» Gambling

A cautionary tale
Firstly, apologies for lack of funnies in this, and apologies for the length. It’s gonna be a biggun. It’s also fairly cathartic. And yes, it is related to gambling.

Wavy lines back in time.

January, 2008. Specifically the thirty first of January. The day I tried to kill myself for the second time. But I’m jumping ahead of the story here. Let’s go back before that. I come from a family of people with mental disorders. All three of my parents (I have a stepdad, and a biological dad and a mother) are all affected in one way or another by mental illness, or in the case of my stepdad, physical illness too as he’s diabetic amongst other things. My mother always hid hers very well from me and my younger brother until fairly recently. My biological dad, I inherited a lot from.

I had been an odd kid. I did well at school to start off with, but then found the jumping through hoops that school taught to be boring, so I got into drugs as did a lot of kids my age. I hid this from my parents, as you do, but my grades started slipping, and I started to fuck off from school. I was being bullied too, for being the smart kid and all that shit, because nobody knew much about me because I kept myself to myself. All they knew was, I was the smart kid, and therefore got picked on. So school started to slip. I lost weight, I lost self-esteem, I started to lose things I couldn’t afford to lose.

I tried to hang myself when I was 16 because it was the only way out that I could see to all my problems. My parents caught me just as I was looping my school tie around my neck after hanging it over the curtain rail. They told me to stop acting like a fool and to grow up. I was stood on a small chest of drawers in order to hang my tie over my curtain rail, and jumped off. The curtain rail snapped on my descent down. In retrospect, it was a really bad idea to try and hang myself off a really flimsy plastic curtain rail.

After that incident, I took up drinking. At the age of eighteen, I almost ODed on ecstasy and decided to stop doing drugs. So I began drinking even more to compensate. In the summer of 2006, I got my first serious girlfriend, B. She was pretty, a year older than me and absolutely filthy in bed. I later found out that because she had low self-esteem too, she slept with a lot of people at university, including one time asking a randomer in a pub if he had a condom on him, and when he replied in the affirmative, sat on his lap, spread her legs and hoiked her skirt up and got it on then and there with him.

I finished sixth form at the beginning of the summer of 2006. I scraped enough to get into university. I can remember about half of the first day of Freshers week, nothing more. I remember unpacking, waving my parents goodbye, and saying hi to the people who lived in the rooms next to mine in the halls of residence, and then I started drinking because someone offered free drinks.

I cannot remember my Freshers week. I cannot remember much of my first, first year of university because I spent it in an alcoholic haze. Because I had no parents around to criticise me, I was free to do whatever I wanted. I hit the bottle big time. The girlfriend, B, wasn’t a restraint as she used to try and match me in drinking. There were times when I was sober, and I do remember some of those times. I remember spending more money than I could afford on shiny things for B, and alcohol for me. I was a fan of vodka, and used to get the massive bottles and work my way through them. I became a loner at my university, and because nobody really saw me, I could get away with drinking lots. I toned it down when I was over in North Wales at B’s university.

I fail my first year of university. My grades are too low to let me pass, all because I spent most of the year pissed out of my skull and rarely turned up for lectures. I used to teach myself online whenever I could remember to. I had talent at writing, which is always useful when you’re doing a journalism degree, but I let myself down with everything else. The uni agree to let me resit the entire first year. Essentially, I have spent a gap year drinking.

Summer 2007, and we celebrate our one year anniversary. This is important for both of us, because in my case, I’ve never had a proper relationship, and she’s gone through men like a monkey goes through bananas. By now, the cracks were visible. Our arguments were now becoming weekly, and because I was drunk a lot of the time, I wouldn’t keep quiet. B, when she was at university, lived in a four storey house at the top. People used to say they could hear me shouting when I was at the top and they were on ground level.

I go back to uni at the end of the summer, moving in with two girls I knew and talked to the most when we were all in halls. I tried to tone down my drinking, but then decided it would be easier if I just kept drinking but turned up to lectures. So I do so. I make a couple of new friends at university, not many though. But I fall back into my old habits, and by Christmas, have stopped turning up to lectures once again.

Christmas 2007 comes and passes quietly. By now, mine and B’s relationship is really strained, and I am becoming more and more depressed. She comes over in the middle of January, and for once, I remain sober whilst she is over. I can remember the last time we had sex, even though it didn’t seem that it was going to be the last. She was violent, and because I was sober, I felt it more and ended up losing it halfway through. You might say the Meltyman struck. We argue again, and things are coming undone spectacularly. She tells me she needs some time to herself and that I shouldn’t contact her.

