Drains, a Life of Adversity.

Drains is a true story.

Drains, a Life of Adversity. I was three years old, I had been lost in the woods and, in a separate incident, fallen down a drain where I remained for quite some time before being found and rescued by neighbouring housewives searching for me.

When I was five, I was spat at, name-called and beaten by a vicious classmate.

By the time I was six, I had become very drunk while on a family holiday abroad and spent the next day badly hungover.

At the age of 15, an attempted stabbing of me took place by a terrifying youth, and at sixteen, I suffered a severe beating at the hands of several locals for wearing the wrong coloured coat.

The mayhem, drinking and attracting violence stayed with me for most of my years before I fell into a condition known as agoraphobia.

I overcame all four afflictions when I discovered martial arts and found beautiful love in the form of my wife and three children.

Then, as I entered my thirties, those afflictions (minus the agoraphobia) returned. Violent men led me to heavy drinking, which brought back the mayhem. I answered to men with guns for my Father's sins, and later on, these same sins brought the IRA into my life. "Pay your Da's debts, or we hurt your children, then kidnap you". They validated these threats by providing me with personal information that could only be obtained by someone who had watched me for some time. "About two months we have been following you for", the amiable Irish chap told me. "That's a good school your children go to," he continued before naming the school, class and my baby's names.

I paid my Father's debts, and conflicts were resolved, but the damage had been done. Added to by vile threats to me from my Dad himself, I fell...big time.

Martial Arts and my healthy passion for the fighting world disappeared, and my family almost followed until I found myself lying in a hospital bed, full of drink and on the brink of a disastrous adventure from which I may not have recovered.

"I thought you were going to die in the hospital", a very tearful Julie told me afterwards, later on, much later on, after I recovered.

'Not again, I thought to myself, not again.''

Determined, I decided that no more would I let mayhem take from me what was mine. It was time to climb out of the drain... and so I did.

I have been called a failure...I am seen as a Father,

I have been called a spaz...I have been successful,

I have lost, and I have won,

I have been hated, and I have been hugged, but perhaps most importantly, I have been called a waster, and yet I have been named a Warrior.

Taken from the books "An Everyday Warrior" by Simon Morrell, 8th Dan Black Belt, Complete Combatives.