Peace of Mind and Spirit

This is my story and how I arrived to be the person I am today. I was born into a relatively well-off family we lived in a nice area in the countryside of Surrey, England. I have an older brother and sister from my dad’s first marriage and I always looked up to them. I never wanted for anything, my parents were good people and they tried really hard to instill in me the things I would need to cope in life. The reality is I was such an emotional child growing up. I had all these feelings I just couldn’t cope with. It felt like my heart would explode with pain. Anger felt like a fire in me that I couldn’t control. Love was overwhelming to me and I didn’t know what to do. I’m not sure I felt different, I just felt way too much. I was a scared sensitive kid!

I’m well educated and managed to get through school kicking and screaming and did well. As of today I have 11 G.C.S.E’s and 3 A levels in music. I’ve always loved music and first recorded myself on a beaten up old cassette player at the age of 8. I guess even then it was a way to get my feelings out. At around this age I was sleep walking dangerously, out of front doors and down main roads! I hated going to bed. And looking back now I simply couldn’t sit still for longer than 5 minutes and hated being on my own. My parents must have realized something was desperately wrong. I remember scrawling in red lipstick on my mum’s mirror “If you send me to bed again I will kill myself” and promptly came down in my pajamas with a knife (albeit fairly blunt) and was quickly disarmed in front of a room full of my parents’ friends. So it’s safe to say that Lee was a fairly mixed up but intelligent child! My first trip to a head doctor was around this time. I don’t really remember much, only I felt I’d done something wrong. I can remember my parents coming out of the room and hugging me and telling me they loved me and we all cried. I don’t remember what the psychiatrist said to me, but I was glad to be out of there relatively unscathed.

My parents had 6 children including me. My brothers and sisters were successful in life. I was the middle child, and that’s how I felt; in the middle. Our house was always busy and never silent or peaceful. This comfort I found at my gran’s house with my little brother. We would spend half the week there playing. Having fun, climbing trees, doing normal kids’ stuff I guess. I loved my gran and our time at her house. I didn’t want to leave or go home most times. I would read fantasy and science fiction. Wizards and monsters. Video games, etc. As I grew older I obsessively watched horror movies and violent action movies. Age restrictions did not apply in Lee’s world. Looking back, this is strange behavior for a boy who was scared of sleep for fear of nightmares. I would often have to sleep in my little brother’s bed, in fact I would sleep in any of my sibling’s beds as long as I wasn’t going to sleep alone. But, more often than not it was my brother’s bed as we shared a room. My brother and I would later find heroin together and the feelings are similar to when I first used as they were to being at my gran’s; Comfort, no worries, ease, contentment. Anyway, that’s much later! So at the age of 12 my parents sat us all down and told us we were moving. Half the family, including my gran, would be staying behind. I begged not to go, but I wasn’t old enough to stay. School was good. I had friends, I was top of everything I did (except sport), and I was fairly stable for once. We moved and that all changed very quickly.

The place we moved to was around 200 miles away and I hated it. I was the posh kid in town, I had no friends, the school was rough, and the village was rough! Kids would just hang around getting up to no good, playing truant and staying out late. After some bullying at school I thought, “You know what? I ain’t surviving here unless I fit in fast.” So I soon became friends with the “cool” kids who were smoking cannabis, drinking and taking speed. I hated smoking cannabis. I was rubbish at it and would usually be the first to pass out. My first ever drink was at around this time…I drank to oblivion and that’s pretty much how I drank when I found alcohol later in life again.

But for now, I found amphetamines! I could take more than anyone else and quickly rose to the top of what I thought was drug stardom. Even then I was completely deluded around how people saw me. I wouldn’t sleep for weeks. I would hallucinate due to lack of sleep. I wouldn’t eat. By this time things were already really bad at 15 and I hadn’t even touched Class A drugs yet! So I did this all through school and started work. I passed my driving test and moved in with a girl, my first love, shortly after I crashed my car at 120mph because I couldn’t see straight due to lack of sleep. Various, ridiculous, monumental screw ups were nothing new, but still I functioned. Work…Partying…Sex…The work wasn’t fun, but the rest was good.

