After I finished my Abitur (Giving you the permission to study at a university) I did my substitute service instead of military service (which, no doubt, included as much drinking as having been a soldier would have). This is a fuzzy era, I only know that I hated this time and took every opportunity to feed my little alcohol monster.

After a year, I finally got to move out from my parents and have my first flat, I applied for university and for the next couple of semesters, you can imagine what happened: I indulged in my freedom, and the first two to three semesters went down the drain in a whirl of dope, alcohol and cigarettes. I had a couple of bands in which I couldn’t wait to have rehearsal or concerts to get a drink and I feverishly dreamt of becoming a coding nerd without a university degree (it was the time of the Dotcom bubble, when everyone who was able to use a mouse or keyboard thought he’d be the next Bill Gates. only after the crash of this bubble and the fact that many of my friends moved away, pursuing their proper goals of a good degree, I fell into a deep hole of self-pity and I went even deeper into the rabbit hole of drinking and dope. 4-5 beers an evening and at least one blunt were the average and still I dreamt of becoming a code master or something different without getting active.

I dreamt of becoming a designer, but my designs were awful. I dreamt of becoming a writer, but my drafts were awful. I dreamt of becoming a professional musician, but my practicing routine was awful. In the end, I decided on becoming a teacher.

That was, at least for the moment, the end to smoking cigarettes and dope. But the alcohol consumption got even worse, because the haunting monsters got stronger.