I will not suck another fag

So I am trying this again.  I have decided that I must stop smoking.  You know, because I don’t want to die.  After twenty years of smoking my lungs need a break.  I probably could pave a tar road with all the shit I have inhaled from cigarettes and I prefer not to become another one of those lung cancer statistics.  But to quit smoking is hard and thus far I have had a zero success rate with it.  Also, I now know how crack addicts must feel and it isn’t pretty people.

I remember when I first started smoking.  It wasn’t peer pressure that got me started.  It was my sister.  You see we went on holiday and my sister and I had to share a hotel room.  I was a scrawny sixteen year old at the time and it was still easy for my sister to bully me.  She is a couple of years older than I am and as strong as an ox when she wants to be.  She was secretly smoking and didn’t want my parents to find out.  Seeing as we shared a hotel room and she being a nicotine addict this obviously posed a particular set of problems for her.

Firstly, at that time I would do anything to get my sister busted and get her into trouble.  Secondly, I was really bad at keeping secrets especially when it was something juicy and about my sister.  So naturally if I caught her smoking I would take our sibling rivalry to an epic new level.  Unfortunately, my sister would have made an excellent Survivor contestant, if she liked the outdoors and being dirty and hungry that is.  She continuously outwitted, outlasted and outplayed me right through our childhood and this time would be no different.

My sister convinced me through her clever psychological trickery that only really cool people smoked.  She also did not want me to be on the outskirts of society and she wanted me to join her sistren of really hip smokers.  See how I just revived a word that was last used in the 16th century.  Sometimes I amaze myself.  Also, I want everyone to start using the word "sistren" again because it is a really cool word.  But I digress... 

Being trapped in a hotel room with my sister was a bit like being a fly in a spider web.  It was in my best psychological and physical interest to not go against her generous sisterly advice on this particular social issue.  So I conceded out of fear and started fake smoking meaning that I would only puff and not inhale the smoke.

By the end of that holiday I was addicted to nicotine and, for obvious reasons, could no longer tell on my sister for smoking.  She had successfully tricked me in keeping her secret and I had now joined her in keeping things from our parents.  Twenty years and several attempts to quit smoking later, I am still a smoker.  In the past I have tried many things to stop.  I have done the patches, the gum, medication and even once thought that I could quit cold turkey.  That did not end well.

Trying to quit anything cold turkey is like playing Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun.  And the gun is not pointed at your head but pointed at the heads of others.  The time I tried to quit cold turkey I became a ranging emotional bitch from hell.  I had a short fuse and was generally unpleasant to be around.  I also started to behave like that slow cousin in your family that nobody talks about.  I did not like or recognize myself, at the time, and it felt like I lost my best friend and my mind.  I managed to survive a month of not smoking and then succumbed to the demon that is nicotine again.

When I tried to quit smoking on Champix things went a bit better apart from the fact that I almost died.  I had the worst nightmares while on that medication, it fucked up my liver and there were times that it made me ill enough not to be able to go to work.

I managed four months of not smoking on Champix but then we went on holiday to Madagascar and I fell off the wagon again, so to speak.  This is also when I contracted pneumonia and as we headed back home I went to hospital directly from the airport.  At hospital I would take off my oxygen mask to go for a smoke and when I was done I would put back the oxygen.  At least I had the good sense not to blow myself up but pneumonia and smoking – not the best combination.  Sometimes addicts do some weird shit like this.

So here I am again.  Attempt number God knows what.  This time I am staying clear of medications and I have opted to use the electronic cigarette and acupuncture to stop.  Thus far I must say it is going well.  I have cut down from forty cigarettes a day to around three a day.  Actually, the truth is I have cut down to about eight.  No, actually the real truth is I have cut down to ten.  Addicts lie.

I am very lucky to have an understanding husband who has placed no pressure on me at all to stop.  I am doing this for myself.  He doesn’t judge me when I have a cigarette from my not so secret stash and he has been very supportive.  I hope to exclusively smoke the electric cigarette (or like I fondly call it - my electric crack pie) in about a week or two.  Then I will deal with the nicotine addiction and swop the nicotine liquid for the non-nicotine one.