I spend the next two weeks in bed when she leaves. I hit the bottle again. I can remember waking up on the 31st of January 2007 and thinking to myself “I’m going to go jump in the canal today.” I text B some depressing song lyrics and tell her to forget about me. She correctly assumes that something is majorly wrong, and comes over with a mutual friend. We argue, and she tells me we’re splitting up. I didn’t see this coming because I was stupidly naïve like that, and try to drown myself. I get dragged to the doctor by B and her friend, who says that my suicidal tendencies aren’t good and that I’m being referred to the local hospital to see someone there.

So I go to the hospital and see someone there, who incorrectly assumes that I’m in a bad way because of splitting up with B that morning. I try to tell him that these thoughts and feelings were there before, but he ignores them. I’m told to go home and then to go see my GP in a few days so they can sort me out with some anti-depressants. B leaves, and our friend stays with me for a few days to make sure I don’t do anything stupid again.

I go to the GP. We have a chat. They refer me to the primary mental health care team. I go see them, and we have a chat. They diagnose me as being bipolar type two. They also try me out on various anti-depressants to see which ones I respond well to. I lie about my drinking habits, and carry on drinking extremely heavily. Even with my medication.

The third time I almost end up dead, is on the 24th of February 2008. I overdose on alcohol and sleeping pills and fluoxetine. I remember panicking, and ringing up the emergency services to get an ambulance before passing out in the doorway of my house. Since nobody else is home, because my two housemates have buggered off for a week in Ireland, I almost died from choking on my vomit and from hitting my head on the tiled surface of my hallway. I woke up in hospital, and swore never to drink again. I’ve been clean since then.

I found out a while after that, that I inherited my alcoholism from my biological dad, and my bipolarity from my mother, because whilst she doesn’t have the full thing, she does have a partial effect of it.

So here’s the gambling part. It’s gambling Jim, but not as we know it, but it’s the link here. Ever since I was a teenager, I have been gambling my life with a lot of major decisions. I could have died because I gambled incorrectly. I’m 21 now, and whilst I may not be dead, because of my gambling with drink and drugs, I am forever changed. I cannot form new memories very well, and I have a lot of trouble articulating my thoughts into speech. It often comes out incoherently or so badly phrased that I need to explain it to people. I have essentially gambled those away because I’ve been a fucking idiot and almost gotten myself killed repeatedly.

I don’t want people’s pity here, by the way. I brought it all on myself, and I’m a damn sight lucky to be sat here typing this as a warning to people, so save your pity for something else.

If you have problems, of any kind, don’t gamble with them and hope you get lucky. You may get lucky sometimes, like the first time I tried to kill myself by hanging myself, but at others, you won’t end up so lucky. I kept gambling my life, and now I’ve lost parts of me that I cannot replace. I am still young, and I have fucked myself over and cannot fix it. If you yourself have problems of any kind, whether its mental problems like mine, physical or whatever, or if you know anyone with problems, don’t gamble and expect to win all the time. Seek help, either for yourself or for your friend. The effects of your gambling may not be known until it’s far too late to fix.

Now for something more cheerful. I recently won a black fedora in a competition. Any ideas of what I should do with it? And what do black fedoras go well with?

Whew, that was a long fucker. Apologies again for length and lack of funnies. I just hope people take notice of it and don’t ignore it just because it's massive.
(Sun 10th May 2009, 13:26, More)

» Public Sex

Here goes
This was a few years back. Although not too many years. Say about two. Me and the missus of the time were out with a few mates, having a good time. This being in the time before I quit drinking, we were both fairly tipsy. I sauntered off to the bogs to relieve myself of a few pints which had somehow accumulated in my bladder.

Coming back, I stopped off at the bar and procured some more amber nectar for myself and the male friends, and returned to my seat in the corner. The missus leans in close to me, and slurs in my ear, "Ghost, I'm starting to feel a bit dirty..."

Now what I've failed to previously mention is that the missus at the time likes to be licked. Anywhere, it doesn't really matter. It really turns her on. Makes her randy like a rabbit on viagra that hasn't had any for months. So I drunkenly lean in, like I'm kissing her, and instead lick her lips sneakily. She moans a little, causing our mates at the table to laugh and throw a few comments our way.

I lean back, and start to sup on my nearly-forgotten pint, and wait for things to cool down a bit. This does not please the missus, for she wants more and she wants it now. She's also very pissed now, and subtlety has never been her thing. So she plots her revenge very quickly, and walks up to the bar, and shouts out,

"I'll pay anyone a quid to lick me!"

