I think the most valuable thing I’ve learned since discovering life is better without drugs is the need to be distracted. Properly distracted.

For any committed user, drug life is rather performative. Reasonable rules of relationships get ignored; previously rational judgement goes missing; truth becomes very much open to interpretation. I didn’t know this at the time, of course, but, my God, I know it now.

The trouble is, I’ve never really had a ‘rear-view mirror’. Act first, think later; what’s done is done; let’s move on. Why stop to consider consequences when blithe hedonism is so intoxicating? Literally.

But I also now know this: nothing is more sobering than waking up to the reality that it is time to wake up. And get sober. Fuck me, it is painful, it is time-consuming and it is humbling.

But as somebody who thought nothing of getting a few baggies in just because Man United were on the telly, and spent days on end with people I didn’t know, in places I couldn’t even find any more, you could say I needed to find a different hobby. This is what I mean about distraction.

I needed to rediscover the things that meant more to me than getting high. Eating, for example (a decent start). Travel; running; the cinema; gigs; family. Filling my time with anything that ‘moved the needle’ (pun intended) if I thought about drugs started to make sense to me. And I really do mean anything. I never knew how satisfying doing laundry could be. The gym. Volunteering. Talking to people I didn’t even know in coffee shops. All of this made a difference.

And then I remembered my (humble) interest in art. I started going to galleries again and digging deeper into the subject of drugs and art (who knew?). This is how I discovered PORe and its impact has been huge. Here was a programme of art projects, built around the issues of addiction, often aimed at the LGBTQ community. Available to me (and people like me)!

I am very proud of the involvement I have had with PORe. I’m sure there was a bit of ‘right place, right time’ but you know what? I’ll take the credit for that; I made it happen, and it’s been a most welcome distraction.