Recovery

Ah don’t know why some folk are like that! I guess it’s a wee power trip for thum. Take it oot on the dolies kind of thing. It amazes me that some of thum have no’ been set upon, y’know one dark night doon an alley or suhink. Some o’ deserve it that’s for sure.

Bit thurs folk on the dole for aw sorts ae reasons: made redundant, bad injury, that sortie thing. But, they get treated just the same; as if ye smell or suhink. Like a modern-day leper. Don’t get me wrong cos maist ae thum are awright, it’s jist a few bastards, but if ye happen tae get wan o’ thaim on yer case watch out cos they’ll do ye soon as look it ye. Sanctioned fur bad spelling or a hair oot ae place. ‘You’re no’ fit fur work, look it the state o’ ye. There’s a sanction fur ye, fuck yer whale life up. Nae money, nae rent, fuck all.

Only they’ll no’ tell ye that tae yer face ‘case ye kick aff at thum. Ye’ll get a poxy wee letter a fortnight later tae tell ye the score. They’d be too cowardly some o’ thum tae tell ye tae yer face, tho’ some o’ them wid. Fuckin enjoy it anaw.

Ahm Tam McGraw. No’ the Glesga gangster gadgie, jist wee Tam McGraw fae Leith. Wis oan the removals until ah dun ma back in tryin’ tae lift a cooker oan ma ain. First rule of removals broken right their. Protect yer back at aw times in that gemme cos it is yer livelihood. Bastard social’ll no’ sign me aff as unfit for work cos its ma back an’ neabdy kin prove nuhin no’ even the doacters an’ they think ahm at it at the medical thingy so that’s why ahm hivin tae dae this joab centre rigmarole evry foartninght. Fuckin’ diary they want me to keep anaw. Like fuckin’ Samuel Pepy’s ahm takin’ in every two weeks. Whit ahv been dain tae find work. Whit fuckin work? But, they’ll no’ hiv that. Thurs work oot ther if ye want it, they say. Aye pishy work fur pishy pay an’ ah cannae dae it onywiy cos o’ this back.

Wee bit o’ the Catch-22 goin oan there. Canny dae the joabs but they’ll no’ pit ye oan the sick so ye huv tae apply fur joabs ye canny dae sortae syndrome.

Truth be telt ma back isnae ma only problem. Ahm in whit they call ‘recovery’: recovery that is fae the booze but the old bad back and piss-head routine cuts nae ice wi’ the medical folk. Ma mates tell me ye’ve goat tae act it up wi’ thum; really lay it on thick. Last time ah wis up for one o’ thae medicals it wis like a zombie film, thon Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Cunts moaning and groaning and draggin’ legs behind thum. It wis embarrassing, really, bit it’s the only way tae work it.

“Tell thum ye’re aye wakin’ up pished in puddles, an’ ye cannae get up cos ae yir back”

But that’s no’ me at aw. Dinnae really want money on false premises. Jist makes it harder for those that are genuine.

 

The wind gusts up Great Junction Street like it has behavioural problems. It blows the hats off little bairns and whips the trees along the Water of Leith. It’s early autumn but feels like March. Lothian weather is as unpredictable as an injured dog, you’re lapped in sunshine one minute the next you’re as drookit as a drowning man.

The day was grey as a jakey’s pubes and this was reflected on the faces of the citizens of Leith. The usual suspects were gathered on the benches next to Auld Vicky’s statue at the Fit o’ the Walk, handy for a gab but also for the two pharmacist shops nearby. Methadone scripts had been cashed in some time ago and the chat was as expected: who was in jail and who was just out: who had the best vallies and whose were to be avoided.

“Fuckin’ brutal thae east European wans. Sent me fuckin’ schitzy”

They could make a film about the denizens of the benches at the Kirkgate, but it would be X-Rated.

There’s an accordion player down by the North Leith parish graveyard gates playing polkas. This is not as incongruous as it sounds. There’s a plangency to this music from Budapest or Prague which fits the scene perfectly. It’s just that the dancers have disability sticks and a tendency to go crazy when they get the steps wrong or the drugs wear off.

What life had this polka player left on the banks of the Danube that a career as a busker outside a Leith graveyard was preferable? Maybe Buda or Pest was simply awash with accordion players playing polkas or maybe he was an exile from his own troubles back home. Everyone has their own story and it isn’t always pretty. Go to any SMART or AA meeting in Leith to have your eyes open to the grim side of life.

Any SMART or AA meeting in Leith

This is a smallish room which is slowly filling up with human life. There is a tea urn in a small kitchen and the makings of tea and coffee and a few digestives on the two biggish tables pushed together around which the punters were to sit. These punters had one thing in common: recovery. Booze misuse, cocaine, heroin, Valium. Maybe a mixture of many substances which help you to blot out the clouds with temporary sunshine. Mostly men but a sprinkling of women.

You’d be amazed at the factual and emotional honesty that goes on in this room. Scots are not meant to show emotion. It takes some amount of continuous self-inflicted adversity before they’ll even begin to open up and tell total strangers about the intimate tragedy of their lives. Lost love, estranged children, personal horror and the reasons why. The reasons why they do what they do to themselves. They’ve come a long way down the road just to be confronted by one word: Why?

 Actually, they’re not all Scottish by any means. There are some who have gravitated towards Scotland for reasons they barely remember. Maybe a drunken sleep took them past their stop and they just decided to stay? There’s a fella here from New York who is doing really well. He even helps facilitate the groups but if you had experienced even a tenth of his life which he describes now so vividly and without drama you would have drank too. The brutality of his existence up until a few short years ago makes Bukowski seem like Harry Potter. We are in awe of this man but he refuses to be awesome. He’s up making tea for folk and spraffing away in his Lou Reed accent. A humble human who has at last found a way of dealing with his demons and becoming the person he always was beneath the hurt and mayhem.

“Whit about ye, Tam?”

“Aye, daen away, Terry, jist daen away”

 The facilitator is hard of face but gentle of heart. She’s been working here since Moses was a baby and doesn’t take any crap.

“Right chaps and chapesses. How about a wee check-in?”

The check-in is where you take your turn to say how you’ve been doing good or bad and any issues that may be useful to discuss. “I’m doing OK” is not the sort of cursory statement that’s usually accepted, not unless you explicitly state that you’re not up for talking right now.

“I’m doing OK. Still taking my Antabuse but I’m in a wee bit of a frenzy about a meeting I’ve got coming up with my social worker about access to the bairn”

“It’s really making you anxious, Terry?”

“Aye, it’s make or break. I need to prove to them that I’m clean and sober but they keep referring back to the last time when I fucked up. ‘Scuse my French.”

And so it goes on. Folk who have spent a lifetime coping with life’s problems with drink and drugs now trying to find better, more healthy ways to do so.

Two steps forward, one step back. One step forward, two fatal steps back. Finally, they hope, one step forward and then another.

 

“Ahm Tam McGraw and I’m an alcoholic dole-scrounger wi’ a bad back fae Leith. Y’see docter I wis pished and fell in this big puddle at the Kirkgate. Cos ae ma back ah couldnae get up but, y’know whit? Ma mates goat thegither an’ lifted me right outta there. So ye kin take yer dole money an’….”