NLI-10 (2 page)

“I'm Ron, and I'm an addict.”
Ron was an addict. As were Sasha, Leo, Gary, Mike, Charlotte, Kiel, Dionne and Bobby. Sarah, however, felt like a fraud. It was her seventeenth week of Narcotics Anonymous, and her thirty fourth experience of the same feeling. The others had real addictions, coke, crack, meth, speed, heroin, and had truly suffered because of their abuse. Sarah had got '
a little carried away with psychedelic substances'
, as she liked to put it, and didn't think her stories lived up to the dark and disturbing tales the others weaved twice a week at the back room of a cafe in Fitzrovia. Ron lost his house, Sasha had a couple of kids from the men she fucked for crystal, Leo gave blowjobs for blow, Gary made his girlfriend give the blowjobs for their crack, whilst Mike robbed from pensioners so he could score heroin for him and his son. The stories went on and on, and even though they were all clean now, Sarah didn't belong. Her story was one of white privilege,
'first world problems'
the people she hated on Facebook would have called them.

Her parents had died ten years ago in a car crash, and not knowing how to deal with the wealth of emotion, she turned to anything from LSD and mushrooms to peyote and mescaline, all with a marijuana chaser. Ten years of hallucinogenic delight, going from party to party, squat to squat, investing her insurance payout and inheritance on a hedonistic lifestyle that at twenty-seven had left her intellectually and emotionally exhausted. She was burnt out, her imagination having run riot from the time she left high school to the present day, minus seventeen weeks.

After a psychedelic revelation and some deep soul searching, she knew she had to sober up. Sarah wasn't convinced that NA really catered for her brand of over-indulgence, and her brain still longed for the psychedelics, nagged at her with visual tingles every now and then. Colours would dart through vibrancies, lines that should be solid would shimmer, and shadows would dance in her periphery. She had read up on the lingering effects of the substances she had saturated in, and discovered that she probably had some kind of Persisting Perception Disorder that would likely stick around for the rest of her life. She missed the drugs, but not enough to go back. She had more important things ahead of her.  Her sponsor, Bobby, always tried to make her feel better about her choice of narcotic.

“Substances are substances” he would say “Doesn't matter whether it's a real man's drug like coke, or some hippy shit like mushrooms, addictions are all the same.” he had repeated it to her a lot, and as sponsors go, was not the best. But they entertained each other, and he was there for her whenever she felt like giving in. He'd also rib her for her choice of drug whenever he got the chance.

“Seriously, if ye' gonna get an addiction, go with coke or heroin. Being a hallucinogenics burnout means ye' got to stop bathing and go into the wild to forage for nuts and berries, it's a fuck-ton of work.”

He made the NA process easier. At least she had a sponsor with a sense of humour, even if that humour was mostly directed at her. She shuddered to think of having Mike or Gary as someone to rely on, men who had – by excuse of addiction – been responsible for the deaths of their loved ones.

The session felt like it lasted forever, as it always did. Sarah's perception of time had been distorted since the drugs left her system. Seconds felt like minutes, minutes like hours, and the two hours of terrible stories from the group felt like a lifetime of living other people's hells. Try as she might, she couldn't block out the words. They would crawl under her skin and feed images to her exhausted brain that she wished she could exorcise. They stuck with her through the nights until the next session rolled along, at which point they had finally dissipated, only to be replaced with a whole new batch of disturbing imagery.

When the group finally ended, it felt like weeks had passed. Her cache of nightmares refilled, next came the awkward chit-chat. Sarah had learned that she couldn't just walk out of NA, that was taken as a worrying sign that she was out to score or relapse. She filled a cup of instant coffee from the urn on the refreshments table and knocked in a couple of sugars and milk for good measure. She normally had her coffee black, but this could hardly be considered
'coffee'
as such. It was black like coffee should be, but she considered it the beverage equivalent of a movie that was
'inspired by true events'.
The basic story might be there, but someone had tinkered with the characters and plot to the point that the core elements were a distant memory. What remained, after she emerged from her analogy with a smile, was essentially contaminated hot water, void of taste or aroma. Mike joined her at the urn.

“You good?” he asked, his pale skin and chapped lips looking like Halloween ghost make-up under the strip lighting.

“Fine, I guess.” said Sarah, trying not to make eye contact. Mike had been there for the last ten weeks, clean for six of those, and over those last twelve sessions she had noticed his eyes roaming towards the female members of the crowd. Sarah felt a little nauseas to think about it, but was almost fascinated in observing his libido slowly return from being lost in an opiate mist. She imagined it tugging at strings in his brain and balls, lust clawing its way out of a coffin, desire telling him he needed to stick his dick in something.

“Cut your hair? Looks nice.” he said.
She hadn't, and knew it didn't. Personal grooming was low on her list of priorities.

“Thanks.” she said, her tone neutral.
Bobby came to her rescue. “Can I just grab the sugar?” he said, reaching between Sarah and Mike. She mouthed a
thank you
to him as he blocked the former junkie's advances any further. The two stepped away from the others and sipped at their over-sweetened '
coffaux'
, as they had taken to calling it.

“You didn't say nothing in the sesh.” said Bobby “You doin' ok?”
She was, and told him as much. He didn't believe her, the rhetoric telling him that you can never trust an addict. “How's the job going?” he asked.

“You can't call it a job.” she replied, scoffing at the word.

“It's a nine to five, ain't it?” he said.

“It's volunteering. Jobs pay.” she said. “It's fine. The homeless shelter leaves me depressed, the asylum seeker support leaves me exhausted
and
depressed.”

