somebody else's things. Older children become better at communicating, negotiating and controlling their emotions; physical violence and arguments become rare, replaced by reasoned debate.

Remember all those insincere apologies you had to give? Remember all those times when an adult made you share your sweets, but they were yours and you wanted them all yourself? 

"I'm sorry, it won't happen again" 

I hear adults say this all the time.

Firstly, they're not sorry. A genuine apology starts with empathy for the victim, leading to remorse, guilt and then some words to express regret, encompassing the remorse and the guilt. An apology starts with a painful conversation, where you have to face your victim and not only understand any physical consequences, but also understand the emotional impact - including the severity - for the victim.

Secondly, they're not going to change. We make promises all the time to change, improve, stop doing something, start doing something... whatever. By the time we reach adulthood, we're really well practiced at saying what we think the other person wants to hear, so they're placated and they'll leave us alone.

Change is hard.

You can't change to please somebody, or comply with an order to change. If you're already fat, you need to stop getting fatter and you need to lose weight - two difficult changes - and your aim is to avoid potential health complications, as advised by your doctor. If you smoke, you know the health risks, but you've smoked a lot of cigarettes and never got lung cancer, so your first-hand experience has more bearing than any statistics about future risks. What motivation is there in mitigating future risk, when there is nice food and cigarettes right now?

You can't change because of a threat, or otherwise under duress. Change is hard, as we discussed, and it's made so much harder when every slip-up is magnified by the thought that failure to change would result in terrible consequences. If you can try and fail, and have another go, you might eventually succeed. Changing to avoid a terrible punishment, creates unbearable pressure, makes a catastrophe out of every minor setback, discouraging any attempts to keep trying.

You can't change because you want to. Change for change's sake? That makes no sense. You change because you have to, such as a serious medical problem that mandates an immediate lifestyle change, or else you'll die.

You'll change when you're not even noticing. You'll change when what you care about in life, your passions and your priorities change. You'll change when you're having fun, doing things you enjoy, doing things you're motivated by.

Who do you want to change? Is it your wayward brother, your drunkard father, your lazy friend, your unreliable co-worker, your drug addict boyfriend?

Stop assuming that they should think and act like a model adult - or indeed pressuring them to be and reprimanding them when they're not - and presume instead that they are more like a child. You might not like it, but joining the long queue of people hectoring a person to act more adult, causes them to act more childish. When everybody disrespects you, patronises you and tells you what to think and how to act, then less responsible and more selfish behaviour is inevitable, as well as disengaging your brain and letting others do all the thinking for you.

Stop seeing the same mistakes happening again and again. They're not mistakes. Another person's perspective is completely different from yours. Yeah, he's drinking himself to death. Yeah, his wife's going to leave him and take the kids if he doesn't stop drinking. Yeah, he's wasting loads of money and he can't get a job when he stinks of booze. Yeah, countless doctors have told him the damage he's doing to his body. Yeah, he crashed his car, lost his license. So what? Of course those things matter, but in his mind, that stuff's already happened; he's resigned himself to his fate; you can't threaten him with anything worse than he's already prepared for.

We spend so much time and energy trying to turn our children into adults. Learning to be an adult is the fine art of knowing when to lie (often), be honest (rarely) and keep your mouth shut and your thoughts to yourself (most of the time). The right clothes and good manners do most of the hard work. Then, you just need to be serious, dour, solemn and boring. "Grow up!" and "stop being so childish" are phrases that epitomise a parenting style that thrashes any semblance of natural immaturity into an appearance of premature adulthood. Constant rebuke for failure to demonstrate adult qualities, eventually creates a deceptive character: polite, courteous, formal, apparently mature and responsible, certainly confident and capable. But, how quickly it all unravels when a thread is pulled.

Why the strange behaviour? Why do drugs & alcohol feature so often? Where is the social life? Where are the fond recollections of the halcyon days of school? So many avoidable conflicts leading to unnecessary losses of highly paid jobs. Suddenly so irresponsible, unreliable. Tired and preoccupied by thoughts of death, followed by peals of laughter at puerile humour aimed at children. Everything always on the verge of total disaster.

If you harass and harangue - a pair of old bullies outnumbering the victim, two against one - until you seemingly get what you always wanted: your child has turned out successful enough to give you bragging rights with your friends. Climbing the career ladder at high speed, switching companies all the time. Girlfriends, social groups, best friends, former work colleagues - nothing seems to last, and it all seems to be moving too fast to keep up.