At this point, a few blokes, slightly less pissed, amble up, and tell her in no uncertain terms that they'll lick her. So she gets the money out, and they lick her. She loves this, and moans. And then more people start joining in. I'm transfixed by this sight, too pissed to react in a coherent manner. It was at that point I decided things were over between us.

And that, ladies and gents, is my tale of Pub Licks Ex.

(apologies if bindun. And apologies for shittiness too.)

Click "I Like This" if you think it's really, really bad.
(Tue 28th Apr 2009, 21:54, More)

» The thing I've been most ashamed of doing with a penis

Here we go...
Two pea-roasts of fairly shameful things involving my cock.

1) I'm bipolar. Specifically type 2. It comes from a long history of mentals in my family, so I've not so much as developed something new as been passed the baton on in my family. The fact that I'm bipolar will come in to play shortly.

This was early last year, back in February, when I had split up with my long term girlfriend, and tried to off myself in the canal in Chester because I had essentially had a breakdown over the period of three days and had cracked quite successfully. I lived with two other students at the time, both girls, and we were all fairly open with each other and used to each others habits a lot of the time.

I must also admit that I had gone from a state of being highly sexed (woo!) to getting none whatsoever. As I was a bit of a social reject at the time, having completely lost the plot along the way and being diagnosed with being bipolar type 2 (which is treatable but incurable), I decided to spend most of my time in bed drinking and wanking. I had my laptop, 8 meg wireless broadband, an almost limitless supply of vodka thanks to parents saying "Here is £150, we know you've had a really rough time lately, go out and treat yourself", so I was set up for the above plan.

Apart from one thing.

I never tended to lock my door unless I was going out. My housemates, I'll call them R and B because that amuses me and it's also true, would wander in most of the time asking for this, that and the other, and I would generally give them what they wanted (fnarr fnarr). About three days into what would become my worst drinking session, and my last (I quit after it and have been sober since), I decide that it would be awesome to have yet another wank. So I do so. Did I mention that I've been drinking for about three days straight? So you may imagine the state I'm in. I had also somehow cut my cock on my nails, so I tended to ooze blood a bit.

The cringeworthy moment is when my fitter housemate, B, wanders in, and sees me very, very drunk on my bed, naked from the waist down, bleeding, my cock held in some sort of death-grip, and me gurning spectacularly. *Cringe* She left my room pretty damn quickly.

2) About a month after the first incident, I am once again in my room wanking. However, unlike before, I am now on proper medication, citalopram and zopiclone (cita is an anti-depressant and zopi are sleeping pills) as opposed to alcohol. So I'm fairly hopped up on the above pills, and not entirely with it. A wee bit stoned, you might say.

Somehow I fail to notice that one of my housemates brothers, we shall call him W, has turned up. Given that my bedroom door was about 5 foot away from the front door, you may begin to see just how fucked I was on these pills. I had learnt my lesson from the first incident, and locked my door whenever I was wanking, so people now knocked on my door if they wanted to speak to me.

So I hear a knock on my door just as I hit the vinegar strokes.

"What is it?" I call, boxers still around ankles and todger still firmly in hand just as I finish up into my hand.
"W's here, he wants to say hi to you." I hear B shout through the door.

Shit. At this point, my mind clears enough for me to drag my boxers and jeans up, do my belt and flies up, and for me to open the door and say hi. However, my mind hasn't cleared enough for me to remember that I should have wiped my hand really clean as opposed to a quick wipe across the back of my jeans. I remember this too late. There was an audible squelch as we shook hands.

Apologies for length here, it just got outta hand.
(Sat 14th Mar 2009, 20:55, More)

» Karma

Curry-mic Retribution...
Apologies for the shit pun in the title. You can probably see where this is going with the title...

About a year and a half back, I was into my really spicy curry stuff. Vindaloo, madras with extra spices, home-made curries with far too much peppers and spice in it which made it virtually inedible to everyone but me and two of my mates (who were both Indian, coincidentally, whereas I'm mostly English, so I have no idea how I got an immunity to spicy curry). Whatever is spicy, I'll have it happily.

Alas, this was my downfall. One curry night, me and my brother had a bet going on. To see if I could eat a curry with double the normal amount of Habanero chili's I usually have in it (6 this time, instead of three) as well as a couple of drops of Dave's Insanity Sauce we'd acquired from a trip to America. Face meltingly hot. He'd pay me twenty quid if I ate this spicy bastard. Gleefully, I accepted, as who the hell passes up free money for doing something they like?

