9 months, 15 days (patience)

I’m going to make this a quick one today, as it is quite late and I want to be able to get to bed soon, as I do have to be up early in the morning. My dissertation deadline is fast approaching (I have two days left to finish it) and tomorrow I want to start writing as early as possible so that I can have it all done by the end of the day. I can’t bear the thought of sitting there on Friday along with everyone else, desperate to finish before the deadline arrives. I’d have more respect for myself if I could complete it tomorrow. So I want to be in bed by midnight tonight. I’m trying to get to bed earlier these days in general, because I’ve found it so unbelievably hard to get up in the mornings recently, and I know it’s because I’m going to bed late at night. I could leave this til tomorrow, but I don’t like going more than a couple of days without writing something.

 God, I can’t stop explaining myself!

 It’s really just been a week of work. For the past two days I’ve mostly been in front of the computer tidying up my dissertation. My surpervisor is sending a stream of feedback for me to use in improving the report. It’s good that she’s giving me all this help, but it has given me a lot more work to do this week than I would have liked. I was at the computer for six hours solid today. I’m surprised my eyes weren’t square by the end of it!

 Tonight I went out for dinner with a friend from the fellowship, Adam. We ate in Soho and spent a lovely few hours together. I really, really like Adam. The problem is, he’s three months sober, and he’s only just started the steps. I’ve known how I feel about him for a few weeks now. We’ve become very good friends, we have an awful lot in common, and if we weren’t in AA, I would probably have asked him out by now. The fact that I have the confidence to say that is amazing.

 He seems like the perfect guy. He’s smart, funny, and caring. I’ve stopped myself from pursuing a proper relationship with him so far because I know they suggest no relationships in the first year of sobriety. It’s a very good suggestion, I can see that. Relationships are stressful things, especially if you are co-dependent like me. So I haven’t told Adam anything about my feelings yet, I’ve simply decided to wait until he’s at least finished step 5. But it’s so difficult keeping it from him.

 Tonight could easily have been a date - it was very romantic in the restaurant, with the candlelight and the music and the affectionate chatter. I wanted it to be a date, but I was forced to hold myself back because I can’t bear the thought of taking advantage of him. Even though he’s older than me, I would feel like I am taking advantage of him because he’s less sober than I am.

 I definitely feel ready for a relationship now - the thought of it doesn’t scare me like it used to. I’m secure enough to know what kind of person I want to be with, and how I want it to be. But I know Adam isn’t ready, and I don’t want to put that pressure on him. I also know that the ideal relationship I’m imagining might not be how the reality actually turns out.

 It’s so painful to have to hide my feelings. How ironic is this situation?! At last I meet someone who I could see myself being happy with, and I can’t be with him because he’s only three bloody months sober. It’s really annoying, and if I didn’t have as much sobriety as I do, it would probably be quite threatening to my recovery. I am aware that if I was to wait for him, it would be so much better in the long run for both of us. So I will wait. I have to wait, there’s no other option.

 By not acting on my feelings right now, I give them a chance of developing and growing. Perhaps in six months’ time I’ll realise that I wasn’t in love with him after all. At least I would have waited to find out. Right now, I can’t persuade my heart that I’m doing the right thing, because my heart’s telling me that I’m falling in love. But I cannot afford to rush into a fling like I always did before. In sobriety I’m finding that the best way to go about things is the complete opposite to how I would have gone about them before.

9 months, 13 days

It’s been an average Monday. This morning I did some studying before heading to the Abnormal Psychology lecture in the afternoon. It was the first time I’d been to that lecture in weeks. Until now I’ve been so focused on my dissertation I wasn’t making the effort to go to lectures. This week I thought I’d better go as it would be the last lecture of term! It was a very interesting lecture this week, focusing on anxiety disorders. Afterwards I could be sure that I definitely suffer from social phobia, one of the main anxiety disorders. It was very strange sitting there listening to the lecturer describe the symptoms that I’ve been experiencing all my life. I’m certain to do well if that question comes up in the exam!!

