6 Reborn in the Nick of Time

Collapse in an Indian Restaurant

The period straddling late 1992 and early '93 may well have been the most debauched of my entire existence. My memories of it are hazy but they do tell me that during that time, or at least thereabouts, I'd typically rise at about six in the morning soon after which I'd prepare myself for the day by way of a bottle of fortified wine or something along those lines. Then I'd periodically keep my units topped up throghout the day by sipping from a small bottle of spirits. Some evenings I'd spend in central London, others with my fellow students from Greenwich, who were irresistibly drawn to an anarchic subversive self-destructive personality who sang Jerry Lee Lewis' "Real Wild Child" as if he really meant it. Although once I'd quit drinking and become a Christian, the socialising stopped outright, and I was at one point dubbed Mr Invisible by one of the students. There were times in town when I couldn't keep the booze down, so I'd order a king-sized cola from MacDonalds which I'd then lace with gin or vodka. I'd stroll around alone, or meet with a friend, male or female. Perhaps they'd be alarmed by my increasingly bizarre behaviour, but most remained resolutely loyal to me. I was never aggressive or threatening, being an ecstatic drunk, a true Dionysian. One day'd find me crying out on a British Rail train, another performing a wild disjointed Karate kick into thin air, or being actually helped onto a train by a vagrant who was in far better shape than me, or tearing my shirt and trousers to shreds after having arrived too late for an audition.
But things really came to a head in the first fortnight of 1992, when I collapsed in an Indian restaurant in suburban Surrey. I'd been quietly dining with two female companions when, suddenly feeling like pure death, I asked one of my friends whether I looked as bad as I felt. As soon as she'd confirmed I did I rose from the table, walked a few paces and promptly collapsed into a heap in the middle of the restaurant before being carried bodily out into the fresh night air by two or three Indian waiters. One of them then set about attempting to shock some life back into me by flicking ice cold water in my face, while desperately urging me not to give up. For him to have spoken this way I must have looked pretty close to packing it all in. But I made a lightning-quick recovery, and within two days was drinking as heavily as ever, continuing to drink virtually around the clock until the weekend.
I spent Saturday evening with a close friend, and early in the morning of the 16th after having drunk solidly all night, I asked her to fill a long glass with neat gin and each sip took me further and further into the desired ectstatic state. I awoke in a state of exhileration, which was typical for me following a night of heavy boozing. It was my one drying out day of the week, and I probably spent it writing and doing some general clearing up. One thing I specifically remember doing was listening to a radio documentary on the legendary LA Rock band the Doors which I'd taped some weeks or perhaps months earlier. I especially savoured "When the Music's Over" from what was then one of my favourite albums, "Strange Days" released on my 12th birthday, 7 October 1967, in the wake of the Summer of Love, which seemed to me about living in the shadow of death, beckoning death, mocking death, defying death. I powerfully identified with their gifted front man Jim Morrison, who'd been drawn during his all too brief career as a Rock revolutionist to poets of darkly prophetic intensity, such as Rimbaud who advocated the systematic derangement of the senses, as well as Nietzsche and Artaud who both died insane, and was openly obsessed by sex, rebellion and death. I was irresistibly drawn to artists of this type myself, but I've been since been delivered and now feel only pity for them as victims of the arch-seducer who seeks only to wreck their souls following a brief season of pleasure.
Alcohol and other narcotics lull the addict into a false state of security, and indestructibility. This makes them ill-prepared for their first serious health crisis which could also be their last. This was certainly the case for me, although I survived where others have not been so fortunate. Suddenly, faced with my own possible early death, self-destruction didn't seem so glamorous any more, and I didn't want the music to be over after all. When it comes down to it, how many addicts seriously want their habit to lead to a lonely, squalid, awful early death? Once death has become a certainty, there is nothing an addict can do other than wait to die. From what I can recall, there is nothing welcoming on the other side for an unrepentant addict who takes things too far, in fact unless I imagined it I sensed something awaiting me that was indescribably awful. At some point as Sunday evening wore on, I felt my legs go numb, as if I was about to collapse as I'd done a week earlier. Scared half to death, I opened a spare bottle of sparkling wine I had about the house even though I'd earmarked Sunday as a booze-free day. Once I'd drained it, I felt a good deal better for a while. I even felt sufficiently recovered to take a few photographs which I still have in my possession. Soon after doing so I set off in search of more alcohol. Arriving at a local convenience store, the Asian shop-keeper, despite being visibly alarmed by my wild-eyed appearance gently informed me that it being Sunday he wasn't able to sell me any liquor for some time yet. There was nothing for me to do but take refuge on a nearby green, where I lay for a while, still dressed I imagine in the shabby white cut-off shorts I'd been wearing earlier. I was also unshaven, with freshly cropped hair which I hadn't got round to highlighting yet. It's safe to say I didn't look my best. Finally, I was able to buy more booze. I can't remember what I bought, but I think it may have been a litre of gin, because that's what I was swigging from the following day. One of the last things I can recall doing on Sunday evening was singing hymns possibly those of Charles Wesley in a nearby Methodist church, while being unable to prevent myself from weeping, such was their beauty and purity in contrast to my own wretched condition. Finally I made my way home, but my troubles had only just begun, because for several days I was unable to rest until finally a couple of valiums put me out and I slept at last.
