The Nick Evans on.....Change

Change, Change, Change (but not necessarily in that order)

Oh god no. Not change. Do I have to?

I'm not talking loose change nor a change of clothing. I'm talking about real change. Inner, personal, deep rooted lifestyle change. I'm not going to lie. It's a right fucking cunt of a thing to try and do but there it is. I guess it's inevitable to us all.

Change happens all the time. Even when we don't realise it. The world is constantly moving, weather atmosphere, energy, science, the transfer window (unless it's Rooney, Suarez, Bale - Yawn). Things happen all the time. It's called life and it's perpetual motion. So why do I find it so hard to do?

When I first went to AA 12 years ago, they said 'you don't have to change much Nick. Just everything'. I had no idea what they meant. Only now am I beginning to glimpse what they meant.

There is superficial change of course. Hairstyle. job, partner, place to live, exercise. All of these are valid and lead to feeling better about yourself. However if all you do is concentrate on cosmetic changes they will invariably wear off and that feeling of general dis-ease always comes back.

I should know as I speak from personal experience. I have been attempting these cosmetic changes for 12 years. They don't last. I find deep rooted inner change hard. As do most of us.

The real change they were talking about I guess is on a spiritual level. A deep psychological level. Sure lifestyle comes into that - it has to. But that just sends me into more confusion - do I change things and hope my thinking follows or do I change my thinking and hope my actions follow?

If you're anything like me I hate change. I am like most humans, a creature of habit. 3 sweeteners in my tea, usual place to stand in Yoga, usual seat in a meeting, sweep my hair back to the right. We find solace, peace and comfort in habit. But what happens when these habits affect you? What then?

And how the f**k do you change? How do you get a psychic change? How do I go from negative to positive? How do I go from dark to light? How the f**k do I quit smoking?

Recently it has been becoming clear that I need to make big changes in my life. It feels a little insignificant talking about this when there is so much pain and serious shit going on in the world but I'm going to take the plunge anyway.

If change was so easy there would be no obesity, disease, addiction, death, debt, suicide, divorce and misery. We'd all be cartwheeling bouncing around saying 'I FEEL GREAT'!!!! It would be like a permanent CBBC programme. There would be hardly any pharmaceutical industry, the counselling and psychiatry industry would fold and booze/cigarette producers would go out of business.

Change is ultra hard. Changing habits one of the hardest. Changing your mind set, thinking and spiritual life even harder.

For me I need to be right up against it to change. I need to take things to the edge to even consider another way. I need to be Either spiritually broken, in deep emotional pain or health affected before I contemplate changing. I feel I'm getting towards  reaching that point now.

Things are starting to gather pace and since I reached 40 the clouds are gathering - all of them pointing towards different degrees of change and if I'm honest I can't accept it, I don't want it and it's causing me emotional pain.

Not accepting something and carrying on as you always had because it worked for you 20 years ago, 10 years ago or 5 years ago I believe to be one of the biggest source of unhappiness and pain in the world.

Knowing you need to change but not knowing how or being prepared to try is a painful place to be. I feel a part of me is in that now. And I know I'm not alone because I see so many other people who all suffer in their own way and find change hard to do. It's hard isn't it? Especially alone. How many of us want to get out of unhappy marriages. Hate your job? Locked into the rat race, can't stop eating shit food, feel in a rut? Depressed, unhappy yet every day carry on wanting to change but not knowing how.

It's not the actual changing that's hard it's the ego's resistance to it. That's the money shot. Right there.

For me - It seems that's lots of things I have used or done instinctively over the past few years to make me feel OK, or hold me together are causing issues.

 

 

 

 

Smoking heavily. Gives me something to do with my hands, suppresses appetite and gives me a kick. I am totally addicted to nicotine.  Now my chest is burning, I'm wheezing heavily and it's not very sexy when you're going down on your girlfriend trying to deliver multiple orgasms and you have to stop, rake your throat out of phlegm and then cough up a belter - then expect her to be retain horniness and carry on? I don't see that in the Karma Sutra.

I know I should stop but I love smoking, i'm addicted. I use it as a distraction. I block emotion, feelings and life with it. It is the ultimate avoider.  But how the fuck do I stop?

