Death and the Elephant

by Raz Shaw

  And that’s exactly what it proved to be.

  10 APRIL 1996

  To an alcoholic, their rock bottom is often waking up fully clothed in a pile of their own piss, on a pavement somewhere miles from home. Mine didn’t smell quite so bad. At the time, I didn’t quite know what triggered the end. But I did know that the contradiction between having been given the all-clear from cancer and then going on a self-destructive gambling rampage was more than crazy and something had to give.

  And, with hindsight, there were two significant events leading up to this moment that resonated so strongly within me they must have forced my subconscious to take hold of me, slap me round the face and say, ‘Wake up and smell the real world (and the coffee).’

  I was in a betting shop. It was what would prove to be the final day of the three-week post-cancer gambling frenzy period. I was gambling on the dogs. I think that first experience when I was twelve years old had convinced me that dog racing was my thing. Not much need to study form or to watch for which dog poos just before the race (the story goes that it makes them lighter so they go faster – a gambler needs every advantage he or she can get!). No. I could smell a winner, poo or no poo.

  The truth is that I was quite lucky. I could actually pick more winners than losers. Unfortunately, being a gambling addict, my propensity was to bet small money on the winners and big money on the losers. What does that make me? A LOSER!

  On this momentous day, I had been in the bookies for about an hour. I had had a few wins. I was up about £500. I was calm. Too calm. I was wary of calm. Calm could lead to thinking and thinking could lead to reality and reality was the very place I was trying to avoid. The reality of the rest of my life. I was not ready for the rest of my life. NOT READY FOR IT. Was still deep in mourning for my cancer.

  No, calm must die. Must Kill Calm. Must Destroy Calm.

  I know exactly how to do that.

  I’ll bet all the money I have just won on the next race.

  That’ll de-calm me.

  Definitely.

  Now, of course, this was my subconscious speaking and controlling me. The conscious me had no concept of any of this. He just felt the urge to stick all that money on the next bet. And while my subconscious wanted me to lose and thus destroy calm, the conscious me absolutely wanted to win. The bit in the middle, between my conscious and my subconscious (midconscious?), KNEW I was going to lose but wasn’t shouting loud enough for me to take any notice of it. Actually, even that’s not true. I could hear it but I chose to ignore it.

  So with £500 betting slip in hand and race about to start, I stood in front of one of the larger screens in the shop. Next to me was a man who was dressed in a suit and tie that had seen better days. He smelt of a heady mixture of BO and Old Spice. He was probably in his sixties.

  The race started. I was on the dog in Trap 2. As it turns out, so was BO-ld Spice guy. Having just relieved himself of any excess excrement (the dog that is, not the man next to me), our dog bolted out of his trap. There was a bump at the first bend and all the other dogs apart from ours and the one in Trap 4 tangled together. That left Trap 2 and Trap 4 neck and neck way out in front. It was one of those races where from a distance it looked like the two dogs were actually one beautiful eight-legged-two-headed beast, so in sync and in stride were they. Such a race is much more adrenaline-raising than if your dog was either winning or losing by a long margin. It’s the sort of race that addicts live for. Much like the dogs, me and my Old Spice colleague seemed to be very much in sync, too. Eyes glued to the screen, heads bobbing in time with the dog’s stride pattern and in almost choral harmony, a gentle ‘go on the 2 dog, go on the 2 dog’ escaped from our mouths. The 2 dog slightly pulled his nose in front. Our soft roar turned to full voice now. ‘Go on! Go on now!’ Coming round the last bend, our dog seemed to have it in the bag; we were preparing our vocal chords for the full-blown dog victory call. A call that’s been honed in betting shops and on dog tracks for years and is the musical exhalation of our winning exultation. It goes like this. Are you ready for it? It goes like this:

  ‘OY ,OY,OY,OY,OY,OY, OY, OY.’

  This cry is not just a ritualistic adrenaline release but, more importantly, it’s a signal to those around you that you’re a winner. Or more to the point, that you’re NOT a loser. In other words, it’s a cry to separate you from your own self-hatred for just a little while.

  So.

  Final stretch now. We were ahead by half a dog’s nostril.

  ‘GWAAAAAAAAN.’

  And, just as we were about to give full vent to the victory call, trap 4 took one unfeasibly long, elegant and hateful stride towards the finishing line. Trap 2 was powerless to fight back. Trap 4 literally inched ahead and won the race by a hair’s breadth. A dog hair’s breadth.

  Deflated, defeated and denied my oy, oy, oys, I turned to my neighbour for mutual commiseration. However, BO man had no truck with consolation. He was in his own world of pain. In fact, he was going apoplectic. Bent double, he was ranting and raving in words with no vowels:

  ‘Fkng. Chtng, cnts. Cnts. Cnts. Cnts. Thvng Bstds.’

  It was almost as painful to witness as it must have been to live through. And it went on and on and on. I felt pity and disgust for him both at the same time. He was me. I was watching me. It did something to my insides that I couldn’t identify but knew was significant. Now I realise what it was. An awakening. Or at the very least, the stirrings of an awakening. I had lost £500 on this race but it seemed irrelevant now. Compared to what he must have lost, emotionally as well as financially. After a few minutes he seemed to have calmed down a touch so I took a moment see if he was OK.

