jonathanperkin
Greenlighter
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2015
- Messages
- 4
Erratic Manoeuvres
Travel plan:
Deactivate Facebook
Get cheap taxi to Koh San Road (ask for meter ‘crap car’)
D&D inn ask for cheapest room
Buy lonely planet south East Asia book
Buy fake trainers
Read my two books (in cold blood by Truman capote) and (one
Flew over the cuckoos nest)
Stay in pool daytime planning my trip
Ask Dom about guesthouse I could work in
Start writing my own book
Find diazepam
Find developing shop for my camera
Here on this plane, I start to realize that I’m talking to myself, while drifting in and out of sleep. Saying random thoughts that could be from crazed dreams, this has been happening to me more recently and I’m sure the woman sitting next to me is getting worried. This may seem abnormal to the average person but when you’re a drug fiend nothing is impossible. But once aboard the flight, I hastily consume 160mg of codeine and half a pack of over the counter sleep aids (sominex) all these where wash down by three gin and tonics courtesy of Air Sri Lanka. These dreams scare me slightly, as I have no control over them and they seem to be happening more recently; maybe it’s the intake of these mind-altering substances? Or maybe it’s to all this stress about myself? My girlfriend Lovisa? Or could it be my parent putting me through this ‘thou shall not take drugs’ business? It’s not their fault they only want the best for me.
If it were not for my relapse and being clean and sober I would not have made the erratic decision to leave everything and everyone behind without any explanation. But we learn from our mistakes don’t we? Why am I on this plane? Where am I going to go? I know that this plane is destined for Bangkok via Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Bangkok is a gruesome hub for the far east. It’s where travellers go to embark on their journey of discoveries. So I could do anything once I’m there: Vietnam, beaches, Cambodia, mountains and jungles. Cambodia is the most appealing to me. I have been there before and have fond memories; with bars, with swimming pools, crocodiles and restaurants with extensive drug menus. Basically anything goes. This is a great place but Cambodia especially Shinoukville sickens me. It has turned into the Las Vegas of drugs. The westerners who congregate there all in the Beer Loa vests are like parasites, they are rude and obnoxious and they do not embrace the eastern culture, they are just there to meet other parasites and fuck and discuss their home country’s.
Its makes me sad because the more parasites a place attracts the harder and the stricter the penalty for getting drugs. Look at Koh Pan Yang that place is infested with these people and the quality and the price of drugs has sky rocketed.
Bangkok is a no go for scoring. The police are everywhere, most in plain clothes posing as civilians. I’m sure there must be shit loads of illegal substances there but the thought of getting caught red handed by an uncover cop is too much for me. I could not cope in those Thai jails; I’ve seen the documentaries.
While on the subject of scoring, I need to get to a pharmacy as soon as I get to Bangkok my codeine I have brought from the UK has long gone. In Thailand many of the pharmacies will sell you diazepam, codeine, tramadol and xanxex. It’s the junkies dream. It gets better once in Cambodia. I know of a particular pharmacy in a market which sells bottles of ketamine on the bottle its says for human use made in Germany. 15 dollars each bottle and cooks up to half a gram but the stuff knocks you out and is as clean as a diamond. I’m hoping the pharmacy still exists but normally all good things come to an end.
I am now at the Colombo airport, where I have to wait until the next morning for the next flight. The airport staff have suggested that I get a hotel for the night but my flight leaves in only 10 hours so I’m sure I can occupy myself and I have I found an airport pharmacy which sells some equivalent to diazepam. It was called Alzolam it was amazing! I brought I pack of codeine too. After buying I took two pills of each and now the airport becomes my playground. Now the thought of waiting here through the night does not concern me in the slightest. In fact I am walking around the airport slightly stumbling but in a brilliant mood looking at all the different packaging and writing on products which were different to the one’s from the in the UK, they seem more interesting.
I find a bar in the airport. It is empty apart a few Sri Lankan businessmen. I order three Heineken beers for myself. The bar had the view of the runway, it was soaking wet. I sat there drinking, watching the rain. I’m not sure if it is monsoon season here now. I don’t really care. It just feels good to be free in unfamiliar territory. Monsoons are good anyway the tree’s and flower’s are more prominent and colourful and the heat is more bearable.
