Chapter 12 - Rewind to the death of Tex

Chapter 12 - Rewind to the death of Tex
When I think back to my two years of sobriety it feels empty. The first three months were a period of utter psychosis. I had given up most drugs easily but had been warned of benzo withdrawall. Having endured several opiate withdrawalls I figured I knew something of what to expect. I knew nothing. This was to be the singly worst experience of my life. I Was taking some 100mg a day so dropped for two weeks to ten a day then five for a few days. I assumed this to be a taper. My body was, however saturated. I felt no discomfort for four days. On the Friday at work I found myself in conversation with mag. I couldn't follow what he was saying, adrenaline rushed through me and I began to hallucinate. I had to get home.
Once outside the workshop and inside my car it had expanded to twice normal size and the road had shrunk. There was no way I could fit it up the street in rush hour. I fled on foot. Passing broken animals, staring people I made it home. The stairs became a wobbling precarious ladder to a tree house like platform, no longer a flat. I asked Claire if I was going mad. Should I go to hospital?
This was just the beginning. For a month as the diazepam drained from my body it got more intense. I would sleep for two hours then wake screaming in tears of fear and guilt. I didn't know what was real. At four am before people were about id walk the streets with Dook. Seldom did I go out in daylight, I recall having to tell my brother I would miss the grand final 2011 I had a ticket for. A great final victory over saints, something I regret to this day. But hallucinating heavily and in total fear I couldn't drive. Not for months.
Total psychosis for three months where I couldn't work nor dare visit a doctor more than once. She was an ignorant cow, out of her depth. Some endure seizures, many PTSD, such is the fear. I learned from the Internet and specifically from the Ashton Manual that the safest way is a long taper. Eighteen months. But I had no choice. I stopped smoking and drinkining. Depleted of all GABA there is no relief. The noise of a slowly boiling kettle sends sa ales of cold terror up your spine. The sound of cars and lorries outdoors seemed like mud whale creatures, prehistoric vast worms of dark and damp. Nighttime walks were through Belsen and auschwitz, the crunch of branches underfoot the breaking corpse limbs.
From October till Christmas each night I woke in guilt and terror. Claire would find me holding my head in my hands. Any shock that triggered adrenaline, a passing car, a loud noise, would leave the adrenaline floating around my system for days as no GABA was there to counter act it.
What little sleep I had was tortured by dreams of guilt and horror. Waking brought no relief. My brain felt a muddied field driven over repeatedly by land rovers that had formed ruts so any thought would follow the same path.
By christmas I had odd days or two where patches of daylight shone through. These were followed by fortnights returning to terror. During this time I began thinking of suicide. Lee MACQUEEN, Gary Speed both took their lives. I read that suicide is now the single biggest killer in men under thirty five.
As january and February saw only slight improvement I was forced to take benefits. Doctors from whom I needed sick notes either saw my drug record and assumed I wanted drugs or refused to believe their drugs could damage a person worse than heroin or alcohol. I dreaded the humiliation of having to submit myself monthly to them to prove I was too ill to work. The endless blaming of victims by an evil Tory government meant tv offered further reduction in self esteem. I had always worked but now was forced to be insulted for a few pounds a week.
As March came I was able to write and as new neural pathways reformed produced some good stuff. I had angles few others could see. I do anyway but the madness made these more pronounced. There were few I could explain my condition to. To some I said I had had a breakdown. This was true. But I rarely admitted the benzos had caused it.
Finally, thinking I would abandon furniture I sold all my kit to mag. In a weird twist of fate I got two years worth of work a week later and returned to work.
For these two years I was straight and enjoyed my wealthiest ever period. It was Texs last years so I focused on him. I bought my van and kitted it out for him knowing his legs were failing. I rented a ground floor flat as an alternative. But he wanted his bed, his home, even if his daily fight up three flights of stairs was cruel on him.
It broke my heart. I had got him at the beginning of my heroin habit that turned into an NHS bupronorphine habit. Now I was straight he was dieing.
I took him to the vet who gave him five weeks. He looked ok but her words were so assured I believed. In the workshop I cried my eyes out.
She was right. I recall his final day. Our morning walks had got shorter. He'd got me through so much, finally through that dark winter of benzo withdrawall. Now I was ok he could give in I suppose. We walked to the paper shop but it was a struggle. In a last determined effort he went our route despite his failing legs round the church, through the lane and home. He had stopped eating. It rained all day. I rang to make the appointment.
It was not a day early nor late. He tumbled down the stairs and I carried him to the van where Claire comforted him in the back. At the vets we had a quick look across the field, where he had once strode out, the king of the dogs in Frome. The strongest. The greatest. He could only look.
Inside I knew it was his last moments but for him it was another vet visit. I asked Claire in to say goodbye. Then, holding him down they gave him a sedative to stop him struggling. Shaved his leg, then injected the blue fluid of death. I left his body there and went home to a vast emptiness and tears. He had lived a long and good life. He had never been left alone. Times I'd lived in workshops facing onto fields, caravans and vans straight on to fields, may have been rough at times for me but for him, no life could have been better. The one good thing I've ever done.


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