It has been a week since I started weaning myself off cigarettes and lo and behold, nobody has been murdered and I have not died.  Hopefully this time I will succeed in kicking this nasty ass habit and can spend the next sixty years smoke free.  And yes people, to the horror of some I plan to live well into my nineties.

I think the hardest part about quitting is not so much the nicotine addiction but the actual habit.  It is something to do with your hands and is an excuse to get out of the office for ten to fifteen minutes at a time.  However, now days smokers are banned to dodgy smoking areas and treated like lepers due to anti-smoking laws.  So it is best to just quit.  To my lungs, you’re welcome.  To the tobacco industry, I loathe all of you and you can all go fuck yourselves!  

Till next time.

2013: The Year that Was

So today is the last day of 2013 and I slept for 10 hours straight.  The last time I did that was when I had plastic surgery and the drugs were awesome.  And just so you know, the bags under my eyes have still not grown back.  That is a plastic surgery win in my book.  But this blog post is not going to be about me being nipped, tucked, getting laser treatment or getting Botox.  I am saving that for my forties.  The nip and tuck part that is because the rest I have been doing for years.  This blog post is going to reflect on the highs and lows I have experienced during 2013.  Seeing as I live a very boring life this blog post is going to be short.  I don’t want to bore you with all the insignificant details that make out the plethora of my meager existence.  So like the time when I worked in intelligence and had to write boring reports for politicians who were too lazy to read I will make it concise and hope it doesn’t give you a sudden urge to take a nap.  So here goes…

Like most years I like to start off the year being all optimistic, you know, making up silly New Year’s resolutions that nobody ever stick to.  New Year’s resolutions like “this year I am going to live healthy, exercise and lose weight”.  Yea right.  Well I did not do any of that and I should really be ashamed of myself.  In 2013 I gained 8kg and, like I like to see it, it is just more of me to love.  In 2013 we also learned what gay guys really think about vaginas and it really should not have come as a surprise that most of us are terrified of them.  I mean we all know that if it wasn’t for vaginas we would not be here but that doesn’t mean that we would want to revisit one, now do we?

On Valentine’s Day one of my far flung family members shot and killed his girlfriend and an international media circus started.  Oscar Pistorius shot and killed Reeva Steenkamp, a woman very few of us ever heard of before this.  Being sad and of great media interest the attention seeking homophobic Pastor from Cape Town also wanted his five minutes of fame and stated publically that Oscar was cursed for supporting gay rights.  Naturally I lost my shit over this a little, but they say you should take it from whom it comes.  Something I sometimes find hard to do.  This year I also realized that Google is making us stupid.  These days there really is no need to learn anything.  If you want an answer to a question you just ask Google; if you want to be shown how something is done you ask YouTube.  As technology evolves making life easier for us we as a human race are becoming ever lazier both mentally and physically.

This year I also had a rather unpleasant encounter with a drag queen that lost her mind.  I answered some questions straight people always wanted to ask a gay guy and gave you reasons why I don’t want to friend your cock.  And in an even stranger turn of events my cat almost got her own book deal.  This year also saw me coming to terms with menopause.  My own menopause!  I. Almost. Died.  I was diagnosed with early onset male menopause earlier this year and was started on hormone therapy.  Luckily, or unluckily, I have not yet grown a second dick yet but the hormones did see me grow some extra man hair.  Luckily there are wax as I don’t think I will rock the cave man look.

My long suffering husband and I also celebrated our 15^th year anniversary this year.  That’s like 40 in straight years.  I also shared some stuff I do that annoys my husband which makes our 15 years together so amazing.  This year was also a turning point in our relationship with us making one of the biggest decisions a couple can make and that is to have children.  This year we started with the adoption process.  It was a huge step to take and a somewhat arduous journey but we are looking forward to becoming a family of three in 2014.  I know looking forward to 2am feeds, nappy changes, being thrown up on and many sleepless nights are not something most people get excited about.  But hey, you all know I am different and I am super psyched about it and you can be sure to read all about poop, formula, sleep deprivation and all that goes along with new parenthood on my blog in 2014.

