Steve Hamilton - I Want My Life Back

I cant write this book.

Ive been staring at this sheet of paper for half an hour.

As blank as my mind. As white as a line of cocaine.

Im qualified to write it all right, but I dont have the skills or the words. The only spellcheck I have is my sisters old school dictionary. Even if I knew how to use a computer, I cant afford to buy one. My education kind of got interrupted. I never got a matric and Ive never even had a proper job, not one that Ive kept for very long anyway. Some jobs, yes but not proper ones with pension schemes and corporate ladders to climb.

My mother got me a job at Pelindaba once, you know the place where we used to make atom bombs or something before we signed that treaty? I got to wear a sort of space suit thing and I had this appie guy, Reuben, who was black and he wore one too. It used to make us piss ourselves laughing just to look at ourselves, we looked so weird. We worked a kind of assembly line shift where we had to stick labels with arrows on them onto these components of God knows what. If the arrow pointed left it meant something significant. If it pointed right it meant something else. Either way you had to get it right or the world would blow up or something. I cant really remember. We were so high most of that time you could have stuck the arrows on my forehead and I wouldnt have known the difference.

I didnt last there very long.

But I should start at the beginning. The trouble is Ive had so many beginnings its hard to pinpoint the one that led me here, to this moment. Was it before I was born, when two families on continents seas apart, who couldnt have been more different in class or culture, threw up the two children who were to be my parents? Or was it when I died for the third time? Or maybe the day that Candys life collided with mine and changed my view of the world forever?

Well, whatever the beginning is its all tied up with birth and death. Thats not very profound, I guess, but its the only truth I know.

The predictable way to start this book would be simple and comfortable. Youll recognize it the pattern and the shape. It will either turn you off immediately or you will read on, but distanced, knowing that you are reading someone elses story which has nothing to do with you, never will. This is how it goes.

Hi. My name is Steve.

I am a drug addict.

There. You see? Been there. Seen the T-shirt. Done the rehab tour. We all know where this is going and, admit it, its one big yawn.

The trouble is the paths we take to get to where were going are so deceptive we hardly know were on them until its too late. Take my path, for instance. What are we looking at broken home, alcoholic father, getting in with the wrong crowd at school (hell, I was the wrong crowd at school), rebellious teenager, awkward with the opposite sex. A bit of petty theft, moms small change, that kind of thing. Its not so unusual, probably more like the norm these days. Who hasnt got a dysfunctional family, Id like to know?

But not everyone from a difficult home becomes a drug addict. Kids from perfectly wonderful environments, well, on the surface at least stable two-parent, two-sibling homes, private schools, everything that opens and shuts, timeshares overseas and satellite TV hey, they get just as wasted. You may not trip over them in the gutters first time around, but theyre certainly underfoot in the rehab centres that stretch their parents medical aid resources to the limit.

So thats the first thing.

It could be you.

No matter who you are, where you come from and where you imagine life may take you, believe this if you believe nothing else:

It could be you.

It could be you filling in Drug Addict in the Occupation slot on your application form for a housing loan one day. If you get that far, that is. And even if you do, I can guarantee you right now that your application will not be successful. Bureaucracy is not enormously understanding when it comes to jailbirds and junkies.

So. Where does it start? Ill tell you where.

In a shopping centre. In your girlfriends bedroom. In the park across the road. Its dead easy.

As you take that first joint from your friend across the table in the coffee shop, before your fingers touch momentarily and you share that look which says What the hell just pause for a minute before you pull the smoke into your lungs. Just pause and remember this: there are no rules. Your friend could smoke weed for ten years and be fine. So could you. You could both be telling your kids one day that Sure you smoked a bit when you were their age. Everyone did. It was no big deal. It never did you any harm. Every kid has to experiment.

On the other hand, you could be writing this book.

The point is when you take that first step, you dont know which story youll be writing.

Some people say that there is a certain predisposition to addiction, that its all in the genes. Thats all very well, but how do you know exactly? And if you do know, will it stop you anyway?

What I do know is this: there isnt a high that doesnt turn on you. Not one. Not one time did the good feeling last long enough or stay clear in my memory for long enough to make me say I didnt need to feel it again.

Youre not going to do it just once. Trust me. Youre not.

The interesting thing about weed which, after cigarettes and alcohol, is the next step youll take is that it really does feel so harmless. It doesnt matter what or where the circumstances are and actually peer pressure doesnt come into it that much these days, no matter how fondly parents and teachers might like to bang that old drum. Lets get one thing out of the way right now: smoking weed, drinking alcohol, or going that extra bit of the way onto something more interesting doing this stuff is not even daring. Everyones doing it. Its that simple. Sure, you have to be a bit careful and keep an eye out, depending on where you are (the hockey fields not the best plan, and probably your boyfriends bedroom could be chancing it) but its pretty matter of course.

The curious thing, though, is that your first time is going to be boring. Nothing happens. Lets face it, its a let down. Maybe you think youre not doing it right, not inhaling it deep enough or something. Youre unsure for a start about whats supposed to happen, and they say everyones experience is different. Ask any thirteen year old theyre the experts.

Alcohols different. More measurable than weed. And most people start there anyway. For the novice alcoholic its pretty certain that, because your tolerance level is pretty low, if you keep drinking long enough youll feel dizzy, slightly uncoordinated, wordsll get tangled up in your mouth, and eventually youll vomit. Youll also feel terrible the next day. You may have a bad headache and feel nauseous. Nauseous but kind of proud. Theres something of the rite of passage about getting drunk. And when you start young its such a comfortably predictable topic of conversation. (Actually, its extraordinary the number of people who still talk about it when theyre forty-five and the note of pride is still there I see it every time I talk to a group of business people.) Youll talk a lot about how vrot you got with your friends. Therell be a sort of nonchalant how many Smirnoff Ices I drank before I threw up competition. If youre a guy, girls will generally be impressed by this sort of information. At least thats what you imagine. Its information thats casually shared thats the trick of it with a mixture of bravado and regret and insincere protestations about how you really are going to stop drinking (as if youve been doing it since you were three and, at fifteen, its finally time to take stock of your concerning alcohol intake). But the next time, when the headache and the nausea have worn off, and youre with your mates, youll do it all over again. Its what you do, after all, and its fun. Youll remember the feeling. Youll have a great time. Your confidence swells. Youre funny and cool and everyone likes you. And oh no, youre pissed again and how many of those things did you say you downed tonight? Jesus, you can really put it away! Said with admiration, not disgust.