Today I'm 11 years sober. How the hell did that happen? Incredible, Seems like another person who drank. People who are not or do not understand alcoholism wonder why if you haven't had a drink for 11 years how can you still be an alcoholic. I will explain later.
First the 'Lympics.
Today GB won 2 gold medals. First up the Show Jumping. Now I'm not a horsey type man. Don't get me wrong I've had a few in my time, but overall it is a sport that doesn't appeal. I was taken to Olympia as a kid every year to watch show jumping and it was fun but i was never bitten by the bug.
Now horses are magnificent creatures and when you see a race horse close up they are specimens of unbelievable power and beauty, but as a sport i am ambivalent. Until today of course. Now I'm loving it.
The GB show jumping team worked their way to joint 1st and had a jump off for Gold. (love idea of a Jump off) It would be their first Gold for 50 odd years. They had to ride a clear round. The Nation watched anxiously. Glued to the screen, another classic Olympic moment. Everyone stopping what they were doing for show jumping. Nerves were shredded until Nick Skelton cleared the last jump. Gold for GB. Horse BOOM! It was a sweet moment.
This was followed by one of my favourites. Track cycling and the Men's Sprint event. 3 laps of the track against an opponent in the best of 3. The first 2 laps are spent going ultra slow like a game of cat and mouse before one of the riders makes the first move and then it's flat out sprinting for a lap and a half. Jason Kenny, chosen over Chris Hoy totally dominated and beat the French world champion for Gold. An exhilarating event and moment. That makes it 7 medals out of 9 events for British Cycling. They are proper class. World leaders. Lycra skin suits have never been so socially acceptable. Though not in Waitrose.
That was another 2 Golds to make it 18 for the games. Beth Tweddle added bronze in Gymnastics but on the track in the evening my home town boy from Llanelli Dai Greene couldn't bring it home, coming in 4th. Obviously he'd been on too many pasties from Jenkins the Bakers. Unlucky boy.
The main event for me today was 11 years of sobriety. 6th August 2001 was when i had my last drink. An odd day in odd circumstances. It was my first ever comedy gig.
I had been trying to stop drinking for ages but never really believed i was alcoholic. That's for people who are old and drink 2 bottles of vodka a day right? Who have lost everything and live to drink. My father was my yardstick. I thought you had to be like that to be an alcoholic,
I was 28 at the time. i had a job, a girlfriend and didn't drink every day. How the hell can i be one? Forget the fact i was on 2nd warning for being late and drunk, forget the fact my nickname was 'Besty' at Fulham FC, forget the fact my girlfriend could barely look or touch me and we were finished. Forget the fact i blacked out regularly and was arrested for being drunk alot. Forget the scars on my body from drinking, or the mornings waking up out of blackout to wonder what i had said wrong the previous night. Forget the piss stained suit, sofa and 16 stone mass of hate and paranoia i had become. How on earth can i be an alcoholic?
I had tried for months but always went back to it. How can i live the rest of my life without alcohol. It defined me. It made me who i was. It made me feel powerful. Trouble is, fucked if i could stop when i started and i started rather too much.
It was my first ever comedy gig. My girlfriend had bought me a 12 week night course 'learn how to be funny and be a stand up comedian'. I had bouts of being sober then going back to drinking during the course but Sunday 6th August 2001 was our showcase. What we had all been working for. To perform our 5 minute routine. I was terrified.
I'd spent 3 days without a drink and managed to smoke 116 cigarettes on that Sunday in the lead up. it felt like waiting to be put to death, awful. Finally it arrived, i was put on last. Headlining for Christ sake. More waiting. Crowd of about 50 and i was terrified convincing myself everyone else was like Jerry Seinfeld and i was going to bomb. You see i had positive thinking back then too.
It got to the penultimate act and i was waiting in the wings. There was small northern girl called Marie opposite me. I shared with her i was terrified and going to bomb. She said 'fuck off you'll be fine". I told her i can't go on and I'm too terrified. She said "Here drink this", she had a large glass of dry white wine in her hand.
