December 1994, I have just turned 19 and I sit in a nice apartment in Sydney over Christmas with family. I’m relaxing on the couch reading a book my auntie bought me for Christmas. I am on my good behaviour and not drinking too much nor smoking any weed, but I am nursing a glass of gin and lemonade because, well that’s what you do over Christmas and it’s socially acceptable. I have just spent the last year travelling up and down the east coast fried on LSD and speed, so this is about as clean as I get. They tolerate me swiping their gin with the hope that I will grow out of the reckless phase.
The book is good and set in Melbourne where I grew up. The protagonist did a lot of drinking in my regular watering hole, the Clifton Hotel, and I can really visualise his life and all the places he goes that I too have been. He crosses the line with his drinking and end ends up in re-hab. They explain to him that once someone becomes an alcoholic they can never go back to controlled drinking again and total abstinence is their only option. I contemplated this as I took a sip of my gin and lemonade. It made perfect sense to me. Those poor alcoholics, I thought. They can never drink again.
Moving on to Step 2
I am powerless over my addiction and my life has become unmanageable. I get it. I am 42 days clean and I look like a normal person, but inside I am empty. It feels like I am missing the building blocks of hope and happiness. I used to think I had a heroin deficiency, now it feels more like a Lucy and Molly deficiency.
The answer is in the steps and the fellowship, I need a spiritual solution and bonding from other recovering addiction. The steps I am sorted. I love to write my narcissistic opinion, oh how clever am I, but the bonding of the fellowship, the dregs of society, I try, but I fail. I know I need those dregs of society, that I am no better, I am the same, and I know in time I will have more patience and tolerance and be able to find love in my frozen heart to give back and be in the 12 step community I belong.
In so many areas I am right where I would expect to be at the age of 45. I spent my whole life trying to succeed in romance and finance. For a man I think they are very entwined. I’ve done it. I fucked so many women I lost count and have almost nothing left in my bucket list. Of course there is always more, but that’s when it crosses over into addiction. I have had more than my fill of women with countless romances and one night stands.
Business has been as equal a struggle to succeed at. I worked for years for very little as only an entrepreneur knows. Now I have half a dozen businesses that are all profitable and now my focus has gone from survival to having some time to strengthen the foundations. I am now setting things up to cope with the pending global financial crisis. But I am spiritually empty. No matter how good I perform, how much I achieve, my heart is frozen. I need the rest of the steps.
Red Pill Recovery 