Letter 03

Letter No 3 has been delivered! It’s amazing to see how far your words have travelled across the UK.

Within this project, I want the contributions to take centre. I told the anonymous writers that I would ask no further questions. So without further ado, the third response to the question, “Has A Sin Saved You?” :

Text:

“I am by no means a virtuous person, but I don’t think I’m an earthly sinner, either. I’m also not particularly religious, so my knowledge of what constitutes a sin is pretty limited. Someone smarter than me might know more about it — about the different sins that churches or religions consider inexcusable, but I don’t. The last time I was in a house of worship for a conviction I was part of I wasn’t making memories yet, and my folks, stoic Yorkshire people, only took me there as a suffice to say beyond the 10 commandments & the 7 big bads. I’m pretty much out on the whole thing.

I’m a glutton & a liar though, I know that much. I tend to think these go hand in hand. There’s a cognitive discipline that comes with being an obese alcoholic. It takes a lot of considered work to maintain this mess, let alone expand it, but at the same time wilful blinders to the type and quantity of food being consumed, amid the ABV of what I’m pouring down after it, that gives into it. A strange feeling, to have my waistline expand at the same time as the clutter of overlapping falsehoods I’m penning grows volumes, & teeth.

It’s not just my consumption I lie about, you see.

I’m gonna use a memory as an example.

I was in the Scouts. Camping and fires and institutional homophobia. We were on a camp, a week-long trip from deepest darkest Yorkshire to the heart of Sherwood Forest, the type shit some lads would kill for. I might have been 12, 13 11, 13 max. Me and some friends had smuggled honestly a cartoonish amount of booze for 4 prepubescent kids.

And we drank it. I knew, even then, that I was different — not gay, but something else you don’t go blabbing about in an environment like that. Anyway, I went off for a piss, hazy, muddled off a mixture of ouzo, beer, baileys, whiskey & some sweet liqueur. And there, drunk and uncritical, with my friends feet away, I masturbated It took me fucking ages, my first experience of whisky dick. Everyone knew what I was doing: they had to have. The next day, after the vomiting and punishment, no one spoke about it ever again, why would they.

While that became one of hundreds, thousands of memories I pretended (lied) had no power over me, I confess it now as maybe the first example of the pattern that came to define the next 15 years of my life. Lying to everyone, and most ardently myself about everything. (“Yeah I’m fine.” “Yeah, she’s so hot.” “Yeah, I’m not gay” etc) with substance the only avenue through which I could slip off the yoke I’d made for myself and maybe, just maybe, connect with someone emotionally or physically. No matter how fleeting, permeating or surface these connections may have been, no matter how many times I would wake up, any memory of the night before- since drowned in high-proof alcohol, wondering what happened for sure, whether what part of an accidental act of alcohol-induced revelation or just another careful impact that let me seem to be — at someone that someone could love, a connection had been made, and I craved it.

This isn’t just a confession (though maybe the Catholics are on to something there). I promise there’s a point. Has a sin ever saved me? These ones did, for a time. For nearly 15 years they were my only outlet for feelings otherwise unacknowledged, and through them I even snagged myself a fella, so they were working(?) A sad life, in retrospect, but lucky I didn’t have to wait for hell to be punished for them.

At 27 I was at a house party, drinking heavily and saying little, when I met a woman. This woman, good GOD. Her poise and style and confidence and mind prove that people for whom the world opens graciously, for whom the darkness refracts around and for whom loyalty & truth & the love of knowing kindness exists exist, in the real world; & they aren’t just on the telly. These lovely fucks walk among us.

That was that. I was in love. Only 2 problems: I was wasted, and I was in a relationship. (Well, the closest thing I’d had to one up to that point, a whiplash rollercoaster fuelled by booze, cocaine, MDMA and a desperate desire to not sleep in a cold bed).

Nothing happened between us, me and the woman. (I’m a great many things but I’m NOT an adulterer) and I was cursed to go on with my life knowing this woman existed.

And so I fell back on the ol’ faithfuls. I lied to myself that I was happy where I was & who I was there with & when it didn’t work I gladly obliterated all thought of her with whatever I could find that’d do the job.

Six months this went on, with me not acknowledging that another sin had entered the fray; I was coveting, and coveting BAD.

Eventually, and for the first time in my life, the sin of lying wasn’t enough. I had to be honest with myself, confront myself and act, and I did. Free of my relationship, me and this woman, we eventually went on a date. It’s been 3 years this Monday just gone.

And here’s the thing. I can’t lie to this woman. By god I’ve tried, but this woman, this incredible she/they, she’s too smart to believe in, too worldly to accept in and too kind to enable my lying. I can’t hide like I once would.

The gluttony is my thing to deal with (neatly said ‘my cross to bear’, but that feels a bit much, y’know?) and it’s one she doesn’t judge me for, she accepts me for what I am and loves me regardless.

In doing so I’ve only come to love her more.

In doing so I’ve realised I want to stick around for her.

As a result of her, I’ve been sober for 3 months.

So, to the question. Has a sin saved me?

Sin led me to her, but it was a woman that did the saving.

— A
17/10/25

P.S. Sorry for the handwriting. I’m on a train. Fuck I wish you could still smoke on trains.”