To be continued...

Over the years I had squandered time over hours of television, living through the characters' lifestyles and masking the mess of my own. Bed was my only friend. Bed enveloped and accepted me, despite the unholy things I was thinking.

Selfishness. We think we are so hard done by and then we hear of a tragic situation a person has had to experience. We feel guilty at first, but then we move on. We return to the torturing decision of what shoes to wear, complaining about the money we make and choosing whether we’ll give in to eating McDonald's.

I found the bottom that day. My Mum and Dad would do anything for me and my best friend would too. I know I'm lucky, but no matter how many other situations I thought of that could be worse than mine; I just wasn’t bothered and couldn’t care.

The lineup of little bottles looked scarily delicious. Downers, loop de loops and steroids. Surely this could fix the unfixable.

I suddenly spotted a seagull perched on a terracotta Londonesque building, cocking its pearly head around deciding where it should fly next. The feeling of freedom bubbled in my stomach and I had an overwhelming urge to get up and leave. The bottles were trapping me. This bed was trapping me. I was trapping me. “It’s a trap!” I smiled at the thought of Star Wars.

I made my bed because I read somewhere that all successful people make their beds every morning. I know this sudden motivation was a manic episode, but it was a moment of clarity that saved me.

Grabbing my bag, I packed it, trashed the dose and slammed the door on the way out. The hard way out, but the right way out.

The bus rolled along the coast and the ocean was throwing a tantrum. It was beautiful. The island in the distance was splattered with greens and I imagined the wild roaming around the jungle. No place to be and no sense of time. That would be me.

Arriving back to the place I was born, I jumped in my old car. I had driven around here a million times and barely appreciated what was out the window. I drove anywhere and everywhere. At the beach, the complexity of the cliffs married the ocean in all its simplicity. The tunnel of trees in my old neighbourhood was desolate but comfortable. Trudging up an iconic tower, the endorphins were exuberant. I then climbed the highest lookout in the city and the view was flabbergasting. The sunset mopped up the dirt in the river and everything looked shiny and new. I felt shiny and new. I found my fix-it. My medicine. My will to continue.