 The main thrust of the discussion was about the various treatments on offer; most people with the disorder are prescribed drugs such as valium as well as a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which has proven to be very effective. I’ve never been given any of these things. I’ve gone to my doctor a few times over the years with worries about my excessive anxiety, but I’ve never been listened to. He always seems very busy and only half interested. Maybe I haven’t been assertive enough with him, maybe I ought to have been more specific about my problems. But the problem with social phobia is that one has no assertive skills!! He’s my doctor, he should have spotted the signs a long time ago. I still can’t get over the fact that I’ve gone through this thing all my life on my own. I nearly died because of it!

 I suppose it’s lucky that I just happened to choose to study Psychology three years ago. Otherwise I would know none of this now. It’s also lucky that I’m an alcoholic, because the AA program does happen to provide quite an effective set of principles which can help with social anxiety. Alcohol abuse has been shown to relate to all the anxiety disorders, therefore it’s not surprising that the program has come to be an antidote to the problems that anxiety disorders pose. Living in the day, being honest and thorough with oneself, putting one foot in front of the other during difficult times, calling one’s sponsor every day are all brilliant antidotes to fear and anxiety. The most important thing to have when one is suffering with such illnesses is a social support network, and Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the world’s biggest sources of social support.

 Still, I wish that my illness could have been given a name years ago. I wish I could have had that social support network when I was a frightened, angry, suicidal teenager who believed that no one in the world cared about him. Of course, steps 4 and 5 are there to teach me that it’s not my place to regret and resent the past. That’s not my life any more; I have a name for the illness now and it’s time for me to move on. I have a big lump in my throat as I write this, because I always get emotional when I have to let go of things. I’m at my life’s biggest turning point so far. Everything is about to change for me, and it’s happening at exactly the right time. From here on in I will never be a child again. I’m ready to be an adult who is present in all aspects of his own life. I have to say goodbye to the past, with all its mistakes and disasters and darkness.

 In many ways I’m lucky to be able to understand all this at my young age. The person doing the chair in tonight’s meeting was 50 years old, and he’s only been sober a year, and he kept saying that he wished he could have got this program 25 years ago. In many other ways, I know my life hasn’t been so entirely awful. My friend Dean shared tonight about the abuse which he’d suffered during childhood, and he was almost reduced to tears by it, and I don’t have things like that to share about. I went without material things and social support in my childhood, but I never went without food or affection from my mother.

 Since I am about to become a real adult in the real world, there are lots of things I have to learn to do. Another thing that alcoholics/sociophobes don’t do is ask for help – unfortunately one can’t get by in life without asking for someone’s help sometimes, as I’ve discovered. I do the tea at the meeting every Monday and until now I’ve never asked the treasurer to reimburse me for the tea and biscuits, because the meeting was struggling for money before. Now that we’ve moved to a new location it’s got a lot busier on the whole, so it’s not struggling financially any more, and I can ask the treasurer to start reimbursing me if I want to. I ought to ask him, because I can’t afford to continue spending £7 every week on it. But I hate asking for money from people. Even though I have a right to ask for that money, even though the treasurer is a friend of mine, I haven’t been able to approach about it him yet. I know I’ll have to ask him next time I see him, because it would be silly to leave it any longer.

 I also need to learn to start being more assertive with my doctor. Although the AA program has many useful principles that can help me with my anxiety, it doesn’t cover absolutely everything, and the more I learn about theraputic techniques such as CBT, the more I’m sure that I could really do with it. I know I have a right to change my doctor if I so wish, but I probably ought to give my current one another chance. If I was really going to be an adult about this, I’d make an appointment to see him tomorrow. I hope I can find the confidence to go through with it tomorrow. This is not just a minor side issue, it’s a major part of my life, especially now that I’m about to start looking for work, a situation which will undoubtedly play on all my fears big time. I can’t say for certain that I won’t be tempted to drink when I go to work and experience that social phobia on a daily basis. So I must take this seriously, and I must get my doctor to do the same.