During 2013 I not only dealt with the lighter side of life but also with some of the darker sides.  I wrote about addiction and how I have been personally affected by it and why I have not had any contact with my father for the last six years because of it.  I also shared with you my dirty little secret with my life long battle with depression and why sometimes wallowing in self-pity can be liberating.  I also dealt with religious inspired homophobia which is something I hope I will see disappearing in my lifetime as well as how the gay community can inspire hate and discrimination amongst ourselves.  Also during 2013 I hit a low point in my blogging career where I briefly wondered whether I should not just quit my blog.  But as you can see I pulled through my blogging slump and am still here.  We also lost a great man this year.  Nelson Mandela passed away and he was a man from which I drew great personal inspiration and he will be greatly missed but never forgotten.

2013 was by no means an easy year.  Looking back over the last twelve months I am amazed at how much I grew both personally and spiritually.  As I sit here writing this I am aware that I am almost at the beginning of what will be a new chapter in my life.  2014 will be a year of change, challenges, inspiration and great joy.  We will be welcoming a new member into our family and I am sure our priorities will shift.  2013 has taught me patience, the importance of resilience, focus and that change is a good thing.  So on this last day of 2013 I am not going to make any silly New Year’s resolutions, what I am going to do is make a promise to myself:  I promise that in 2014 I will be the best version of myself that I can be, accept myself and all my flaws and embrace life.

Till next time.

Addiction: Is It Really Worth It?

Another celebrity died due to a drug overdose this weekend.  Cory Monteith who played the role of Finn Hudson on the popular television series Glee passed away on Saturday.  It was confirmed that he died as the result of a heroin and alcohol overdose.  Cory now joins actors like Heath Ledger, Corey Haim and River Phoenix, who all battled with substance abuse and died as a result of their addiction in their early twenties and thirties.  In recent years we have also seen many well know celebrities tragically succumb to drug addiction.  More recently there were Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse and even Michael Jackson (although technically his doctor killed him).

The drugs most frequently found in these reported deaths were cocaine, heroin, alcohol, diazepam, alprazolam, hydrocodone and methamphetamine, to mention but the top 7.  We would be fools to believe that drug addiction is only secluded to poor communities, the homeless and prostitutes on the streets.  We would also be even more ignorant to believe that only the super rich and famous can become addicts.  Addiction affects everybody and chances are that even you have been affected by addiction in one form or another.  So this led me to wonder, why we are so afraid to talk about it.

For many years drug addiction was believed to only be associated with the illegal substances we all are familiar with today.  Alcohol and nicotine addiction are also still common and are also responsible for numerous deaths each year.  But, in recent years new trends developed – people started abusing and getting addicted to prescription and over the counter medication:  The most common being Opioids (painkillers like Oxycontin or Vicodin), Depressants (tranquilizers and sleeping pills like Xanax or Valium) and Stimulants (mood stabilizers like Adderall or Ritalin).  Today people can buy these drugs from their drug dealer right alongside cocaine, crack, heroine, ecstasy and marijuana.  But I don’t want to bore you with a lesson in drugs with this blog post.  I want to share with you my story about being affected by addiction.  I want to tell you about alcoholism.

You cannot always tell if a person is an addict.  It could be the housewife down the street, a colleague at work, a professor at college and even a family member.  My father is an alcoholic and one thing I have learned growing up in a home with him is that addicts can hide their addictions very well.  I also learned that addiction is not something that happens over night (not with alcoholism anyway) and it is a gradual process sliding towards a precipice, and once the addict has slid over it, coming back from it is very difficult if not impossible for some people.  My father’s drinking started when I was about six or seven (or at least that’s when I became aware of it).  It started off with him and my mother having a sundowner after work.  Then it progressed to my father drinking too much at every social function he attended, most times driving us home as drunk as a skunk.  As I grew older his drinking increased resulting in innumerable fights between him and my mother.  Fights I still remember to this day.

My father would come home from work functions drunk, too inebriated to make sense.  Sometimes my mother would lock him out of the house resulting in him once breaking down a door.  None of their fights were particularly pleasant and luckily my father was not the type of alcoholic who got aggressive and physically abused us.  The first time he went to rehab for his addiction was when I was in my late teens.  He came home and drove his car into the gate of our house.  He was too drunk to get out of the car and my boyfriend, at the time, and I had to carry him to the bedroom.  It was embarrassing as hell as the accident drew quite a crowd in our street.  The following day my dad was admitted to a rehab facility.  After a long time being treated physically and receiving therapy he finally came out clean.  Or so we thought.

