Fiery Jack

Oddly enough, non-native English-speaking strangers I encounter on my travels quite commonly, upon discovering my true nationality, express genuine surprise and say, "Oh, but I thought you were Australian!" That had always puzzled me. I suppose it sort of makes sense now. (I will, hereafter, take it as a compliment. ) jack

F*ck's sake. This is just awful. I thought I was f*cking desperate but... words fail me. Jesus... http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/married-dad-jailed-hour-long-6691273

For me, the concepts of '4/10' and 'shag-worthiness' are not mutually incompatible, but, rather, a better-than-usual night's work. (On current form, a 4/10 would be welcomed with open arms. I'm so desperate I'd shag a f*cking lamppost* right now, mate. ) jack * but not a bloody horse. (see: http://t2.thai360.com/index.php?/topic/63328-this-guy-needs-help/)

Roger that one. Put better and more succinctly than I ever could. I like the cut of your jib, bro'. The romance clock's kaput — 'it's too late... it's been too late for years...' as Len Cohen says — but other clocks keep ticking. jack

May I respectfully suggest that you amend the title of the 'NO, I'D RATHER F*CK A SNAKE' option to 'I AM A LIAR'. Anyone who claims they wouldn't shag that sexy smutty perfect porn aristocrat needs a check up from the neck up, mate. Come on, purleeze... who the hell voted 'No'. Three of you so far! Explain yourselves! KS, you gone lavender on us, chief? jack

One man's Nadir is another man's Nana. Try tequila, mate. Works for me. Yes, well ... I've shagged 2 Jap birds in 'onsens' (hot spring resorts: in the wee private tubs you can book for an hour and lock other punters out); on different occasions, unfortunately, while drinking ice-cold bottled Asahi beer, as I recall. Lovely. One bird sucked me off for the vinegar-strokes bit then spat my stringy wallpaper paste into the tub where it floated about like a wee dead jellyfish (I hadn't had a wank for ages before it). I felt sorry for the poor Jap bloke and his missus and bairn that were standing in the corridor ready to relax in the ‘family hot tub’ right after us. ‘Daddy, there's some phlegm floating in the water! Mummy's got some in her hair!’ You have to laugh. jack

Fair point. In some ways, the two became inseparable for many years. Nowadays, though, I hope I've relegated the bottle to a(n albeit-important) footnote in my days. There as an option, but at my command now. I couldn't ever renounce booze and give up drinking completely. Boozing's been the longest and most enjoyable love affair of my life, regardless of the harder times. Alcohol doesn't agree with me, but I enjoy the argument. Giving up booze would be like giving up music or sex or losing my eyesight or a limb. Why would I volunteer to do that? We romanticize the past in order to survive it. But we exaggerate our follies and miseries too, so we seem stronger than we are not to have succumbed to them. Awareness of all this brings a modicum of balance, and that's as good as it probably gets. I'm happy where I am right now I don't know where I'll be tomorrow. No one does. jack

I'd tap it. Police mugshot, uncensored video, and report that she paid a 500bht fine on here: http://lovepattayathailand.com/naked-foreign-woman-struts-her-stuff-in-bangkok/ Let's hope she's started a trend. :ip: jack