It was the mid-1990’s by now Brit pop had sprung up and now it was ok to take loads of drugs, watch bands, and sleep around. The 90s were a lot like the 60s, only acid and LSD was not on the menu (thankfully, as I think I would have ended up in more mental hospitals that way). During this time music was still really important to me. Playing guitar and singing, but never seriously. The drugs were far too important. The parties were far too good. The fun I had with drugs ended the day I picked up heroin. I hadn’t slept for a week, my girlfriend had left me and moved out. She had slept with my best friend and once again I was an emotional wreck. That time in my life really hurt. I didn’t leave the house, just took speed and cried. I would put songs on repeat and just depress myself more…sad songs. God, I cringe looking back.

So another friend came around, apparently worried by my mental state. Now this is how shot my thinking was; he suggested that I was taking far too many amphetamines and I should try heroin to come down. Now this sounded an absolutely great idea. Reality was that I’m just about to put the most addictive substance known to man in my body. And all I could say was “Ok” then “nice one.” So my first hit of heroin didn’t change the way I felt. I stopped feeling entirely and to me that was the thing I had been seeking. I then puked violently, got drunk, threw my ex-girlfriend down the stairs, and generally screwed things up more. I realized that day that Lee didn’t have to feel hurt or pain ever again…or so I thought. Next day I woke vaguely remembering I’d completely screwed up what chance I had of fixing my relationship. The answer was more heroin, more alcohol. I was drinking to oblivion every time I drank on top of the heroin. I again puked and passed out. The third day I think, “Screw it, I’m off again. More heroin, alcohol, etc.” By the 4th day I’m physically addicted to heroin and have to have it, but it did stop my speed addiction. Idiot! So this carries on and is an everyday occurrence.

I then move back home and quickly get thrown out for getting caught by my dad injecting in my room. I look back now and think how many times I consistently broke my family’s heart. I didn’t care. I decided to run away to London with my little brother who is at this time completely addicted also. Drugs are good in London, we thought. We had nowhere to stay, just wanted drugs and lots of it. I found crack cocaine and again things got worse. I was already hopelessly addicted to alcohol and heroin, and now I’m injecting crack and heroin together (called snow balling), which is again really dangerous. But like I said, I didn’t care! My brother was now getting in the way of my using, so I sent him home and, thankfully, he got clean and still is, thank God, to this day. I take no credit for this. I wanted to use and he was in the way.

Right, so I’m in London. I’m in and out of prisons, detoxes, and living with working girls doing whatever it is we do to get what we want. Once a year, maybe twice, I would be removed from society for a locked detox. I could never get through an inpatient detox without falling for a girl, as these places were always men and women detoxing together. Which would subsequently start a whole other crap storm of co-dependent relationships, of which I’ve had three in those six years from the ages of 22 to 28 where I completely lost all identity and became very sick mentally. So at the age of 28 I decide, or the powers that be decided, that I’m a nightmare and need rehab with my then girlfriend. We looked at couples rehabs as she was a junkie, too, and we were so in love and all that. Sick was what we were. Unbelievably they didn’t think this was a good idea and sent me to the south coast and her to Scotland. It’s so funny looking back, I was so lost in that relationship I didn’t know who I was, let alone what I wanted. So I’m 28 and I’m in a self-empowerment rehab by the sea. Basically they tear your soul to pieces and build you back up the way they see fit.

I spent 14 months in that treatment center and came out craving life and full of myself. I was into recovery for the first time, like a bull in a china shop. I wanted life, I wanted everything and fast. In the next 2 1/2 years clean and sober I caused more devastation then in any of my using. And it was the single most painful period of time in my life. Fact: clean and sober without a program was a living hell. Good luck if you think you can do it on your own…I couldn’t. It hurt more than I’ve ever known. Anyway, rant over. So I came out of rehab, got my A levels in music, picked up my guitar again, and promptly began to join bands (good bands) and sleep with different girls. Fixing myself constantly on anything other than a drink or drug and all the time baring my guts on stage. An alcoholic around alcohol and drugs without a higher power…I was so miserable, so self-obsessed and self-seeking. I was just interested in sex, music and people that made me feel good. My flat had sea views. My girlfriend was 10 years younger and stunning, I was faithful to her just about for a time at least. I got a sponsor. We played in bands together, but I never really got the steps. Externally my life looked and was rock and roll. I used to make fun of him, he would say, “Lee, you can’t go into these places without God on your side.” I would say, “Yeah, cause he’s gonna help.” Then I would sleep with his girlfriend. This is how incredibly selfish I was in recovery, but I was still clean and sober.