  ‘Bastard dogs,’ I muttered

  ‘Ain’t that the fucking truth,’ he replied

  ‘How much were you on for?’ I asked.

  ‘50p,’ was his reply. ‘My last cunting 50p.’

  And that was the moment. The moment I knew. It was game over. For me at least.

  Here was a man who was 100 per cent certain that this, his ‘last cunting 50p’ would not only win him back what he had lost that day but would win him back everything he had ever lost, and some. It would put him back on top.

  The point is that:

  This. Never. Ever. Ends.

  From here on it is just pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain upon pain…

  It never ends.

  So it has to.

  END.

  HAS TO.

  I made my escape. From the bookies, that is.

  That afternoon I went round to a friend’s house and her brother was there. I was explaining to them both what had happened in the betting shop that morning. Which in itself was a rare occurrence as a gambling addict never talks to any ‘normal’ people about their losses. My friend’s brother then started telling me that he had recently found God (where? I’m not sure. With the 50ps in the back of the sofa?) and that, before finding God, he had been a gambler and a thief. His twenty-four-hour routine in those gambling/thieving days consisted of:

  ߦ Identify an easy-to-break-into house (whatever that might be).

  ߦ Break into that house at two in the morning and steal ‘quick, minor items’ such as video recorders.

  ߦ At nine the next morning, flog the VCR to someone for twenty or thirty quid.

  ߦ Go straight to the bookies and bet that cash till closing time.

  Now and again he’d win, in which case he’d have ‘a day off the rob’ and ‘treat’ himself to a curry and some weed, but most of the time he’d be skint by mid-afternoon and so would spend the next twelve hours casing up his next house to break into. This cycle went on for about a year until the law caught up with him and he was put in prison. That’s
where he found God (Oh! That’s where God lives.)

  It was only on my journey home that I realised how connected the two events of the day were and just how absurd my life had become. I could well end up being either of those guys. What am I saying? I AM either of those guys.

  So, the very next day – 10 April 1996 to be precise (I remember the date as it’s my brother’s birthday) – my body and my soul woke me up, sat me down, looked me straight in the eye and said:

  ‘ You’re done. Enough.’

  And for the first time I listened. For the first time I knew it was over. There was no cold turkey. No huge emotional breakdown. It was over. And it felt pure and brilliant. Pure brilliant. Serenity was my resident now.

  I was born again. And it wasn’t God I had found. He was stuck in prison. It was a certainty that I hadn’t really ever felt before. Put simply, I was certain that I would never again have an urge to gamble.

  I knew that I would now be able to walk past a bookies and not feel compelled to go in.

  I knew that I wouldn’t struggle with it.

  I knew I wouldn’t relapse.

  And more than twenty years on, that is all true. The urge has completely disappeared.

  I am a born-again non-gambler.

  And in all the research I have done since, that is very unusual. The gambling addiction world mirrors that of any other addiction. It is littered with relapses and worse. So I don’t know how I got out of it so sharply and cleanly. I guess those heavy-duty chemo drugs ended up killing everything that dared to get in their way.

  Chemo cult leader? Dead.

  Gambling cult leader? Dead.

  No pains in my chest.

  No deep-seated desires to be ill again.

  No urges to self-destroy.

  No urges to gamble.

  Just calm.

  I had found my promised land. For a moment at least. The struggle to the mountaintop was vicious. I didn’t know when or where or if the zenith would come. But it did. Come. And it was serenity itself at the top. And today I can at last look forward to tomorrow.

  I had destroyed such a huge gaping hole in my wall of pain that, in the end, it was easier just to walk through it and leave it behind.

  All I could do was hope I would come out the other side alive.

  And I did. I have.

  And I haven’t gambled since. And I have been cancer-free since.

  Don’t get me wrong. I have had numerous moments of self-destruction since. Of course I have. But they have been both much less extensive and much more isolated. Plus they were never to do with gambling but were almost always connected to sex in some fashion or other.

  I can still feel that cancer-wish fulfilment lurking somewhere inside me. It’s an evil, poisonous monster. Like grief, I know it won’t go away completely. It rears its head at the most unexpected times. The difference now is that not only is it much easier and quicker to banish, but I can now go ages without feeling guilty about it.

  Only ages, mind. Not never. Like I say, guilt is in my DNA.

  And I have come to understand that the stabbing desire for cancer to return is a really common feeling. Better the devil you know and all that. And once someone has been given the all-clear, to have that feeling pop up to surprise them not only shocks them but it also fills them with self-hatred.

  Seeing a friend breathe out a little bit when I explain to them that they are not alone in having those feelings is a privilege that I can’t explain in words. It’s the privilege bestowed on me by the cancer club. And sometimes someone telling you that you are not alone is useful and comforting and other times it doesn’t help one jot.

  But my experiences might resonate at some point, when you’re ready to take them in, so it feels right to put them out there.

  And though I have never really subscribed to the notion of cancer bringing me a whole new positive perspective on life, I can definitely say it brought me to a place of some clarity. I had to wade through Dickensian smog to get there but I did find some.

