The Pursuit of Happiness

 “I mean, how about if you were to become addicted to happiness?”

A wave of chuckles throughout the room, A few ‘aye, rights’

“Seriously though, happiness”

They look at each other this bunch of self-confessed users of dangerous sweeties and intoxicating liquids.

“Whit dae ye mean happy?” This from a shambles of a man with nippy features. His face had the look of a whippet who’d just sooked a particularly bitter lemon. He hadn’t had one positive thing to say in the entire six-weeks of the group so far. You felt that a good word from him would require intrusive surgery of the soul.

“Happy, you know? Joyous. Fulfilled. Smiling. Happy! When was the last time you were happy, George?”

“Dinnae ken” says the little ray of light and joy as if admitting to such an emotion would be like confessing to paedophilia.

“Anyone else remember a happy time?”

“May 21^st 2016”

“Oh aye, what happened then?”

“Hibs won the Scottish Cup”

This elicits ‘yasses’ and a couple of jeers from the Jambo’s in the room.

“Happiness scares me, man” This from wee Rab the weegie, a man whose face was as cracked as a dry river bed under a roasting sun. Which were wrinkles, furrows or scars was a matter of guesswork even for Rab and his addled memory wasn’t going to help much with the answers.

“It’s like the only way to go when you’re up is down, so it’s less hassle just to stay down”

This downbeat philosophy had been learned playing the hard game named Rab’s Life, available at all good licensed premises and prisons.

“Happiness is a risk then, Rab?”

“But it’s a good risk though, eh?” interjects Alison the Pollyanna of the group. The kind of lassie that oohs and aahs at puppy-dog pictures on Facebook even when her life is a ramshackle mess of abandonments, drug fuck-ups and locked-up boyfriends who’ll only come out to hurt her some more.

I’m the ‘facilitator’ of this group: the Tools for Emotional Aid group (or TEA as we chirpily call it). We meet once a week on a Thursday morning in an old church hall in Leith. TEA provides tea and support for folk who use drugs and alcohol in a way that affects their lives adversely. As an ex-user myself, I have empathy and sympathy with the other participants. I know there are two issues here: the fact that they use the way they do and – maybe more important – the reasons why. When you use substances as a crutch, there are reasons why you feel you need that support. Our methods propose a different, healthier crutch.

“Why were we not taught about happiness in school?”

An interesting question. Scottish comprehensives in the 70s seemed to have as little to do with the commodity called happiness as the Orange Lodge had to do with pope promotion: they seemed to thrive on humiliation and a social station system so subtle yet damning that Karl Marx himself would have given up analysing it and gone for a pint instead.

Happiness was not on the curriculum. Counting down the days until you could leave certainly was!