A bit of my history...

I think it’s important that I explain a little about my mental / physical history and relationship with alcohol (and other ‘substances’) to give a better understanding about my motivations for doing this and what I think I will gain from it.

Let me start around the middle.

When I was about 20 years old (10 years ago) I had a couple of fairly serious 'episodes' that were directly linked to my constant use of cannibis and other illegal substances. I basically had quite extreme bouts of paranoia and psychosis, to the point where I spent sometime in a mental institute. After this I was prescribed medication for a short period. After that I decided to stop smoking cannibis and taking other drugs.

However I did start to drink alcohol (something I had turned my nose up at before, as a hardened pothead). I wasn't an alcoholic, I don't think, but I did drink regularly and when I did drink I usually binged quite heavily too.

This calmed down a bit when I moved to London for 3 years, though it was obvious that, now that I had stopped taking illegal substances, alcohol was my new drug of choice.

Between the age of 21 - 26 I think I only smoked cannibis four times and took a stronger class A drug once! Again, I did drink and drink heavily, but only on social ocassions.

Between the age of 27 and 30 I believe I have taken class A drugs about 6 times. And once again, my alcohol consumption has steadily risen. Social binge drinking, sometimes quite frequently in a given period of weeks or months.

That just about brings us up to date. Until, in the last few months I was made aware of this new drug called Mephedrone (read more here). It's basically legal and the first time I tried it (in a relatively small dose) I found it had the same effects of Ecstasy without the usual weird come down and several days of feeling rough afterward.

Well that was until the weekend just past!

On Sunday 25th October I took around 1 gram of Mephedrone, a good 3/4 of a half bottle of whisky and several pints of beer. Not exactly that intense, but at the same time, mixing drinks and substances: Asking for trouble!

Come Monday morning I felt OK. Tired, but that was to be expected. Come Tuesday, I felt worse. By Wednesday I felt in utter despair. I had to go to work and on the bus I was actually having suicidal thoughts. Now as I have mentioned, over the last few years I've dabbled a little in class A drugs, but I've always been prepared for the aftermath and always been ready to give myself a couple of days to recover from the negative side-effects of getting out of my head. The side-effects, while unpleasant, have always been reasonably manageable.

Not this time! These side-effects took me right back! Right back to the harsh paranoia of ten years ago! And that really scared me. Those same creeping feelings of psychosis were so familiarm just like back when I was 20 years old.

It was at this point I knew I had to stop playing Russian Roulette with my mental health.

I consider myself very fortunate to have survived the mental breakdown that I had when I was 20 years old. I think it was touch and go whether I was going to be able to return to reality, or end up permanently brain damaged.

And so the accumulation of this recent drug 'scare' along with other things - like the bad habits I get into when I have these regular binge drinking sessions, how nothing ever gets done, how I often feel depressed and tired - have all added up to make me come to this decision and bring me to this point that I'm at right now!