Does it not seem obvious that drugs have become my loyal friend, who'll never leave me and never let me down? Does it not seem obvious that I've had it hammered into my skull, for far too many years, that life is miserable, full of endless boring responsibilities, and then you die?

Will I ever learn from my mistakes? You're asking the wrong question. I don't see any mistakes, but I see a lot of learning. Will I ever see the error of my ways and change my behaviour? It's you who has failed to see the changes in my behaviour. The only error I made was trying to be a sensible, serious, responsible adult.

I've got so much to lose at the moment, but I already lost so much and learnt how to get it back. I've come back from the brink so many times now. I don't want to keep starting over. I'm not scared of things like kidney failure. I'm scared of things like being bored out of my brain doing things I've done a million times before, to the point where I fuck up a perfectly good job and end up going round the cycle again.

My idea of change right now is to start drinking wine again.

Tags: #drugs #alcohol #career

This is a story about dance, trance and magic plants...

On the left hand side of the picture above, we see drugs that are considered to be medications. That is to say, they are considered to have some useful function in the practice of medicine. On the right hand side of the picture, we see drugs of abuse. Drugs of abuse are considered to have no useful function at all, and have been made outright illegal in all contexts.

In the middle of the picture are pills that are sometimes considered medicine and sometimes considered drugs. Probably the best example I can give you of such a dichotomy is ketamine (not pictured) which is well known as a horse tranquilliser. In fact, ketamine should be better known as a general anaesthetic, and the drug of choice for paramedics to treat pain in victims of traumatic injuries, for example in the aftermath of a road traffic accident.

Dihydrocodeine is an opiate, and opiates are analgesic. Analgesics don't cause numbness, but they do increase pain tolerance. With enough analgesic, you could saw off your own leg and feel everything, but you wouldn't care about the pain. Anelgesics are painkillers. Dihydrocodeine is a painkiller.

Tramadol is an opiate, therefore also an analgesic.

Zopiclone, Xanax, diazepam and etizolam are in the hypnotic/sedative/anxiolytic category. Zopiclone will help you have a good night of uninterrupted sleep and wake up without a drug hangover: it's an excellent sleep aid. Xanax is a fast-acting, short-lived tranquilliser: it's great for stopping panic attacks, and might be useful if you're suffering a bout of unbearable stress and anxiety or struggling to drop off to sleep. Diazepam is a long-lived tranquilliser that's good for longer term management of stress and anxiety. Etizolam is a result of prohibition: it's an imitation of diazepam that used to be legal to sell and possess as a 'research chemical'.

MDMA is the abbreviation for 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (and yes, I did just write that without having to look it up) which is more commonly known as Ecstasy, molly, mandy or generally as 'pills' in a clubbing/rave context. It's a stimulant and empathogen: it stimulates empathy. Its peak effects last 6 to 8 hours, but takes about 12 hours to wear off completely. The experiences can be very profound and long lasting. MDMA is extremely draining on the serotonin system of the brain, which can lead to a form of delayed comedown, coming days after taking the drug.

Crystal Meth is the commonly known name - thanks to the TV series Breaking Bad - of methamphetamine. It's a very powerful stimulant with effects lasting 12+ hours, and it disrupts sleep long after its desired effects have worn off. The more astute reader may notice that the final part of the chemical name of MDMA is the same as the chemical name of meth. As you might expect, there are similar effects: loss of appetite, increased energy and decreased need for sleep. However, while MDMA stimulates empathetic behaviour - hugging etc - meth tends to stimulate rather more hedonistic behaviours, such as fucking and masturbating to pornography. However, both drugs - being amphetamines - cause a man's dick to shrink to a little nubbin that's no use to anybody. Polydrug abusers might use sildenafil (Viagra) or other erectile dysfunction medications in conjunction with meth, in order to sustain a decent hard-on.

Spread out on the kitchen counter top, there's probably about £300 worth of drugs.

MDMA is extremely cheap, coming in at circa £10 per gram, which is enough for 5 very strong doses. Far cheaper than getting drunk in a pub or a bar. Pound for pound, MDMA represents excellent value.

Crystal Meth is the most expensive, coming in at about £100 per gram. Because of the crystalline form of the drug, it's far harder (although not impossible) to cut it with other things. Cocaine has an average street purity of less than 20%, because it's so tempting for every person who handles the coke in the chain, to cut it a bit and increase their profits. All white powders look the same, and numbing agents - like baby teething powder - will give the numbing effect that cocaine has. Crystal meth is generally pretty pure. It's usually smoked or injected. You do not want to mess with this stuff.

