Be your fear… okay, so I’m not really going to embody a spider, so I’m gonna dig deeper into a metaphor that suites a purpose… one that’s been on my mind recently and one that’s apt for this blog.

Recently I have seemingly landed myself onto a new plane of consciousness, alright, I know… but hear me out! You see, in tackling my demons, bettering myself and kicking my addictions in the ass I had to change everything, my way of thinking especially. So in order to “relieve me of the bondage of self” I had to gain some insight into what that meant and how it’s done.

It is with a sigh of reluctance that I have concluded- I am my own worst enemy, so how does one set ones self free if one is the enemy (I swear that just wrote itself)? Wellllll, to free myself from the prison of myself I have to use logic and embrace change, but what about fear? Fear is the fundamental basis of my conditioned, skew whiff logic, and the core of my problems. Other than spiders, what do I fear the most? -the Ocean, well, not the Ocean but what lurks underneath, in the abys of the unknown, my imagination assumes the worst and cripples me with fear, so I now know I have to become the Ocean, embrace the chaos, the unknown, the depths, uncharted territories and unfamiliarities of life and rather than fear it- be it!

But how?

Just as Kurt Russell says in Big trouble in Little China – “Just remember what ol’ Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol’ storm right square in the eye and says, Give me your best shot pal. I can take it.”

I now try to embrace the fear and weather each storm, keeping my feet firmly on the ground and head held high… with one simple analytically humble battle cry; ‘I’m the Ocean’!

Having spent my entire life trying to surf those menacingly varying waves, and wiping out every time, then plunging into the ocean, panicking and repeating over and over until I was beaten to a pulp on the ocean floor. Y’see here’s the thing… the ocean is life… you got that, right? my inability to surf its waves was because I’m scared shitless of it, so I inevitably fall in and get hurt because I’m going about it all wrong… I’m not the only fucker in that ocean, we’re all in it, but I refused to acknowledge that fact and blindly, shambolically kept trying to fight something that was really just skew whiff thinking of how life was, or is… (have I lost you yet or you still with me?)

If that big, scary ocean is life, then why not embrace it rather than fight it? why not become it? Because in the end you’re either in it or out of it… alive or dead, healthy with contentment, or self medicating to hide from it and numb the pain it’s causing…

As Canadian physician Gabor Maté makes clear in his studies and work with addiction;

“The attempt to escape from the pain is what creates more pain”

Then ask yourself…

“Not why the addiction, why the pain?”

So if life is pain, and pain is the ocean. Be the ocean, explore it, immerse yourself within it and be bold enough to become one with it and then perhaps, with a focussed effort and much practice, we will see it from an entirely new perspective! One of harmony, understanding, respect and compassion. Yep, them motherfucking oceans sure will be rough and stormy, that’s a given, but this will pass, and on the other side will be stillness and peace… as it always was and ever shall be.

Running away from life is as effective as trying to stay awake for ever… sleep will inevitably get you in the end …and it’s fucking exhausting! Try to embrace life, face the fear and become one with it and you will not drown… Besides- We’re all just treading water really, as for me, well… I’m The Ocean!

so I’ll leave it with a simple quote by the Turkish poet Yanus Emre;

“I’m the drop that contains the ocean”.

Be that fucking Ocean! You can’t surf it or swim in it forever… you’ll get tired and drown.

Samwise the brave x

For any Neil young aficionados out there, the song ‘I’m the Ocean’ from the Mirrorball album with Pearl Jam is a huge source of inspiration behind all this. As with most things in my head, in order to make sense – it tends to resonate within a song… an overlooked fucking gem from an underrated album… check the link above, tune in and just go with it, it’s a repetitious fucker, akin to waves continuously lapping on a beach, and is packed full of empowering narratives that just makes the soul that wee bit warmer. X

(Didn’t mention Led Zeppelin once!!!) …D’oh!

All it takes is a jump, skip and a hop… to dance like Iggy Pop

A man who fearlessly advertises what it’s like to be truly comfortable in your own skin, no matter how old, how beaten up, how broken, skint, embarrassed, publicly  perceived, gender conscious, wrongfully assumed… or how happy you are!

Here is a man who embodies survival, humility and, yes – rock n’ fucking roll (Did someone say Jennifer Aniston?)

Recovery is compassion fuelled by action and I find both in this man’s music, musings and mannerisms… inspiration comes in many guises, one of mine just so happens to come from a bad ass, wrinkly older dude with a dislike for T-shirts and authority, who refuses to give in to the human condition of decay, has battled many demons, only to fly that ever faithful age-old and appropriate jingle jangle flagstone anthem of optimism in battling addiction… girls and boys, today I got a lust for life.

Scribblingz from the lunatic fringe… My name is Sammy Lee and I’m an addict.

First and foremost I am writing this for myself, as a salute to necessary transparency, an acknowledgment of new found consciousness, and a tip of my hat to all those who endured the madness and stuck by me… all I can hope is that someone out there lost in that wilderness of desperation, longing for a compassionate, helping hand, reads this and can find the rung on the ladder out of the abyss as I did 7 months ago…

By no means a ‘woe is me’, more a ‘wow that was me!?’

For too long have I masqueraded behind masks of insecurity, all of my own making and all a result of fear, small minded aperture syndrome and an ego so cunning it had me at hello…  so having been in intensive recovery for just over 7 months, I’m making the terrifying move out of the comfort zone of Institutional healthy hibernation and embracing life in all it’s slick, modern shiny sheen, invasive, social-media-saturated glory!

Great Scott Maaaarteeeey… this thing just hit 88 MPH so now you’re gonna see some serious shit.

Tom Waits once informed us there ain’t no devil, there’s just god when he’s drunk… turns out t’was I who was drunk, and would you Adam an Eve it… the devil made me do it!

So hesitantly- here be this silly ole fool’s illustrated life maps and recovery tree… one of my favoured tasks while in rehab, interesting to add; the life maps were supposed to be a simple word bubble flow chart on one piece of A2 card… so x3 A2 cards later I just kinda managed to cram a few recollections of my little ole life in thus far… don’t do half measures.

(truly hope that doesn’t come across as arrogant in any way because that is not the purpose of this blog whatsoever)

I do pictures better than words… but that still don’t shut me up does it!

Long story short is: I thought I could do this by myself, fuelled up on meetings, countless promises and stealthy willpower! Upon arrival by ambulance to accident & emergency for the 4th time, having continually relapsed to the point of being a psychotic, blood puking, tremor ridden, suicidal, nine stone skeleton, and now admitted due to another overdose… I realised two things:

I cannot do this on my own

and

I was done killing myself to live

The only fucker who can make that decision is yourself, not for anyone else, not by anyone else… total submission is the key to unlock the rest of your life from the jaws of this repulsive consumer of souls. 

 

When in doubt, when in despair, keep it simple… just look up, then ask for help.

Peace, luv and hugz.

Sammy x