I knew several hellish nights in those late January days at least one of which saw me endlessly pacing up and down corridors and stairs in a desperate attempt to stay conscious and not die and each time I shut my eyes I could have sworn I saw demonic entities beckoning me into a bottomless abyss. I set about destroying artefacts I knew to be unacceptable to God from what I believe was the night of the 16th/17th onwards. Many books were destroyed...books on astrology and numerology and other mystical and occultic subjects, and books centring on war and crime, as well as darkly seditious artists in love with despair and death. But I believe it was at some point during that first night, of the 16th/17th, that I came to truly believe for the first time in my heart that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God; and the Saviour of Man, and that he died physically on the Cross at Calvary for the sins of Man, and rose again on the Third Day to join His Father in Heaven, and that doing so involved repentance of my sins, and submission to Christ as my Lord and Saviour. That point marked the beginning of my relationship with God the Father, through whom no one can come to without Christ Jesus.
While it's true that no one comes to the Father unless drawn by the Spirit of God, prior to become a Christian I was very probably on the point of wholly immersing myself in the new Bohemianism of the 1990s, and so possibly being lost forever as the move gathered momentum. It all depends of course on where a believer stands on the issue of Predestination and Free Will. With regard to this new Bohemianism, the adversary values of the counterculture which had risen to prominence in the West in the late 1960s had all but fizzled out by about 1973, that is on the surface. In truth, they'd merely gone back underground where in the UK they set about fertilising a variety of kindred anti-establishment tribes including the Anarcho-Punks and the New Age Travellers, both of whom were largely eighties and nineties phenomena. Then some kind of amalgam between these tribes and the growing Rave-Dance movement produced yet another Bohemian permutation. I lapped it all up as I've stated earlier with all the fanaticism of one who was sick to death of eighties artifice, but thank God I was delivered from it all in the nick of time. I wasn't saved in any church, nor through being evangelised, so mine was what might be termed a violent "Road to Damascus" conversion. But being reborn against all the odds didn't immediately protect me from the calamity I'd brought upon myself through years of hard living; in other words, I had to suffer in the physical, if only briefly. Although that's not strictly true, because my pre-Christian existence together with its ultimate conclusion probably took a serious toll on my nervous system, and one I'm paying for to this day. Many Christians are of the opinion that the longer a person puts off coming to Christ the less likely it becomes of their ever doing so and I am among them. I also believe that those blood-bought believers who do convert relatively late in life may be required to pay a far higher price for the follies of their pre-Christian existence than more youthful converts, especially if these include alcohol, drugs, fornication, and involvement in the occult. God can and does heal Christians damaged by their pre-conversion sins but He is not obliged to do so as his Grace is sufficient. So while I was almost certainly already a Christian by the morning of the 17th of January, my ordeal was far from over.
I somehow made it into New Eltham that Monday morning to attend classes at the University, but by the time I'd got home in the evening, I once more felt as if I was on the point of dying. Desperately I started swigging from the litre bottle of gin I mentioned earlier before phoning Alcoholics Anonymous. Next day I attended classes at Richmond College in Twickenham. On the way I repeatedly had the feeling that my chest was about to explode...the most unnatural things appeared to be happening to me internally. I really did feel I was on the point of dying....not just once but over and over again. After classes, one of the first thing I did was to order a double brandy from a pub situated next door to the Police Station. I was shaking so much the landlord assumed I was fresh from interrogation. I drank so many double brandies and other intoxicating drinks that afternoon that I ended up losing my mind and raving. I was thrown out of a pub for preaching. Walking through Twickenham town centre I started making the sign of the cross to passers-by. I advised one unfortunate young man never to drink and he nodded wordlessly. I can't say I blame him wanting to get away from me as fast as his legs could carry him without actually appearing to be terrified.