One of the Sri Lankan businessmen comes up to me and introduces himself. He was going to Singapore and was just having a quick whiskey before his flight was leaving. I have worked with a few Sri Lankan’s and all of them have loved to drink whiskey straight. Don’t get me wrong I love whiskey; all types but rarely order it for my first drink. I would use it at the end of a night.
At this point I lose myself for a bit. Going back to me talking to myself. It has been happening more frequently. It is always when I have taken substances before bed. I have a theory that I’m having these dreams and I’m stuck in the middle of them and realty at the same time.
Somehow I get to Bangkok traveling there in a drunk drugged confused state, some how boarding my plane at Colombo. I must have decided to take all the Alzopam and codeine, instead of risking taking it into Bangkok even though I did get from a real pharmacy from Colombo. I have some problems with my visa. The fuckers won’t grant me one because the ticket I had brought to Cambodia had been declined on my card. At this point I still am no good for wear so still no help to the custom agents me being a puppet to these drugs. I don’t know how but they let me through and I am I Bangkok. Yes! Bangkok! I get the fist taxi and said, “crap car” that means metre. We went to the Koh San Road and I went to my favourite hotel the D&D inn. I booked four nights in a deluxe room. There’s always a room available the place is a castle. The D&D inn is the best taste of Bangkok any westerner will get. Its set in the heart of the Koh San Road and the clerks who work in the lobby are always smiling happy. On the top of the tall hotel is an amazing swimming pool with a bar and a view of the city. A great place to chill. The Koh San Road itself is the busiest road in the whole of Bangkok. It’s like the Camden market of Asia, DVD’s, fake Nikes trainers, Gucci handbags; you can get just about anything you want. I don’t like the road I like the pharmacy on the Koh San Road. Unlike most Thai pharmacies the have no problem in selling you anything. Then I just will go back to the hotel to relax. Maybe swim in the pool and have beer. The dream.
Once settled into D&D, I make fast for the infamous Koh San Road pharmacy where I purchase 1000 5mg diazepam, a pack of tramadol and some Xanax, all for a very cheap price. I zoom to a 7/11 and buy a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of coke. Little do I know; this will be my downfall. I head straight back to my room and get started. After indulging for a while on diazepam and whiskey. I feel elated with excitement and go for a swim. I’m back in my room now again indulging some more. ‘This really should not be allowed’ I think to myself.
In a mad haze, I find myself bent down on the floor trying to sweep up glass with my bare hands. I believe I must of smashed my whiskey glass and in a misguided attempt to clear the mess up cut myself. There is blood everywhere. My hands, knees, elbows and wrists. Looks like a horror show. I slur down the line to the front desk that I need some help. They come to rescue. Next minute I’m in the lobby getting seen to by some sort of specialist. It’s amazing how quick it all seemed but I was high. They bandaged me up good and proper. And I was moved to the room next to mine. I was disappointed by my accident because it meant I could not enjoy the swimming pool. Oh well karma pays it price.
At this point the staff at the D&D had realised I was a liability and had confiscated my money and drugs. So I had to go to the lobby to beg every time I wanted a pill and they where so scared of me getting arrested they would not let me out the hotel so they would send the staff on errand’s for me. I was their prisoner. I would sleep for long periods of time on the sofas down in the lobby. None of the plan I had made was going to order. I was out of control, a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I had all my London counter parts searching for me including my parents and my distraught girlfriend. What was I going to make of all this? To be honest I didn’t know or care. I was junkie and wanted fixes that’s all, Cambodia or not.
I had no sense of time or direction I didn’t know how many days I had been at the D&D and I did not even know my flights to Cambodia were declined. Ironically, I thought everything was going smoothly.
At this point in time, back in London my parents had contacted the British Embassy and told them of my shenanigans. The British embassy had contacted the D&D so everyone knew where I was and safe, well maybe not. I had actually been at the D&D at this point for three days and the hotel manager Nicki thought it would be in the embassy’s and her and my parents interest to take me there. From there on I would be taken to a clinic to get my wounds looked at. I had no option but to go with her.
At the British embassy I spoke to a woman who has given me 500 baht on courtesy. The rest of my money was spent on the wreckage of my first room. After speaking to her about going to this clinic she wanted to speak to Nicki by herself. Which left me on my own. I escaped. I went to the first pharmacy I could find and asks for diazepam they said no. I then realised It must be only a Koh San Road thing so I got in a taxi and headed there. Once there I purchased 400 baht’s worth diazepam and with the rest of the money I headed for the airport. I thought to myself ‘it’s over’. At this point I was planning to ring up my parents and get them to book me a flight home. My plan had failed. I had burnt out.