So externally my life was awesome. Internally I was screwed up. My best friend slept with my girlfriend, again, which destroyed me, again. We got back together, but it was so messy. He killed himself. I blamed myself…I couldn’t forgive her but loved her. Eventually I wanted to die and knew I was screwed if I used drugs. Suicide looked almost glamorous to me at the time and a way out (I was deluded). That was too easy and I honestly believe that me drinking and using 2 1/2 years into recovery saved my life. This is my truth, it doesn’t have to be yours. I would have without a doubt killed myself if I hadn’t picked up! The progression was very fast. I remember ordering what I thought was my one and only pint at the bar. I hadn’t even taken a sip before I ordered 2 double vodkas to go with my one and only drink. I’m not even sure I even drank the lager, I went straight for spirits and lots of them, and finished the gig drunk. I played badly and it was all everyone else’s fault and I drank to oblivion again, as always). I promptly drank and used heroin for another 3 years. In that time I used up all my veins. I punctured a lung injecting in my neck and broke both ankles. In and out of prisons, etc., etc., etc. I hurt everybody I ever cared about again!

During this time music had pretty much gone out my life and I started drug dealing heroin. I sold three £10 bags out of £10,000 worth and I thought I was doing well. I used the lot. Six months later I got arrested for the drugs I’d actually sold to a guy who unfortunately happened to be an undercover police officer. And I was sentenced to 2 1/2 years for supply at the age of 33 or 34. I’m not good with dates. So again I was clean and sober, no program, and in a prison cell on my own. I was now in a boat load of trouble. One year in to my sentence my dad, who I hadn’t spoken to in a really long time, comes to visit the prison unannounced and tells me he’s dying of terminal cancer, and wants to make things right before he dies. He loves me and he’s sorry for the past and he’s glad I’m doing well again, I was clean, and wants me to come home “if” he makes it to my release date. I believe it’s a relief for our families sometimes. In prison at least they know we are safe, I guess.

I go back to my cell, all the anger I had towards my dad for us moving as a child left me that day and I broke down and again I was emotionally screwed and hurting with no drink or drugs to fix my feelings . God had no part in my life (I’d been praying and found it helped before that day) if I did believe in God, I felt he was just there to kick me down when I was already in a load of pain. My dad stayed alive till I got released and I moved home. I swore I would never drink or use again, and I lasted a long time…at least until I passed the first off license and drank again to oblivion even though I knew it wouldn’t help and would end no one knows where. I quickly picked up heroin again, and again the progression was horrific. My dad was dying, I was dying, he was desperately trying to save me but couldn’t. He would have me out in the garden doing press ups with him. Bottom line: although that 6 months I had with my dad was the best ever time we had together, he was dying from cancer rapidly and I would have gladly taken his place. My dad never hurt a soul! Why would God take a beautiful man like that and leave a screw up like me? I miss him, I really miss him.

I share this because my dad, as much as he tried to save me and couldn’t, his death is the only thing I need to know for my step one. I was powerless over drugs, completely and utterly. On his death bed I was late to the hospital and used before, during, and after. Whilst I kissed him goodbye I thought about using. I spent the next six months drinking and injecting heroin dangerously. I would wake up not remembering or caring where I’d been. By now I was using £200 roughly in heroin a day. Maybe 10 cans of special brew and vodka to finish the job off. I also had an 80 mg a day methadone habit, and Valium and a pregabalin prescription which again I would take until I passed out. I was a junkie, the worst type. I really was done. I found a rehab that was prepared to detox me and take me for 6 months of intensive therapy. A private Doctor came to see me on my first day who actually suggested I come off all these drugs really slowly as I was there for a long time. I somehow managed to get even more drugs out of him. As he said there was no need for me to unnecessarily suffer (awesome, I thought) and he planned a two month detox for me. The next three weeks are a blur. I was puking in pint glasses as I couldn’t make it to the toilet. My housemates would empty the glasses, buckets, or whatever was near at the time. Usually the floor.

I was very ill, but dragged myself to a Cocaine Anonymous meeting every night. I’d had experience with meetings before, but never listened or felt like I needed to be there so this was all new to me. They were having fun in recovery? I thought they were all liars, no way are they clean and sober and happy! Again I saw and heard the God word and thought screw that, this lot is mental…although happy? I kept going at first just because I couldn’t stand to be in rehab 24-hours a day; it was a lunatic asylum. Some of them thought they could go out and drink or use safely, as I used to think…this is normal in rehab. I knew that for me this simply wasn’t true. I needed to hear people who had found life after drinking and drugs. But, still the addict in me didn’t want me in meetings. I was hearing peoples stories and I thought “I’m worse than you. My using was horrific, yours wasn’t.” As well as thoughts of, “I’m too far gone.” After 3 weeks I was still really sick, but not as ill. I was going to groups in rehab, drama therapy, acupuncture, art therapy, yoga (This was hard on a detox, ha ha ha), one to one trauma counselling (all sorts), and nerve damage retraining. I knew for me this wasn’t going to be enough, or at least not enough for an addict of my type! This time I was scared. I knew I would die if I used or drank again, and it was only a matter of time.

