I don't think I should let this moment pass without highlighting that the 1st August 2020 marked exactly ten years since I stopped using problematic drugs.

On the 1st of August 2010, after sneaking out the back door of a party in the early hours of a Sunday morning thanks to the rapid onset of an intensifying paranoia, and setting out on the journey home before daylight broke so that I could spend the next two or three days hiding in a cupboard, I was lying on the sofa staring at the ceiling with that unwelcome but familiar feeling of mental imbalance derived from the chronic psychosis I'd developed as a result of years taking large quantities of substances.

As I lay there that morning contemplating my existence using the last two braincells that had not yet been burned out of my head, I asked myself how did things get as bad as this, and what was I going to do about it.

Well those two braincells became heroes that day, when they teamed up and forced me to quit right there and then. It was essential that this shit didn't continue, I'd already screwed up so much already that the only way I could go from this point onwards would be down even further, maybe even to the grave. Ten years of burning the candle at both ends living on the edge had now reached it's conclusion, and somehow I knew with absolute certainty that this would be the last time I was ever going to go through this self-inflicted mental anguish ever again. The rock bottom period of my life had become rock solid determination to say goodbye to who I was, and I did it. Full stop.

Shout out to the legend that is Eminem, who's excellent album 'Recovery' was playing as I made that decision that morning, making this record truly symbolic to me