  And now, when the haze of irrational madness descends – and it does descend fairly regularly – I step into it for a while just to remind myself how hateful and all-consuming it feels. And I know it will pass. And I know it will always be a part of me.

  Clarity comes and goes. Perspective comes and goes. But some memories get drilled into your mind more deeply than your consciousness and, even when you think you’ve forgotten them, they are always there. Manipulating your decision making.

  Here are some things I know:

  ߦ Those three crazy post-remission self-destruction weeks in hell were the kick-start to the person I am now.

  ߦ Those three crazy post-remission self-destruction weeks in hell sit in my skull as a reminder of a world I never want to return to.

  ߦ Without feeling the full throttle of those three crazy post-remission self-destruction weeks in hell, I would never have escaped it.

  So, you see, cancer ended up a giver more than a taker.

  Cancer gave me a new focus.

  Cancer gave me a wake-up call.

  Cancer gave me an empathy, an understanding, and an ability to help others.

  Cancer gave me my life back.

  Dear 28,

  As a twenty-eight-year-old, I didn’t know whether fifty was going to exist for me or not. I thought I might get to see twenty-nine, but even then I wasn’t certain. In essence it wasn’t that I didn’t think that I wouldn’t die, more that I couldn’t imagine NOT being around for another year. If that makes any sense (double negative madness). And it was that little bit of uncertainty that gave me fuel to make sure that my motor did more than just tick along.

  I am glad this letter won’t actually reach you, because I don’t really want to tinker with that motor. It’s a big reason that I am still here.

  Besides, going back to the future is so eighties!

  When I was you, I had to keep reminding myself that ‘future’ wasn’t a dirty word. That thirty, thirty-five, forty-five or even fifty might be a realistic proposition. Not a dream, or a fairy tale. And that ‘now’ was the greatest word of the lot. My ‘now’ was twenty-two years ago. And now. Twenty-two years feels like a lifetime ago. And yesterday. I always told myself then to trust in my instinct. I wasn’t totally sure that was true back then. Now I’m sure. How do I know I’m sure? Easy. Instinct!

  Why am I writing to you in this slightly self-conscious way?

  I have an instinct that reconnecting to my twenty-eight-year-old self will be really useful to the fifty-year-old me. I haven’t quite worked out why yet. Or even how. I may discover it along the way. I guess a big part of me is wondering if I have turned out the way you might have imagined I might.

  Was all that fight worthwhile?

  I think the reason it took twenty-two years to write this book, and indeed to properly communicate with you, was that I was always scared that the answer to that question might actually be NO.

  That I wasn’t worth fighting for.

  That I might be a disappointment to twenty-eight-year-old me.

  That nothing was gained by my survival.

  And I guess the reason that I have faced this now is that it has taken me twenty-two years to come to a still slightly hesitant, positive response to that question.

  As a twenty-eight-year-old, you burnt inside with the need to ask for help but you had too much pride to admit to the world that you needed that help. For the next few years, despite surviving a life-threatening illness, things didn’t really change. However desperate you might have been to reach out to someone, your own contrary antagonism forbade it. And that was so boring and painful for everyone. Especially you.

  I am now an ancient man of fifty and thankfully, finally, the walls of belligerence might be starting to crumble and an antidote to the fierceness might be in sight. I see a life worth living and a life worth being saved for. I see a perspective worth writing about. Life IS weird and perspective is our biggest crutch. We forget so quickly an
d then feel guilty for forgetting. We shouldn’t feel guilty. We should just keep re-remembering.

  Twenty-eight, if you could read this, the biggest thing I would want to say to you is this:

  Along the path of the next twenty years, take pause to breathe and try to accept help when offered. And even when you can’t, which is most of the time I suspect, be gracious in your refusal.

  I need you to know that I have thought of you every day for the last two decades. You have made me what I am becoming today and I will always be grateful for that.

  I owe my life to you.

  Yours always.

  50

  EPILOGUE

  In my nine-month fight to the finish, I came out ahead. Just.

  There were moments along the journey where cancer pulled away so far that I thought I’d never catch up, and other times where I went into cruise control thinking I had it licked, only to find it overtaking me on the inside rail.

  It was only once it was all over that I really looked back at the race and realised how close it had been. And it was only then, as now, that I was able to think about and honour those who didn’t make it.

  Tiny margins. That really is all it is.

  And in this race, it’s not skill or hard work that leads you over the finish line in front. It’s circumstance. And luck. And that’s the terrifying and heartbreaking thing. All this is pretty much out of our control.

  THE BODY HAS THE LAST WORD

  We can manipulate the way we choose to live our lives at this time. We can even determine who we want to spend it with and how. We can manufacture an environment that makes life as bearable as possible. But we can’t determine whether we live or we die. Even the best oncologists in the world can’t determine that. They can do as much as they can do. And that’s a lot. But ultimately it’s the body that has the last word. It’s the body that is more powerful than anything else. It’s the body that determines the why and how and if. We have no control. We are left feeling like we are treading water in quicksand without a life jacket.