Later that day in an effort to stabilize myself, I dug out an old capsule of heminevrin, brand name of the powerful hypnotic and sedative chlomethiazole, commonly used in treating and controlling the effects of acute alcohol withdrawal, but allegedly dangerous, in fact potentially fatal, when used in conjunction with alcohol. I still had some capsules left over after having undergone treatment at home for a week or two in about 1990 at the auggestion of my then doctor, which meant they'd long gone beyond their expiry date. For a time I felt better and was able to sleep, but soon after waking I felt worse than ever. Later that day at an AA meeting, I kept leaving the hall in order to stick my head beneath the cold water tap, anything to shock some life back into me, while my compassionate and caring sponsor Don kept urging me to remain seated, as if doing so bestowed some spiritual benefits.
I suffered another night of deathly terror as I told Don on the phone the following morning; and the day which saw me pacing the office of the first available doctor at my local clinic like some wounded wild animal was scarcely less hellish. He wasn't the gentle bearded physician I'd been registered with since I was a teenager, but very sympathetic towards me nonetheless. He seemed at a loss as to what to do with me, but then it may have been touch and go as to whether I was going to stay on my feet or collapse in a heap at his feet. It was he who prescribed me the valium which finally allowed me a long, deep sleep which may have saved my life. Once I'd awoken from this, I finally felt as if a frontier had been crossed and that I was safe in the arms of God for the first time in my life. My new life began at this point.

Oblivion in Recession

The legs started going,
Howlings
In my head.
Thought I'd go
Kept awake with water,
Breathing,
Arrogantly telling myself
I'd stay straight.
Drank gin and wine,
Went out,
Tried to buy more,
Unshaven,
Filthy white shorts,
Lost, rolling on lawn,
Somehow got home.
Monday, waiting for offie,
Looked like death,
Fear in eyes
Of passers-by,
Waiting for drink,
Drink relieved me.
Drank all day,
Collapsed wept
"Don't Die on Me".
Next day,
Double brandy
Just about settled me,
Drank some more,
Thought constantly
I'd collapse
Then what?
Fit? Coronary?
Insanity? Worse?
Took a Heminevrin
Paced the house
All night,
Pain in chest,
Weak legs,
Lack of feeling
In extremities,
Visions of darkness.
Drank water
To keep the
Life functions going
Played devotional music,
Dedicated my life
To God,
Prayed constantly,
Renounced evil.
Next day,
Two valiums
Helped me sleep.
By eve,
I started to feel better.
Suddenly,
All is clearer,
Taste, sounds,
I feel human again.
I made my choice,
And oblivion has receded,
And shall disappear...

Called by Contact for Christ

There is a belief within Christianity that the sooner a person accepts Jesus Christ as their Saviour, the better it is for them when it comes to their immortal soul. The same could be said for their subsequent relationship with God. There may for example be serious physical or psychological health problems resulting from a lethally debauched lifestyle leading ultimately to repentance and faith which could seriously affect their efficacy as Christian witnesses. One possible advantage on the other hand of being a late convert is the possession of a testimony which has the power to cause those who normally have little time for Christians to sit up and take notice. One such testimony is that of Canadian former drug addict Peter Orasuk, who came to Christ at the relatively late age of 28. His story commands respect and attention. Sadly Orasuk went to be with the Lord aged only 55 in 2005.
In the hard but exciting early days of my own Walk with God, I suffered from panic attacks that could be triggered simply by my leaving the sanctuary of my home. Thankfully, these only lasted a relatively short period of time, but later during a period of withdrawal from the valium that'd become a crutch they returned to some degree. At the same time, I carried on with the PGCE, partly at the University of Greenwich, and partly at Richmond College in leafy Richmond-on-Thames, Surrey. I did so while rehearsing for the play “Simples of the Moon” by Rosalind Scanlon, based on the life of James Joyce's daughter Lucia, which premiered at the Lyric Studio, Hammersmith on the 4th of February 1993, and attending sporadic drugs and alcohol counselling sessions at a church in Greenwich, south east London. My counsellor Elaine was a warm soft-spoken Londoner with the gentlest pale blue eyes. The only time I ever knew her to lose her composure was when I announced to her over the phone that a matter of hours after deciding of my own volition to stop taking diazepam, I'd switched to the anxiolytic sedative chlormethiazole. Chlormethiazole or heminevrin had been prescribed to me for my drinking some years earlier and taken a capsule despite its having passed its expiry date. What I was not aware of at the time was that when used in conjunction with valium it can be fatal. However, a sufficient number of hours had lapsed between my taking the capsule and calling Elaine for me to be out of danger, and I can recall her literally laughing with relief at this realisation.
