by Des Bishop
When the clock struck 6 a.m. we went to the attic to avoid my parents as they got ready for work. While we were in the attic I read out the poetry I wrote about my loneliness in Ireland. After I had read it to him he said, ‘Dude, if I had thoughts like that, I would never take acid because I would be afraid I would go insane.’
The main reason I took so much acid was because it was easy to get and it only cost £5 for a hit that would keep you high for twelve hours. The come-downs were brutal, but at that price it was worth it. The main reason it escalated was because I was sick of the violence that erupted every time I got drunk. I lost too many friends through violent blackouts, and when I took drugs that didn’t happen. I thought I had found the solution to my problem. Drugs turned me into a nice guy.
I went to UCC in October of 1994 after a year in Dublin repeating my Leaving Cert. For the third time in five years I had to start again. I had to make new friends and get accustomed to a new place and I was not in the mood. I quickly descended into full-blown, alcoholic drinking, and by the end of the October Bank Holiday weekend I was broke, emotionally drained and exceptionally lonely. I had not really got to know anyone in Cork and was relying on my cousins in Midleton for any type of companionship at the weekends. I began to think about suicide and I remember one day telling my very worried mother on the phone that I was so miserable I wanted to die.
It must have been very soon after that that I rang Alcoholics Anonymous. It was the first time I had made the move on my own. I went to Patrick’s Hill, where I was taken to a smoke-filled basement halfway up the hill. I went there for three months and did not drink the entire time. But the problem with AA in Ireland at the time was that you had some guys in it saying that it was cool to take drugs once you didn’t drink. So at the start I continued smoking hash, though that faded due to lack of funds and no real desire. However, when I went home that Christmas I again took some acid with neighbourhood friends in Queens. That led to a chain of events in which I was trying more and more to get Ecstasy or LSD. By rag week of 1995 I was ready to blow. That is what I did, and within three hours I had punched a guy in the toilets of a pub on the Western Road for no reason. He kicked the shit out of me after that: I remember being on the floor of the toilets getting kicked around.
The chaos doesn’t build back up slowly, it comes back hardcore. I had a good bit of money at that time and I went hard at it for a few days. I went to a pub I had heard all the people in AA talking about as the place where you end up at the end of your drinking. It was an early house and I went there at half seven in the morning and drank there and at other places on my own for the entire day. I did the same the following day until the binge culminated in me getting some Ecstasy and going to the Tramps’ Ball on the Thursday night. I went to the early house again on the Friday morning and then the money ran out.
I remember the fear I had that Friday night about going to sleep. I thought it would never happen, and when it did I woke up in the middle of the night, convinced that someone was in the apartment. I felt some of the greatest fear I have ever known and I stayed up all night, afraid to go back to sleep.
I had a simple new life then. I would pay homage to college every now and then, but mostly it was about sourcing money for drugs. I scammed my parents mostly. Sometimes I would get money off my relatives. Supposedly I got grinds, bought books, and bought sports equipment. Of course, I did none of these things. Eventually I got behind on my rent too. But that was late enough in the year so it did not matter.
I was lucky because I could not have been into Ecstasy at a better time or in a better place. Sir Henry’s was at its peak. It was known Europe-wide for being one of the great rave clubs, and the great DJs of the ’90s like Carl Cox, Laurent Garnier and Billy Nasty played there. So, despite the fact that I was heading in quite a desperate direction, I had a place to go that made it feel quite exciting for a while.
I did not know that many people, and those I knew did not have the desire to get high as much as I did. They liked drinking too; but at this stage, the minute I took a drink, all I was thinking about was taking it to the next level and trying to get more drugs. It was not that easy for me to get them either because I was not very connected. Eventually I found a house I could call at on my own and score without having to go to the more dangerous places.
Soon I had a short-lived and almost manageable ritual of drug-taking that revolved around going to Sir Henry’s. Most of the people I knew went home for the weekend. I would hang around with them during the week rather than be lonely, but at the weekends I was on my own and I would get some Ecstasy and head to the club. The ritual was great for a short time until the buzz of it was not enough to tame the beast.
I am so scared. I am scared because I am worried I won’t get in. I am scared because I am worried about coming up too soon and getting arrested. I am scared because I am nineteen and I am on my own. I hope I know people in here but I have not been patient enough to wait for the people I know to be in there. They are not going out tonight. But I am. I have no choice. I am so lonely.
I wait with strangers on the queue. I listen to their conversations. They are mostly about Ecstasy. Either they need to get it in there, they have taken it, or they are worried about it being found in their sock.
‘No, I don’t smoke,’ I say to one.
‘Nice one,’ they say in return with an intense stare with no malice in it. There is everything to look forward to. I am freezing because I don’t want to wait in the coat-check line before or after. I am only wearing a T-shirt tight to my skin that I bought in Greenwich Village on my last trip home, and baggy jeans. I am dying for a shit as the nerves and the beginnings of the E take effect.
