My Demon

When I was nearing 18, I was diagnosed with epilepsy.

If you've read other blogs of mine, you'd see I was always getting drunk.
I was working long hours, getting paid well and blowing it on booze and fags, clubs and pubs. But I never did drugs.
To this day I still blame myself.

I hide my epilepsy from everyone I meet, even people I work with as I am ashamed of my weakness.
I have never let it get in the way or used it as an excuse not to perform.

I'm finding it so hard to write about, maybe because I have not dealt with it in my head yet, I don't know.

But there I was nearly 18, with the world at my feet....
When I had my 1st full blown fit.
I remember being in the canteen at work, then waking up in a trolley bed as I was put in an ambulance.
My mum was there, I could see the hurt and disappointment in her face.
We both knew, it was an epileptic fit although months and tests had to pass before I was officially diagnosed.
When I was diagnosed in some way I felt relief. Maybe because my manager had told everyone that I had taken some E's in a club and I was worried about my job.
I will always remember the conversation I had with the consultant. When she told me I had epilepsy and that I will have to make sacrifices in my life, I asked her if I could still drink and go clubbing (I was 18!).
She replied 'no. Your not normal now!'
Fucking bitch shot me right down.

At first I was still up to my old tricks. Who wouldn't at 18?
But it was telling. No matter I was on tablets to control my condition, the booze was effecting it.
I was still running to work and having my legs swept away from me, or jumping with a knife.
I have about 15 stitches to prove it! This was not good, As a danger to myself and the butchery team around me, that often had patience around me and let me try and fix myself.
My biggest wake up was when I was opening up on my own. I started early and as I was working and jumping every couple of minutes. I tried to control the epilepsy, in my head, but when you're tired or stressed, it's harder.
The next thing I know, I'm on the floor waking up with a boning knife in my hand. I do not know how I managed not to cut myself, but it scared the shit out of me.
From that day I promised never to get pissed on a work night. Always be in control. Always.
I am always fighting in my head, I want to be able to let go and not be in control for a night, but know the next day I will pay for it.
Pay for it with jumps or a fit.
Fits scare the hell out of me.
I still have plenty of jumps, due to not enough sleep, or working long hours, this could lead onto a fit, but I control them in my head, and I'm winning.

I am better than the condition and see it as a challenge to control the cunt. I fucking hate it to the bone and want it gone, but we can't choose how we walk, all we can do is wear the right shoes.

Smoking

I started smoking at 16, getting pissed and smoking after school over the park.
I'd often meet up with some mates, even if they were not on it, I'd get on it. Super tenants as well. Fuck me. I couldn't handle that stuff now.
I used to drink 2 cans and be proper fucked outta my face!
This is when I played with smoking.
It wasn't till I started working full time that I started smoking full time. If I'm honest with myself, I did it to fit in with my work mates.
Mug!!
I smoked around 20 a day. This intensified when I was out drinking. I had proper yellow fingers.
Great look for a 17 year old.
It soon became a part of my life.
In pubs it would be sup your drink, lug on the fag. All night.
I used to play sunday league football. Great times, may I add. Everyone else would be having an orange at half time. I'd be lighting up a fag. Shit, looking back It wasn't big. I was a twat

The biggest thing that has held me back throughout my life has been the smoking.
Everyone makes choices. Even little choices, like what shall I eat? Or shall I have a fag!
This choice was always for another fag. In october last year i took a picture of myself with my newborn baby. To be honest, I was shocked. I don't spend all day looking in mirrors or having my picture done.
I had lost so much weight, I looked ill. I had never looked so bad in all my life. There was a dodgy man I didn't recognise in the picture with my girl.

I knew it was the fags doing it and with my precious baby in my arms, id give anything for being apart of her life. For longer and for fitter.
My kids and my Mrs are the most important thing to me.
I decided right there and then, that I had to stop. Make a change.

I went to the doctors and did the non smoking course, with the tablets. After 10 days, November 6th 2011 I had my last fag. The tablets were making me feel sick, terrible. I've never known a mind fuck like it. It totally messed my head up.
I couldn't sleep, kept on feeling sick and throwing up. My epilepsy was pushing me hard to have a seizure but I managed to control it.
I make it sound easy. But stopping
Smoking was the biggest challenge I've had in my life. Any smoker can not smoke for a day, but try a week from 20-30 a day. Then try a month.
Many do not succeed. Not because they are weak, but because they are not ready.

From going from no food throughout the day to 5 curly wurlys, a full English breakfast and picking all day. I put on weight fast. I don't know how much.
But now I am 2 sizes bigger in my clothes and I have flab! Yes for the 1st time in my life, I have flab. And I love it. When I run, I wobble!
I've never been like this before, I know I'm overweight now and I'm constantly getting the piss taken out of me. But I don't care, I have gone through hell to get here and I know I have a long way to go. I still have not controlled my eating and drinking.
I need to control that and get fit. This will be my next step.
And I must stress to you, that although it's been months since I stopped smoking. I think of fags everyday. I could quite easily have a fag now.
I still often wake up in the night wanting a fag and live through the nightmares.