I said - "I can't"
She said "Why"
I said "Because I'm an alcoholic"
She said "Fuck off get it down your neck"
I boated the wine and said "get me a triple vodka"
I went on did my 5 minutes shaking like i had Parkinson's, experienced pure relief afterwards, then we all went to a packed pub for a lock in and i had 6 pints of Lowenbrau. Strong lager. It was during this that i was struck by something odd. I wasn't getting drunk. I wasn't enjoying it and i realised i was using alcohol to change the way i felt. Alcohol wasn't the problem. I was. I needed to change me.
The phrase alcoholism is in people not bottles rang true and i had a strange subdued feeling when i left. Part of me knew the game was up with booze. That alcoholism was a disease that got progressively worse. Fast forward 10 years i would be like my Father. No-one starts off like that but i had plenty of warning signs.
Arrests, scars, broken relationships, pissing myself, paranoia, unhappiness, verbal abuse of girlfriends, blame, arrogance. The lot. i was unhappy. It was booze. I had to stop, Alcohol didn't work for me any more. It was time to try something new and i entered AA.
Now i don't want to go through the last 11 years and i certainly don't want to blow the anonymity of AA. However it has been a long journey as for first few years i was angry, i didn't want to stop, i hated AA, part of me thought 'you're not a real acoholic'. But every time those doubts came in, people would say 'you can go and become a low bottom drunk if you want, it's only a series of yets.'
My father showed me what happens if you continue to drink and slip into alcoholism. I have no doubt that gene is within me and that could easily happen to me. So i stay away. Stay sober and continue my journey.
I thought my life was over when i entered AA. I was defined by alcohol. Social life, me, reputation, everything. How will i have fun, go out, get laid? (not that i was getting laid as not many takers of a 16 stone Jack Dee look a like though i thought i was the fucking bollocks)
I just hung in there day by day and that grew into weeks, moths, years, i went to lots of meetings and did a few daily things and gradually that desire to drink left me. The whole pub and bar scene didn;t interest me. i developed new interests like endurance sports, gym, women, v neck jumpers, comedy, swinging and writing (not in that order or at same time)
Life opened up, i changed physically, mentally, though underneath that alcoholic head always remained. The low self esteem, the insecurity, the fear, the anger, the arrogance and sloth. They all ate away under the surface ready to take over at any time. That's when a drink becomes appealing because it takes it all away, but truth is meetings do exactly what alcohol did for me, just slower.
So here i am today 11 years in. I never get to wrapped up in anniversaries as I'm only an arms length from a drink. I may drink again, i hope not as once an alcoholic always an alcoholic but you can never be arrogant or cocky about these things.
And why do i still need to go to meetings after 11 years. Surely i have this thing licked by now.
I'll tell you why, because today i felt a little crabby. My Mother drove an hour to come to my house and clean it. Apparently it wasn't even 'Man tidy', it was filthy (i thought it was OK) and a dear friend came over to deliver a balloon and cake. Was i grateful and loving and appreciative? Was i happy and fun and lovely? Was i fuck, i was a miserable ungrateful bastard who just thought they were in the way. i tried to do the whole restraint of pen and tongue, until 2 hours in i lost it, started shouting at them and basically told them to go. Not nice.
Why? Because i felt it all well up and i let fly. What did i do? I went to a meeting at night, got the perspective, thawed out, saw how utterly horrid ID been and how lucky i was to have a mother do that and a friend think about me like that and apologized unreservedly after the meeting.
Now you take meetings out of the equation for me and it would be a matter of time before this lunatic alcoholic would be picking up the booze and getting on one again. and again ad infinitum
So there we go. 11 years sober, hair like Clare balding, attitude like Peter Sutcliffe and face of a smacked arse. No wonder i love AA, It pieces me back together and makes me a pretty normal member of the human race. Without it ladies and gentlemen I'm truly fucked
xx
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