I had I reached the airport and taken all the valium in one go. I had decided to find British Airways and ask them if I could ask them if I could use their phone.
I started getting unsteady on my legs. Going from counter to counter then finally getting shown to a medical centre where I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
Next minute there were hands putting me in an ambulance. I was going to hospital. It was an intensive care unit nearest to the airport. I was put I a room where I awoke days later with tube attached my arm. I still felt fairly sedated a Thai nurse came in with a doctor to check my blood pressure. I was still unsure of the situation here because I had not taken out any travel insurance any this was sure to cost a shit load of money so I asked one of the nurse’s. “Why I am here” “too much valium she said your father is coming in a few days”.
So I was to be rescued by my father. I spoke to him on the later that day. Not much emotion. Never is. He is so pragmatic. He planned to pick me up by staying in a hotel near the airport. Leaving me here in the hospital overnight to mull and picking me up in the morning for flight home.
I now have two days here until he comes, two days to beg the doctors to give more shots of valium and sleeping aids. All I do is complain of pain and suffering of not sleeping. Due to the consumption of drugs I took in the D&D, it seems to me that nothing will affect me. I have become immune. The room I am in is a nice one. I lie in one of those manoeuvrable hospital beds, opposite a flat screen TV. If I turn my head, I have a view of Bangkok through a wall made of plate glass.
I sit here in my bed watching boxing. It is strange, as I’m watching people harming each other while I am trying to get better. I’m allowed three cigarettes a day; these are the best moments because I get led outside by a guard to smoke. It’s amazing what a few minutes of daylight and fresh air can do to ones mood. I smoke once after breakfast, after lunch and normally get impatient and have my last one before my dinner. The fuckers wont allow me to have one more “the doctors orders”. The cigarettes also mixed well with the medication, I was on. There were, two occasions I had been taken up by wheel chair from my cigarettes due to head rushes!
‘Right now I’ve got machine shooting valium into me. I’ve and two extra strong pills. I can barely write. I shall find out their names later. The drip I’m on is like having the equivalent to eating a 10mg every 10mins. Bliss. I have written down I feel that my mood is great and the high is very is controllable.’
The ward I’m on is the intensive care ward. It’s a long narrow corridor with rows of rooms all like mine. Being immune to drugs meant I had immense energy so I would get to know the entire nurse force that works on the ward. Some I like a lot, others less so.
There was an incident where I broke into a cabinet containing the daily doses of pills. A short nurse with glasses stupidly left the key in the cabinet and left the room. In this time I had got out of bed opened it up looked inside chosen two of the meanest looking pills and hid them wrapped in toilet paper and put them in the dirty needles bin. She found out pretty quick “where are the pills” she came up to me in a Thai accent. “I’ve taken them,” I said. She asked where the evidence was and I told her. After that she was cross and said “no more medication for you”. I felt bad so hours later so I wrote her a sorry note. Explaining I did not mean to take advantage of her but I’m a junkie you see.
I woke up with the bed wet. Is this the new me? Can’t even control my own bladder? Only a week ago I was in London; a tax playing, working, tube travelling citizen. Now what?
I just took my first medication from a different doctor he says its stronger hopefully it works. My mum called today it was emotional she said she was looking forward to seeing me but she told me the reason my plan had failed was that I had let drugs get the better of me. I knew she was right.
My plan to go to Cambodia was to find work. I had a friend who died from an overdose in the town I was destined to go to. I had no idea how easy or how hard it is the find work there.
The bastards are trying to give me paracetamol. This is not a painkiller. It may be for kids but for full-blown junkies like me it does not even scratch the surface. So I’ve told them at 4pm I want my intravenous dose of diazepam. Being injected with diazepam is a great feeling, you feel almost sober and the drowsy/drunkenness kicks in. You get this feeling partially in the morning after waking up from taking the drug.
In this institution I am solely relying on the use of drugs. I get two tablets, which I devour at breakfast, then my cigarette. The pills mostly contain valium. A big hit out here in Thailand. So I get those mighty head rushes.
