Slippery Slope
This story is mostly written in present tense, however was drafted in September 2022.
—
It’s hard to say where exactly the downward spiral started. How far back do I look to see where the first domino was pushed?
All I can say is that for a while now I have become less and less disciplined and more and more susceptible to avoidant behaviour.
Avoiding what though?
The answer is always the same.
Myself.
But why am I avoiding myself?
Is it because I know my actions have not been reflective of my intention? And to be with my self is to sit in that realisation?
Do I carry shame for that reason?
Is it the shame that I am avoiding?
After having spent over 4 years sober and living a vice-free life, if even only momentarily, I have slipped back into a vice-led existence.
First it was the harmless coffee here and there.
Now I drink a coffee every morning, sometimes more than one a day.
Then it was the occasional joint.
Now I’ve spent the last month making joints a daily ritual.
Next was cigarettes…
I never thought I’d go back there, and recently to begin with, I indulged in cigarettes to get the smokey buzz that a joint provided, but without the repetitive high that I’d grown bored of.
Now, I smoke multiple ciggies a day.
All of that would be ok, if I was balancing it out with some healthy routines.
But I’m not.
Not only have I opened up to consuming such products, but I have also gone slack with any movement or exercise practices.
I’m not eating well.
I’m not physically active.
And after spending last year completely offline, the slippery slope of social media has me scrolling more and more each day.
2021 was tech-free, active, sober, healthy and creatively productive.
The pendulum has certainly swung to the other side, despite my intention to open up and relax myself towards a more refined central balance.
Perhaps all these issues I’ve been having are a reflection of my choices.
First up, my laptop screen cracked in transit.
Then I lost my phone.
And lately, money has been fucking with me.
I always knew Europe would be expensive, but my money has been going way quicker than I expected.
A few times recently, I’ve found myself stuck with limited accomodation options and high fee’s to swallow. This is a city problem.
Madrid and Barcelona to be exact.
This inspired me to sign up for couchsurfing.com, at least for one month, but somehow they billed me $150 for a year membership and wouldn’t allow me a refund.
I splurged on a ticket to see the Gaudi Cathedral La Sagrada Familia, only to arrive and discover that the website was a scam and I the ticket I’d been sent was not official, so I was denied entry.
I would have pulled the “I left my water bottle inside” trick, like Alex and I did at the Acropolis in Athens, but it isn’t as fun to do alone. Not to mention La Sagrada Familia is a militantly guarded fortress!
On top of all that, I had a scare when I checked my bank account with some random payments in San Francisco and Amsterdam that I couldn’t figure out.
No way! Somebodies spending my money!
I couldn’t call the bank, because I didn’t have a phone - and I couldn’t cancel my card, because it was the only access I had to my money…
Ordinarily I’m not the type to sook too much over money, but with my plans to live overseas for a long time and a dwindling amount of money shrinking in my bank account, my dreams were becoming unrealistic - and this was causing me stress, each misspent dollar at a time.
With all the city scams and high fees, my flight to see Andy in London couldn’t come soon enough, but I still had 4 days to kill.
I looked for the cheapest room in the surrounding suburbs of Barcelona.
I found one in a little place just outside of the city in a place called Badalona.
40 minutes by train.
I booked it, and without a phone to use maps I wrote down directions, checked out of my hostel and caught the metro to the new spot.
—
Throughout these days I could feel stress building in my body, but I tried not to dwell in it.
“It’s just money… I’ll make it back” I would tell myself.
But the stress wasn’t just money.
Navigating a city carrying heavy luggage, a foreign language and no phone-security is challenging.
Survival mode kicks in.
I have to find my way correctly to avoid ending up in even more desperate scenarios.
With the help of broken conversations and Spanish speaking strangers, I found my way to the hostel.
Instantly when I arrived in Badalona, I recognised that I had ended up in the ghetto.
I caught the escalator up from the metro tunnel and found myself in the middle of a dark park with very few people around.
There was a group gathered with big scary dogs, listening to music, drinking and laughing in the shadows.
When I got to the hostel, the front section had dodgy looking characters sitting around smoking cigarettes, staring, not smiling.
A cigarette hung from the mouth of a man wearing an egg stained wife-beater singlet with matching white bandages wrapped over his hands and arms.
My initial impression was that this cheap hostel isn’t just for cheap-skate travellers, but also functions as a half way house for broken homes and lost souls.
