It started when I used to go out with my ex-girlfriend. I was drinking quite a bit, normally about six
pints when we used to go out, it started getting worst when she saw me with a
few black eyes and sometimes being abusive toward her.
It got to the point where she couldn’t take it anymore. This
is when I fell off the bus when I was a bit drunk; when she broke up with me
this the drinking started getting worst. When I try to get her I was hanging
around her and home, about six pints a day; this is when it started getting me
to into trouble with the police and having a lot of convictions and being in
prision.
It’s caused lot of problems with my family, arguing and
being abusive. Drinking has got to the point where I cannot remember previous;
I lost a lot of jobs because of drinking – and a lot of money, and getting into
debt, and have lost a lot of accommodations.
Drinking has caused some mental health issues, being in and
out of hospital, and as a result of this I have to acknowledge what drinking does. I
have lost a lot of friends: people don’t really want to know you any more.
My name is Peter Lewis Goldsmith, I am 31 years old, soon I’m gonna be 32.
Today I have spent a few hours learning editing skills and making videos for my children as I am going away to Detox and rehab on Monday for 6 months.
I thought I’d write a book during that time, to share some experiences with you. All the best
What’s the title of the book you want to write?
‘Hell on Earth’
I’ve experience life at the bottom, rock bottom. And I’ve experienced life at the top. That’s why I’ve got fire in my belly …I ain’t took drugs for 6 months …life could be really good. You could be happy.
What’s a good life?
Seeing my family all the time, providing for my family.
If my son wants new trainers, if my missus wants a new perfume. That makes a big difference, that’s why people work. If you don’t look after your wife, some other man will look after her.
Me and my wife we’ve been together 5 years…she’s a police officer now. She knows I’m not always going to be in this position. If you don’t go to rehab she said it’s over. It’s worth it. We might be together 40 years, what’s 6 months?
There’s nothing more important than your family. I want my son and my daughter to look up to me. I don’t want them to think their dad lives in a hostel for drug addicts.
Why did you decide to get married?
I got married when I was living in Leeds up north. I married her cause I loved her so much. I asked her to marry me about 2 weeks before she found out she was pregnant.
How did you feel when she told you that?
It was a bit of a relief for me and for her, to know we could have kids.
We were together for 4 years, sleeping together and it became a little bit of a joke, ‘you’re not having a baby, eh?’ It was my first kid. The best day of my life. Then my son was born. Another best day of my life. Then when I got off methadone.
Do you think the methadone helps?
No, not really, they just replace the drug you were using before with another one.
Giving some 1 Methadone to get off Heroin is like giving someone Heroin to get off Cannabis, the Meth is 20 times worse 20 times more addictive and 20 times harder to get off than Heroin, but hey if the Government do anything that makes any sense, something is probably wrong!!!
"Come for a work capability assessment", said the form from somewhere in Wembley. "Don't be late and you must turn up or we could dock your ESA benefit." The assessment was on a Saturday afternoon in March in a very clinical government building in Marylebone. So far, so same old.
What they don't tell you in the letter is what to really expect and so I'm really grateful to my fellow SHP service users (or friends as I'd prefer to call them) for giving me the SP on what goes on at these medicals and what paperwork and tablets to take with me. Thanks guys...
I last worked last August. I wish I could work. I wish I didn't have a diagnosis for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to the uninitiated) but I do. It means I can work until something upsets me or triggers a flashback to the powerlessness of being abused as a small child and then all bets are off. The flight or fight mechanism turns itself up to full volume and I either walk out of the workplace or tell someone (usually a boss and always a man) to go f*** themselves. This is not the best way to stay in a job and so the cycle of losing jobs continues. But enough of that old story.
Currently I'm getting better with the help of a top psychotherapist with Solace Woman's Aid in Islington, medication from my GP, lots of learning new skills like shutting up when I'd rather swear, saying "no" nicely at SHP, CAST, CRI, and some hard core academic theory with a teacher at City Lit called Christiane Sanderson who explains the science behind the often 'random' behaviour that stems from being sexually abused as a kid.
I see the Iraqi doctor at Marylebone and once he's checked that I'm physically OK he asks about my mental health, so I hand him the psychiatrist's copious notes on the background to my mental diagnosis. As he reads I can see he wished he hadn't asked. He assured me he's a GP and not an expert in 'These Things'. Whatever mate? He's in a hurry to get rid of me after that and so I dissociate at the dehumanising of this awkward medical history. Basically what I do is shut up and leave my body. It seems easier than explaining to the nice doctor that I'd rather not be living alone in a less than ideal bedsit because I'm incapable of being in a relationship. I can't be arsed to tell him that looking at my past is not my pastime of choice. That it's not self-indulgent time-wasting and opening a can of worms just for the fun of it. That it's painful to feel you drowned in booze for your adult life. And that I'm committed, not to an institution, but to getting better. I want to tell him I do this 'feeling feelings' work because I want to live; not die by hurting myself because of what someone else did to me when I was too young to understand that I wasn't to blame.
Now I've left my body and am on the ceiling (not literally). I can hear him saying something about photocopying the report. Whatever. I used to cope with the self loathing of being abused by wearing my addict and an alcoholic hat at a jaunty angle. When I took that off 15 months ago the flashbacks came back like devils from hell. And guess what? So did the dissociation. So I say goodbye and leave the building. I know I'm in danger because I'm only partly conscious. I buy chips, chocolate, and fags to help me feel comforted. I'm very disorientated and need to get away from traffic fast. So my medical ends with me getting on the first bus I see and ending up in Edgeware. What can I say? It beats getting drunk.