I owe a lot to those who were there for me during my darkest days of coping with alcohol and prescription drugs problems, such as Elaine, and my Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor Don, who kept regular tabs on me by phone during my very worst time which was a great comfort to me. Still, I chose to attend only a handful of meetings before stopping altogether. One of the reasons I did so was that a matter of days after repenting and coming to Christ, I received a phone call from a man clled Spencer working for Contact for Christ based in Selsdon, south London. I think he'd got in touch as a result of my having half-heartedly filled in a form that I'd picked up on a train, perhaps the previous summer while filled with alcoholic anticipation as I slowly approached Waterloo station by British Rail train with the sun setting over the foreboding south London cityscape. I'm sure I tried to put him off, but he turned up at my parents' house nonetheless, a trim, dark, handsome man in late middle age with gently penetrating coffee coloured eyes and a luxuriant white-grey moustache, and at his insistence we prayed together. Some time later I visited him and his wife Grace at his large and elegant house where suburb meets country some distance beyond the Greater London border. On that day, Spencer and I made an extensive list of aspects of my pre-Christian life he felt required deep repentance, and we prayed over each of these in turn. My continuing use of tobacco was one of the issues addressed, and while it may have been coincidental, soon after I'd taken my last valium, I stopped enjoying cigarettes. Admittedly, I continued smoking on and off for about four years afterwards, but I never really enjoyed a cigarette again. In fact, even as early as 1994, a single draw was enough to inhibit my breathing for the rest of the day, and so rob me of a good night’s sleep. Additionally, we discussed which church I should be attending, and there was some talk of my joining Spencer and Grace at their little family fellowship in the suburbs, but in the end, Spencer gave his blessing to Cornerstone, where I'd been baptised by Pastor Chris. I stayed there until 1995 when I got word that the Thames Vineyard Christian Fellowship based in Whitton near Twickenham contained members whose spiritual gifts were exceptional. My curiosity aroused, I went along one Sunday evening and liked what I saw so decided to stay. A pattern of restlessness had been established.
In the early part of 1994, I set out on the final stages of the PGCE FE that I’d been working on since the autumn of ’92, and whose passing would have permitted me to teach French in further education establishments throughout the UK. My own history includes three unsuccessful attempts at passing this exam. The first took place in 1986-'87 at Homerton College, Cambridge, but I quit immediately prior to beginning teaching practice at the Manor Community College in the deprived Arbury area of the city, the second, in 1990, at the former West London Institute of Higher Education, based on two campuses in the suburbs of Isleworth and east Twickenham, the third, which was the only one I actually completed, in 1992-'94 at the University of Greenwich in New Eltham, south east London. I failed in my last attempt mainly I think because I didn't demonstrate enough authority in the classroom at Esher College where I did my teaching. To their credit, my tutors at Greenwich offered me the opportunity of retaking TP, but I chose to turn them down. Perhaps I was a little disappointed. After all, the course had cost me quite a lot in terms of time and effort.
If I was put out by failing a course that'd cost me a great deal in terms of time and effort, it wasn't for long because in September I successfully auditioned for a newly formed fringe theatre group based at the Rose and Crown pub in Kingston called Grip for the main part of Roote in a relatively obscure play by Harold Pinter called "The Hothouse". Perhaps not among Pinter's greatest plays, it's a superb piece nonetheless, and deeply Pinteresque, with its almost high poetic verbal virtuosity and inventiveness and dark surreal humour laced with a constant sense of impending violence. Penned in 1958, it was not performed until 1980, when it was directed by Pinter himself for London’s Hampstead and Ambassador Theatres.
From the auditions onwards, I established a strong connection with Tim the American director, and once he'd told me the part was mine, I was genuinely excited by the prospect of working with him in interpreting Roote, the director of an unnamed government psychiatric hospital, the “Hothouse” of the title. My success rate when it came to auditions had always been low, mainly most auditions involve the actor performing pieces from memory, which always left me feeling intensely self-conscious. Tim on the other hand got us to read from the play in small groups while inter-reacting with fellow auditionees, which enabled us to attain a basic feel for our respective characters, and so come close to acting for an audience. I'm one of those actors for whom the audience is the life-blood of my acting, and I become galvanised by them.
