http://doninlondon.com 21st December 2006 (written last night)

A Matter of Life and Death - Joy

Odd reflections on my day today. I have been able to get out and purchase some ink so I may write up some tables to monitor various actions I take on a daily basis. Health these days is a priority for me, it never used to be as I have enjoyed some good health along the way. Now into recovery and more alert than ever, it seems timely to be reminded it could be so different.

High Street Kensington

A bitter morning, and my dogs are barking quite horribly (feet are hurting as I have diabetic neuropathy, the nerves are dying off). I am in the High St simply because the shops there have what I need today, just some ink. And as I am moving slowly ahead I see a crowd. Not too big a crowd as the onlookers realise they are witnessing life and death. Someone has collapsed and is being given CPR. I see the person and realise the best attempts at revival are most likely not going to work. No sign of a siren and no sign of ambulances. Its just happened, I see the person giving the resuscitation and know they know what they are doing, I have seen this before. There is nothing I may do, and nothing anyone can do, except accept what has happened and move along. That feeling and knowledge of another lying in the cold of the day, and they are gone. No doubt really, having just enough experience to know. And then the sirens and ambulance are moving through chocabloc traffic and its going to be too late I feel for anything which might restore this person to life again.

I get on my bus and I am shocked. And its because I realise I am older and just about managing with what I have to do. And had I been that person, well I wear a chain with my ailments around my neck so they know most likely what causes my problem.

Selfish thoughts

I consider myself lucky today its not me that’s lying there on a cold hard pavement with strangers, and absolutely with someone knowing what they need do. They don’t lack attention, they lack breath. And no amount will make the difference for them today. As to me and sitting on an empty bus, odd its empty as people were standing quite shocked back there. And a lesson to remind me that life is precious and it goes out of us when we don’t expect. At least now for today I am not self harming like I used to with drink as my weapon of choice.

In some ways it made me realise for the person concerned what was happening was not an issue as their journey in the present seemed done. And as to those helping I could say without doubt, they did their best. And for me if it were me, I am I’d be glad to be going about my business as I learn now just one day at a time. With some luck and sure knowledge, I am unlikely to expire from neglect or lonely or without someone knowing I am missing. And I am connected to this one day always.

Fellowship

After this morning, well the day felt odd and really quite peculiar. I sent a text to a friend or less a friend than before, there are always petty reasons why we end up not talking to someone somewhere. And life is too short for it. As is anger and all the entails.

In my fellowship for the most part we do get on, we look out for one another and we keep faith with this one day at a time. And as gently and reminded that life is just so precious I may not make it worse through my drinking ever again, and our fellowship offers a way out of the deepest of troubles any might encounter.

We may never be rich, we may never be famous, we may always live this one day as best we can with whatever troubles we may have. And we can be connected, and keep strong with experience strength and hope. Seeing someone go where ever we do go after we expire, a friend reminded me what I saw. As he said you can see the life go out of a person, and he is right of course. A surprise, a shock, and just a matter of life and death.

Life

Is too short. And we need not make it shorter. Tonight our speaker was near thirty years sober. And I have heard them share on quite a number of occasions about life and how it goes. And how they got sober and restarted living after years of being caught in this wretched addiction we call alcoholism. A mental disorder actually, a recognised disease. And yet so many suggest it’s a self inflicted ailment.

For those predisposed through nature and nurture, well that is the way of any disease, to have no tolerance after one incident with drink and then a life long realisation we are addicted as we may be. Its absolute madness as we know to drink ourselves to death, yet so many do, simply because people just don’t know the dangers and where they lead or simply how to stop!.

I never knew, or did I just avoid this simple truth of me. I have and had a liking to addiction for that which gave me oblivion from pain in my head. The pain of depression actually. And I have probably said enough this week about that.

People know me and listen to me

Odd really for me, as I keep myself low profile I felt. And its hard to wonder at what motivates me every day. I was writing notes to self today. About what can I do to make a living again. As it seems this grinding poverty is going to get worse as my fixed income cannot cover my outgoings these days. Gas, electric, power and utilities have risen some 20-40% and nothing extra for me to get by. Harsh times indeed. At the same time a government hell bent on finding scroungers too. I don’t see any really, I have yet to see anyone I know doing this. But our programme is about honesty. And in honesty without some help from a very supportive relative who lets me use this machine to write, well my life certainly would be more difficult. It would not stop me, it would mean cold and porridge more often. So I am determined to do something whatever I may do. As to what well its always a good time to find out. And of course there is a strong desire in me to pay back all help given so freely from love. Meanwhile back to this.

Yes people do listen and I listen to them, most of the time I make sense of nonsense that rolls around in my head.

And tonight I did feel like sharing a lot. And realised it was a short time and many were anxious to get a look in, as I go every day and share very often I was happy to be silent and listen some more. At the end when I shook the hand of our chair, “sharer”, he said he had listened to me yesterday somewhere else, and I had not thought he had been there. So it seems even when we think we speak out for ourselves, we do good for people with thirty odd years experience. And this person certainly made the difference some years back to my attitude and my coming to terms with this killer disease.

