Discourse in Duality

Content Warning: Language and discussion of addiction.

The duality of my addictions are what we are about to get into, together. Chop it up, so to speak. It wouldn’t be the first thing I’ve chopped. Or cut.

Cutting ties with my former identity has been a very hard thing to do. I’ve written about it in a litany of poetry and prose, discussing its acute intricacies. Expounding on the horrors faced and the nights filled with debauched happiness of living purely for the moment. 

Alcohol, hard drugs and ‘the streets' were and, in some ways, always will be part of my life. I got involved with drugs and crime when I was fourteen years old, smoking hash and petty theft just seemed to be a by-product of a troubled early adolescence. 

Nowt to worry about, eh? 

Wrong. 

Things got SO/MUCH/WORSE. 

The playful and youthful, hedonistic experimentation and ‘couldn’t give a fuck' attitude proved to become the very sturdy foundations for what was to come. Over a decade-long slide into addiction. Into crime. Into this becoming who I was, while never really being who I was. 

However, in this, we come to the crux of the thing: the dichotomy and the duality. 

Both are necessitous in us, I feel. We are, ultimately, pendular. Never staying still. Never remaining one thing and that alone. 

Getting back to foundations, they were built. Then passing days build that lair in which you end up dwelling. What was fun became painful and harrowing. Stressful, sleepless nights and fear during the daylight hours. Or the business hours. My second job was always supposed to just be the cream. But, when you’re a functioning drug addict, it can’t ever ‘just be that’. Had a string of ‘bread and butter’ jobs whilst maintaining an active round (if you know, you know). 

Dual phones. Dual sims. Actual duels. 

A couple swapped vowels and you’d have it. 

It was a trap. I knew it was.

After the homelessness in my mid-twenties, the loss of relationships with my family, the death of my father and everything I had. MY self-respect. MY self-worth. MY pride. I met many good and bad people along the way through this, some I respect more than they know, probably. 

But this is the truth of it as I see it. I was addicted to both substance and survival. Shifting became second nature. Grafting and grifting. It's chaotic and exciting and it makes you feel alive. Marry that up with a decade in the trenches serving your squad and fighting your personal wars, enjoying the highs when you all survive and thrive (subjective), then you find a perfect storm for the duality of the identity you’ve so carefully crafted, time after time.

Setback after setback.

Days survived. 

Once upon a time, this discourse would have terrified me. Accepting this would have meant I could not do tomorrow. Desperation blinds you to all else but the grind. 

The trouble is, all this time, you still feel. Intensely, more and more each situation and let down piles on you. Missed calls and bills and birthdays. Arguments and violence. Threats. Some days it felt like I was the only one not trying to take some part of my life. But there I was – drinking like a sailor and consuming more food from my nose bag than many an equine. 

Then bemoaning the lack of friends, food, money, respect, family, progress, ambition. Many, many casualties lay there, but to me, they seemed acceptable. Collateral damage of my ultimate survival, all so I could drink and use myself into some kind of numb, fearful, rage-filled purgatory. Waiting for one of many oblivions to finally stop fucking about and take me. 

I longed for it at times. So desperately lonely. Surrounded by people and an active WhatsApp. Yet, no one would do. Just the drugs. Just the drink. Just the self-loathing. In this, I find duality. 

I was never meant to be it (nobody is) nor raised that way (some definitely are).

Yet I became it and held on with all my might, made it who I was, even though I came to hate it. I fed the beast and called it my pet. I always cried about my lack of control but then created chaos. Desperation does away with ideas of good and evil. Survival means something different to all of us. I carry the scars and debts on the body, soul and streets – still.

I always will. I am out of it all, now though. Cleaner than I’ve ever been. Better than I’ve ever been. Safer than I’ve been in twenty-plus years. Here, with my words. The words I perhaps wouldn’t have, certainly, would not be the same, were it not for the life I have lived. Funny, isn’t it. 

The safety that comes with turning your back on everything you’ve known because it is so bad for your health. Your sanity. You.

Better because inside that safety, comes the opportunity for self-reflective growth. An opportunity to meld, mend, repair and kit bash those important parts and lessons and experiences into who you are today. Who you wish to become. The duality of yesterday and today is just as important as that of today and tomorrow. ‘You've gotta kna where you've been to kna where you're gannin.’

We move. We must.

But we will always be both what we are and what we were. In this, I find duality. In us: you find duality.

D.L. Husband is 35, a writer/hospitality worker, and a lifelong North Easterner from the County Durham area. A die-hard fan of literature and football (Newcastle United). @husbandmaterialpoetryandprose.