It was an interesting building, and looked as if it had once been a hospital.
For the first time, I felt cautious of my belongings.
In my hand, I was carrying a pelican case with expensive recording gear. I could feel many eyes looking at it.
I provided my passport to check in, and put it back in my day bag.
“The room better have a locker” I thought.
It did, and it was the best locker I’d even seen for a hostel. Big enough to fit all of my stuff and lockable with my door key, no padlock needed.
It made sense, seeming as if the place had skipped on all expenses and invested everything into their lockers.
The first night here I wanted to tune out and relax.
I watched a rom-com.
A “guilty pleasure” of mine.
Romance + Comedy, two of my favourite things.
The next day I decided to use the space to get some work done.
I spent the day planning flights and organising some work for the upcoming festival season in Australia.
Booking flights and accomodation was yet again, money.
As my bank account got smaller, my carefree travel days disappeared further and further behind me. The reality of running out of money long before I had planned was becoming a daunting possibility.
I was now operating with a level of displacement and concern.
How am I going to do this?
How am I going to live in Mexico if all my money is gone?
I took myself for a long walk.
It helped.
When I returned to the hostel I sat once again at the laptop and got chatting to Andy about our plans for London.
He asked me what time I am landing on Saturday.
I checked the email.
9:00am on the 22nd…
It was the 21st of September.
“The 22nd”! I questioned… That’s tomorrow!
I had booked the flight for the wrong day!
I looked closer…
22nd of October!
I booked the flight for the wrong month!
FUCK!
I got on the phone to the airline and tried to change my flights.
Unfortunately I was 10 hours outside of the time period where they could help me.
They said I could pay 160 euro to change my flight, which was more expensive then buying a new one.
More money drama…
More stress.
I accepted that it was my fuck up… Somehow I had clicked the wrong date. This whole saga was beginning to feel ridiculous.
I got the new flight, which set me back another $200.
By this stage, I took responsibility for all these fuck ups, but I was done with my reality.
I needed a break.
I asked the guy at the hostel desk if he knew where I could get some hash.
I wouldn’t normally ask the staff, but I had seen some hash sitting by his computer mouse earlier in the day.
He told me there were some African guys that were often out the front of the hostel.
“They are nice guys, and they have good hash” he told me.
I went for a walk to the ATM. On the screen it said there was a 7 euro transaction fee, so I withdrew 300 euro to avoid further fee’s for more transactions. I was also thinking I may need to block my card, so more money was better. I hid most of the money inside a book in my bag, and kept a 50 in my wallet.
I needed to split the note, so I passed a shop to buy a can of coke and began my search for the dealers
I didn’t find them.
I got back to the hostel and a French man I’d talked to that morning was out the front chatting with a couple local guys.
He liked to talk this guy.
I asked him if he knew where I could get some.
He spoke in Spanish to ask one of the local guys, who walked us to the corner and pointed down the street.
He was pointing at a big brick wall, 100 metres up the street, dimly lit by a street light.
Aside from some graffiti, the wall was blank, with no windows, and a metal door right in the middle.
As I spotted it, I saw the door open slightly, a face poke out, look both ways, and then exit with a bike, riding away down the street.
A trap house.
Me and the French guy walked over to the wall.
I knocked on the metal door, which eerily opened to my touch.
Inside was a dim concrete hall-way with no furniture or decoration.
A short Jamaican man stood there.
He had dreadlocks tied behind his head, a large scar covering the right side of his face, multiple missing teeth and the type of tense facial features that are created from a life of struggle.
With a thick carribean accent, he invited us in - but with his demanding tone, it was more like an order.
The hall opened to multiple empty rooms with people sitting in them.
He pulled us into one and told us to sit down.
I greeted the 3 others in the room, sitting around a table decorated with a big bag of weed and scales.
We explained we didn’t want weed. We wanted hash.
He tried to convince us to get the weed.
We held strong to what we wanted.
He explained the hash was down the street and we would have to wait.
“No problem, we will wait” I said.
This man, who introduced himself as “Uncle”, took us through the trap house and out the back.
There were people everywhere, using portable speakers to play music varying from Spanish Hip Hop to Reggae.
We got out the back to a large courtyard closed in by tall brick walls.
About 20 people were sitting around.