Odd at Christmas

So many people do expire, as times are not routine or ordinary and our bodies are often subject to more strain from food and drink. I am lucky not to need ever drink alcohol again now I have found recovery. And seeing someone who has enjoyed as best they may, near on thirty years of celebrations of this and that, marriage divorce death and births. Well it’s a good example to us tonight. And a jovial and wise person, steeped in sober living, with nothing to prove other than life goes on quite extraordinarily ordinary just a day at a time.

Life and Death

We all, most likely got to the fellowship of AA, as it had become a matter of life and death. At least for those I know it was so. And now we may cherish life and our experience, that life is for living again. And for those of us with a little more to contend with and manage, well the programme helps enormously and actually gives us level pegging and equal to the challenge of living today as ordinary people do without any addictive behaviour, thank goodness this is the majority, although sometimes I do wonder.

As to today, a gentle reminder how we are taken out of the game of life as quickly as we enter. Or as near as. We never know what is round the corner unless we know how we are self destructing and a certainty we hurry our end through tortured eyes and no understanding of the way out of hell on earth.

Today, to be fair and even, to let go troubles and ego, and anger, and all that clap trap. And get on towards peace and harmony as best we can in these fractious days ahead, where the world goes slightly mad as we go soberly and raucously about the joys of this time of year? Some of us celebrate and make what we can of the next best thing. My happiness is turning up for lunch with family who have seen the worst and best of me over the years and welcome me today in sober frame of mind. And a chance to see nephews and god son on boxing day too. This would not have been possible just a few years back, and today its all possible, with gentle connection to fellowship, and good connection to living as we may whatever our capacities, the equal of all and everyone equal as it may be. I need not worry about any other person place or thing, I am powerless over all that, and I have choices how to view this world and me in it, just one day at a time.

A good day today

Although death is always present in our lives we need celebrate the good if there be good, the connection, the love and the joy, as well as sad moments where pain resides. That’s life, dollops of both when we least expect it, we need not plan for either event, just deal with as happens…

I seem attached and cared for by my fellowship friends who never presume or lean too hard, we just sort of support each other closely or slightly distant, it just they way things are. And we get back to living again, where we fit and how we might be part of, it develops as we do the right things to be in this world. Precious time lost to drink? Not really just time to realise where truth and honesty resides, where living counts and where hell lives. In all of us as choice are made as we can mad or sober, at least I have better chances and choices today.

Tonight there is silence in the ever present, present moment of now, I feel sad for some who will miss the person on high St Kensington tonight, happy that there were people around who did their best. And above all realising that where ever my end will be, with hope and acceptance, sober as I arrived into this world some decades ago. Not a morbid feeling a good feeling that today I made the best of what I have, and to tomorrow? Another day to learn about life.

20th December 2006

Bendy Bus Sobriety

Ironic for me, I went to South London and East St market today, a bit of ‘window’ shopping as it happens. And It seems after last night where faith blah, blah got on my emotional wick, I felt better after several messages to the good of what I had to say about fellowship and recovery.

Actually I felt better for the support and concerned that people still follow their path as they see fit, neither persuaded to my point of view or anyone else. Merely finding our own path to sobriety as is suggested. It’s a very personal journey back into ordinary life and many people including me are bamboozled in early days, following the words of others, sometimes to our detriment. We need to keep our sense of proportion and common sense as we get into sober living. Most of us have common sense somewhere inside us, even when we have been driven mad by addiction.

Tonight

I had a couple of calls and chance meetings with fellows of AA out and about, just travelling these days its really good to see others getting on, doing normal like working and going about some family stuff like Christmas shopping. And tonight I was uncertain whether to go to a new fellowship for depression or go to my usual meeting just off the Kings Road. I do have clinical depression, at the same time I know with professional help and supervision it is managed and managed enough for me to function as I may, not badly or perfectly, adequately. And as one of my other conditions is alcoholism, and I get much support through AA, I felt better making the effort to get to the Kings road. There is another selfish reason, it’s a good length bike ride, and I need exercise to keep me going, walking is out generally as things are, and biking can be achieved. Exercise and AA got my vote in the end. And so it was Chelsea.

I got to do the preamble tonight, “Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism.
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for A.A. membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. A.A. is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.”

I like reading the preamble out to everyone, it means if I say nothing else I am part of the meeting and this opportunity comes along now and then. I had decided after a lengthy share last night I would say nothing, but actually its like saying don’t do something, and then I end up doing just that. I was prepared for silence and as it happened the “share” tonight reminded me much about today.

I will as usual make it personal to me, as we are anonymous, I would not want to “out” anyone, and as to me, well I have made clear my recovery and my life being put back on track by AA, so my anonymity is not an issue. My issue is to remain equal and just that to every fellow of AA. Equals means I am no bigger or smaller than any other, just the same as anyone walking through the doors to the rooms of AA. Now that is critical to me as equality is one of my principles of living to good conscience and harmony.