My name is Fiery Jack and I am a boozer. It will kill me, if something else doesn't get there first. It's taken months, even years, out of my life already. But some of them were good months. Some of them were good years. And some of them were not. The sweaty bed karate, the DTs, never a dull moment, and never a reasonable one. Welcome to the shaky world of alcohol dependency, where I once lived and still seek to visit, mad moth to the dangerous flame, when I have a week or so off. 3 months in rehab this summer, and I’m wiser but no wiser. You don’t bottom out until your heart stops beating. It's all downhill from anywhere we find ourselves right now. My 'wobbly' decades of pill popping alcoholism were one amazing and excruciating bender: all the meaningless fun of the f*cking fair, and all the coloured lights, and all the noise. I'm not proud of it, but neither am I wholly ashamed. It just was. And there were reasons why it was. And it didn't break me. Made me stronger. Made me able to see and think clearly enough to deal with other shit that waits around the next bend(er). And what a time it was. A time of innocence. Five or six big boys (strong lager, 500ml) washed down with a half bottle of tequila used to be my regular warming-up routine before a good Friday night out. That seemed to make me see very clearly. The hours flew by and it was always fun trying to imagine where I'd wake up the next morning and how I'd find my way home without my wallet or, often, my shoes to hand. I remember my first time ever in Osaka, relatively fresh off the banana boat, I checked in to the cheapest hotel I could find, went out and got totally plastered, no memory at all after about the fifth bar... Woke up radioactively hungover at 11AM, fully clothed and alone on the concrete floor of what turned out to be the store-room of a Shinsaibashi ramen restaurant, with a piece of writing paper safety-pinned to my shirt that had written on it, ‘You nice guy please come back Osaka we drink again! Door is open. See you! T.’ There was a single cigarette and a shop book of matches sellotaped to the bottom of the paper. Okay, check door is not locked: it isn't. Good. But, hold on, my right foot is ablaze with pain and has swollen to the size of a soccer ball. No recollection of how it got that way. My left shoe is still on, but my right is nowhere to be found. Nowhere. Plus, because of the swollen, very painful right ankle, I can't walk properly. Just manage a kind of lurching hobble and make it outside onto the crowded shopping street. Everyone is staring at me. It's pissing down with rain. I have no idea where the dump of a hotel I checked in to yesterday is. I have, in fact, no idea where this is. I can't speak Japanese. I stink of drink, am unshaven with bloodshot ashtray eyes and sporting a hairstyle that looks like I just jammed my fingers into an electrical socket. And I am limping and lurching around like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and have only one shoe on. Yup, nobody I approach seems all that keen to help me. I finally found a friendly cashpoint and made it, via the rundown hotel, to the local JR line, thence back to the boonies where I was then laying my hat. And all the way with one shoe on and looking like a Shane McGowan/Pete Doherty/Charlie Sheen on the arse-end of a 3 week bender. Those were the f*cking days, eh? Then, a few summers later, when I really 'liked a drink', I'd have (nay, need) those five pre-show tins of beer as a wee morning bracer to set me up for the day. Jesus, I had to set my f*cking alarm for about 5.30AM every weekday to make sure I had enough time to get half a dozen tins down me before I had to leave my drum for my job at 7AM. F*ck me it was hard work. I remember once having to do a 'business presentation' at some doss conference in Hong Kong at about 9AM one morning, me and this other alkie geezer from Dublin. We'd both been out boozing and shagging tuppenny tarts till about 4AM. I had about 2 hours sleep back in my hotel room. I got up at 6.30 and drank four large bottles of beer and a half bottle of Smirnoff vodka out of the mini-bar before heading out to the gig. The Oirish feller turned up looking like death warmed up, like. His face was slate grey and he had the shakes. Cried off presenting because he had the shits and kept having to dash to honk up, so I did it on my own. He was one of these alkie clowns who 'nivver touch a drop before sundown'. Stupid twat. It went very well. I was in fine fettle. The time flew by. Notable points? Amid the catalogue of disasters, one high point stands out (or stands highest, or whatnot). Waking up fully clothed on the floor one afternoon realising a. I'd been lying there for at least 48 hours, b. I'd become a complete alcoholic and addicted to all sorts of pills, c. I was rapidly running out of money, d. I had no income and no prospect of any on the horizon, e. I had no one I could feasibly turn to for help because I'd pissed off everyone that had once cared about me so much that they'd all stopped answering my calls, and then lying there concentrating and trying to work out, to the penny, exactly how much money I could cobble together and if that amount of money would be enough for me to f*ck off to Thailand/Camboda/Laos or somewhere and drink