First bite in. Okay so far, slight tingling. Five bites in. Slight burning. Another five bites in. I've broken out into a cold sweat. Two bites later I'm feeling like I'm on fire in various places. By now I'm halfway through the curry and I'm actually struggling to eat this concoction which seems to have been shat out of Satan's arsehole. My brother is having a whale of a time watching me gasp for breath and leaking sweat like a priest in a playground. I somehow finish this monstrosity and he passes me my twenty quid and I wander off, sweaty and in pain but happy in the knowledge that I am the king of the curry, the titan of the tikka, the master of the madras, etc etc. However, my body has other ideas. The next day, I go to the bog.

Johnny Cash had it right on two accounts. Ring of Fire and Hurt. That was the most painful toilet experience in my life. Karmic retribution indeed. Nowadays I stay off the spicy stuff for fear of the above happening again.
(Thu 21st Feb 2008, 20:25, More)

» Blood

Only had three major incidents involving lots of blood...
1) Good old banjo-string snappage. Was doing it sneakily with my missus at the time in the living room, as we were attending a gig the next day in Manchester (I was living in Chester, the missus in Bangor), and we also had a joint friend of ours staying with us for the night (He was from Swindon, so he couldn't exactly do a massive drive up and then go straight into a gig, as ironically he's anaemic and would be absolutely knackered for the gig), who was sleeping in my room at the time.

Anyway, neither of us were quite adequately lubed up for doing it sneakily, but we were both tanked up and were in the mood, so we tried to do it. About a minute in, it becomes suddenly easier to get in and out for some reason (Guess why.) "Ah-ha!" thinks I whilst I'm doing her on the floor of the living room, and then suddenly realise I'm not wearing a rubber, and that the missus has come off the pill. So I communicate this knowledge to her, and she agrees to let me finish off in her mouth. Vinegar strokes time, and I pull out and go for her mouth, and unload. She swallows it, and has an absolutely horrified expression on her face.

Turns out that I had snapped my banjo-string, and was too pissed to notice. Poor lass had to swallow a load of blood and population paste, which she wasn't too impressed about. Cue me trying, and successfully sneaking around the house like a naked Solid Snake with a cock spraying blood, in order to get cleaned up without waking up my mate in the next room, or my housemates in the rooms above (I lived with two girls at this point, and trying to explain to them why I was running around the living room stark naked and looking like I'd just butchered a pig with my cock would have been really hard to explain). The gig the next day was absolute hell as I started to bleed again in the car on the way to Manchester, and didn't stop bleeding until I'd gotten home.

2) I trod on a nail once in bare feet. Hilarity and claret ensue as I leap about pulling the nail out of my foot and then try and leap to my parents to get some sort of attention for my foot which was leaking blood at quite an interesting rate. Got a new pair of jeans and a scar out of it, which was pretty good.

3) Not me this time, thankfully, but a brother of a mate of mine. Me, my friend, we shall call him JC for that is his nickname, JC's brother, and another mate who we shall call S (The mate mentioned previously, oddly enough), all liked to play badminton. We used to play weekly, until this event, after which we stopped, for very good reason. JC's brother was dicking around by the poles holding the net up in the middle, and for those who don't know, there are little sticky-outy metal bits which you can loop stuff onto, they point up and down. Think of it as a bit like a K with the spine of the K being the pole and the metal bits as the other parts of the K. Anyway, he decides it'd be a great idea to jump onto it and use it as a fireman's slide.

So he does so.

Unfortunately forgetting one very vital important thing.

The metal sticky-outy-bits.

He only remembers this when it is far, far too late.

Far, far too late being him hanging, literally by the remains of his ballbag, off the top-most metal part. He had jumped and slid down with enough force to rip through his shorts, underwear, and rip his ballbag in half and leave him hanging off it. Anyone seen the Pain Olympics? I had just had part of it recreated by accident in front of me.

The amount of blood was impressive though, I must admit. Soaked his undies, his shorts, his shoes and quite a lot of everywhere else.

I almost threw up, and went off to the reception to get them to ring for a doctor and then had to sit outside and wait for the ambulance and stuff. Declined the offer to go to the hospital with them, and caught the rest of the story later. Apparently he had to have his nuts put back in, and many stitches to repair his nutsack.

Apologies for length, it usually satisfies.
(Fri 8th Aug 2008, 18:23, More)