Coming Home

Hi Will,

Sorry for the late reply (I think this is coming a year after I got your email, so if you’ve topped yourself with post-climbing frustration — my apologies). I’m writing this on a plane with no TVs (an Air Canada flight so old we have wooden seats and the entertainment is a guy playing the piano), so this could ramble. I do the writing for free, but reading and editing the crap is extra. If you pick through the garbage of my words and find something edible — maybe even a lump of gold (rolled gold at best) — know I didn’t put it there. The more I write these blogs and read the feedback, positive and negative (mainly negative), the more I realise what I say is nothing compared to what’s lurking behind the reader’s eyes.

Now before I begin, I hate to start with the same old guff comparing climbing mountains to addiction, but like all clichés it’s a good one for a reason. I apologise in advance for the cod metaphysical bullshit (I make it up as I go along).

So here we go. It’s a winding trail as usual, but stick with it.

The problem with addiction is often not just the chemical dependency (the pusher being a guy on a dark street corner or some gland inside your brain), but the fact that your “drug” is the key to escaping what appears on the surface to be a flat, bland, mundane world. Give anyone a magic pill to fly from life’s demands, commitments and anxieties — or for some, poverty, desperation and depression — and it’s hard to turn it down. Pushers come in all flavours. This escape — the ticket to ride — is the driver behind most drugs, legal and illegal, natural and unnatural: heroin or the BASE rig, meth or a surfboard.

Consider what it really means to “lose yourself” and how it’s often those least in need of being lost — the stable and self-assured — who go searching for that disengagement.

I once knew a German woman who said that in East Germany, under Communism, there was rampant casual sex, strangers propositioning each other at bus stops. Perhaps only in that raw moment did the mind of the beast forget it was caged. I’d sum up sex addiction as the need to return to that single moment where everything else is blocked out — connection with nothing else. The “hit” isn’t the problem. The addiction is the desire to be lost again.

The more you escape this world — at least at first — the more faded it becomes. Meanwhile the single dose no longer creates the bridge you need. A dangerous mix. One day you’re top-roping an easy climb in Yorkshire, the next you’re on a new route in Antarctica — and it feels the same. Writers love that line about missing the mountains at home, then missing home in the mountains. Addiction breaks bonds with your real world while strengthening the pull of the one you can’t stay in. Some imagine they can fully disengage and never return. But reality always comes with you. Often what you end up wanting is what you already had.

Unless misfortune befalls you, the certainty is you must come back. “High.” “Coming down.” Who doesn’t want to be a kite? One twist is that addiction often makes you more aware, strips polish from the mind so you see clearly the horror of what you’re doing. BASE jumping is a clean example: man climbs, jumps, lands alive — or not. Watching someone see friends die and still jump themselves is like watching someone drink to death, only in a more Red Bull way (consider those words: Red Bull).

But this isn’t about addiction. It’s about coming home. Coming down.

Each time we return we are changed. That’s why we go — to cross the boundary, be lost, then return slightly different. You felt it the first time. As soon as you were down and safe you knew you had to go back. That’s the addict’s loop.

Amy Winehouse once said at the peak of her career that life was shit when you’re not on drugs. Is that more tragic than a dad at his daughter’s birthday party dreaming of Cerro Torre? I’ve been that addict.

The comedown is easy at first. The memory is still in your system. There’s an afterglow. I chase that moment — freedom from the addiction. I say things like “I’m going to stop” or “settle down.” I sent Vanessa a text from El Cap this year saying I just wanted to climb fun routes with her. She replied I’d sent almost the exact same message from the Eiger two years before.

“Hi, I’m Andy. I’m an addict.”

Now the hard bit. If your going away hurts those around you, causes them worry, strain, or the pain of imagining you dead (my daughter once told me she imagines the scenario every time I leave), that’s an issue. Love can take strain, but only so much. Often the first problems come on your return. While you’ve had the best experience of your life, they’ve had the opposite — exclusion. Empathy is key. Tone down the epic tales. Remember this issue is born from love. If your partner didn’t care whether you lived or died, how would that feel?

Then there’s the mild PTSD effect. Weeks in intense environments change you. It takes time to adapt. Don’t make huge life decisions on the comedown. Stability matters. Many people return from expeditions and split up, quit jobs, marry — when they’re simply out of balance.

You’ve also built bonds with people who’ve seen you at your best and worst. Breaking those bonds hurts. Old soldiers form groups not to celebrate war, but to be with those who understand. You shared something defining.

Another shock is returning from simple life to complex life. In the mountains it’s move, eat, sleep, climb. No bills. No emails. Then suddenly you’re in TK Maxx hunting bargains. Of course you feel strange.

But there are not two worlds. Only one varied reality. You are the same person in Patagonia as in plastic boots in Sheffield. The art is integration.

Some think going away more will fix the comedown. I don’t buy it. The itch is often internal. Some people will never be content. Acknowledge that.

Also don’t let preparation consume your home life. It’s better to be 20% less fit and return to a healthy life than 100% fit and return to ruins.

For me the happiest person I know is Vanessa. She treats every day like “playing out.” Running, swimming, climbing, nice tea, Home and Away. Big trips planned, yes — but today matters. So when she comes home, she still has today.

Lastly, ask why you go away. Love of climbing? Job? Fame? Escape? Validation? Running from something? Knowing that helps explain why coming home is hard.

The art is equilibrium. Master both versions of yourself. Control it. Don’t be its slave. Going away should not create unhappiness.

Also never forget: they’re just holidays.