myself to death (a la 'Leaving Las Vegas'!) and how long it would take. Then actually going online and checking flight times. Then deciding, f*ck it. Don't be beaten by this. And getting up and walking to a hospital instead and asking for help. Then getting better for a while. It really had got grim. I'll repeat the example I always trot out by way of illustration. When you effortlessly ascend up to full-on gold-card-carrying alcoholism, as I had clearly done, you find that you automatically honk up the first ale of the day about 5 minutes after downing it. The otherwise empty stomach lining's reflex reaction to and rejection of the poison, apparently. It comes out crystal clear and frothy, looking exactly as it did when it went in — hardly touches the sides on the ways down and then up — and, indeed, I have read that greatly impoverished alkies are prone to vomiting their "dawn tot" back carefully into an appropriate receptacle so they can simply immediately re-consume it and get their money's worth. I never did so, but I did used to stock an extra tin of beer in the fridge every night, sure in the knowledge that the inital "bracer" tipple the next morning would end up in the toilet or sink moments after swallowing and thus be not counted in the grand reckoning thereafter. You get accustomed to it: I used to regard it as simply "cleaning the pipes" ready for the next one which, as if by magic, stays in the belly as snug as a long lost traveller who's finally found home. But, yes, there were some hilarious bits: that high school reunion party in 2001. That was a special one. Began normally enough. I'd boozed heavily from breakfast time and dropped a tab of acid an hour or so before arriving, rolled up with eyes on stalks pissing myself laughing, talking shite, and telling every c*nt to f*ck off before getting slapped in the face for sticking my hands on my former economics teacher's tits, being ordered to leave or the police would be summoned, pishing in the school ornamental carp pond while everyone watched in horror through the library bay windows, then collapsing face down with my trousers round my ankles and my bare arse on show in the commemorative clock flower bed outside the old headmaster's study until a taxi someone had phoned for me turned up to take me back to the bed and breakfast joint via a pit stop at an off license, where I was refused service and once again threatened with the police being summoned, then staggered to Skinner's Lite Bite fish and chip shop where I spray-vomited in the doorway in full view of loads of passers by (it was still only lunchtime) and was moments thereafter punched in the face by a drunken Scottish skinhead. Woke up in the B & B about 24 hours later with the landlady bird knocking on the door. I answered the door and her face went ashen grey: I was covered in blood. I'd managed to knock down and smash a framed painting that had been hanging in the (communal) bog/shower room and slashed my arm with one of the shards of glass. I've still got the scar. There was blood all over the beige landing carpet leading to my bedroom door in such a manner that you didn't need to be Sherlock f*cking Holmes to work out which c*nt was the culprit in the 'Non-Mysterious Case of the Smashed Painting'. There was blood all over the bedsheets too. I'd lost my watch, an expensive one. Never saw that bastard again. Then when I checked out, never to be welcomed there again, having paid loads for new bedsheets and a picture frame and the landlady bird to keep her trap shut, she presented me with a phone bill for 140 pounds. I'd rung some bird in Japan at 4AM and been on the blower for an hour or more. No recollection of it, none at all. After I checked out, I went straight to the nearest pub, for a couple to take the edge off. I walked in and towards the bar. The barman, a gent unknown to me (or so I thought), who happened to be a dead ringer for that American actor c*nt Brian Denehy (big bloke, always played a cop, died a few years back I think?) looked up from the pint glass he was towel-polishing, fixed his best Vulcan Death Stare right on me, and said, 'Aye, you keep walking pal. Straight back out of that f*cking door!' I said 'Sorry?' He said, 'You're f*cking barred mate. Don't come back, or I'll call the police.' Again, to this day, I have absolutely no idea at all of what misdemeanor(s) I must have committed there (presumably) on my way home from the young Scottish feller's fist. I had to find another pub. Another time, I remember having a deep and lengthy philosophical conversation with a puddle in a pub car park, then sitting in the house of a complete stranger and his wife, both silver-haired and seemingly in their 60s or 70s or even 80s, drinking whiskey and crying, then a lot of sudden angry shouting and me getting thrown out of there for something bad I'd done in the bathroom, then swimming naked in a river or a canal with a barking collie dog paddling beside me, then getting thrown out of an Indian restaurant and a police car with its light flashing pulling up outside as I scarpered down an alley, then a complete blackout, blank for hours, then finally waking up in broad daylight fully clothed in a flower bed in the front garden of some sort of suburban bungalow on an estate about 10 miles