A non-day

Hi all. I’m just sat here on my time machine (sofa, as I lose hours sat on here thinking sometimes), listening to the wind howl round the outside of my penthouse, rattling the slates. Whilst horizontal rain is blasting my original single- pane box sash windows which have been known to have ice on the inside (sorry, it’s all starting to sound a bit Charles Dickens hey?), reflecting upon my day.

I’ve enjoyed my first non-day since the Christmas hols. Met up with three dead good mates for a truly artery blocking fry-up this morning.

Whilst doing the chore of my weekly shop I saw a girl I knew in rehab get nicked for shoplifting. She shouted “ Hiya Marcus… you ok?” whilst being frog marched back to the shop. Like it was just another day at the office for her.

Did the domestic stuff in my flat four flights up above a bank. The two inch thick steel front door to the only flat in the building. My flat. Kkinda sold it to me, old habits and all that.

I then went round a very good friend’s house for a brew when another fella from rehab barged in after leaving (kicked out?) his wife, kids, job,senses… life… world.

I suggested that it may be a good idea to phone her and tell her what a tit he’d been to which he replied “nah… I’ll let her suffer!” I reminded him that he may be the one suffering as he was the one who was now homeless!? He went on to scrounge money off my mate and I ended up giving him some cash as we were very good friends in rehab.

After a little while I regretted it, and the penny dropped that my good friend was now a complete stranger in my very good friend’s body. All that just to keep drinking – holy crap!

The day before yesterday a couple who met in the rehab and are now living in relapse together were in chaos as the girl had been beaten to a pulp whilst checking on another relapsing girl from the rehab. Because that’s what we do when we are sick, we try and mend others so we don’t have to look at our own turmoil. Makes sense hey?

The lad in the relationship was so close to having a brilliant future in his chosen field and he’s a very very good mate. But the eyes are now dead when he speaks to me. The lights are on,but… well you know the rest.

Out of 20 people in the rehab that I went to for the second time, two of us are still at the coal face, still tapping away every morning. Some have since died and the rest form a large relapse community within Colwyn Bay and surrounding areas.

I should be used to folk getting back on it. But you know when you want it sooooo soooo much for them you kinda live in another state of denial. A denial for them. This must be a flavour of what my family went through for 23 years.

I’ve been around my fellowship since 2000, and I know the old “well it’s just not their time or they need to do some more research or they haven’t hit their bottom yet” – yada yada yada. I always got a little envious of people that could gain some kind of comfort from all these phrases. I never could, nor can I now.

I’m writing this after reading Tony A’s Broken blog. I really connected with his words in a common way that I haven’t before on Wired In.

I am really starting to love this website and anyone that knows me will know how much I loathe reading. I am employed as a playwright among other things and yet the closest I ever got to reading a book was in jail in 1992, when my co-accused and I were on a period of 23 hour a day bang up in our cell and only had one book between us, so my friend on the top bunk would read a page, tear the page from the book then pass it down to me. A screw from our neck of the woods took pity on us pair of 18 year old country bumpkins and slipped us a drafts board, so that put an end to that.

I suppose I’m illustrating that it has to be something pretty special to make me read it, and the honesty, compassion, humility and genuine friendship I have found on this site is a truly shiny thing when the world around me, as I pass through it, seems to be at complete odds with itself.

Well I’ve spent quite some time on here today, I’ve drank long and deep from this oasis of clear, cool, cleansing and sustaining water I know as Wired In and the shiny people that I share this watering hole with.

May your god go with you.

A much happier Marcus from when I started writing.
mx