Tim demanded from me an interpretation of Roote which was deeply at variance with my usual highly Method-oriented, subtle, intense, introspective and yet somehow also emotionally vehement approach to acting, but his directorial instincts were immaculate. The eccentric windbag with a tendency to sudden arbitrary brutality which he coaxed out of me was one of the most successful of my uneven career as an actor. It received exceptionally positive reviews not just in the local press, but also the London version of the international listings magazine Time Out, in which my performance was described as “flawlessly accurate” and “lit by flashes of black humour”. The Time Out review created a real aura of excitement about the production, and especially its lead actor who for all the world looked set to capitalize on this unexpected success and go on to become a West End superstar. One agent went out of her way to ask me to ensure my details reached her, but my CV at the time was in a poor state, and this may have hampered my chances with her.
That said, since coming to faith my priorities had drastically shifted, and I viewed worldly acclaim with a far more dubious eye than I'd done only a few years before. Perhaps that's why I failed to take fuller advantage of the opportunities offered to me by my performance in "The Hothouse". But I was also suffering within, badly missing the escape alcohol once offered me, and the revels extending deep into the night that once used to follow my acting perfomances, and during which I’d thrown my youth and affections about like some kind of maniacal delinquent gambler squandering his life’s savings at the poker table in the face of imminent insolvency.
The hard truth of the matter is that by the mid-nineties I no longer enjoyed acting as I'd once done, and while being onstage and relating to other actors was still immensely satisfying to me on an artistic level, in general I found the process of being an actor pure torture. This was especially true of the socialising it entailed. I'd boxed myself into the position of no longer being able to enjoy social situations as others do, nor to relax. This may have been something to do with what the state of my endorphins, although I'm not sure that these had been permanently affected by my late excesses. There is a belief among some experts on drug and alcohol addiction that the endorphins are depleted by long-term indulgence in various narcotics including alcohol, but I'm not in a position to either endorse or dismiss it. To further complicate matters, I started being subject during the run of “The Hothouse” to heavy spiritual problems related to my thoughts which are evidently not at all uncommon among born again Christians. After all, they are at variance with the World, the Flesh and the Devil. Within a matter of months I'd actively seek a solution to these in the shape of what is known as Deliverance Ministry, and so place myself in the hands of Frank, a great preacher and evangelist whose Trumpet Sounds Ministries lay in a beautiful little Devonshire village called Bow.
Within a short time of “The Hothouse” reaching the end of its two week run, Grip’s artistic director Martin asked me if I’d like to audition for his upcoming production of Jim Cartwright'a “Two”, a two-handed play in which all the male characters are played by one actor, and all the female by another. Naturally I said yes and after a successful audition, I found myself playing opposite Jane, a superb character actress from Liverpool, and by the end of the run the houses were so packed that people were sitting on the side of the stage at our feet, something I'd never experienced before on the London fringe. Yet as much as I loved working with Martin and Jane, I dreaded the end of each performance, and I'd make my excuses as soon as it was possible to do so without causing anyone any great offence. Release from what I saw as a prison of sobriety came while I was attending some unrelated function at the Rose and Crown a day or so following my final performance, when a guy I'd only just met offered to buy me a drink and I opted for a glass of wine. Apart from the time at my parents’ house a few weeks earlier when I took a swig of what I thought was water but which turned out to be vodka or gin, this was the first alcohol to pass my lips since January '93. It made me feel amazing, doubly so given the purity of my system. I cycled home that night in a state of total exhileration, feeling for the first time in months that I could so anything. Over the next few week my drinking increased, despite the times it brought on minor panic attacks. Still I refused to heed the warning signs. This first relapse came to a climax in a pub in Twickenham where I met Henry an old university friend, who'd just finished a course nearby at St Mary's University College in Strawberry Hill, and where I drank and smoked myself into a stupor.
Cycling home afterwards, I took a bend near Hampton Wick and came off my bike, striking my head against a bus shelter. I lay flat on my back for a while abject and stinking of drink and might have died there but for the mercy of God, and soon I was shakily resumed my journey home. However, weeks of controlled drinking, culminating in one massive binge, possibly combined with the adverse effects of violently smashing my head, resulted in my becoming ill and virtually incapacitated for what might have been as long as a fortnight. As I remember, there were times during this awful period when I'd awake from a feverish sleep in a frantic state, my face a sickly pale, close to backing out, terrified of dying, but each time I felt God came to my rescue just when my I felt I could stay conscious for not a second longer, breathing life back into me. All I could do was lie around, waiting, praying for a return to full health, which seemed to take an eternity, but eventually I did return to normal life determined never to put myself through such a soul-racking experience again.

Photos: 1997/'99?/'93 (Taken by Jane Whitton)