If you enjoy TV then do not go to Thailand. The only English language speaking channels are BBC news and Fox movie classic and the classics are nothing but shit. Who would of thought ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ is a classic even on all this medication. I can’t stare through this shit. At least in Vietnam and Cambodia you have HBO. I could watch that shit for days in an air-conditioned room. At least it will make you enjoy the great Thai outdoors.
I now was waiting for my dad. He has landed and was going to pay me a visit, then pick me up the following morning. I protested to him earlier on the phone that I would like to stay in the hotel also, not this ward. But no. It had been decided. These Thai medical services are of the private sector. I started to realise that before my father arrival, more senior people in the field of the business were turning up. All in smarter Thai medical wear. Great! We have a business meeting on our hands!
Being an active patient and an aspiring photographer I took a set of self-timer photos of my self in my kimono: some of me reading the Bangkok daily in a chair and some just looking straight into the lens.
My dad came looked around the room for a bit and made a few judgments. I begged him to take me with him but the answer was no. After he left, I started my petulant begging again seeing as I was out of here the next morning and had nothing to lose. They satisfy my needs and gave me a shot. Still could not sleep. Better do some writing.
Morning came and finally I was picked up. I bid my farewell to the ward and said goodbye to the nurses. I feel they got know me better than most acquaintances do due to me being squalidly open about my addictions. My dad paid the costly medical bill and I was out of there and into a taxi bound for the airport.
My dad, you can’t knock him, he just has just no interest in culture like myself. If I were him. I would have booked the week and spent a week seeing and the sights of Thailand in addition to rescuing me. Well that’s just me I’m a sucker for beauty.
We boarded the BA plane going direct to Heathrow. Now as I take off I feel I am far away from all the madness I have brought upon myself and I am going into the unknown. It’s a strange feeling. The only form of madness is the drug’s that the doctor has prescribed to me in my dad’s hand luggage but they will do fuck all. So I will have to pay the price of sobriety and psychologists once back in London. There is no escaping it now.
So this how the story ends; I’ve lost the love of my life, she wont contact me. I respect that at the moment but it’s a painful reality. I am sober, apart from the medication I’m prescribed by the doctor. It does not produce a high, does little even to change my mood. Shit really. I now spend my days reflecting on this mad decision of mine. Pointing out the highs and lows. I think you all would question me if I would do this all again if I could get the chance. Now that’s a story for another day.
Travel plan:
Deactivate Facebook
Get cheap taxi to Koh San Road (ask for meter ‘crap car’)
D&D inn ask for cheapest room
Buy lonely planet south East Asia book
Buy fake trainers
Read my two books (in cold blood by Truman capote) and (one
Flew over the cuckoos nest)
Stay in pool daytime planning my trip
Ask Dom about guesthouse I could work in
Start writing my own book
Find diazepam
Find developing shop for my camera
Here on this plane, I start to realize that I’m talking to myself, while drifting in and out of sleep. Saying random thoughts that could be from crazed dreams, this has been happening to me more recently and I’m sure the woman sitting next to me is getting worried. This may seem abnormal to the average person but when you’re a drug fiend nothing is impossible. But once aboard the flight, I hastily consume 160mg of codeine and half a pack of over the counter sleep aids (sominex) all these where wash down by three gin and tonics courtesy of Air Sri Lanka. These dreams scare me slightly, as I have no control over them and they seem to be happening more recently; maybe it’s the intake of these mind-altering substances? Or maybe it’s to all this stress about myself? My girlfriend Lovisa? Or could it be my parent putting me through this ‘thou shall not take drugs’ business? It’s not their fault they only want the best for me.
If it were not for my relapse and being clean and sober I would not have made the erratic decision to leave everything and everyone behind without any explanation. But we learn from our mistakes don’t we? Why am I on this plane? Where am I going to go? I know that this plane is destined for Bangkok via Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Bangkok is a gruesome hub for the far east. It’s where travellers go to embark on their journey of discoveries. So I could do anything once I’m there: Vietnam, beaches, Cambodia, mountains and jungles. Cambodia is the most appealing to me. I have been there before and have fond memories; with bars, with swimming pools, crocodiles and restaurants with extensive drug menus. Basically anything goes. This is a great place but Cambodia especially Shinoukville sickens me. It has turned into the Las Vegas of drugs. The westerners who congregate there all in the Beer Loa vests are like parasites, they are rude and obnoxious and they do not embrace the eastern culture, they are just there to meet other parasites and fuck and discuss their home country’s.
