Addiction memoirs are rarely sought out for their humour and levity. Yet in this piece, Sarah Hiscox reflects on the moments of humour and absurdity that punctuated her journey to recovery and why an honest and balanced account of both the darkness and light was essential to her writing.

I’ve recently published a memoir, The Beginning and End of Everything. The book charts my descent from a crippling food disorder to a crippling heroin addiction and the loss of everything I once held dear. Sounds fun doesn’t it?! Just what we need now, a grim depressing tale of someone’s loss of self and everything that mattered to them. It’s not really a laugh a minute, In fact, I’d probably go out of my way to avoid picking that up at a Waterstones on the way home from work.

I’ve read a lot of addiction memoirs and although powerful, I get to a point where I just can’t take anymore misery; I can’t read about another overdose or another child being taken away from its mother, it’s just too much.

When I decided to write my book, I had all those shattering elements in my story, it was crucial to let my readers know the truth of where my addiction took me, how far I’d sunk and how much I’d lost, but what I didn’t want to do was bathe in the agony, to douse the reader in torment, or worse, to revel in self-pity. It’s difficult to find humour in the utter devastation, but some of the people I met and some of the situations I found myself in were funny and I wanted to include those, to give everyone a break, to give myself a break.

I got clean nearly 25 years ago; there has been a fair distance between me and my using now, so I suppose I’m able to see some lightness in my story at times. I don’t think I could have written it any earlier, it was so raw for so long.

I struggled with the right balance, with trying to get it right. I was worried I’d be judged and God forbid the reader didn’t think I took what happened seriously. Some of what happened still haunts me now, I can lie awake at night and torture myself with images from that desperate time; some of the terrible things that happened; at the court where I was separated from my children, the afternoon in the park with my son who didn’t want to be with me, these are still unbearable for me to think about. But there had to be some levity otherwise I don’t think I could have gotten through it, I don’t think I could have written it.

The East End gangster born again Christians were very funny, their blacked-out range rovers and WWJD engraved gold chains were literally, comedy gold. Humour gave me a chance to escape the grim reality of what was going on and inject some lightness into an otherwise desperate situation. I couldn’t have written it any other way.

I hope I’ve got it right. I’ve had the most incredible, heartfelt messages from people I don’t know, relaying how their father or mother, sister or brother, best friend or uncle has been affected by addiction and how what I’ve written has helped them understand it a little better. That’s been a huge affirmation for me, not to be judged, not to be told I’m a terrible person and don’t deserve to have children, which was what I feared. They’ve almost all mentioned the humour too, not made a big deal of it but just mentioned they enjoyed it. So hopefully I did get it right, but it wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t had a happy ending and who doesn’t love one of those?