Diazepam is frighteningly cheap. 100 pills containing 10mg of diazepam each, will set you back £30 or maybe even less. The price has fallen drastically, from £1 a pill, to now 30 pence. It's important to remember that diazepam is a benzodiazepine, and the benzodiazepines are physically addictive. You can die if you take a load of diazepam and then stop taking it. It's not something you should mess with.

Xanax, by comparison, is very expensive. Because it's convenient to be able to take it and not be spaced out the next day, it's become America's favourite tranquilliser. The Rolling Stones might have sung about Mother's Little Helpers - referring to Valium - but now the housewife's choice is Xanax. Physically addictive, blah blah blah.

Zopiclone is nice and cheap and works really well without nasty side effects. The only problem is, becoming too reliant on it for sleep. At some point, you have to stop relying on pills and alcohol to get to sleep, and learn natural ways of making sure you can drop off and get your precious 8 hours. Try blue-light filtering glasses, not having any screen time after 10pm and sleeping with your smartphone and other electronics in another room, so there's no temptation to pick them up and start looking at Facebook or whatever.

Tramadol and Dihydrocodeine will take you on the journey to opium, morphine, fentanyl and diacetylmorphine (heroin). The cheapest opiate of all is heroin, because of the simple economic law of supply and demand. People fucking love heroin. I've smoked heroin on a few occasions and I enjoyed the feeling of carefree sleepiness, but I never got a rush of euphoria like I imagine you must get when you inject. I've never injected drugs. One should be mindful that the vast majority of new heroin addicts in America started their journey with opiates prescribed by their doctor - oxycontin, for example - and then moved to heroin because oxy is prohibitively expensive. Tramadol and codeine are pretty cheap, but they're also very weak compared with morphine and heroin.

There's no need to be afraid of any of these drugs in the sense that they're not going to leap down your throat and cause you to instantly become an addict who's prepared to murder your entire family for 50 pence, so you can have one more tiny little hit. These drugs are not like Venomous Agent X, which can kill you almost instantly if you absorb even the tiniest amount through your skin. You do not want to touch a pin head sized amount of VX nerve agent, but you can safely handle Ecstasy pills, shards of ice (crystal meth) and all of the other drugs pictured, and you will come to no harm at all.

Taking these drugs once, or even twice or three times, is very unlikely to result in addiction. You may enjoy the sensations; the experience, but it's quite possible that you might find the effects of the drug to be extremely unpleasant. Certainly, MDMA can be very intense and the intoxication of tramadol can be alarming. Interestingly, the calming effect of the benzodiazepines is often the best treatment for a 'bad trip' that you very much want to end. Sadly, there's no 'off' switch for most drugs. It's like when you've had too much to drink and you're throwing up: you wish that you could stop feeling so sick and that the room would stop spinning, but there's no instant fix.

To have this vast array of drugs just lying around, seems to invite disaster and is a risk in terms of the illegality of possessing so many controlled substances. Are you going to ring the police? Do you think I should go to jail? Is it right to ruin my life, because we should follow the law to the letter, even though the law is an ass?

To address the second concern: doesn't this invite disaster? I've had enough disasters in my life. I've reached a point where I'm rather sick of the drama and the near-death experiences. I'm rather sick of the paranoia and the comedowns. The drugs don't even work any more, because my brain has become so used to powerful narcotics. My brain is literally saying "you've been doing this shit for far too long". I'm almost at the point where drugs bore me.

Right now, I need tramadol, because I'm in a lot of pain because of my leg injury. The zopiclone will be handy when I run out of pregablin, which I'm using to sleep through my pain and discomfort. Having Xanax and diazepam lying around is never a terrible thing. At least benzos are a lot cheaper than a bottle of wine or two, a lot less fattening and a lot less liver damaging. It is a slippery slope though, and it is easier to get hooked on benzos than it is to become an alcoholic, because there isn't really a hangover per se, with the benzos.

The MDMA and the meth should probably get flushed down the loo. I'm too old to go clubbing/raving, and the crystal meth tips me straight into a hypomanic episode and turns me into a total sex maniac.

The dihydrocodeine will gather dust in the medicine cabinet, as a strong painkiller, in case I ever have a nasty injury again and the doctors are dicks about giving me prescription drugs to relieve pain. I do think that doctors in America have been foolishly over-prescribing opiate painkillers, because they believed the marketing of the pharmaceutical companies.