away from where I'd had the drugs, covered from head to toe in sand (though Oxford is, so far as I know, landlocked?), my clothes soaking wet through and my watch and wallet gone. My modus operandi became a set menu: Go out and get radioactively plastered. Take a handful of pentamine "bongos" smuggled back from Bangkok in a greased knotted condom shoved up your arse and drink half a bottle of vodka on your way home whilst slouched in the doorway of a convenience store until the manager moves you on. After making about 20 unanswered calls to her by phone, leaving a drunkenly slurred message each time, turn up on an ex-girlfriend's doorstep at 3AM and hammer and holler at the door for 30 minutes until the inhabitants (for it is actually not her apartment, but that adjacent to hers, occupied by a family of four) call the police and you have to scarper. See her leaning over the balcony staring at you with a terrified look on her beautiful face as you leg it across the car park. Then never hear a whisper from her again. But it was never boring and, in some perverse ways, I sort of miss it. I miss the recklessness, the excitement, the sense of being untethered. And has all that become a thing of the past? I don’t fancy the detox-rehab-detox-rehab merry-go-around again, to be honest. I’m too old for that shit. Having said which, the DTs were actually very interesting. I got to enjoy them, the nightly magic lantern shows, no kidding. If you've had enough downers (valium, temazepam, whatever the f*ck it's called), and have a day or two to spare, the DTs are no problem. It's there in the platinum spires, it’s there in the telephone wires. Fun, really. Like a free acid trip: great visuals, and groovy aural stuff. Without downers, they're unbearable, like. I had DTs-induced alcoholic seizures once or twice. Not recommended. Have a drink instead if the DTs come at you and you've no downers in the house. Ah, those were the f*cking days... Chimes at midnight, master shallow... It's not the end of the world but it's a wake up call. If you think you might be the kind of person who will flounder when the seas of booze and tears become deep, run away from it now, and run like f*ck. Up to you. I remember… Large mechanical bird-like creatures flying round the room that were scary at first but I quickly got used to them and knew they meant me no harm. I found I could kind of control them, get them to fly where I wanted them to, get them to disapear if I concentrated hard enough. Then the people came. Family members and old friends mostly, some of them long dead, and sundry strangers, who'd sit or stand in the corners of the room and look at me and sometimes talk. They were all friendly. The Pet Shop Boys once dropped in, I recall, and sat and had a chat. Nice pair of blokes. I found that I could control the visitors too, and I never felt threatened. It really was quite fascinating, certainly entertaining. I've taken quite a bit of acid in my time, and it was not dissimilar to a mild and very pleasant acid trip. Without the giggling. The aural hallucinations, which I got more often than the visuals, were wonderful. I could created music. I could think of a band or singer I like, then create original songs by them in my head, have them play whole concerts. Johnny Cash, Don Williams, Suede, Suicide, The Ramones, Motorhead: I had them all in my living room. If only I'd been able to record it. I perfectly understood that speech of Caliban in The Tempest. Caliban: Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices, That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep, Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak'd, I cried to dream again... The DTs were exactly like that for me. With the Pet Shop Boys dropping in and whatnot. Oh, and yes, there were odd flowers, crystalline things, that would appear large and vivid right before my eyes. And, yes, as you say, they'd be devoid of presence or substance when I reached out for them. My hands would pass straight through and the spell would be broken and they'd vanish. But they'd come again. I could summon them. It really was illuminating. You can understand why people get tricked into believing in Gods. A brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music and my boozing for nothing… And this is where secret tippling ("sneaking it", the yanks say) comes into play. It's the answer to all our problems. Get a few down you before you meet people, have secret stashes (half bottles of spirits) of booze around your drum (bog cistern, airing cupboard, garden shed), and invest in a hip flask. That means you're always half-pished from dusk till dawn and simply topping up the battery in public, under your public's cold gaze. Worked for me. My ex-missus used to snap at me — "That's your FIFTH can of beer and you've work in the morning! — little knowing that it was, in fact, my tenth can of beer, and chasing down six or seven secret nips of vodka to boot. No worries, mate. (You'll end up an alcoholic, losing all your mates and your job and ruining your health and about 6 years of your life and quite possibly the lives of some of those around you, like, but that passes. It's all a wee bit of fun, life's rich tapestry and whatnot.) Still here, of course. And, somehow, still happy. jack