I Always having to have something in my mouth.(insert Gay joke here)  Either diet coke. Sugar free gum, apple, grapes, cup of tea, cigarette. It's almost on an constant loop. Smoke, stub out, swig diet coke, pop gum, chew, spit out, smoke, stub out, chew gum, swig diet coke, eat apple, gum., smoke, swig etc etc x40 times. Fuck me can I not sit still and just be?

 

It's like a compulsive over eater, or drinker and drug taker always needing the next fix. Am I trying to fill up that empty hole in the soul? Is it the ultimate in avoidance? is it addiction, habit or just bad practice.

So what's the Result of all this? My teeth are rotting from so much diet coke. (god knows what insides are like) - chest wheezing from ultra smoking. Candida in blood stream causing extreme fatigue and hangover like symptoms from ultra addiction to sweetener. And still I continue - why? Because it's whats glued me together since I stopped drinking. I don't know any other way.

 

So what most people will be screaming out by now - why don't you just stop. Most normal folk have a choice in what they eat, drink, do. If they do too much they have that elusive thing called 'self control' and just stop. Addicts seem to have been born without the 'stop' or 'pause' button and carry on until the end.

In addition I have a dodgy lower back from lack of strengthening and years of ultra endurance running/ironman over past few years. (What's that Nick? A feeling? An emotion? Unsure of what to do - fuck me go out for an 8 mile run to avoid emotion or actually doing anything)

There's only so much you can run away from. Only so much the body can take and since I hit 40, holy fuck my body has been shutting down.

Of course it's age and getting older and my body/head are simply telling me. You cannot keep abusing me like this.' It's literally like I'm canning myself and used to feeling shit half the time

Am I addicted to misery? Do I love feeling shit? Is my self esteem that low that I want to keep myself down there because it's a comfortable place to be?

It feels like it is locked into a deeper low self esteem/fear based thing. The habits become addictions. The addictions become habits. You get away with it because other things make you feel good. These things make you feel good sometimes and there's always a little part of me that thinks. 'Well you don't drink or do drugs any more Nick so you can do all that'.

 

Part of me is terrified to stop. I stopped drinking, shagging. drugging. What the hell will I have left? it's the only thing holding me together. Even though it's actually making you fall apart - such is the cunning of addiction. The truth is it will help to set me free. Allow the spirit and real change to kick in yet i'm keeping it out by piling tons of shit in my body.

So - what to do to change this?

• Do you just stop everything? Lock yourself away and don't smoke, drink fizzy drinks, chew gum, stretch and do Pilate's for 8 hours a day whilst drinking wheat grass?

• Do you try and moderate and cut down on one thing at a time and try to slowly and gradually eliminate them from your life? (An ADDICT has no control over this. One too many and a thousand not enough)

• Do you go cold turkey on one thing A time?

• Do you attend a support group or 12 step fellowship over them? (Is there a 12 step programme for sweetener, diet coke, cigarettes, buttered processed meat, cans of tuna, gum, exercise a holic?

• Do you just carry on until your body and minds gives up and then radically change? (why wait until an illness to change?)

• Do you carry on but not change and spend your life complaining and moaning that you need to change but don't (That's my favourite one clearly)

• Do you pray for a total higher power spiritual intervention and psychic change beyond human control?

• Hypnosis/counselling/CBT/psycho-analysis?

My truth Is I don't know. I really don't. I don't have the answers.

The change isn't just about these areas. It's in my thinking too. So long thinking negatively. Feeling I'm not good enough just fucks up any kind of ambition. So long being too frightened or unfocused that I dabble in lots but commit to little.

What do I actually do? What is my direction? when am I going to get on with things? Do I want to try to be a comedian? Why am I not writing and performing? Do I write a book? Do I do a recovery blog and video blog? Which area? Do I try and be funny? What the fuck - aarrgghhh!!!! Confusion!!

I'm as used to a certain way of thinking as I am to smoking cigarettes or chewing gum. I'm as used to procrastinating or putting things off or avoiding as I am downing diet coke. Could these all be possibly linked? How can I spiritually change if i'm loading my body up with toxins and shit?

I've been banging on about change for so long. I go through periods of ignoring it, covering it up but it's always there. tapping you on the shoulder. Like some relationships - you know when you go into one for the wrong reasons? Because your fearful of being on your own but you know it's too painful to try and do it alone and be OK on your own. Putting off real change gnaws away at your soul. It causes deep rooted unhappiness that cosmetic fixes can only alter sporadically

 

 

I'm convinced change can only come

a) - when the person's soul is ready

b) - when they actually ask for help in changing

c) - when the alternative is so unappealing they have to change

d) - when they try hard to and then the 'new way' becomes as comfortable as the 'old way'

I think Change change change can only come with the help of a higher power and the effort of yourself. God will give you the shovel but you've got to do the digging. Then in order to get it Practice Practice Practice. I think it's all got to go. I don't do moderation.