I'm sure you think that this cornucopia of chemicals is crazy. I'm sure you think this deluge of drugs is deranged. I'm sure you think this mass of medications is madness.

However, it's fucking hassle having to get a doctor's appointment, wait for the allotted date and time, and then persuade the doctor to give you what you want and need. There's every chance that the doctor may end up sending you away empty handed. Far better to have your own well-stocked pharmacy cupboard, and have whatever you need whenever you need it.

Of course, the nanny state is there to protect us from ourselves, which is why we arrest people who are about to climb mountains, don't we?

Prohibition has failed spectacularly, because it has created highly efficient black markets. Prohibition has failed spectacularly, because it has needlessly ruined lives of otherwise law-abiding citizens. Prohibition has failed, because the middle classes take just as many drugs as poor people, but the rich middle-class people are very rarely prosecuted. Prohibition has failed, because drugs are just as widely available as ever, and the main beneficiaries are corrupt customs, corrupt police and organised crime gangs. Prohibition has failed, because it fails to acknowledge the inescapable fact that people are always going to make, sell, buy and take drugs, no matter what the law says. Prohibition has failed, because it makes people paranoid and exacerbates mental health problems. Prohibition has failed because it directs money that could be used to help the tiny proportion of people who struggle with addiction, instead of using vast amounts of resources to persecute ordinary law-abiding citizens, who just want to smoke a bit of dope or take a pill when they go clubbing on a Saturday night.

You know prohibition has failed spectacularly, when the government makes mushrooms - which grow naturally in the ground all over the UK - a Class A drug, in the same category as crack cocaine and heroin. Are you fucking nuts? Are you fucking telling me that we should stuff our prisons full of people who picked a fucking mushroom in a fucking field?

Imagine this conversation:

Prisoner A: What you been nicked for?

Prisoner B: Murder. What about you?

Prisoner A: I picked a mushroom

That is quite genuinely the situation that the government introduced into UK law. I'm being quite serious here. Mushrooms are considered just as bad as crack cocaine. I wonder what the government were smoking when they made that insane decision.

As we know, when a government bans a drug, then clever chemists create another one that's almost identical. In America, they have a law that makes analogues illegal, so only whole new classes of drugs can get around their laws. All kinds of obscure chemicals - legal highs - burst onto the scene thanks to America's attempts to get clever with prohibition.

The UK government has gone a stage further and attempted to ban anything that has a psychoactive effect. That means that we're all 'in possession' of illegal drugs, because our bodies are stuffed full of chemicals that are psychoactive. It also means that drugs will simply get sold in 'kit' form: mix the ingredients at home and hey presto! There's your drug of choice. People will always find a way around the stupidity of prohibition.

The fear that has been stoked up by these terrible prohibition policies, has created a squeamishness about being able to have honest open conversations about drug taking. We should be well informed, not ignorant. We shouldn't be paranoid about being persecuted by the authorities. You have to be fairly brave to stick your head above the parapet. A lot of corrupt officials make a lot of money, through the ongoing boom times of the black market. There is an insatiable demand for drugs - and there always will be - which is why there is so much resistance to making drug taking into something that's safer, regulated, quality controlled and a well understood problem, rather than something cloaked in secrecy and hampered by stigma.

I've had problems with addiction in the past, but it makes me a stronger more well-rounded person, to have been through that ordeal and to know what difficulties are faced by people who become ensnared in the traps that have been set for them: draining their bank balance, destroying their health, and driving them to criminality. Why can't I talk openly about my experiences? Why do I have to be anonymous, hiding away with other 'dirty' junkies, in church halls where we self-flagellate for our 'sins' and hang our heads in shame.

Obviously I've had enough of prohibition, but I've had enough of being stigmatised and shamed into silence and anonymity too. I've had enough of people's wilful ignorance, when it comes to drugs and the lives of drug users. I've had enough of ridiculous horror stories and misinformation.

Perhaps you didn't even read this far, if you're the kind of person whose mind I'm trying to open, but perhaps you did, because on the face of it I'm an educated middle-class white professional man, working for prestigious companies in seemingly important roles. You can't quite imagine me smoking heroin, can you?

I'm challenging your preconceived ideas. I'm making you question what you thought you knew, and what you thought was obvious and without exception.

Tags: #drugs