Sunday
Woke up. It's Sunday, it's the long one.....oh yes, of course, I'm not in training anymore. What the hell do i do now? No long one to dread, plan, look forward to! Christ i have my Sundays back. Well when i say that, i never really lost them anyway. I mean the long one only really took up 2-3 hours. It still left more than enough ME time. I guess there will just be more ME time on Sundays from now on. For ME to do what ME wants.
The weather was gruesome but i awoke in a pretty chipper mood. Toddled off to a meeting, and proceeded to listen to things that genuinely made me look at the beams in the ceiling and wonder if they took a strong rope. Depressing.
Now It's not for me to criticize AA meetings (i did fuck loads of that in my early days), or to blow anonymity and i must be careful with it because it is anonymous and i must treat it with respect. I love it, it helps me more than i can ever help it. It saves lives, it has saved millions of people's lives from a near fatal death of alcoholism. So I'm a big fan. It is superb. It has some superb people and as i said I'm a massive fan. It has developed a load of sister fellowships and is genuinely superb.
But sometimes, you go to a meeting and it is a collection of people moaning, groaning and showing fake concern to someone struggling, only to walk straight past them after the meeting not really giving a fuck. Sometimes It is a long slow tape of people queuing up to wallow in their own self pity and negative thinking without a stop button, Basically it's like sitting through a DVD box set of Foyles War with Radiohead on full blast. Gruesome.
When i went there at 28, nearly 12 years ago. I fucking hated it. Oh god it was the last place on earth i wanted to be. I wanted to rock, to drink, to party, to get out of it, to have fun to be the last man standing. A fighter, a fucker, a legendary drinker of thrills and spills and nurofen plus. I wanted to be special. To be someone.
The fact i was a 16 stone, Middle Manager Sales Executive, a ball of hate and frustration and paranoia, where my idea of social drinking was a night at the Wheatsheaf followed by loads of booze at home, in my dressing gown, with my nuts and fat gut out, drinking, smoking, listening to repeated loops of 'Lucky Man' by the Verve and 'Do it Again' by Steely Dan. Trying to ring people late at night or planning how i was going to be a success. Fuck knows at what but it was all in my power at 3am and seeing double. I was legend in my own living room, a rebel without a clue. I was lost.
So when i finally crashed and burned. (My bird left me - not that underneath my male pride I'm totally co-dependant on females propping me up of course) - i Made a decision to stop drinking and sought help through AA. However there were two problems to this decision. 1 - I hated AA and 2 - I didn't want to stop drinking. Another partial success
How the hell could sitting in dreary Church Halls cure my problems? Bollocks to that i thought. I need professionals.
So it was back to many bouts of heavy drinking. Not the romantic sort glamorised in films, movies or books about legendary hell raisers. I lived in London, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Where fashion, art, clubs and the beautiful all hang out and party. Me? Well i was having my own party largely in the Bedford Arms, Tooting Broadway Snooker Club and my sofa. Blackouts, arrests, verbal warnings all came back. It never got better. The closest i came to female action was licking out a Donner at 4am. It wasn't quite made in Chelsea. More Made in Catford. It was real and gritty.
So, when i finally gave up the ghost and thought 'fuck it, I'll give this AA a go' i was resigned to a life of total glumness. No fun. I'll Never get laid. I'll never go out. I'll Become virtuous.I'll Never swear, I'll always Wear V Neck jumpers and mow the lawn on a Sunday. Kill me now i thought. It's all over at 28. I'm finished.
My first meeting was full of old people, drinking tea, there were biscuits on doilies for fucks sake. All the men wore v neck jumpers with AA pendants hanging down like a poor man's Peter Aliss or Val Doonican and all the women wore twin set and pearls and clearly had been watching far too much Keeping Up Appearances. I thought to myself. 'How the fuck did i end up here'.
After pissing and moaning my way around meetings in London, i was pulled up by an Irish bricklayer at The Oval one morning. He had a nose that was more sideways than the rain, a face that looked like he'd had more fights than Ricky Hatton. He was huge, He was tough and he was 20 years sober. He said to me, 'if you don't like it or think you're an alcoholic then there's the door. Go an try some more controlled drinking and come back when you're ready"
I stopped. He was a low bottom drunk. I wasn't. He was 20 years sober, i wasn't. I knew all my problems were to do with drink. i knew i couldn't ever stop when i wanted to. i knew i blacked out. I knew it would get worse. i knew my family was riddled with it. I didn't have a clue what alcoholism was. i didn't even know i was one. But i listened, shut the fuck up and gave it a try for 3 months.