I felt an element of caution and danger in this space, but hid it behind confidence and handshakes as I attempted to create some connection with the people sitting.
“Whats up big man” the guy at the head of the table said as he greeted me.
I’ve known spaces like this. These people were from the streets, and it was clear in the way they held themselves.
I was conscious of the 300 euro I had in my bag, so I kept it close, wishing I had of dropped off my stuff in the safety of my locker before coming over.
Uncle directed us to sit down at one of the tables.
I sat next to a relaxed looking man from Gambia, taking note of his master-level of steeze.
I was on edge, but sat down as comfortably as I possibly could, leaning back in my seat and pulling out a cigarette.
Uncle grabbed his bike and told us he needed to go down the street to get the hash, asking for 10 euro.
I’ve been stitched up in scenarios like this before. Passing someone money who promises to return, only to end up waiting for an uncomfortable amount of time before accepting that my cash is gone and they aren’t coming back.
I hesitated, said I’ll pay when he gets back, suggested I come with him, but he insisted, so I surrendered and gave him the money.
If he doesn’t come back, fuck it.
He left with my euros.
The guys I was sitting with were playing Bob Marley.
The French guy I’d come with was very confident, but not street wise.
He opened up some conversations with the people at the table.
They asked where we were from, we exchanged information about our differing places of birth.
When they explained they were from, Gambia, the French guy said something that made me cringe and momentarily worry about the reactions that may have followed.
“Ahh you guys must be great at getting girls, because the African man have big dicks”…
Did he just say that? I wondered in disbelief as I scanned the table to watch the reactions.
Nobody laughed, or reacted, they just stared at him.
“What do you mean by that” one of the guys said, wearing a bucket hat below a grey hoodie.
The French guy nervously explained his comment, trying to highlight the compliment he thought he had given them.
The guys didn’t have much to say in response… they just let it pass.
Fucking idiot, I thought to myself, regretting coming with this dude.
I got friendly with the guy sitting next to me.
He answered my questions about his journey from Gambia to Spain.
I answered his questions about the differences between Melbourne and Sydney.
A tall man with a strong presence entered, climbing around the table to sit down opposite me.
This guy had a long scar running from his high cheek bone down to his jaw.
The type of scar that one can only get from a violent altercation.
While I sat and waited for Uncle to come back, moments of silence were broken in-between little conversations.
We slowly built rapport.
The longest topic we discussed is Bob Marley’s music and the large influence he had on the world.
We agreed that new music will never be as impactful as old ballads like Bob Marley’s.
The times had changed.
We passed around a weed joint while we sat there.
By the time Uncle arrived back, I was already a bit stoned.
I’d become super thirsty, so when I was offered some orange juice, I accepted it.
Although grateful to have something to drink, the element of caution was still present, and the thought of being spiked by the drink was somewhere there in my mind.
Had it not been for all those stories that are told, about being tricked, robbed or ripped off whilst travelling - maybe I wouldn’t of had such thoughts.
But I’ve heard those stories, from unfortunate trusting travellers, and so those possibilities were on my mind.
The weed didn’t help.
I suddenly remembered that I still had my passport in my bag, something I never walk around with. This made me feel even more on edge. Losing some euro’s is ok, but if something goes wrong, I can’t afford to lose my passport.
Uncle passed me a baggie with some gooey hash in it.
It didn’t look like good quality to me, but I took it from him and didn’t bother questioning it. The fact that he had returned was good enough for me.
I thought it might be a good time to head back to the hostel, but the French guy suggested rolling a joint before we left.
I felt it was the respectful thing to do, everybody had been so welcoming, so staying a little longer was a nice way to show my gratitude.
We sat and continued to listen to Bob Marley while he rolled the joint.
Uncle was a lively character. Full of passion and free of inhibition.
I couldn’t understand what he was saying when he spoke to his friends but I could feel the energy.
He was performing.
Preaching.
An entertainer.
He stood up on the table and sang along to Bob Marleys music. Expressing the words with strong emotion and acting out the feelings with his body.
He had full attention of everybody and in this moment I felt completely relaxed as I laughed and enjoyed the show.
I smiled around the table, met with nods, and fists touching hearts.
We spoke in body language our appreciation and encouragement of Uncle’s sentiment.
“He is a strong man” the man with the large facial scar said to me with a thick African accent.
“Big heart. Big energy. Not a young man, he is a man” he said.
