Hooked secrets and highs of a soaber addict, by Melinda Ferguson

Hooked secrets and highs of a soaber addict, by Melinda Ferguson. The Penguin Group (South Africa) 2nd edition. Cape Town, 2011. ISBN 9780143528159 / ISBN 978-0-143-52815-9

Captured with humour, hectic honesty and a sexiness that only a Joburg girl can pull off, Hooked secrets and highs of a soaber addict is as compulsive as Melinda Ferguson herself!

DELETE ME: THE KNEELING TIME

'Delete me! Delete me!' I was in a ball. A little fist of pain. A red, mewling baby. A crumpled knob of paper, tormented in creased agony. Oh, Jesus! Fuck! On and on that voice inside howled, deep from the bottom of my lungs: 'Release me, or better still, DELETE ME!' Who would have thought I'd be curled up again on the floor of some godforsaken hotel room. Heart beating, ticking, tweaking ... Upper lip covered in a little beady line of sweat. Snail trail. Hands shaking like that drunk who sways his days away at the robot on Rivonia Road; glassy glare; staring into unrepentant car windows that hold the promiselessness of an empty bottle. Now, in a hotel room (five star), perched above the world, in the Mother City, where all my dreams were supposed to have come true, my reflection bounced that same zombie-stare back at me. After all this time sober, ten years to be exact, all that there was, was this? A deep, aching pit: The Crave Cave. The Longing. You'd have thought that by this stage I'd be on top of it, that I'd have cracked it. I'd almost become the poster child for clean and serene, for fuck's sake. A decade earlier I'd given up crack and smack, turned my back on acid, Rohypnol, downers, dagga, alcohol, nicotine, Myprodol, Panado, even sugar! I was a bloody pro giver-upper. In fact, the only thing that I had left to me was normal stuff. Like Sex. Love. Relationships. And what could be so toxic about that trio? Everyone else slipped in and out of those with ease. Not me. At that moment I felt like a dog returning to its own vomit. I found myself once again in the same place, the same space that I thought I had turned my back on. That No Entry place; the one with the red flashing warning sign. I was down on all fours, like a strung-out crackhead, waiting for a crumb of hope, a communion wafer - sprawled out, strangled by my addiction. I clutched my phone. My umbilicus. I ached for a drink. 'God grant me the ...' But serenity had taken a hike to another realm. It was no good grasping at the empty straws of prayer. I couldn't even mutter the words. It was just me, again, godless, crucified, sweating and seething... Me, again. Addicted. But this time it wasn't a substance - to be ingested, snorted, imbibed - that had altered my thinking, my feelings, my moods. This time there was no dealer, no paraphernalia, no pipes, no tinfoil, no cash exchange, no bottlenecks, no Rizlas. This time it was high class, high rise - it was happening on the fifteenth floor of the Westin Grand, for God's sake. This time it was something far more innocuous, far more sinister, far more unreal... This time my fix was a fucking message! I was waiting for a place, a time, the details of a rendezvous. I had sent: I'm here an hour earlier and still I'd heard nothing. I longed for a response, an acknowledgement, but I was getting none of it. I was looking for relief, release, redemption. Anything but this. The minibar was winking at me. Imagine: 'Hi my name's Melinda and I am an Acknowledgement Addict...' Fuck it! There wasn't even a recognised twelve-step programme for me! The amazing thing was that it had all started in the name of love, like that U2 song. Actually, to be more specific, it had all begun almost biblically, like all good stories do, with The Word. The Book. [...]

This is an excerpt from Hooked secrets and highs of a soaber addict, by Melinda Ferguson.

Title: Hooked secrets and highs of a soaber addict
Authors: Melinda Ferguson
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: The Penguin Group (South Africa)
2nd edition. Cape Town, South Africa, 2011
ISBN 9780143528159 / ISBN 978-0-143-52815-9
Softcover, 16 x 23 cm, 288 pages, numerous photos