Its a good job I've got all the answers. Trouble is I've smoked 6 silk cuts, drunk 2 diet cokes, 4 cups of tea, chewed 5 sticks of gum during the course of writing this.

Do as I say not as I do should be printed on my T-shirt today. I have the knowledge it's that sodding ego resistance that causes the pain.

That ladies and gentlemen is the biggest conundrum, if we had all the answers and did everything ourselves then there would be no need for religion, church, 12 step fellowships, alcohol, drugs, prescription medication, tobacco companies, breweries, junk food outlets or undertakers.

 

Change is hard. I just hope I'm ready to try it soon (insert prayer here)

 

The Nick Evans

 

The Nick Evans - 12 years sober

Today is August 6th 2013. It is 12 years ago today since I had my last alcoholic drink. 12 years ago since I finally admitted defeat of my self will and gave up the ghost and asked something bigger than me for help.

I finally said; 'Ok god I'm fucked here. I can't go on doing it my way. I'm miserable. I'm desperate. Every time I run into a problem I drink. I cannot stop drinking on my own. My head is a mess. My life is in the toilet, My girlfriend doesn't want me. My job is fucked. I'm on my arse here. Help".

Yes that's right folks it got that bad that I went to AA. Lets face it you've got to be pretty desperate to go to that fucking place right? Church halls and full of weirdos 'sharing', hugging and no doubt preaching God. Oh god has it come to this I thought. This is the pits.

It's a cult full of cults (or words to that affect). Full of lilly livered do gooders too weak to handle things themselves. I'm better than this. I need professional help. Somebody qualified in a white coat with letters after their name. Surely AA is for the brainwashed masses?

The humiliation. The suffering. Who will see me? What will my friends think? Oh god it's officially the end of my life. No more fun. Just church halls, patterned jumpers and jammy dodgers. Kill me now. These are the thoughts that ran through my head. Presumably being arrested, pissing myself, passing out on Putney High Street in my Fulham FC match day uniform and countless grovelling apologies for bad behaviour weren't humiliating enough. But the thought of going to a 12 step recovery place which helps millions of people not die from a terminal addictive disease was. As you can see my thinking wasn't quite straight.

I was 28. Pushing 16 stone. Under my creaking belt I had notched Several arrests, 3 large scars, numerous blackouts, a head that said 'you're a piece of shit', self esteem on the floor, 3 written warnings at work, the nickname of 'besty' in the football club I worked, a girlfriend who couldn't bare to look at me let alone touch me, trousers covered in piss & still I turned up at the door of my 1st meeting and said "Go on then you fuckers. Heal me". My arrogant insane ego was nicely under control.

Only an alcoholic can look down on people from the gutter. Judging and moralising whilst your life is going down the khazi. I didn't think I was an alcoholic of course. I mean I didn't drink every day, was only 28 and still had a job, flat and girlfriend. (Sic - Job was about to go, flat was my girlfriends which I rarely contributed rent too and girlfriend was too nice/frightened to ask me to leave)

Alcoholics are people like my father right? Build up a family and then drink it all away, end up in the salvation army then street drunk for 26 years drinking Tenants Super on Shepherds Bush Green and end up dying of a hemorrhage all alone for 6 days in a state warden controlled flat at the age of 65. That's a proper alcoholic right?

Well yes right but also Wrong. From what I know now. Alcoholism is a diseases that is in us at birth. It is a terminal disease that without total abstinence effectively kills you subtly and slowly. It takes time, it is cunning and will wrap itself around all kinds of mad behaviour. You can get off at any stage, before it gets really bad or ride it all the way to the end but it will get you in the end. It won't be happy until it's robbed you, your family, your girlfriend of everything. Emotion, spirit, energy, money, self respect, self esteem. Everything.

It is like a juggernaut tearing everything in it's wake apart. The scary thing is most people don't even understand it or think of it as a disease. Instead they see it as people drinking too much or lack of control. Trust me it's not. 3 generations of Evans' have had it and it fucks up families, lives and acts as a ripple affecting everyone or thing in it's path.