People often ask me "how long have you stopped for?" well, I never count the days as its the past. I always look forward. I take everyday as it comes and fight the urges of fags, when I get that nibble wanting one.
Like I said quit day 6 November 2011
Still winning!

Growing up fast

When I was 16 I was earning a fair packet as a porter. I was out most nights drinking and smoking, and getting wasted.
When I started work. This only intensified.
By the time I was 17 1/2 I was on the shorts and shots. Pissed most nights. Smoking 25-35 fags a day. Then back on it the next day. Plus hitting the clubs on a Friday and Saturday night.
When I look back, I regret some of the things I did, but wouldn't change a thing.
I often came to work, hung over or still pissed.
I had a butchery manager that was young himself and although a cowboy, helped me out a great deal. He helped me sober up by feeding me up and sugary drinks. He also had a thing for beating the shit outta me. But that's another blog!
on one occasion I was that sick, I threw up in a case of chickens. The smell of meat at an early age and sickness didn't go.
My drinking binges and late nights with early starts, was effecting me, more than I could of possibly realise.
I was burning the candles at both ends...
Many times, I would be late getting up for work and had to run, to save myself from a beating. Literally.
When I ran, I always remember falling over. As if someone had taken my legs away. This happened many times, but I just blamed the drink. I never thought it could be anything else.
One Friday night I went clubbing, as usual. Got pissed as usual. Got up for work the next day as usual. But something was different. The same late routine I was running and my legs were taken away from me, got up. Dusted myself down. Did a couple of hours work, had the normal shakes and jerks. But this time, they were controlling me and I was scared. So I took myself to the canteen to grab a mars bar to help me.
The next thing I know was when I woke up. I had, had an epileptic fit.
Later I was diagnosed.

Meat Manager

So when we start our first ever full time job, we all have expectations, on how it's gonna be. What will the people be like.
My 1st job was no different. I was taken on by a young manager, who looked old before his time.
He was a good talker, great talker. Knew what to say, when to say it and who to say it to.
I liked him, I looked up to him.

When I first started, he made it known that he never wanted me but a qualified butcher but his hands were tied.

I had never been on the end of negativity before, so I didn't know how to take it. I kinda went in a shell at work.
I tried to keep my head down and prove him wrong.
I understand now, why he was like it to me. He was a young manager, inexperienced and was in charge of a business that had 2 experienced butchers, more so than himself that were a lot older and wiser than him. He did it to show them control and he was a bully.
So my start in the butchery game was hard. I would be shouted out all day, everyday. Proper screamed at!
Ramsey style!!
I would be humiliated at his pleasure.
I could walk into the fridge to get some stock out and the lights would go off. He'd then give me a kick In, in the fridge. For my cockiness or answering him back.
This was my first year in the meat trade.
But like all bully's once you stand up to them, it's all different.
I have always liked him and respected him despite this.
I know the feeling was mutual.
He may have had his bad attributes but he also had some very good ones. He took me under his wing and genuinely wanted the best for me.
He was very funny and a charmer!
He also taught me a lot about meat and life, for that I'm also forever grateful.

From trainee butcher to sceptic

As I left school, I was offered a job in a supermarket as a trainee butcher.
When I first started working there we was taking around 25k a week on meat and poultry.
This job was a great introduction into the trade.
To be fair, when I first started we was boning out all pork and lamb. We just had vacuum pac beef.

But success of the trade and supermarkets was our downfall.
The busier we got, the more boneless the products became.
I worked in the store for 10 glorious years. I say glorious because I loved the people more than the job, but like all things have to come to an end.
As I said, we got busier. We took on average 100k a week when I left, so the environment I had worked in had slowly changed to like a process plant. Slice and pack. Slice and pack.
It was awful.
The meat quality had drastically changed too, as the supermarkets were after the same margins but with most of the work being done before touching the stores.

Today, As you know, now....the stores buy all the meat in pre-packed and it's absolutely tasteless. So if the same margins are achieved, how is this possible at such a low sales price?
Farmers losing out, genetically modified products/animals, animal rights, growth stimulation, added components. These are just a few reasons why it is so cheap.........and none of this is right or healthy.

Passion

When we leave school, we are all meant to have dreams and inspirations and a career mapped out for us.
All I was interested in was football.
My life revolved around playing football, watching football and football on the computer!
So when I left school, I looked towards the people in my life that I looked up to.
My mum was a manager in retail for a major supermarket.
My stepdad was a meat buyer and 2 of my uncles were butchers.
Butchery and management were crying out to me!
I started off working in the same store as my mum as a porter, trolley wolly whilst I was doing my exams. When I finished I looked for full-time employment, but nothing really grabbed my attention. Then the store I was working part-time at, had a position come up as a trainee butcher.
I took it.
This is where I would start my journey......................