Looking back, I think I’ve always been involved in obsessive behaviour.

Dad

My dad was perhaps an alcoholic, though at the time I’m not sure they called it that. He worked as a stockbroker in the city, often came home late the worse for wear, and got up super early to do it all over again. When I was in my late teens his drinking and mood became darker, but in some kind of accepted middle class City of London fashion. Once he got a bit physical with me, standing over me and ranting at me when I was on the floor, I left home shortly after.

Fire

My first job was in insurance in the City of London and I fuckin hated it. I don’t know why I let myself get bullied into it. Parental peer pressure. Alcohol was central to city working life. That job – I wanted to burn the whole place down. In fact that reminds me I was always setting fire to stuff as a kid – shoes, bin bags, ants, my leg. I had lots of fun with the petrol we put in the lawn mower – pouring out lines of it, setting it on fire and riding my bike through it like Evil Kneivel. 

Anyway, my dad was probably an alcoholic. I think that’s where my unconscious attraction to the highs and lows of obsessive behaviour and addictive personality began also. Inherited, I guess.

Piccadilly

In my early 20’s I got into amphetamines and LSD. Not at the same time – that’s crazy, (tho I did do that once). The excess came from my being in a London punk rock ‘n roll band and kind of exposed to a whole new dark world. We would take acid at my friend’s place in East London then get on a bus to the West End, by which time we would be tripping like crazy. Then it was every person for themselves as we went to pubs & clubs and tried to make it back to my friend’s place in East Ham in one piece. I once watched police raid a house whilst I was on acid, sitting on the curb across the road, watching the action. I also remember on one of these nights ‘coming to’ in the middle of Piccadilly – in the middle of the road with cars swerving around me, honking horns. 

After a while I had to stop it all – my friend got stabbed, recovered and then got increasingly violent, relishing in starting fights. The guitarist from that band I was in died from heroin somehow. A friend from Southend also took speed with me once around that time and that was it for him – he carried on taking it obsessively and his life took a wrong turn which I don’t think he ever recovered from. His younger brother became a heroin addict. 

There is a positive side to me that recognises, eventually, when I’m not being good to myself. In London I realised I’d had enough of the violence and craziness and seedy drug taking and just stopped. The album that actually encouraged me to stop it all was John Cougar Mellencamp’s Lonesome Jubilee. It sounded to me like there was another more loving way. Pretty lame I know, but I still like that album a lot. 

Record Shops

5 years later I was managing record shops for HMV, and my own personal day began when the store was closed and the staff had gone home. I would then work for hours by myself doing my best to make every part of the store look as good as possible. I would get home to my three kids very late, have some sleep and go in early and repeat. Just like my dad. I realised with help from a book I was probably an obsessive workaholic. 

I guess I was desperately trying to seek the approval of my peers and senior managers, but most of them were straight out bullys and didn’t care about what you went through. HMV culture was pretty toxic and I’m glad they went bust. 

Running

Recently I’ve started keeping a fatigue diary, copied from a template on the Macmillan Cancer Support website. Since my operation I’ve really struggled with a kind of chronic fatigue that lasts for around a few days each week. I keep thinking it’s getting better, but I’m not sure it is.

This morning I woke up with some energy and perspective, and during yoga the patterns of crashing and fatigue started to become clearer – I realised my historical obsessive behaviour was repeating itself in my relationship to running.

I Googled it (of course) and it said this: 

“Running can appear to encourage intensity and obsessiveness due to the release of endorphins and endocannabinoids, creating a “runner’s high” that can be addictive. Furthermore, the perceived relaxation and stress reduction from running can lead to a cycle of increased activity when used as a primary coping mechanism. While running offers numerous mental health benefits, a focus on intensity and perfectionism can lead to an unhealthy relationship with exercise.

For some, exercise becomes a primary way to manage stress, anxiety, or other negative emotions. This can lead to a cycle where individuals feel the need to exercise more and more to achieve the same level of relief, potentially becoming obsessive in their pursuit.”

Before the operation, there were a few major life traumas which I coped with by running, sometimes running a lot. I realised this morning that it was an attempt at self medication, like taking sleeping tablets for insomnia (my current ‘thing’ btw), or how I used to get drunk. Similarly, stimulants, both ‘natural’ and taken (coffee?) seem to figure again.

After surgery last year, I got quite fond of the opiate painkillers. I started taking them on Friday nights for fun after our traditional fish and chips. My pharmacist wife ended up hiding them. They are incredibly and subtly addictive as they make you feel so much better about life and things in general. They’re very dangerous.

After my operation I returned to training and pushed it too far I think, trying to regain my fitness, but any ‘runner’s high’ was lost in the overdoing it. I now feel I broke myself somehow in this recovery phase, and my relationship to running and my history had a lot to do with it.

It’s now clear there’s a pattern: 

• I will try and go for a run and push it a bit to see where I’m at.
• I feel great, have a coffee (another minor addictive trait), get a bit hyped up and look for a race to enter. I decide I’m gonna train hard for it, despite having fatigue issues and being 60 with a new baby daughter.
• The next day I totally crash physically and mentally. This can last for 2 days. This is a horrible time.
• I then think – I hate running now, I’m going to focus on cycling and yoga, which make me feel all balanced and nice.
• After a week or two I decide to go for a run and the pattern repeats.

The same process happened with alcohol, before I realised that when I was having the first drink I was looking forward to the buzz of the next, never enjoying any part of it. Another pattern. I haven’t drunk any alcohol now for 16 months. 

It’s all just repeating patterns of obsessive behaviour, though eventually, it seems, at least, sooner or later, I can recognise them and decide to do something about it. 

Take care xx