“But ye' connecting again, right? Getting back in touch with other human beings, getting off the selfish train ye' been on the last few years.”
He was right, and she nodded in agreement with a polite smile.

“Maybe y'need more time off between the two.” Bobby said. “One day between homeless and asylums may not be enough time to wash off the tragedy and injustice or whatever. Y'need some time for yourself too, remember. As much as routine is helpful, an' all, maybe ye' just getting yourself stuck in a rut.”

“That'd just mean more time by myself... and that's never a good thing, I'm not great company right now.”

“Why don't y'try looking for a real job? Part time, couple of days a week, get y'self back into the real world.”

“I still feel like a burnout.” she said. “I'm not really sure I have the limited cognitive function required for waiting or secretarial work, which in and of itself is tragic. And even then, I don't think I could be one of those people who lives the nine to five routine and thinks a pint on a Friday night is exciting... I've lived and died a thousand times over, gone to other planes of reality, astrally projected back to the birth of the universe... And now I'm meant to find a job that stimulates me?”

“I quite like a pint at the end of the week...” said Bobby, laughing
at
, and then
with
her. “What have y'got to lose?” he asked, not waiting for an answer. “Maybe it's time y'pushed yourself. One or two days of work, real work, might be what y'need. It might get your Persistently Perceptive brain ticking over a little faster, giving it actual tasks to do. Instead of, albeit charitable, monotonous roles that don't push ya'.”

She nodded in silent agreement, but didn't truly agree. Her agenda in NA was solely to get the tools to stay off the psychs long enough to move herself onwards and upwards, set herself on course with purpose and direction, and maybe one day set about a complete revolution in her life.

On the Crossrail home from Tottenham Court Road, she sunk into her chair and practised the self-reflection routine she had learned at NA. Looking at the actions in her life, her decisions, the cause and effect. A mental map of how she got from where she was the last time she was sober to the present moment. Her reflection didn't last long. The drumbeat emanating from the headphones of the man sitting next to her was
thumpa-thump-thumping
through her head as much as it was his, piercing her thoughts, distorting her map. She glared at him, but he was in a world of his music, unaware of those around him he was inflicting with the bass. She looked around for a free seat elsewhere, but there were none, and she didn't wish to stand for the rest of the journey.

Her eyes scanned the posters dotted around the carriage, something to keep her mind busy. They were advertising perfect bodies and cleaning services, recruitment companies and hair replacement. Her gaze settled on a poster at the far end of the carriage, the lettering obscured, but the company's logo seemed familiar. She gave up her seat to get closer, to read it head-on. She had seen the branding and colour scheme before. It was called
A-Pharma,
a pharmaceutical company that she assumed was a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary, eventually leading back to some demonic mega-corporation that no doubt assured its users they
definitely
weren't evil. She didn't know the name, but it was reminiscent of something she had seen before.  Pulling out her phone, she realised the 'A' of the A-Pharma logo looked a lot like the 'A' of the APEX logo on the back of her handset. It was a sidetrack of thought that she appreciated, turning over her phone and realising she had killed four minutes of the journey with the mental meandering, and hadn't even read the poster yet.

Looking for an easy and fun way to earn money
in an exciting new field of research?
A-Pharma
is recruiting clinical trial subjects now!
If you're aged between 18 and 45,

you could be earning up to £20,000
for
onl
y
3-6 months in one of our exclusive,

fully-catered testing facilities.
Catch up on your reading!
Learn a new Language!
Binge Watch Netflix!
And get paid for the pleasure!

Terms and conditions apply, routine health and fitness panel must be taken, A-Pharma has the right to refuse acceptance to trials, A-pharma is not responsible for any adverse side effects, full T&C on website.

Sarah thought about the vast library of books she had inherited from her father. He had been obsessive about reading, and would consume anything with the written word. From SF and fantasy to true crime and biography, philosophy to psychology, classics to physics, every surface in her apartment was laden with his tomes, and she hadn't read so much as an introduction or prologue before getting distracted. Perhaps, she mused, this was her way out of her routine. A step closer to the revolution she wanted so badly, and free money for three to six months she could spend reading, learning, clearing her head of the drugs whilst bettering her life. She was in the age bracket, didn't do any exercise, but figured she could pass a
routine
health and fitness check. She wondered if there were still drugs swimming in her system, and if they might be a problem. She even considered swilling an awful detox drink to get whatever markers or particles out of her bloodstream. She didn't know if it would work, or if it was even necessary, but the more she thought about it, the more she convinced herself that this would be a real chance for a new beginning.

Returning home, she jumped straight on her laptop, a custom build from a guy she found on the internet, made from generic parts, rather than a factory-made model. It cost more, but she didn't trust a corporate manufacturer not to be monitoring her every activity, after a scandal around the time her parents died. A wall of separation, no matter how thin, between her and the company felt reassuring. Even if she did have an APEX phone, but she told herself she got it because it was cheap, and never used it for anything personal, barely made any calls or sent texts, never used it to access emails or social accounts. She didn't really have anyone to talk to outside of NA anyway. She connected to the A-Pharma website, her Ghostly browser extension going crazy with the number of hidden cookies, analytics monitors and subroutines running in the background of the site. She blocked them all and started the application process. It was simple enough until she came to a question that stumped her.

Do you, or have you ever used
psychedelic substances recreationally?
Ye
s
□
N
o
□

She could lie, obviously, but thinking about it, didn't trust that she could
actually
rinse or mask the tracers in her bloodstream with a generic detox concoction. Her neural chemistry or pathways were, as far as she was concerned, most likely irrevocably altered by substance abuse. She checked the '
yes'
box, and a further question popped up.