Its makes me sad because the more parasites a place attracts the harder and the stricter the penalty for getting drugs. Look at Koh Pan Yang that place is infested with these people and the quality and the price of drugs has sky rocketed.
Bangkok is a no go for scoring. The police are everywhere, most in plain clothes posing as civilians. I’m sure there must be shit loads of illegal substances there but the thought of getting caught red handed by an uncover cop is too much for me. I could not cope in those Thai jails; I’ve seen the documentaries.
While on the subject of scoring, I need to get to a pharmacy as soon as I get to Bangkok my codeine I have brought from the UK has long gone. In Thailand many of the pharmacies will sell you diazepam, codeine, tramadol and xanxex. It’s the junkies dream. It gets better once in Cambodia. I know of a particular pharmacy in a market which sells bottles of ketamine on the bottle its says for human use made in Germany. 15 dollars each bottle and cooks up to half a gram but the stuff knocks you out and is as clean as a diamond. I’m hoping the pharmacy still exists but normally all good things come to an end.
I am now at the Colombo airport, where I have to wait until the next morning for the next flight. The airport staff have suggested that I get a hotel for the night but my flight leaves in only 10 hours so I’m sure I can occupy myself and I have I found an airport pharmacy which sells some equivalent to diazepam. It was called Alzolam it was amazing! I brought I pack of codeine too. After buying I took two pills of each and now the airport becomes my playground. Now the thought of waiting here through the night does not concern me in the slightest. In fact I am walking around the airport slightly stumbling but in a brilliant mood looking at all the different packaging and writing on products which were different to the one’s from the in the UK, they seem more interesting.
I find a bar in the airport. It is empty apart a few Sri Lankan businessmen. I order three Heineken beers for myself. The bar had the view of the runway, it was soaking wet. I sat there drinking, watching the rain. I’m not sure if it is monsoon season here now. I don’t really care. It just feels good to be free in unfamiliar territory. Monsoons are good anyway the tree’s and flower’s are more prominent and colourful and the heat is more bearable.
One of the Sri Lankan businessmen comes up to me and introduces himself. He was going to Singapore and was just having a quick whiskey before his flight was leaving. I have worked with a few Sri Lankan’s and all of them have loved to drink whiskey straight. Don’t get me wrong I love whiskey; all types but rarely order it for my first drink. I would use it at the end of a night.
At this point I lose myself for a bit. Going back to me talking to myself. It has been happening more frequently. It is always when I have taken substances before bed. I have a theory that I’m having these dreams and I’m stuck in the middle of them and realty at the same time.
Somehow I get to Bangkok traveling there in a drunk drugged confused state, some how boarding my plane at Colombo. I must have decided to take all the Alzopam and codeine, instead of risking taking it into Bangkok even though I did get from a real pharmacy from Colombo. I have some problems with my visa. The fuckers won’t grant me one because the ticket I had brought to Cambodia had been declined on my card. At this point I still am no good for wear so still no help to the custom agents me being a puppet to these drugs. I don’t know how but they let me through and I am I Bangkok. Yes! Bangkok! I get the fist taxi and said, “crap car” that means metre. We went to the Koh San Road and I went to my favourite hotel the D&D inn. I booked four nights in a deluxe room. There’s always a room available the place is a castle. The D&D inn is the best taste of Bangkok any westerner will get. Its set in the heart of the Koh San Road and the clerks who work in the lobby are always smiling happy. On the top of the tall hotel is an amazing swimming pool with a bar and a view of the city. A great place to chill. The Koh San Road itself is the busiest road in the whole of Bangkok. It’s like the Camden market of Asia, DVD’s, fake Nikes trainers, Gucci handbags; you can get just about anything you want. I don’t like the road I like the pharmacy on the Koh San Road. Unlike most Thai pharmacies the have no problem in selling you anything. Then I just will go back to the hotel to relax. Maybe swim in the pool and have beer. The dream.
Once settled into D&D, I make fast for the infamous Koh San Road pharmacy where I purchase 1000 5mg diazepam, a pack of tramadol and some Xanax, all for a very cheap price. I zoom to a 7/11 and buy a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of coke. Little do I know; this will be my downfall. I head straight back to my room and get started. After indulging for a while on diazepam and whiskey. I feel elated with excitement and go for a swim. I’m back in my room now again indulging some more. ‘This really should not be allowed’ I think to myself.
