Party 'til you pass out / When the party's over

Oliver

In the days after my overdose, Alison hardly left my side. She was where I was, and she doted on taking care of me – even though I was perfectly fine again. I was taking my medication, which triggered my mental wellbeing for now, but I wasn't experiencing any withdrawal symptoms anymore. She wanted me to rest and process what had happened, I just wanted to stay busy and forget about it all. I didn't want anyone to know, because I didn't want any hate, so we left it as it was and didn't tell anybody. The start of therapy was scheduled in a week from now, despite me protesting against it, but she gave me no choice. It was either me going to therapy, or her saying she felt as if I didn't respect her enough if I didn't. Needless to say I had agreed on going, because I had the utmost respect for Alison for putting up with my difficult being and everything I had put her through. This was the least I could do for her – and myself.

We had been having deep conversations about our relationship and her trauma from finding me on the floor, drugged out and on the verge of being alive. I now saw how low I had really been, and how it had affected Alison and our marriage when I became aggressive against her. She confessed that she had felt really helpless and as if she was living with a stranger while I had been using, and she'd had no idea how she could help me because I didn't let her and also didn't let her in. I had just really fucked up again, and Alison had told me how she'd had the feeling it would escalate again and how there had been nothing she could do about it. She had been so scared to lose me to the one thing I obviously couldn't live without – besides her.

We had both cried a lot while talking about it, and I had never felt so guilty in my entire life as in that moment. It made me really see how I was hurting others with my behaviour, either intentional or not, and I just didn't want to be that person anymore. I wanted to do better – but how often had I already said I would try before? I knew the only thing I could do was work on myself and try to be better, but that there would always be a weakness inside me that could open up when I least expected it. I didn't want to accept that, but I guessed I just had to because it was just the way it was. Addiction was a chronic mental challenge, the only thing you could do about it was learning how to deal with it.

Talking to Alison helped, but writing my feelings down did even more, so I wrote pages full of lyrics that could be used for the new album. Jordan and I had been back to producing again, and we had finally gotten somewhere with the tracks that had been a work in progress for too long now. I had recorded some new lyrics, and Jordan had opted to get the rest of the lads involved soon now we were ready for instrumentals.

Kingslayer was still missing something, and Alison asked me if she could listen to what we had already recorded.

'What do you want it to sound like?,' she asked while sitting on my lap and listening intently. I shrugged.

'I don't know, like the intro of a sick anime?,' I joked. She laughed and listened until the track had ended.

'If you want it to sound like an anime-intro, you know what this needs?,' she asked.

'No?'

'A little Babymetal.' She smirked a bit and looked at me. I frowned and processed her words.

'As if Babymetal would do a collab with us.' Alison shrugged.

'You are working with other artists for this album, why not try Babymetal too?'

'I don't think that will work out.'

'You can always ask.'

'Ask who?'

'Their management.'