That night I went to a little meeting in town and a guy was talking about his life. He probably saved my life that day. I heard a real junkie and alcoholic speak that night. He didn’t skirt around any of his using and I saw hope that night. He had recovered from the obsession to use and drink. How? The steps ? God? Rock bottom? Sponsor? My brain hurt with all these things! I went back to the treatment center and laid on the sofa (with my sick bucket). Nobody was around, I was on my own and I felt it. Internally something snapped. It had absolutely nothing to do with my detox, this was far deeper than that. Right down under my heart I knew I could never use drugs and alcohol again, and I was an addict with every fiber of me. I say never use again cause that’s how I felt. I looked over at the bookshelf and saw a battered old book. I rolled off the sofa, grabbed it, and went to bed still sick and half high from whatever they were giving me. I randomly opened it and it read,

“We had been seeing another kind of flight, a spiritual liberation from this world, people who rose above their problems, and we only smiled. We had seen, spiritual release, but liked to tell ourselves it wasn’t true. Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by ego, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself. We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up, just as the feeling we have for a friend or loved one. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us.”

I read this and realized that God was there, I just never looked before. The desperation I felt that night is indescribable and knowing I had no options left, and believe me I’d tried every possible way of stopping, I had to find a power that had nothing to do with me or it was game over and I knew that. The obsession to use and drink left me that night, honestly. In the morning I went downstairs to the office told them I didn’t want the next 6 weeks of medication, I was done. I was violently ill for the next two weeks, but somehow felt stronger than I ever had. I went to meetings every day, sometimes twice in the early days. I told the rehab that I’m going to get an outside sponsor and go through the steps. It had to be all or nothing for me. I believe that the night I had that gift of desperation and conceded to my inner most self, and let a glimmer of God in, gave the addict in me no hold anymore and a place right down deep for the 12-Steps to grow from. I still continued to do the groups at the rehab (reluctantly) and did massive work around boundaries and self-esteem. I had a sense of self I’d never had before. It was better than ok to be Lee. My life quickly changed outside and in the fellowship. My sponsor quickly and lovingly took me through the steps. I was welcomed, even liked. People cared, and although this is deadly serious we had fun getting well together. A pocket of enthusiasm had sprung up around me for recovery, and I was a part of it.

I left treatment, moved into a flat, and furnished it how Lee wanted, which was also new to me. Turns out I like black things and neon lights. I started playing live again. Music was completely different for me clean and sober, it was actually amazing. My life is better than it ever has been. I have beautiful friends in recovery. I have my family back in my life. I hope I make my Dad proud today. I work with other addicts, I work the program to the best of my ability, and I have a connection with my higher power and the world today. I meditate and I have an amazing life today. I wanted to stop drinking and using, what I got was so much more. I keep my conception of God really simple. I get connected to a source of love way down deep inside me that runs through every living thing, and I choose to bring that to the world instead of the chaos I used to bring to everything. The program talks about 24 hours. For me this has nothing to do with hanging on for dear life and nothing to do with not drinking or using a day at a time anymore. That obsession left me very early in recovery (days). I have 24 hours in a day to do the next right thing. 24 hours to live life to the full. 24 hours to help other addicts like me. 24 hours to say I’m wrong or I’m sorry (steps 10, 11, and 12) and learn from it and try not to make the same mistake the next day. 24 hours to give the gift of recovery away. And ultimately, I have 24 hours where I can say, “God I need a little bit of guidance here.”

Why I’m here today has nothing to do with me or luck and everything to do with my conception of a higher power and the fellowship of CA. I’m higher today than I ever was on drugs or alcohol because of this program. I love who I am and love life. The greatest gift I received is peace of mind and spirit. The rest keeps getting better every day! To avoid controversy I state that I am recovered in the sense that the obsession to use has long since been removed, contingent on what I do daily to stay spiritually well. For once in my life I want what I’ve got, not what everybody else has. I will, God willing, always be in recovery.

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