The bouncers let me through begrudgingly. They don’t know me and I don’t take it personally. They are emotionless and try to intimidate me only as per their job description. I pay my money to the woman who I can hardly see through a small hole in a wooden box. She gives me a ticket which immediately goes to a younger man and then I walk up the stairs to the muffled sound of deep house that gets louder every time the door opens and returns to being muffled again, but louder as I rise.
I walk through the door and the heat hits me like a steam room. The smell of Vicks and cigarette smoke is strong. I can hear the popping deep house sound and I am immediately coming up strong. The adrenalin is in me. I clench my fists and suddenly it feels like too much. I want to shout. I clench my teeth and breathe hard through them. If you could see me I would look angry, but I am not. I lift my hands up to the sky and skip to the dance floor. It’s not a decision.
Breathe.
Breathe.
I have gone too far before and fallen into a scag hole. I don’t want to go there. I want to dance. I look to my right and my left, and the amphitheatre that is Sir Henry’s rises above me. It is theatre in the round. Wherever you are, you are on the stage. I see beautiful women on every step. They are skinny and smoking cigarettes and they look so sexy to me. I look at their thin arms reaching out across the room and I want to feel them on me. I want to be the man behind them rubbing their shoulders. I want to slide my fingers across their skinny stomachs that move to the music all sweaty and exposed to me. I want everything right at that moment. I don’t know what everything is, but suddenly it feels possible to get it. Within minutes the dance floor is much more full.
I dance and rub my hands. I am sweating immediately. I know a few faces and I go up to one of them and we squeeze each other’s hand for ages. We share with a look the awareness that we have never felt better in our lives. I am so high now I want to puke.
Breathe.
Breathe.
COOOOOMMMMMEEEEEE OOOOONNNNNNN!
I throw my hands to the sky. I have never lost the beat. I have been dancing since I walked through the door. I look to the sky where the DJ box is and I see the men responsible for the rhythm, the atmosphere. I know what they are going to do. I can
feel the music deeper than ever before. I look right, I look left. I see all their smiles, their rolling eyes. They are scumbags, rich kids, drug dealers, sexy girls, drug addicts, recovering addicts, E whores and businessmen. They are from both sides of the valley that is Cork. We are deep in the valley. Deep in the centre of our universe. I am deep in Sir Henry’s. I am in the valley with both sides looking down and I feel them all. We are one.
I dance harder and I am oblivious to the performance, but I feed off the people who get in my face and shout beautiful things to me. I squeeze many strangers and I sweat. I feel the bass. I feel the bounce of the floor. I bounce with it. When the music crescendos I feel the rush as I shout, and we all shout and I look around and I am lost in a forest of raised arms. I am lost in skinny shadows and fingertips in lights with cigarette ends illuminating some of them.
YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!
EVERYBODY, NEEDS SOMEBODY …
They chant around me.
I look to the DJ box as the crowd cheers. He raises a record above his head.
The Body of Christ. We break the bread. We are the disciples.
A stranger offers me a sip of his water. It tastes better than water has ever tasted. We hug.
Another stranger puts her hand in my face and I know to breathe deep and I smell the Vicks and it makes me feel intense. She looks at me deeply and I kiss her on the lips and she rubs my face. I can feel the coolness of the Vicks on my face as I squeeze her hand as she leaves me. I smell the Vicks off my own hand and I immediately put my hands in the face of the guy I know standing next to me. I offer him a sign of peace.
I clap my hands. I can’t believe how good it feels. I look around again and I feel I belong. I never want it to end. I splash my feet in the sweat and the water that has gathered beneath me. I rub my hands hard against my skin and squeeze my T-shirt and pull it down. I can see the dirt on my sneakers beneath me and I splash some more.
COOOOMMMMEEEEE ONNNNNN!
Don’t stop now.
I tell someone I haven’t got any yokes. I ask them if they have any chewing gum. They do and I chew like crazy.
The music stops. The clapping to the beat does not. I can still feel the music in me.
ONE MORE CHOON! ONE MORE CHOON!
I know it’s coming. I have not stopped dancing. I am clapping and stamping my feet.
I can’t even tell if I am still high or just pumped full of energy. But I am happy still.
The euphoria peaks again as the final tune gets played.
COOOOMMMMMEEEE ONNNNNN!
And then the music stops. The clapping fades.
And then the sound of footsteps.
The clamouring for parties.
The reality that I know no one.
I walk outside.
I am cold.
I am afraid.
I am saturated.
I am afraid I won’t find a place to go.
I am afraid I won’t find more drugs.
I am afraid I will never be back here again.
On the night of 15 July 1995 I took my last drink and drug. I am confident I will never be back there again and I am the furthest thing from being afraid.
22
It was really AA that brought me closer to my father. The beginning of that process happened when I made my amends to my dad when I was about a year sober. I had been a very earnest worker of the AA’s twelve steps when I got going. I sort of wanted to be the best possible recovering alcoholic I could be.