Addicts are extremely manipulative and they are proficient liars.  For a few years after my father came out of rehab we believed that he was finally clean and that he was a recovering alcoholic, but we were deceived.  As it happens my father never stopped drinking.  He just did it in secret.  After my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and with her passing eight months later, I discovered a journal my mother had kept.  From reading it I learned how bad my father’s drinking really was and how my mother tried to protect my sister and I from the truth about the man my father truly was.  I was shocked but being naïve, my sister and I wanted to believe that my father had changed.  We were in for a rude surprise.  It seems that after my mother died there was nobody left to keep him in check and his addiction got out of control.

After my mother’s passing my father lived with my sister and her husband and he stayed in the garden cottage on their property.  My sister noticed that sometimes at 4am the lights in his cottage would still be on.  During that time my father also got into all kinds of accidents with his car.  Then one day their housekeeper pulled my sister aside and told her about all the whiskey bottles she had to throw away from to garden cottage every week.  Naturally my sister was shocked, upset and felt bitterly disappointed.  So she and her husband decided to collect a week’s worth of discarded bottles (which were many) and prepared for an intervention.  Unfortunately, I could not make it as hubby and I had left for our honeymoon to Egypt.  When we returned my sister informed me that my father had voluntarily admitted himself to a rehabilitation facility.  This was his second stint in rehab.  All was well for a couple months, but again things would turn for the worst.

My father met his new wife a couple months after he came out of rehab.  I met his new wife three times in my life.  Once for breakfast when my father first introduced her to us, then at their wedding and the last time was at a BBQ at my sister’s house.  I cannot really say that I know her well, but soon after they got married she started phoning my sister and I wanting to know why we never warned her that my father had a drinking problem.  Both my sister and I were quite taken aback seeing as we asked my father on numerous occasions if he had told her that he had been to rehab.  He said he had.  But he lied.  Just as he lied when he told us that he had stopped drinking.  I knew that he started again because as hubby and I left my father’s wedding reception the first thing he did was to go to the bar and ordered a whiskey.  His addiction won yet again and he continued to lie about it.

I once also got a frantic call from my father’s new wife saying that he had fallen down the stairs, landed on a vase and had a bad cut on his arm.  I asked her if he was drunk when it happened and she said no.  Later in hospital it was determined that he was.  He got her to lie for him.  I have not seen or spoken to my father in over six years and my sister and I currently have no contact with him.  It is sad to think that my father chose his addiction over his own children and grandchildren.  It is even more distressing to think that from the age of five that I never had a real father as alcohol not only took him away from me but also took him from his family.  My father has also broken off all contact with his own brothers and sister.  So all family he has left is his new wife, her children, alcohol, and as they would like us to believe, Jesus Christ.  Because you know, Jesus made wine out of water so wine is not bad for you.

Addiction ruins lives, destroys families and even kills.  Is it really worth sacrificing everything you have, everyone you love, your dignity and self-respect and in some cases even your life for a drink, a pill, a pipe, a needle or a drug laced joint?  If my husband and I are ever to have children I will do my damnedest to make sure my marriage and child are never exposed to or have to endure the evils of drug abuse.  Having lived through it and experienced it firsthand I know how much pain it causes for those people around the addict.  I know how selfish addicts are, how they lie, manipulate and I know that if they do not really want to get help sending them to rehab will accomplish nothing.  I know this sounds harsh, but this is my experience with addiction and it’s painful and there are always casualties.  If you are reading this today and if you are an addict, I plead with you to take a long hard look at your life and ask yourself – Is this addiction really worth it?  If your answer is No, please save your own life and seek help.  Your life is worth more than what you might think and there are people out there who love you.

Till next time.

Crack is wack!

When I got the news that Whitney Houston was found dead in her hotel room at the age of 48, I couldn’t say that I was surprised.  We all knew it was just a matter of time.  Whitney had been publically struggling with addiction for the last two decades and watching her life unfold was a little bit like watching a train derail at high speed, but in slow motion: You just knew it was going to end badly.

