Woman of Substances by Jenny Valentish

Author:Jenny Valentish [Valentish, Jenny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788541626
Publisher: Anima

10

YOUR BRAIN AS A SLOT MACHINE

Other risky behaviours that hit the dopamine jackpot

THIS CHAPTER COULD EQUALLY have been called ‘Actually, doctor, there is something else…’ Since one angle on addiction is that it’s merely a symptom of psychological malaise, someone dependent on substances is likely to have other symptoms of that malaise. The most common symptomatic bedfellows are pathological gambling, compulsive sexual behaviour, compulsive internet use, compulsive buying and kleptomania, all of which are colloquially referred to as addictions.

‘Been Caught Stealing’ was Jane’s Addiction’s biggest hit, and quite the anthem in 1990. In his jerky bray, Perry Farrell describes his girlfriend stuffing supermarket loot down her skirt with gleeful entitlement. Coincidentally, 1990 was when my own stealing career began.

There’s a certain newsagent at London’s Paddington Station – it’s changed its configuration now – that back then you could stroll into through one door and exit out another half a kilo heavier, as if you were just passing through. I’d want to buy the NME and a Mars bar, but funds were tight if I were also to afford my four-pack of Gold Label Very Strong Special Beer (that’s actually what it’s called). This conundrum coincided with the new presence of a loud voice in my head that said, ‘I want to do something bad.’ Okay, nicking stuff from WHSmith was hardly a criminal masterplan, but having been in a fug of despondency I suddenly felt like I had purpose.

When I moved out of home, things escalated. I stole food from the share-house fridge; packs of cigarettes from pub tables; clothes from shops; jewellery from market stalls; people’s boyfriends. When I got caught – which was almost always – I felt shame, but it was mixed in with anger, that people couldn’t see past the stealing to the turmoil beyond it. I was just misunderstood.

It was a mystery to me why morals didn’t come naturally. They’d been drilled into me, all right, but they didn’t kick in automatically at the correct age of development. I learned via the most circuitous route that nobody likes a thief. And public humiliation was fortunately the silver bullet I needed to kill off the desire.

As Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker warned in ‘Common People’ – in which a middle-class girl seeks the novelty of working-class life – nobody likes a tourist. But having just left home I launched myself into a North London community of squatters with anthropological zeal. As a young teenager I’d loved Penelope Spheeris’s 1984 film Suburbia about a group of punk outcasts. Now I’d infiltrated such a group. My handler was called Fiona.

I’d met Fiona through the NME penpal ads. She had bleached dreads with shaved sides, and wore furry day-glo shorts with tons of hoops up her ears… exactly like me. Her room in a dingy council flat was cheered up with bright appliqués of 1960s-style flowers. The drug-taking was cheerful, too. If we were going out to a rave she’d make us both a berry-flavoured squash and then shake some speed into it, a nice little ritual in front of the telly.

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