As an update, wi-fi in Nana Hotel (lobby and rooms) is free now, and has been for some time. I was last there in March, have just booked again for Xmas. It had been hurtling downhill for some years, but appeared to have plateaued, even slightly improved (in terms of efficiency and smiley-ness) on the evidence of my spring visit. The staff were charming, except for the old bloke on reception who is always drunk and offensive post-midday, who was being as obstreperously rude and unhelpful as ever*. * unless I was looking into a mirror. jack

Yeah, hello sobriety. I don't know which is scarier: the katoeys, or the wall-climbing pink elephants and skin-crawling mechanical spiders. Anyway, I'm past that bit and back in the saddle now, inviting disaster via what I will optimistically call 'controlled drinking'. Yes, I know. But what's a man to do? I'll be in BKK for Xmas too. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear... jack

When katoeys are circling and cawing and pawing, I'm usually the one 'trying hardest', mate. Trying hard to get rid of the f*ckers. jack

There's at least one katoey in there, surely? (Clue: lantern-jawed silicon-pumped second from left?) Face like torn shite. jack

I had my first in the Nana hotel in 1992, a takeaway from Patpong. She was gorgeous: cheap and cheerful, lovely pert knockers and went like the fucking clappers all night. Spoke a few words of English too. I've never looked back. jack

Speaking for myself (for I am wont to do little else ), I prefer 'Rachels' (the more the merrier) to 'Reubens' (no thanks!): always have and always will do.* * We're talking about hookers here, right? Tuppeny tarts. Not au fait with the new slang palare, I didn't know what you fellers were talking about at first. Good to know old Mekong's still onside and not a poofter yet (after all the shite he went through with that rotten missus of his). Surprised to learn that YimSiam's a left footer, though. Never had him pegged as lavender. KS a secret shirtlifter too?! You kept that quiet, mate. Each to his own, I suppose. Not for me though (bar that bloke I shagged up the arse in Singapore one time that I thought was a woman). jack

There are different versions and different degrees of alcohol dependence. It's not a one-size-fits-all diagnosis. Your friend and I are an illustration of that. In some ways, his condition is simpler than mine: there's only one safe way forward for him, and that is complete abstinence. I can drink to excess without incident 99%. of the time, but ever so occasionally I choose to let it snowball out of control. I couldn't predict when or why that would happen before, and it was interfering with my life in negative ways. I think I can predict, and therefore preempt it now. We'll see. I wish your friend the best of luck and health. jack

In response to the poster known as Pretendingtobemale (see the 'Fiery Jack Hailed As Truly Awesome' thread in General) and/or anyone else who might be confused about or questioning my attitude here... Alcohol dependence is a disease from which I find I now suffer. It can be defined as an inability to discontinue repeated patterns of behavior and thinking arising directly from alcohol consumption, despite the knowledge that these patterns of thinking and behavior have extremely negative and damaging consequences. Alcohol dependence develops over decades as a result of certain biological and environmental vulnerabilities. After a certain point, it is (arguably, but most likely) incurable, but it is arrestable and manageable if a combination of appropriate medical treatments and cognitive/behavioral modifications is faithfully and successfully undertaken. I staggered past that point at some time during the last few years, and, after much self-deception and denial (just one of the damaging patterns of thinking arising directly from booze), realised I had done so this June. Alcohol dependence is nothing at all to do with being a bad/weak/morally-defective/stupid person. Whether or not one becomes alcohol dependent (above and beyond the aforementioned biological/environmental factors) ultimately appears (and the most up-to-date published medical studies claim exactly the same for cancer) to depend on luck: some people get it, some don't. No one aims for it. No one starts drinking with the intention of becoming alcohol dependent. At the end of the long day, it's the luck of the draw, and I have drawn a short straw. So, given the above, there is no need to feel 'regret' or 'shame' or say 'sorry' for becoming alcohol dependent prior to proper diagnosis and acceptance of that diagnosis (just as there is no need to feel 'regret' or 'shame' or say 'sorry' for having cancer or diabetes or hay fever). And this 'it's a disease and it's not my fault' defense is not an excuse or an escape from responsibility; it is an unconditional embracing of responsibility hereafter. I know now that I am alcohol dependent, and I know that how this condition develops from now on is wholly my own responsibility. I can become a 24/7 fall-down drunk and quite probably be dead before I'm 60, or I can start to manage my thoughts and behavior in the light of the diagnosis I have received and accepted, and modify myself and my life accordingly. I am choosing this latter. It's the more difficult option, but the most attractive to me right now. So, I neither feel 'regret' nor do I see why I should, and I neither intend to 'complain about booze' nor do I see why I should. (If anyone reading this thinks I should, please explain to me why you think so.) Booze is wonderful. It's been the longest most enjoyable love affair of my life. I've had over 3 decades of booze-inspired joy: hundreds and hundreds of thrilling encounters and marvelous adventures and life-enriching experiences I would never have known if I hadn't been a round-the-clock boozer. I regret nothing. I'm disappointed that I can't continue along that happy path with the gay abandon of yore, but I'm glad I'm still alive and I'm overjoyed to be receiving treatment that will mean I can nevertheless, if I proceed with due care and caution, not entirely relinquish that world. I do not intend to imprison myself in a dreary tomb of temperance hereafter; I simply intend to re-empower myself into a controlled non-damaging pattern of drinking. That is easier said than done, but it is doable, and am giving it my best shot. That's all. Boozing is brilliant. It was brilliant for me for many, many years, but recently it suddenly started becoming problematic, so I'm sorting that out in order that is will be brilliant again. jack Disclaimer: The original 'How Late It Was...' post was written six days after I'd entered the rehab program. It was my birthday. (3 months ago now.) I was on medication and feeling a bit lonely and lost, so parts of what I wrote in that piece might appear to contradict my arguments here. But please don't pull out those maudlin phrases and shout 'But you said blah blah blah...'. My thinking is crystal clear today and I'm rehabilitated and already content with the brilliance of boozing anew. And so it must and should be, and so it always is.