The news of Whitney Houston’s death reached me via Twitter early on Sunday morning.  She was found dead in the bathtub in her hotel room in Beverly Hills.  Early unconfirmed reports said that she had drowned possibly due to passing out in the bath as a result of a combination of drugs and/or alcohol that she had taken.  Sad as it was, I could not help but recall her infamous 2002 interview with Diane Sawyer, and her words “crack is wack” was stuck in my head.

During the 2002 interview with Diane Sawyer, Whitney uttered "crack is wack" as she admitted to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills.  She went further and said “Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack. Let's get that straight. Okay? We don't do crack. We don't do that. Crack is wack."  Then seven years later, Whitney Houston tells Oprah Winfrey she was clean and sober and we all wanted to believe her.  Now, just over two years later, we know her sobriety did not last and in the end her addiction killed her.

Many of us have been or will be affected by addiction, in one way or another, either directly or indirectly during the course of our lives.  Addiction does not discriminate; it doesn’t care whether you are rich or poor, famous, beautiful, black or white.  Addiction will strip you of your dignity, your talents, your loved ones and when there’s nothing left –it will kill you.

During my thirty something years on this planet I have encountered my fair share of addicts in both my professional and personal life.  I have watched them give up all that’s near and dear to them for a bottle of whiskey, a few grams of coke, a joint and/or a handful of prescription drugs.  It is sad, it is shocking and at some point you just have to realize that people make their own choices in their lives and if those choices are to destroy them in the end, it is still their choice to make.

Addiction is a cruel mistress.  Some people can experiment with drugs and never become addicted.  Most people I know have experimented with one drug or another at college, have drunk too much or taken ecstasy when raves were still cool.  Most people I know have done this and have not become addicted.  But then there are the others who started off with smoking marijuana and ended up heroin addicts, started off with taking ecstasy and ended up addicted to crystal meth.  It’s difficult to tell who will become addicted, but once they are it is very difficult to get them clean.

One such person is my father.  I have not spoken to or had any contact with him for well over four years.  He is an alcoholic and has been one for the last twenty odd years.  I have very few memories of him ever being a dad to me as alcohol didn’t afford him or I this luxury and quite a few pleasant childhood memories are overshadowed by alcohol related incidents involving fighting, beaten down doors, broken bottles and crashed cars.  During the last 16 years he has been to rehab three times and all three times it was unsuccessful and he has never stopped drinking.  He is an alcoholic who has chosen his addiction over his family multiple times.  He doesn’t believe he has a problem and he doesn’t really want help and one day his addiction will kill him too.

Addicts lie, they lie to other people and they lie to themselves.  After a while they also start believing their lies.  They justify their actions and, more importantly, their addiction by external events always finding an excuse, an explanation or a person to blame for their own substance abuse.  Their addiction becomes their master and everything and anything that stands between them and their next fix, whether it is a loved one or not, becomes disposable.  They become selfish, cruel and unrepentant.

Addicts must be living in their own hell, but it's those around them that suffer the most.  Those who love them, care for them and have to stand witness to a prolonged painful process of self-destruction.  Those who have to witness the person they once knew wither away, change into a total stranger who is slowly killing themselves.  Watch helplessly as they refuse treatment, turn their backs on them and always going back to their addiction until one day it is too late.

Having lived with and been raised by an addict, you could say that I am somewhat biased.  I have seen how it destroys a family, relationships and love.  I have seen how cruel it can be and it has made me a hard person because of it.  I have little sympathy for the addict who doesn’t want to admit they have a problem and when offered help refuses it.

Whitney Houston is dead and it didn’t come as a surprise.  A promising career has been systematically and very publically destroyed by addiction in just over twenty years.  She’s not the first celebrity who has died due to addiction and she will not be the last.  Let her death and those of all the others serve as a stark warning of the dangers of drug addiction.  With her death, let it finally sink in that all of us are equally vulnerably and that in the end addiction kills.  May your soul rest in peace Whitney Houston and I believe I speak for many when I say I wish it ended differently.

Till next time.