Chapter 3: Walking Through Walls
A Journey of Addiction, Music, Healing, and Rediscovery
Day Three: Monday August 18th, 2003
I have woken up with the same feeling I have after a night binge. I had many dreams of reliving the activities that surround my attaining drugs in the streets of Soho. Endless phone calls to dealers, calls to people, them not being where they are meant to be, starting the ritual, scrabbling round the flat for lighters that work. Choosing where to put my stash etc. But I didn’t dream of taking drugs. I begin to wonder if all the ritual of it, is what made me so neurotic and exhausted rather than the actual ‘taking’ of the drug, because right now I feel as if I have been doing it all night.
I am also now more interested in stopping cigarettes, if only just to see how my body feels without them in the morning, because now I feel shitty.
7.30 p.m. I have had the best day I have had in a long time. Let me tell you why…
The first thing today was the obligatory singing of the Thai National Anthem. It is very melodic and I have planned to record it tomorrow so I can learn it properly. It is always followed by clearing the courtyard of leaves, which I enjoy since it is tidying up, which inwardly always feels good. After this Phra Jan takes me and several other patients up to the cave where the Abbot first discovered the place that is now Thamkrabok. It was here, in the 1950s where monks came to find somewhere to meditate without disturbances. This event coincided with the passing of a law that made opium illegal in Thailand, resulting in many addicts looking for help towards the end of the 50s. Consequently, some addicts asked these monks for help. Initially, the monks wanted nothing to do with them but as their philosophy said: it is their good Karma to offer service to those who are in need.
Over 40 years later these monks are still helping. I take some photos and help sweep the long stairways to the cave with the other patients. I have an egg sandwich and am asked to help with an English class by Peter, a monk who is from London. I love this; I am basically answering questions given to me by Thai monks as a way of them improving their English. I tell them I am a musician and that I am here because of my drug addiction. Peter seems to enjoy me participating as his aid in teaching English, and it also helps me freshly tune my ears to the Thai language. I feel useful for the first time in years. It has been suggested that I continue to help with the classes throughout my stay and that I could also sing songs in English, which would help make the lesson more enjoyable, but still helping to explain the intricacies of the English language.
Later on I play songs to the other patients and various monks who keep asking me to do songs by a band called “Scorpions”. My God, even spiritual enlightenment cannot account for musical taste.
They seem happy enough with a set of songs by John Lennon and some of my own.
After this I get busy puking, which lasts longer than yesterday. But this time because I am getting more clarity in my desperation to get any poison that is in my body, out of it.
I retch with a mission until my body is aching. Good stuff. Then I eat dinner and top the day off with the very special occasion of being allowed to sit in on the monks’ evening chant. I sit for half an hour listening to the chanting in a beautiful temple.
The vibrations feel very “buzzy” so I put the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet flat to the ground to get every vibration of every person that is chanting, to come through me. As an experiment, once I do this, I once again try to imagine smoking crack. The enjoyment connected to it is now (although still there) harder to focus on. I can only compare it to my problem with meditation. For a long time now, when I have tried to meditate by focusing on one thing, it is impossible to empty my mind of everything and only have one thing that’s left. Whereas yesterday, if I were to picture myself smoking crack, the pleasure attached to it comes into my mind instantly. Today, I can still picture it, but as soon as I imagine the pleasure, the picture begins to fade. I cannot sustain the image in my mind anymore. I am collecting all the feelings that have been born in me here, I know I will need to replay them every day for the rest of my life when I return home. I have just got to keep making that picture fade. Tomorrow I might be permitted to record the chanting.
I can’t wait.
Something else which has become somewhat of a revelation is the news that there is a monk composer who has developed a way of drawing out music from natural elements such as rock formations and trees. Phra Hans has said he will organise a meeting between us. I am certain that part of my life as a student of music is something I can find here. Every time I have a break-through, I give myself new worries. The latest one is keeping this good vibe going when I get home. I pray.
I support these organisations who are shaping a system change to integrate mental health awareness and well-being into the music industry. Please do read about their work.
The Creative Well
Music Minds Matter
Waterbear College of Music