I'll post a response to this in the original 'How Late It Was, How Late' thread in Trip Reports, mate. Hope that's okay. jack Edited to change it a bit.

http://www.behaviortherapy.com/researchdiv/whatworks.aspx Program I'm in also uses Naltrexone. jack

Meant electric shocks to CURE women. Obviously. Would still be more or as effective as sitting in a room praying. jack

The program I'm in has no connection to the 12 Step method. It's cognitive behavioural therapy based. I've been to over 30 AA meetings. Doesn't work for me. Quite the opposite. I find their approach bullying and brainwashing, and their goals unrealistic. They do not allow for self-development or self determination. AA is not a treatment. Their inert static paean to the evils of drinking is facile, emotionally damaging, and their God-bothering strategies are outdated and risible. Their dogmatic 'methodology' is unscientific and unproven. They claim alcoholism is a 'disease' brought on by personality flaws and 'moral defects'. That makes no sense. Diseases are cured by science, not by sitting in a room praying with people who also have that disease. They demand submission and prayer (!) to some fantastical 'higher power', advocate surrender, and deny the possibility of moving on. I want to empower myself and move forward. AA preys on the needy 'weakness' of those with addictive leanings, and replaces dependence on alcohol with dependence on AA. That's my opinion. Okay. But it's more up to date and scientifically supported than the opinions of AA, which were formed in the 1930s, when we used to give women electric shocks to 'cute' them of sexual desire and smack babies on the arse at birth to make them squeal, and not revised since then. AA supporters (and I wish them the very best of luck with this pernicious and awful disease: we are brothers in pain) will smirk and simply say I am 'in denial'. That's their get out clause. I'm not in denial. I am in a modern scientifically-based recovery program which, based on the most recent data, features 3 out of the top 5 current most effective treatment methods for alcohol dependency. (AA, by the way, is ranked 38th out of 48 available treatments, just below 'doing nothing'.) This is Day 77. jack

Philippa Merry? Maybe she was, and it took her a month to sober up? There's a lot of booze at those Highland Shows. jack

And the same old Fiery Jack is queueing up to short-time them. jack

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/business/farming/equestrian/rhs-2015-fiery-jack-hailed-as-truly-awesome-1.890210 I've been telling you for years. jack

