Written by Lindsay Melrose Wednesday, 08 June 2011 17:28

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WITHDRAWAL

By Lindsay Sheehan

My name is Lindsay Sheehan and I am an Arsenal addict.
I have been clean and sober for 2 weeks, 3 days, 2 hours and 17 minutes.

I cannot cope with the Cold Turkey. My teeth are chattering and there’s a crawling beneath my skin driving me to distraction. I know what I need, what my body craves and my mind demands.

It's The fucking Arsenal.

I know, I know, it was me that wanted a break. I'd had enough of their pointless beauty and their sink into abject humiliation. After the Stoke game I actually hated them an ickle bitty. I wished I could leave them, could move on, try a spot of lower league or something. So when the season finally ended I was jubilant. No more fuckers in my life - for months! No more Mugabe lockdown. No more sneaking past the Manc tosser on the front desk at work. No more heartache. I was going to do something this summer. Something other than football. Something fun. Something that would expand my horizons. After all, I love The Arts, I am passionate about most sports and I was going to prove to The Arsenal that they are by no means the only show in town. Meh.

Erm, today is the June 8th and I've done bugger all but mope. Doesn’t time trickle slowly without Arsenal? I’ve felt every second tick tick past as if it were an hour. Therefore, it's conclusive; I am actually, mentally, a little bit poorly. Clearly, some rotter stole one of my picnic sandwiches when my gaze was adverted and now I’m a bit short.

Let’s take a large step back into sanity and have a close look at us lot shall we? Tell me if this sounds like you…..

Are you currently reading every Arsenal blog to be found in cyberspace? Getting square eyes from watching Arsenal YouTube clips? Scouring every transfer whisper for a shred of truth? Talking, arguing, tweeting, debating, facebooking who we should sign or sell? Pacing around the weekend staring into a beer can thinking 'I know there is something else I should be doing?'

If you answered yes to even 10% of this you are in it with me my friend, but I suspect affirmative answers were given to nearer 100%.

Have you ever counted how many Arsenal blogs, sites, pages podcasts, articles, songs and photoshops there are out there? How many people devote their precious spare time to us?  How many Gooners you've met on twitter or Facebook? How many people you know, or have come to know, who eat breathe sleep and smell Arsenal? It's a rampant and global addiction. These fellow addicts are there 24/7 to enable your affliction. There is always someone to cajole/console/celebrate/sing-along and laugh with (after trawling through it all myself I truly believe that Gooner humour is unrivalled)

Let me give you a quick illustration of filling the boredom by twitter’s @keiththegooner (btw if you haven’t read Arsewars or Arsebandits by Daryl Booth and Keith, you need to) Get ready to raise your lighter.

(To the tune of Candle in the Wind)

“Goodbye France's rose. May you ever be quick on your toes,

You were the grace that placed itself. Defences torn apart...

You called out to The Arsenal. And you left Tottenham in pain. Like an angel from sweet heaven The goals you scored at The Lane...

And it seems to me that you lived your life like an angel on the wing. Never showering with Pulis When the teams came in

And your footsteps will always fall here Along Arsenal's greenest field. Your candles burned out long before Your Princess looks will......”

(Dedicated to Princess Nasri Now sign that bloody contract before I do a horrible song you midget!)

But gallows humour aside, this Arsenal addiction can hurt. It wracks our bodies with psychical pain as the latest score line hits like Tyson uppercut. And the mental damage? Well we all watched that geezer here and thought “Thank fuck no one had a camera pointed in my direction during that match” didn't we? It can ruin friendships, love connections and work environments.

I don't know about you but in my non Arsenal life I'm quite sensible. I am a mother, a wife, an office manager. But when it comes to Arsenal I'm a child, a brat, a bona fied window-licking nut job.

So why? Why oh why oh why do we do this? What is it that drives us to feed this obsession? The tribe mentality some say. The belonging, the us against them. Primal survival feelings evolution installed in us awoken once again by our common love of the team. We paint our faces, we dance, we sing, we are like warriors going to battle against a common hated foe.

It’s the football say others. The game, the tactics, the goals, the talent, the ascetics. The fact that it can be played pretty much anywhere and by anyone. That it can transport you, albeit briefly, far away from miseries and troubles. History gives us a famous example - the game played on Christmas Day 1914 during World War I, where soldiers from both sides forgot combat, climbed out of trenches and had a kick about in No Mans Land.

Third, and my preferred option, is that it's the potency of The Arsenal drug. Like some mythological Siren she calls us hither, to either breathlessly kiss or to smash us head first onto jagged rocks. Like Crystal Meth, only one taste is enough for a lifelong dependency.

Anyway I'm getting poetically carried away. I'm no shrink - I don't know why we persist. All I know is, right now I'm miserable. More miserable than when they are shite, because at least when they are shite, they are there.

And come on then, let’s discuss the elephant in the room. This summer is really, really important. Transfer windows usually see us Gooners stuck in the Tiny Tim role, with our nose pressed up against cold glass watching the other kids get the train sets and dollies. But this time Cinderelllas, we've got to have invites to the Ball surely? For we are on the cusp. The cusp of what we are unsure. How it plays out could see us back to glory days or fall further rungs down the ladder. Currently we are all holding our breath to see which way it's gonna go. All of this makes our withdrawal worse. We need information and we need it desperately while we fight the fear that all is lost.

As the song goes (altogether now)

'You are my Arsenal, my only Arsenal.

You make me happy when skies are grey. You'll never know just.

How much I love you.

Please don't take my Arsenal away'

Well they did, and I miss em. Badly. Meh.

PS Have we signed anyone yet?

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