In a mad haze, I find myself bent down on the floor trying to sweep up glass with my bare hands. I believe I must of smashed my whiskey glass and in a misguided attempt to clear the mess up cut myself. There is blood everywhere. My hands, knees, elbows and wrists. Looks like a horror show. I slur down the line to the front desk that I need some help. They come to rescue. Next minute I’m in the lobby getting seen to by some sort of specialist. It’s amazing how quick it all seemed but I was high. They bandaged me up good and proper. And I was moved to the room next to mine. I was disappointed by my accident because it meant I could not enjoy the swimming pool. Oh well karma pays it price.
At this point the staff at the D&D had realised I was a liability and had confiscated my money and drugs. So I had to go to the lobby to beg every time I wanted a pill and they where so scared of me getting arrested they would not let me out the hotel so they would send the staff on errand’s for me. I was their prisoner. I would sleep for long periods of time on the sofas down in the lobby. None of the plan I had made was going to order. I was out of control, a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I had all my London counter parts searching for me including my parents and my distraught girlfriend. What was I going to make of all this? To be honest I didn’t know or care. I was junkie and wanted fixes that’s all, Cambodia or not.
I had no sense of time or direction I didn’t know how many days I had been at the D&D and I did not even know my flights to Cambodia were declined. Ironically, I thought everything was going smoothly.
At this point in time, back in London my parents had contacted the British Embassy and told them of my shenanigans. The British embassy had contacted the D&D so everyone knew where I was and safe, well maybe not. I had actually been at the D&D at this point for three days and the hotel manager Nicki thought it would be in the embassy’s and her and my parents interest to take me there. From there on I would be taken to a clinic to get my wounds looked at. I had no option but to go with her.
At the British embassy I spoke to a woman who has given me 500 baht on courtesy. The rest of my money was spent on the wreckage of my first room. After speaking to her about going to this clinic she wanted to speak to Nicki by herself. Which left me on my own. I escaped. I went to the first pharmacy I could find and asks for diazepam they said no. I then realised It must be only a Koh San Road thing so I got in a taxi and headed there. Once there I purchased 400 baht’s worth diazepam and with the rest of the money I headed for the airport. I thought to myself ‘it’s over’. At this point I was planning to ring up my parents and get them to book me a flight home. My plan had failed. I had burnt out.
I had I reached the airport and taken all the valium in one go. I had decided to find British Airways and ask them if I could ask them if I could use their phone.
I started getting unsteady on my legs. Going from counter to counter then finally getting shown to a medical centre where I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
Next minute there were hands putting me in an ambulance. I was going to hospital. It was an intensive care unit nearest to the airport. I was put I a room where I awoke days later with tube attached my arm. I still felt fairly sedated a Thai nurse came in with a doctor to check my blood pressure. I was still unsure of the situation here because I had not taken out any travel insurance any this was sure to cost a shit load of money so I asked one of the nurse’s. “Why I am here” “too much valium she said your father is coming in a few days”.
So I was to be rescued by my father. I spoke to him on the later that day. Not much emotion. Never is. He is so pragmatic. He planned to pick me up by staying in a hotel near the airport. Leaving me here in the hospital overnight to mull and picking me up in the morning for flight home.
I now have two days here until he comes, two days to beg the doctors to give more shots of valium and sleeping aids. All I do is complain of pain and suffering of not sleeping. Due to the consumption of drugs I took in the D&D, it seems to me that nothing will affect me. I have become immune. The room I am in is a nice one. I lie in one of those manoeuvrable hospital beds, opposite a flat screen TV. If I turn my head, I have a view of Bangkok through a wall made of plate glass.
I sit here in my bed watching boxing. It is strange, as I’m watching people harming each other while I am trying to get better. I’m allowed three cigarettes a day; these are the best moments because I get led outside by a guard to smoke. It’s amazing what a few minutes of daylight and fresh air can do to ones mood. I smoke once after breakfast, after lunch and normally get impatient and have my last one before my dinner. The fuckers wont allow me to have one more “the doctors orders”. The cigarettes also mixed well with the medication, I was on. There were, two occasions I had been taken up by wheel chair from my cigarettes due to head rushes!
‘Right now I’ve got machine shooting valium into me. I’ve and two extra strong pills. I can barely write. I shall find out their names later. The drip I’m on is like having the equivalent to eating a 10mg every 10mins. Bliss. I have written down I feel that my mood is great and the high is very is controllable.’