Dear Best Unbeaten Brothers, Minutes to midnight here running out, so that's that for another year. Another birthday, I mean, Another one down. 52 now? Amazed (perhaps almost as much as those of you who know or know of me and my, ahem, shenanigans and knockabout antics well must be) (but truly glad) to still be here. I have had so many good years. I will treasure them like stolen gold. As I recall (and always have, though I may be mistaken) my father died exactly one week before what would have been his 52nd birthday. So 52 has always held a special significance for me: a number I was scared of and perhaps (not subconsciously, for I was acutely aware of it) regarded as unreachable. Never thought I'd get here. But I did. And here I am. 'Here' on this not unhappy birthday is in a detox 'n' rehab clinic in Eastern Japan that specialises in Mental Healthcare and Alcohol Rehabilitation (reputedly the best in Japan, trivia fans). For, ladies and gents, this year, my birthday present to myself is the overdue chance properly to sort out my head and my life and my failings, once and for all and forever. Let me explain. A month ago, I got into a dark depression again - loneliness, feeling useless and unloved and unlovable, scared of getting old... just the usual shit that's been more than well chronicled on here in my own fair poetic hand. I stopped taking care of myself, reached for the bottle (and the interesting pills) big style and crash bang wallop and it's ready, steady, go, bob's your uncle top 'o the morning to you yifter the shifter you're a better man than I am gungha din and here we go again. Fuck, fuck, fuck, I don't know why this happens to me, but it does, and I need to know why so I can stop it happening. Hence I am here. I won't claim to be an expert in psychiatric diagnoses but I will claim to be a seasoned expert on 'Being Me', and I consequently suspect/surmise/hypothesize that my sporadic but severe bouts of drinking and depression (which have always been a modus operandi of mine but which dramatically escalated in severity after my wife's death six years ago) have much to do with the relationship between a feared (imagined) stimulus (for me, feeling unloved and inadequate and worthless) and an avoidance response (for me, sudden pernicious bouts of binge drinking), resulting in a conditioned reaction (for me, darkest despair and physical shutdown), like Pavlov's yapping fucking dogs. So presumably it's fundamentally mental. (My body is fine. (Weekends preferred, ladies. Can travel or accommodate.) My blood/liver/pancreas/kitchen sink tests and scans and whatnot all came out okay, no worries. I am told I have the heart of a 30-year-old and the liver (and here's the shocker) of a 'normal' drinker. Maybe they got my tests mixed up with some other poor cunt's. He'll have got a one-way ticket.) Mental. Well, that's what I think (the bonkers Pavlovian attraction to wailing and ale) but I need some professional medical help to confirm/refute my hypothesis and tell me what the hell to do. We're working on that here from now on. My beleaguered despairing employers, gracious and generous as ever and sensing the urgency of my predicament, accepted my desperate request for immediate sick leave to come here and get myself sorted out. Full engine and body MOT, daily counselling and study sessions. I'll be here for 90 days. Today is day 9.) In the clinic I write this from, my wobbly shipmates in some choppy seas of shite and shame include the following fellow strugglers: A naval officer An orthopaedic surgeon A famous comedian A yakuza guy who did jail time for shooting someone A chartered accountant who almost killed someone whilst driving drugged and drunk A gambler who lost his house and life's savings in a card game and his wife and baby daughter in a taxi back to her mother's shortly after Another yakuza guy who is covered neck to ankle in tattoos but who is gentle as a lamb A former florist who owned a successful chain of flower shops ten years ago but discovered tequila and cocaine one night and is now bankrupt and homeless An ex professional baseball player... And, you know what, they're all great guys (even the shooter), just cracked and confused, busted and messed up like me, soaked and striving to get back out of the storm to some sort of dry isthmus of calm stability. We were talking one night and one of the guys said: 'Everyone here has lost something. But you mustn't lose yourself.' I am here in rehab to relocate the good bits of me (bits I will be in danger of losing if I don't do this and do it now), and, I hope, find a reliable way of finally ditching the demons. Of course, this will necessitate as complete as possible (but you know what I'm like, so don't hold your breath...) abstinence from now on, which will be tough if not impossible (and might mean I never hear from some of you lucky safe-tippling jokers again, alas) but that's okay. I've had enough. I'm sick of it (literally, it makes me sick: I drown now where I used to dance). As Billy Connolly said about booze: 'I didn't realise it was meant to last you a lifetime. I drank all mine in one go...'. Yup. Cheers. Game over. Finished. Probably. Or maybe I just need time. Outside my room here is a mulberry bush. The mulberries are ripe and sweet. I can see the sea from my window too and, today the sun is shining. I feel safe here. I'm will get well. I should have done this years ago. I will fix this. Jack xxx PS. If any of you are smirking and thinking, 'Stop being a weakling, soft lad, and get a grip, you self-indulgent idiot...', that's okay too. I could almost envy you. But I can't do it without help, and I need to do it properly and not temporarily but for the rest of my days. And I need to do it now. Getting a grip on my life is the reason I have chosen to do this. PPS. Disclaimer: this was actually written earlier this year. I've waited till now to post it because I'm a coward and I wanted to see how things sliced out before I pulled the trigger. I feel brave enough to post it now. SPOILER ALERT: it ended happily. I'll let you know.