Addiction is a sickness of the soul that must be filled with alcohol, drugs, food, sex, relationships, gambling. Anything to take away the 'head'. Most normal people of course have a range of emotions and bad days, years and problems. I'm not laying claim that addicts have it worse than others because we don't. It's just the destruction that's caused in trying to blot out these terrible feelings of inadequacy, low self esteem and ego.

But when you pick up and use that substance to change the way you feel because you don't like you. Then it sets off the phenomenon of craving and you cannot stop. It's the same for me in drinking, muffins, sex, relationships, pornography, smoking, diet coke, DVD box sets. Give me something I like and I will cane the fuck out of it until I can't do it anymore. The addict inside me is never satisfied. It is an illness of more and more and more. Rarely is it abated. One is too many and a thousands' not enough as the saying goes.

In my experience only a spiritual awakening of sorts can abate it and that goes for families affected by it too. It is after all a family illness. Do you think a partner of 5, 10 or 20 years is unaffected? Tried to change them? Understand them? Threatened them? No of course not - it's their problem as much as the addicts. But will they see it that way? Of course not the denial in them is as strong as the addicts though they usually don't think so. it is a disease that spreads far and wide.

My 1st ever comedy gig was in the Angel, North London 12 years ago. It was a Sunday. I had done a comedy course for 12 weeks and this was our graduation night. A 5 min gig to an assorted crowd. I had been drinking on and off for 5 months. Making guest appearances to meetings but not seriously wanting to do the programme or get a 'sponsor'. Fuck that, that's for real alcoholics I thought. I just need to settle down my drinking and get my head sorted'. Little did I know you must stop the drinking, attend AA and then the head gets sorted. NEVER the other way round.

Anyway I smoked 116 cigarettes that day, was petrified. Was put on 12th (last) and spent the night pacing. I was due to go on when I had a huge panic attack and thought everyone else was funnier than Eddie Izzard and Frankie Boyle on helium. I'm shit I'm going to bomb, I thought.

There was a girl called Marie. A Yorkshire lass. Tiny. She was standing in the hallway holding a large glass of wine.

I said to her, "I can't go on Marie I'm going to be shit",

 

She said "Don't be silly you'll be fine, have some of this" and thrust the glass in my face.

 

Now I had been off the booze for a week and was going through my Am I? Am I not? phase. I knew booze was the problem but I couldn't get my head around being an alcoholic (after all the yard stick I had was my Father. The daddy of all alcoholics who made Ollie Reed, George Best and Richard Burton look like teenagers) - I was trying not to drink.

 

"I can't drink it", I replied to Marie.

 

"Why not?" she said

 

"Because I'm an alcoholic" I replied,

 

"Fuck off" she hissed "Get it down your neck"

 

So I did. In one. Then I said to her "Get me a quadruple vodka" (which kind of proves the point)

Wolfed that down as well. Did my rather shoddy 5 minute gig whilst shaking like a dog with Parkinson's taking a shit. Then it was over to the pub for the after show where I drank 6 pints of Lowenbrau.

I had a strange sensation in that pub. I wasn't getting drunk and realised that I had been using booze for years to mask my fear, the fact I hated myself, didn't think I matched up and was useless. I realised that when the booze wore off I would still be like this, as I had been like that all my life and the booze wasn't the answer. It was weird. I had the feeling that booze was pointless. The problem wasn't the booze it was me and if I drank I would never fix the problem. I felt I didn't need it.

I got home. My girlfriend was barely speaking to me, in fact she left for a few days and went AWOL. I was sober but not going to AA and I was frantic. She was nowhere to be seen and after 3 days my head was fucked. I wanted to drink so badly. To get smashed. Annihilated. Check out. The head was on fire and I couldn't handle it. Pacing around, chain smoking. 'Holy Fuck, what do I do?'

It was at this moment I realised it was either give in to my head, do it solo and go back to drinking or pick up the phone to a guy in AA who had given me his number and say I need help. I chose the latter was in a meeting that night and haven't picked up a drink since. I gave myself over that night even though I didn't realise it at the time. I needed something else to replace the booze and treat my head which was shouting 'Drink, drink, drink'.

