Edges Magazine Issue 22: Letters to the Editor

EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 22

July 2000

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

I SMOKED POT IN THE 6O'S

Pot found its way into the hallowed corridors of my college in 1969, on the back of Flower Power and progressive music. A few of us took up the cause with a religious fervor and my non-conformism led me gladly into the sub-culture.

Here I have to admit to the ambition to be a junky from the outset. The mystique and glamour, role models, and the ready availability plus the usual psychological hang-ups of a Catholic teenager born in the 50’s, ideally suited me to the life. Now, if somebody had pointed out to me that my sense of alienation from the world came out of Jesus’ teaching and the value I put on Love over gold are His values, I probably wouldn’t have listened and carried straight on to the inevitable suffering that ultimately taught me who I am today. I would also have missed the 18 months residential rehabilitation at Phoenix House in Sheffield that straightened me out on much more than drug abuse.

Escalation from Pot was rapid. LSD at 16, narcotics by 20, drug crime by 21, and my first bad habit by 24. My liver started complaining at 30 and my mind started too at 33. Running parallel with all this was a reasonable working life. I was also married, had a daughter, traveled for Dunlop around the world, had a nice house only to lose it all over 3 years, ending up in Sheffield in 1987.

The regimes they run at Phoenix are pretty scary, with the front door always open for you to go back to the gutter if you wish. There were two types of junkies there, old timers like myself, who had had a belly full but whose behaviour was deeply ingrained(it was my identity), so hard to change. And then the youngsters of 19, 20, who still found it fun, but the behaviour wasn’t as deeply ingrained so it was maybe easier to change it. Suffice to say, they helped me back onto my feet and pointed me in the right direction and equipped me better to make my own way.

I lived in Sheffield for 5 happy years after Phoenix, renewing my acquaintance with womankind.

Returning to Manchester in 1994 I went cab driving in Stockport, interesting if sometimes edgy work. It was this meeting with hundreds of people together with turning 40, that helped me start putting it all together. How many I helped and how many helped me I’ll never know but I ended up seeing myself as a servant of the servants. I had whisky priests, crack-heads and whores to serve and I got on well with it all. I picked a priest up from a big Catholic house party in Bramhall at about 2.30am one Sunday morning. I asked him if he had the gospel and homily ready for Mass in 6 hours. He hadn’t a clue what it was. Now quite by chance I had been to Mass on Saturday afternoon and knew what it was. I scolded him and told him what the gospel was and you should have seen his face! A cab driver lecturing him on the gospel!

An addict took a shine to me as a confident, and he told me many things I wish I didn’t know. I fell for a prostitute once, and in the classic way she broke my heart and nearly got me killed. That was the end of the cab driving anyway.

I could go on and on with my testament, for ultimately, that is what it is. I should have died many times on my dangerous journey. Three guys I shared works with have died from AIDS, I’m clean and here. There are car crashes that have amazed the cops, I walked away scratch-less. I could name ten dead people I knew right off. And there, literally, but for the grace of God, go I.

The mist is still heavy on my vision and I can feel miserable. Sometimes during Mass the priest will speak the truth, or the gospel is made for me that day, and my chest expands and hurts, and my heart pounds, and my throat burns, and the tears flow freely, then I know I’m loved and I love Jesus, God’s Son on earth, alive in these past two millennia. I look to do His will in this world; of it but not in it.

Writing this testament has the influence of the Holy Spirit, I feel. I forgive myself more readily nowadays(as I forgive other companions and strugglers – or try to)

I have only been back at Church for the last couple of years(25 years absence), but with all the zeal of a convert. My prayers are answered, things work for me, coincidence is regular, I feel God’s love.

I must be doing something right. – P.K.