The ward I’m on is the intensive care ward. It’s a long narrow corridor with rows of rooms all like mine. Being immune to drugs meant I had immense energy so I would get to know the entire nurse force that works on the ward. Some I like a lot, others less so.
There was an incident where I broke into a cabinet containing the daily doses of pills. A short nurse with glasses stupidly left the key in the cabinet and left the room. In this time I had got out of bed opened it up looked inside chosen two of the meanest looking pills and hid them wrapped in toilet paper and put them in the dirty needles bin. She found out pretty quick “where are the pills” she came up to me in a Thai accent. “I’ve taken them,” I said. She asked where the evidence was and I told her. After that she was cross and said “no more medication for you”. I felt bad so hours later so I wrote her a sorry note. Explaining I did not mean to take advantage of her but I’m a junkie you see.
I woke up with the bed wet. Is this the new me? Can’t even control my own bladder? Only a week ago I was in London; a tax playing, working, tube travelling citizen. Now what?
I just took my first medication from a different doctor he says its stronger hopefully it works. My mum called today it was emotional she said she was looking forward to seeing me but she told me the reason my plan had failed was that I had let drugs get the better of me. I knew she was right.
My plan to go to Cambodia was to find work. I had a friend who died from an overdose in the town I was destined to go to. I had no idea how easy or how hard it is the find work there.
The bastards are trying to give me paracetamol. This is not a painkiller. It may be for kids but for full-blown junkies like me it does not even scratch the surface. So I’ve told them at 4pm I want my intravenous dose of diazepam. Being injected with diazepam is a great feeling, you feel almost sober and the drowsy/drunkenness kicks in. You get this feeling partially in the morning after waking up from taking the drug.
In this institution I am solely relying on the use of drugs. I get two tablets, which I devour at breakfast, then my cigarette. The pills mostly contain valium. A big hit out here in Thailand. So I get those mighty head rushes.
If you enjoy TV then do not go to Thailand. The only English language speaking channels are BBC news and Fox movie classic and the classics are nothing but shit. Who would of thought ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ is a classic even on all this medication. I can’t stare through this shit. At least in Vietnam and Cambodia you have HBO. I could watch that shit for days in an air-conditioned room. At least it will make you enjoy the great Thai outdoors.
I now was waiting for my dad. He has landed and was going to pay me a visit, then pick me up the following morning. I protested to him earlier on the phone that I would like to stay in the hotel also, not this ward. But no. It had been decided. These Thai medical services are of the private sector. I started to realise that before my father arrival, more senior people in the field of the business were turning up. All in smarter Thai medical wear. Great! We have a business meeting on our hands!
Being an active patient and an aspiring photographer I took a set of self-timer photos of my self in my kimono: some of me reading the Bangkok daily in a chair and some just looking straight into the lens.
My dad came looked around the room for a bit and made a few judgments. I begged him to take me with him but the answer was no. After he left, I started my petulant begging again seeing as I was out of here the next morning and had nothing to lose. They satisfy my needs and gave me a shot. Still could not sleep. Better do some writing.
Morning came and finally I was picked up. I bid my farewell to the ward and said goodbye to the nurses. I feel they got know me better than most acquaintances do due to me being squalidly open about my addictions. My dad paid the costly medical bill and I was out of there and into a taxi bound for the airport.
My dad, you can’t knock him, he just has just no interest in culture like myself. If I were him. I would have booked the week and spent a week seeing and the sights of Thailand in addition to rescuing me. Well that’s just me I’m a sucker for beauty.
We boarded the BA plane going direct to Heathrow. Now as I take off I feel I am far away from all the madness I have brought upon myself and I am going into the unknown. It’s a strange feeling. The only form of madness is the drug’s that the doctor has prescribed to me in my dad’s hand luggage but they will do fuck all. So I will have to pay the price of sobriety and psychologists once back in London. There is no escaping it now.
So this how the story ends; I’ve lost the love of my life, she wont contact me. I respect that at the moment but it’s a painful reality. I am sober, apart from the medication I’m prescribed by the doctor. It does not produce a high, does little even to change my mood. Shit really. I now spend my days reflecting on this mad decision of mine. Pointing out the highs and lows. I think you all would question me if I would do this all again if I could get the chance. Now that’s a story for another day.
