Unhinged

About Unhinged

Unhinged, A self-help guide on how to fuck up your life. Is a series of short stories that eventually led the author to his own sanity through the growth and years of his mid 20’s. It’s a satire at nature but highlights some confronting issues like suicide, anorexia and alcoholism. Unhinged is the third book from author Brendon Luke in his series of self-published stories based on real life.

Free excerpt of Unhinged

PART 1 – ACCEPTANCE

This book was not designed to deter you.

To give you any misleading facts, or try to guide you to some sort of “responsible life”.

It is simply here for you to read, judge, and hopefully let you learn that when you reach a certain point, when you reach a certain epiphany, you will hopefully find that saving grace, that you can always find within yourself. A sort of spiritual power you’ve created, to entrust your own thoughts, and act upon them. To know that limbo of any stage, right or wrong, that we all work differently. And it is only when we find the courage to trust our self as a whole, can we move forward with ease.

Sometimes, you just need to bolster the fuck up, and gain the courage to do it.

This book is a memory of what I don’t want to do. A memory of what many bad judgment calls can lead too. This book may be hypocritical at times, it is about mental health issues, alcoholism, anxiety, fighting for what is right. While also trying to discover who I am, no matter how long it took. To realise that everyone is different.

You’ll see sadness, the subtitles of life, and all the joys that come with it.

You should never be ashamed of who you are! You can disappoint yourself, and that’s ok, you can make huge life changing fuck ups, and that’s ok! But damn, I’d rather fucking try fucking something up, then to have never found the outcome, whether it ended successfully or not, I would learn from the outcome either way.

“There is a Buddha in all of us, it’s called buddhanature, the capacity of being aware of what is going on….There is a Buddha in every one of us, and we should allow the Buddha to walk”. (Thich Nhat Hanh, 2017, p.21)

Being a drunk is a full-time job, it eats into every part of your day. Do I have alcohol? When can I drink the alcohol? Do I have to work today or later? Can I drink a bottle before I need to start work?

To make this even more concerning, while I sit here and write this, I’m drinking my chalice of wine, 80s and 90s hits are playing in the background. Matt and Emma (my roommates), just arrive home from work, as I slouch on the couch. My laptop, present on the bench that has created so many stories before it.

I’ve always had an addictive personality, so what comes naturally with that, a drinking habit. You could say, I’m a functioning alcoholic. As in, I actually function better when I drink, than when I don’t.

If I’m hungover of course, I am less proactive and productive at doing things around the house, or even participating in my job enough to be useful. But as soon as I pick that glass of white wine up again that afternoon, “Brendon is back”. It’s like I’m a phoenix reborn. Drinking was my sense of identity, which in itself sounds like I am dependent on wine, and I fucking was.

I never let myself, find myself, without alcohol. There were periods where I had gone, 1 month, 3 months, and even that one time when I was 19, I didn’t have one thing to drink for a year.

Alcohol has always been an evil of society, rooted in deep destruction, a cause of mental health abuse. There is also the fact that alcohol makes life a hell of a lot more fun (Editor’s note: He probably wrote this drunk).

This book isn’t about allowing judgy bitches to pretend that they think going “alcohol-free”, “sets them free”. That may be the case for certain people, but just because it works for one person, doesn’t mean it works for all. This is my story, not anyone else’s, so take it in as a documentary, and decide for yourself. I’m not here to make you love me, hate me, or stalk me. As I used to say to Milena & Matt, my amazing housemates, YOU DO YOU!

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unhinged