Don't get me wrong I fucking hated AA. Mine is not I went to a meeting, stopped drinking and lived happily ever after story. I Didn't want to be there but there was something about the old school blokes who were many years sober who had probably spilt more than I had drunk, They had something, were talking about real stuff yet were sober, attended AA and seemed to have the devil about them, laughed, didn't take themselves too seriously, were proper blokes & sober.

Despite my head I stayed. I bitched, moaned, shouted, judged, criticised, disrupted, had a huge 'FUCK OFF' on my forehead, I Was angry, So angry I became known as Angry Nick. But I kept sober. I kept going to fuck loads of meetings as despite my head I knew my way didn't work and so began what has been 12 years of slow reduction in my defiance, rebellion and anger.

I grew to love it. All it' imperfections. It's sickos and dicko's, weirdos, freaks and geeks, its magnificent kind souls, its generosity of spirit, it's incredible sound and practical yet deeply spiritual ideals.

I grew to love the people who shared for 15 minutes, even though I wanted to stab them in the eyes, (and ended up sharing for 20 myself) the Chelsea treatment centre lovies who talked of 'boundaries' and 'inner child' that made me want to throw up, the mentally ill who spoke more sense than the know it alls. I grew to love it all. AA, the pub with no beer. The bottom line was it was a more attractive proposition than what I had. So I stayed and have been going back ever since.

I got it totally wrong. It is not a cult. It is not lilly livered or for the weak. It is for the incredibly courageous who make the choice to deal with the hard yards of alcoholism and not drink and try to change one day at a time. It is not church or full of do gooders. We are not saints.

 

At heart alkies are slippery bastards and that's what I love about it. I love that a load of self important, egotistical, intolerant, arrogant ego maniacs (like me) with an inferiority complex all sit and listen to each other and govern the most democratic meetings I've ever seen. We live by a set of principals and traditions that holds the fellowship together. Left to our own devices us alkies always know best & we would tear it apart without traditions. Steps keep the alcoholic sober and traditions keep AA sober.

It is phenomenal. It is humble. It is spiritual. It literally saves millions of lives (and livers) and it is proper fucking ace!

I know there are many who knock it & good luck to them but I know if you are an alcoholic, then a 12 step abstinence based programme is the only thing that works in my experience. You arrive broken and defeated full of self will, ego and pride and slowly (very slowly) over a period of time can recover and live a reasonably normal ish life (as long as the real world doesn't discover how much of a lunatic you really are) with fear, worry, anxiety and rage all manageable.

Don't get me wrong. I'm by no means healed, fixed or recovered. It is a daily battle and it takes a long time to shed old behaviours, thought patterns and addictive personality traits that stay with you like a faithful old dog. Some are hard to shift. I fuck up regularly. Hurt people. Make bad decisions based on self. It's a long haul. Layers of the onion reveal more aspects of the disease. Then after a period of time you find that alcohol is just the tip of the iceberg and a symptom of alcoholism. It is a disease in the person not the bottle and it takes a long time to break it down. You are never fixed but the defective traits get smaller, or easier to spot and head off at the pass.

You have to experience the pain of getting things wrong, running on self will then changing before you can even begin to change on a deep level.

 

I feel I'm only just embarking on that process now, after 12 years. My next ambition. Emotional sobriety not just physical. Fuck knows how long that will take though I'm up for the journey.

I fear I'm being too open here. To honest. It is after all an anonymous programme and I've blown mine all over the shop. perhaps it will come back to haunt me. Perhaps it will work against me. Perhaps people in the fellowship will disagree with me doing it. Perhaps people will think I'm a loudmouth and know it all preacher.

What I do know is they say 'to thine own self be true' and this feels right. It feels good. It feels like me.

 

So to sum up - what's better. Drinking or Sobriety? Well I'll let you be the judge of that - you vote;

 

Here's me when I was drinking;

 

And here's me in sobriety;

 

 

Which one wins?

 

Thanks to all that have helped over the past 12 years. Here's to lost loved ones both in recovery and through the disease.

 

If alcohol is costing you more than money and you want to seek help with your drinking visit www.aa.org

 

** The views discussed in this blog do not represent AA or any other 12 step fellowship, they are my own and should be treated accordingly. I do not speak for AA or any other organisation **

 

PS - Here's a little video I did to pay my respects to sobriety

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLzhK2x3vb0&feature=c4-overview&list=UUJaFzQu9gPlAntWn6Frz2Ng

 

The Nick Evans

xx