I quite liked showing off at meetings about how quickly I was getting through the steps and I liked to be really articulate, interesting and funny when sharing things at meetings. It was all part of my need to perform and my youthful desire for attention. I don’t regret that, because that drive was very helpful to me in those early years and I made it my business to become very educated in the language and skills of recovery. I am sure I was very annoying but I certainly did not have many cravings for drugs or alcohol once I got into it.
I had a bit of zeal about spirituality at the time. I was a real believer in those early years in recovery that some sort of god was guiding my existence. I meditated a lot too at that time and was obsessive about trying to be a good person. I was kind of like the ideal student of the twelve steps. I was desperate though when I first went there so I was not much in the mood for questioning the process. I have no problem questioning it now, but I know that sense of purpose gave me a structure that really worked for me early on.
So I got to step eight and found myself listing out all the people I had harmed and, as was promised in the steps, I felt an easing of the shame and guilt from the things that I had done. I was nineteen and really I had not harmed that many people. The main victims were my parents and they were very understanding about alcoholism. Indeed, it was mainly because of them I was in AA; they had made me aware of my problems early on and also made me aware that there was a solution. After listing all the people in the eighth step it was time to make direct amends to them, as it says in the ninth step.
I’m not sure I was even planning to make my amends to my dad on the day we had the conversation. I have a faint memory that there was some tension between us around then. I was on the phone to my mother and she asked me if I wanted to talk to Dad and I was not really in the mood; but she said that he knew I was on the phone and would be offended if I did not talk to him. Even as I write this I recall that there was a great distance between myself and my dad at this time. When I used to talk to him I felt we had no connection and I felt that he had no real presence in my life. Most of our conversations were small talk and niceties.
But when I got on the phone it hit me that this was the time. I was obsessed with the concept of missed opportunities because I had read The Celestine Prophecy (a New Age book about spiritual awakening that was then all the rage) and it was my bible. I believed that you had to go with your instincts at times like this and then the secrets of life would be revealed. So when this instinct hit me that the reason I did not want to talk to him was because this was the time, I just began to make some sort of formal amends.
He knew what I was doing straight away. He had done it himself at some stage of his sobriety. I broke down almost as soon as I started talking. I was walking up the path to the main grounds of UCC. I could see the river on my right as I walked up the hill. And as I walked we just let it all out and it was very loving and open.
After I got off the phone I was crying quite a bit. It was a profound moment. From where I was standing I could see all of the north side of Cork City through the gaps in the trees. I was so into spiritual things that I remember thinking I could nearly see the presence of God right there in the trees. Everything was so incredibly vivid and the view seemed so powerful.
The fact that I was looking out over the city I was reborn in, after breaking through with the most important man in my life, in the place that he had sung about all our lives, was such a powerful thing. I felt a deep sense of liberation and contentment. Everything seemed to make sense. It was what I perceived to be a spiritual awakening that they talk about in the twelfth step. To this day I think it was a kind of awakening in the sense that I realized the power of relationships and the rewards of breaking through boundaries.
I don’t have those spiritual beliefs today but I believe in being open to shared experiences and I still believe that life is all about our relationships. For someone who had spent so much of his life believing he was not really good enough to belong, this was a big moment. It was not a permanent feeling but it was the beginning of the breaking down of the internalized sense of exclusion I had been cursed with my whole life.
The north side of Cork was so inspiring to me then. Those years in Cork I lived in an area called the Glen. I lived in my friend’s corporation flat and paid his rent of £9 a week. I guess you could say the Glen was one of Cork’s toughest areas. I loved it because
it was high on a hill. I used to take a short cut into town sometimes through an old British Army graveyard adjacent to Cork Prison and the barracks. In the spring the gorse bushes were full of yellow flowers and I would stop and look out over all of Cork from the height, and I would breathe it in. I had a deep sense that this was where I belonged. I still think of it when I see the red illuminated cross of Gurranabraher church, high on the way to Knocknaheeny. When I first got to Cork I always thought it looked like a cross you would see in the Deep South next to a ‘You Must Be Born Again!’ sign.
And now I felt not only part of Cork, but also part of my family. Myself and my father were a pair again.
23
It was the summer after I made amends that my father opened up to me about his past. I can’t recall my initial reaction when my dad first told me the true story of his childhood, but I just remember being so impressed at the man he had become despite everything he had been through. I also remember feeling a slight sense of shame that this amount of mental illness had been in the family. To me there was something dark about mental illness of this magnitude and I felt connected to it genetically.
Despite being proud of my dad, and slightly guilty for the feelings I had about my own childhood in comparison, I was freaked out about my grandmother’s past. There had never been a hint of a darker side to the story. All I had ever heard about her growing up was lovely things: she had a beautiful singing voice and she was an incredible-looking woman in her day. That’s what my father had always said about her and that’s what the family in Midleton said too. She was in a home in England and was not well enough to travel as she was a little senile. My dad had visited her once while on a business trip to London and he came back with stories of how she was doing and the songs she sang. There was a picture of her with one of the nurses in the nursing home – a harmless-looking old lady.