Honesty and Living

The share tonight made me consider how life had become very dishonest for me. For long years I felt I had tried to be ok, to wear my brave mask, to make life work by drinking to oblivion on a regular basis, and hiding my utter despondency from most who knew me. The more I hid my feelings and desolation, the less I tried to sort anything out. The less I sorted my own head out, the more I seemed able to resolve the lives and issues of people I knew. I knew the pitfalls so well, I could give them process and ways to make life good again.

Odd that someone often employed to help develop peoples outlook could get so far off the mark with their own life. Grief is a strange driver, desolation the destination, I have travelled there so many times, it makes sense I could see where others were and maybe ways out of it. My downfall? Utter exhaustion and never really getting over anything, just pouring booze on top to hide my maladies and utter sadness, the black of depression pushed and roamed through me like torture. I could feel the waves of black, no respite back then.

When I broke down the first time, it was devastation. Ripped for months on end by anxiety. We can get on anxieties as moods in depression oscillate without will to get off the unhappy runaway train to the dark of life.

Odd, for over a year I was pretty out of it, watching my world fall to bits as job and home and all that went with it was gone. No grasp on anything real, my unreal dishonest world filled me up with nothing but emptiness. Empty.

So what about the Bendy Bus?

The bendy bus of London, well there are plenty of bendy buses around. We are on our honour to buy tickets and ride them. Often people jump on without a ticket. They risk the wrath of London Transport Ticket Inspectors who will arrest, or if not, fine, they don’t let you off. And our sharer tonight mentioned its like this in AA, for their return, they had to get honest, even down to paying their fare of the bendy bus of life.

What they were saying is there is no free lunch, that we do get found out and that we cannot hide from ourselves when we cheat. When we cheat, we don’t cheat anyone else but us. And as to sobriety. Well the sharer quite rightly felt that there is so many ways to cover our tracks, to misinterpret and to be off the path of honesty. Something so simple as dodging a fare on a bendy bus can make us slide into the abyss of kidding ourselves about so much of living.

The unwritten commandment, “thou shalt not get found out.” I have heard this over the years and it made me cringe in my honest state of dishonesty.

Odd really that today on the bendy bus, I had my ticket, and so many did not. A harsh lesson for some. But really the point is to honest living and not hiding from our feelings and our desire to be well, we cannot fake it to make it, a well used phrase in our fellowship. Faking anything these days hurts me a lot.

As to tonight there was much made of anonymity and some like me who are open and out there with our alcoholic past, as much to be honest as to be able to be in recovery. Without that basic tenet in place for me recovery is made more difficult. Yet the stigma as some see it, its still got power to undo them. The undoing is in being found out of course.

I know along the way, my white lies, my dishonest bravado, my telling myself I am ok when I am falling to bits. My not being able to stop drinking full stop. Where my will had been sucked out and replaced with nothing but accelerant to death. No that’s as dishonest as any can be. Regardless of behaviour to others the ultimate lie is to self, that somewhere we were justified in all this. Culpable? No, after the first drink the alcoholic is done for. And as the disease goes its merry way, all fabric to the good is stripped away, we are left without sense or sensibilities. Some of us stop before crimes are done, yet the crime is done inside our heads. Its as bad as it gets, and all rock bottoms are as bad, we need not compare, its as awful and tragic as it may be.

So Tonight

It was full of humour of the dark kind, all the things we have done to hide, to cover up. And yet by the time we have got to AA we throw in the towel and admit what we are. And this is where healing may start. And with the healing and the openness to honesty, being willing and have faith in others experiences and courage. it’s a sombre reminder indeed.

Funny not so hilarious

Our sharer was sober many years before he was captured by a drink then another. As they described, pride and vanity led to another and another. And with so many sober friends and the utter desolation involved, it felt better to drink and go mad than admit the lapse.

Bendy Bus Honesty

Its like knowing no one can see the error or the diversion from honesty. And at the same time as we find in sobriety where rigorous honesty keeps us sober and one lie can lead us back into the gutter…

We choose sobriety, then we don’t choice after the first drink as our malady comes back full strength unless we get back and admit our aberration. Many slip from our programme and don’t come back, those who do share what hell feels like again. Those who are out there live shambolic lives and often are ruined in the process of drinking to oblivion again.

For normal drinkers, you cannot understand this madness and I am thankful you cannot. For those of us who do, its our worst nightmare, where we are sucked back and down under, and left in righteous indignation as we drink away. And then we are back in the mix, “Where Ego’s Dare.”

Overall a good night for me. And as to the day, with some difficult conversations along the way it has been ok. Knowing enough to try for honesty, and know my denial of my condition will send me to hell faster than any overt intent which would be an attempt to control what cannot be controlled.

There are other matters still troubling, and these will come my way soon enough, and there is no hurry as they cannot be fixed today or any other I suspect. So just for today will do. Fellowship enables faith and courage in human beings with a common purpose.

For our newcomers tonight they heard from many, the pitfalls we all have keeping sober, no matter how long, drink can easily get us again, and as we say keep honest, and keep coming back till it works, because we are all worth it! One drink can end a life of promise as easily as a ticket not bought for a Bendy Bus ride to hell…

By: doninchelsea

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Uploaded: January 20, 2007

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