Turned out to be the best decision i made. Good one Nick
I identified, i knew deep down i was an alcoholic. My friends didn't, even my family as i hid it and wasn't as bad as the father and elder brother. They drank more. I wasn't on the streets, in prison, in rehab, in hospital. I still had a job (just) but really i knew i was bang in trouble. It was all starting to go. I was arrested, blacked out lots, had fights, lost relationships, got warnings at work. Pissed myself. Basically i would sort it out and then 1-2 years later the girlfriend i kidnapped or job i blagged would find out the real me and the chaos began. It would never get better.
So i clung on to AA. Don't get me wrong i still fucking hated it. I judged everyone, timed people's shares, chased people out the room who said they were grateful 7 times and then put 10p in the pot and left early. It would actually hurt me listening to the moaners and groaners or the ultra happy never had a bad day in sobriety mob. They were the scariest, They were robots. They didn't blink. I reckon they are responsible for 60% of the spree killings in this world. Ready to blow at any stage. Suppressing it. It would drive me mad the ones who shared and said, 'i'll finish on this' and then keep going for another 10 minutes. AAAAARRRGGGHHHHHHHH. I was angry.
I didn't want to be brainwashed. I was defiant. But there were enough top examples of men & women who were totally fucked with their drinking, riddled with fear, worry, self esteem, problems, high ego, who were now doing real stuff. Having families, accepting responsibility, writing books, acting, being comedians, starting their own companies, going to college. Following their dreams.
I asked myself, Where has my head got me? The answer? Well here in AA. I had no choice. I had to go on.
And so the journey started. I'm not going to chart the whole 11 years or so. But what i can say i have got laid (more times than i would care to imagine) i have had fun, i have been sober, i haven't turned into the brainwashed religious zealot i feared i would. Yes i do have a collection of over 12 V Neck jumpers and have developed some strange obsessions in my time, buttering meat being the weirdest, though swinging was another (sorry Nan/Mum).
But I am OK, i have a good life. Yes i still suffer with the alcoholic head. Riddled with insecurities, low self esteem, feeling of failure of entitlement. I'm in charge of stationary for gods sake. No i haven't done many of the things deep down I've wanted to do, but i have done some of them. I'm on the right path. I trust in the process and i have changed radically as a person. I can see how much I've changed on the outside though I'm not so sure about the inside. Others will be able to tell better.
Maybe if i would have spent as much time developing a spiritual connection with a higher power as i have done chasing skirt and sculpting the guns i would be operating on the level of the Daliha Lama now.
But all in all I'm happy customer. I am lucky. I am grateful. I have done thousands of meetings and will continue to do so. And that has given me a nose for meetings, sobriety, the nuances of alcoholic character and personality and the belief in 12 steps and tools of AA and how it cuts off the alcoholic head and prevents the drinking.
So that is why i could sniff it out in the meeting this morning and could listen intently and hear the misery coming through. It's OK though. It;s not an entertainment show and people need to share what they share. But i prefer the meetings with gallows humour. When it;s stuffed full of real lunatic alcoholics genuinely trying to change. Not for show. But for real. It;s funny and packed with love, laughter, life, sadness. The lot. It's dynamite and i fucking love it. Not like the fake concern Jeremy Kyle style meeting i survived this morning. Blimey good job i wasn't going to criticise, thank god I've mellowed. Another classic alcoholic trait. Hypocrisy. I'm the biggest of all, i think i should get a T-shirt saying, "Do as i say not as i do")
I love AA. Most people miss it's simple efficiency and genius. It bascially helps to make me more old school. Moan less, get on with life, fight the fear and not take myself too seriously. It;s proper hardcore and the new age rehab trendy 'fellings' and 'boundaries' brigade miss it and tend not too last. prefering the £7k a week of treatement. Sure, good luck but they are basically alcoholics with a name tag and a pension scheme. The real experts are in the rooms for alcoholism.
Not for anything else of course as one of the down sides of AA is alcohoics are superb bulshitters and ego maniacs and won't hold back in offering advice on any range of subjects. I mean on a good day i'm an expert in marriage (never neen married) raising kids (never had kids) Pensions (never saved a penny) and any medical ailment (watched Casualty in the 80's) Never listen to Dr Evans.
But thats part of the charm too. We are full of imperfections and at heart raging lunatics. And the best bit. Nobody knows! Keep it schtum.
The Rest of day? Hard ass gym session, loving cross training and weights at moment, lunch, then wrote blog and idled the rest of the evening way. No long one in sight. I'm going to be honest with you readers, i didn't miss it a bit.
xx
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