I agreed with him.
We smoked the hash joint, and eventually becoming very stoned, I decided it was time for me to go.
Becoming as high as I was, I’d grown more aware of the stress my body was in.
Although I was not scared, my body was on edge in the unfamiliar place and it was time to take it somewhere I felt more safe and could completely relax.
I told the French guy I was going back to the hostel.
He wanted to stay longer, but didn’t want to stay alone, so he came with me.
I said goodbye to the guys. They told me to stay and relax a little while longer. I told them I was ready to go chill, but I would be around for a couple more days.
We shook hands and expressed appreciation.
Uncle walked us back through the house, out the metal door and back onto the dark street.
He was talking the whole way.
Telling us about his views on the world.
Passionately he expressed the struggles that his people experience. The conditions that they live in. The racism that exists.
We ended up standing on the street while he spoke his piece.
I tried to keep up, but I was very stoned, almost spinning.
I was trying to find a moment to exit, but I couldn’t.
I appreciated what he had to say, and even more his ability to speak with such force and passion.
He was a revolutionary, and he claimed so himself.
“You are like a government leader” the French guy said to him.
“No! I am the anti-governor” he said with powerful dominance.
He loudly repeated that himself a few times.
This man was much smaller than both of us, but he completely dominated the space.
He didn’t want to stop telling us about what the world looked like through his eyes.
I was ready to leave long before I did. I could not stop him talking, and didn’t want to disrespect him by leaving before he was done.
A part of me feels that if he had not stopped talking, I would still be outside listening to him. That is the amount of power he had. A strong man.
“Not a young man, a man”!
He suddenly asked us how old we were…
“I am 51!” He told us.
I was incredibly surprised, he looked to be in his 30’s.
When he revealed his age, I was impressed with how young he looked and grew more understanding of how powerful he was.
He has a lot of life experience.
He told us he spoke 23 languages.
I believed him.
He invited us to come back any time we want, and said they were doing a big cook up the next day.
We finally managed to say good night and walk back to the hostel.
I was becoming more and more stoned each second, well past the point of any comfort.
I told the French guy I was going to bed, and said good night.
As I entered the hostel, I said hello to the guy at the desk and hoped he didn’t start a conversation.
It had been some hours since I asked him about hash, and now like an “after photo” I was passing him more stoned than I’d been in years.
I got to my dorm room, which was shared with 4 others.
As quietly as possible, I lay down in my bed.
Slowly, as I had finally stilled my body in a quiet place, I entered the spinning void.
Uncontrollable thoughts whizzed-by as I spun in darkness.
I knew this place. I had been there before. I recognised the uncomfortable ride I was entering.
“Ohhh noooo….” I thought.
“Please stop…”
I tried to breathe through it, hoping that it would ease.
It didn’t.
My body felt full of adrenaline.
I realised that I had just put myself through an experience which was a prolonged strain on my nervous system.
I’d played confidence, but I was on edge, and I kept myself on that edge for a long time.
Now that I was alone, I could feel my body, and the suppressed anxiety that had been waiting for me.
Being as high as I was didn’t help, it did that thing that weed does, and amplified the feeling.
I began to overheat, and needed fresh air.
I left the room and went to the toilet.
I didn’t want to pass the man at the desk to go outside, I was feeling too sick to interact or be seen by anybody.
I sought refuge in the toilet.
My senses were heightened.
The lights were ultraviolet and very invasive.
The fan was loud and intrusive.
I couldn’t turn them off.
I sat there feeling horrible, trying to breathe through it.
Who knows how much time passed, but eventually I left to try laying down again.
I went back to my room.
In the time I had been on the toilet, some new people arrived.
This was unfortunate, because now there were people awake in the room and I was not in a place of wanting to be acknowledged by anyone.
I wanted to be invisible.
I wanted to be alone.
I lay down again, hoping this time I wouldn’t feel as bad.
I felt worse.
I sat up in the bed, my head in my hands.
I felt the sweat that had built up on my forehead.
I realised I had tapped into the stress I’d been carrying, avoiding…
I was feeling all the built up anxiety that had developed from the recent drama’s.
Not just from where I had been, but all the avoided stress from the past week leading up to it.
I lay down, uncomfortable, trying to get through it.
I thought of Alex, and the death experiences she had described that have happened a few times when she smoked weed.
I am having one of them…
I tried to believe that it was a good thing. That although difficult and extremely challenging, there was something to be gained from this.
I was showed how I had been treating myself.
Careless.
Reckless.
It was being communicated to me through the felt language of my body.
A language that is mostly a subtle one, but had now grown into a hostile shout.
I wished that vomitting would help, but I knew it didn’t do much when it came to marijuanna. Marijunna enters the system through smoke, it is not something that is releasing into my body through my stomach…
I thought of the orange juice.
Oh my god… did I get spiked?
It seemed to make sense to me…
I imagined different potential scenarios of what could have happened.
I’d been spiked at the house, grew sick and disorientated, passed out potentially, the people grab what’s in my bag, including my room key, go into my room, open my locker, take all my stuff…
It seemed a likely enough plot.
The type of story I may have heard before.
“Yeah we were all just chilling, smoking hash and drinking orange juice… Next thing I woke up on the street without my money, passport or room key. I went back to the hostel and all my expensive belongings in the locker were gone…”
My rational mind and my cautious mind were having a debate about what was actually going on:
Rational: “Nah bro, you are just super stoned. You mixed weed with some funky looking hash. You are greening out”
Cautious: “That’s not it, I’ve been spiked, and had I not left when I did, I’d be getting robbed right now”…
Rational: “You are being paranoid…”
The dorm room I was in was illuminated by the exit sign light, however the exit sign was not there. It was just the green LED light mounted above the door.
I thought of the irony. I was greening out, in a room where everything was a vibrant green colour.
There was no escape.
I could feel I was becoming more nauseous.
I went back to the toilet.
- Excuse the following raw detail…
I pulled my shorts down, sat on the toilet and breathed.
I released a lot of gas through both ends.
This slightly provided some relief.
I kept spinning…
I didn’t need to use the toilet in the end, and eventually decided to go back to the room.
As I began to stand to leave, my body suddenly tensed up and I quickly spun to the toilet as I projectile vomited.
As I turned, my aim hit the wall and the floor before finding the bowl.
On my knees without having had time to pull up my shorts, I vomited into the toilet repeatedly…
Wow, I thought, it’s been a long time since I’ve been here.
I hadn’t made myself that sick since I went sober almost 5 years ago…
I really have taken a big step backwards haven’t I…
It was undeniable now.
I was clinging to a toilet, experiencing self inflicted torture… as I emptied my guts, bare arsed in a loud and bright hostel toilet.
I couldn’t have been more uncomfortable.
Not one thing in that moment felt good.
I stayed there for a while, until I was surely done.
I used a lot of toilet paper to wipe the vomit clean from the walls, floor and toilet seat.
I stood up, gargled water and wet my face in the sink.
Back to the room…
—
When I got back to my green dungeon, I felt a little better.
I lay down, still imprisoned by a spinning vortex of uncontrollable looping thought, but I was noticing I was beginning to fall asleep to it.
Unfortunately, the new guests in the room were very loudly walking in and out as they organised their stuff for what felt like hours.
Every time they opened the door it disturbed me from my almost sleep and I was returned to the anxiety and discomfort…
Breathe… It is finishing, I thought.
One of the people making noise eventually climbed into his bed, which was sadly the bunk above mine.
Loud squeaky metal continued to disturb my escape as he moved continuously…
“Spare me” I wished… “Let this nightmare end”…
It didn’t… not for a while.
He moved a lot and kept me in my suffering.
A final test.
I don’t know how long that went on for, before I was finally asleep.
It was him again, in the morning that woke me up… All too early.
At least now, when I woke up, I was not spinning any longer, and the hell I had experienced was over.
— — —
Wow…
That was intense.
But it came with many lessons.
Sometimes we need to take a step backwards to remember why we walked away.
In the past, I have been in situations like that countless times, but never with as much self inquiry as I possess now.
I learned a lot from that time in Spain, and the lessons have been in my pocket since, functioning like a navigational tool, as I continue my adventure.
I don’t carry any shame for my choices. I see them as self explorative. A letting go and loosening up after years of desperately firm discipline. Just another colourful experience of life to look back on, remember, and grow from.
DID YOU ENJOY THIS STORY?
Leave a comment below and subscribe to the website.
We will keep you updated with everything we do.
If you would like to support me on my journey, check out my Patreon to find out how!