9 months, 12 days (fellowship)

It’s been an amazing weekend. Yesterday began with me going out to enjoy the remaining good weather at the park. I spent a couple of hours in the sun in the afternoon, initially nervous about looking strange for sitting on a park bench on my own, nerves which I managed to ignore as I kept sitting there, determined to be good to myself. Later on a friend from the fellowship would be doing his first chair at a local meeting. I wanted to go to this meeting for two reasons. Firstly, I hadn’t seen this friend for quite a while and I wanted to support him as he probably wouldn’t know anyone else at the meeting. Secondly, I’ve been meaning to try the local meetings out for months, but have never had a good reason to do so.

 By coincidence, the meeting where my friend would be doing his chair was one of the meetings I went to four years ago, when I first tried AA out. I only went to it once, and never thought I’d go again in a million years. It was very odd going back yesterday. I was instantly reminded of how much had changed in four years. The building looked the same; the room was still small and old-looking and cold; it was crystal clear to me that I was returning there a different person. I was fearful about going back, about seeing those people again and having to explain to them why I disappeared in late 2004. But I wasn’t willing to let the fear stop me yesterday. In fact I was completely willing to be part of the meeting; I’d speak to people and engage with them if I had to. Four years ago, I had neither the skills nor the confidence to engage with anyone there. It helped a lot that I would be knowing the person doing the chair, and if this hadn’t been the case I might not have gone at all. But part of me was very curious to see what the meeting would be like after all this time, whether I’d actually see any of those people who I first met four years ago.

 When I got there I had to suppress a giggle when I noticed that they even had the same green plastic chairs. My memory is amazing for things like that. I went straight up to my friend at the front of the room, Darren, who looked suitably anxious about the prospect of doing his first chair in a strange meeting in a part of London that he didn’t know very well. I discovered that he’d never been to that meeting before, that he’d been asked at the last minute by the secretary who he knew from other meetings. I was glad to be able to be there for him – that’s what fellowship is all about. At that point, ten minutes before the start of the meeting there were only five people in the room, which suggested that it would be a quiet one. I didn’t recognise any faces from 2004. Four years ago I remember it being very busy there, which made me even more nervous at the time because I was always bad at dealing with large groups of strangers.

 Darren’s chair nearly blew me away. I’d heard him share in meetings before, of course, but I never realised how similar our stories are. He talked about his dysfunctional family, feeling isolated from other children at school, going to University and experiencing the release of alcohol for the first time at the age of 18. I was compelled to share back about my life in great detail, knowing that I’d have plenty of time to do so with so few people in the room. As always, it was wonderful to be able to talk so openly and honestly about myself without fear of judgement. Especially in that setting, where four years ago I sat cowering in the corner like an abandoned child in a police station, desperate to get back to the pub.

 After the meeting I felt a tremendous sense of relief, as it occurred to me once again that I was at home in AA and always would be. It’s like it hadn’t sunk in properly until this weekend. I had a great night out to look forward to: my closest AA friends Dean and Andy were going dancing in Soho and I was invited. For months a part of me has yearned to go dancing with them. Dancing for me is like a form of communication. Unlike when I’m talking, I never feel like a fool or a failure when I’m dancing, I can always just let myself go and have fun (if the music’s right), and being able to share that experience with friends makes it 100 times better. We would be going to a club off Charing Cross Road where I had been many times and had always enjoyed myself. I knew I wouldn’t be tempted to drink because I would be with sober friends and I would be too distracted with jumping up and down to my favourite pop songs.

 It was the best kind of night out I could hope for. We laughed, danced for hours, and went home at the reasonable hour of 1am, by which time we’d all worn ourselves out. Before jumping on our separate buses we grabbed a coffee on Old Compton Street, and there we reflected on how good being sober is. It really is good, isn’t it? I’ve danced in many nightclubs with many friends over the years, and some of it’s been fun, but none of it meant anything until last night. Our experience last night was spiritually nourishing, because we will remember it all. We didn’t have to get drunk to make it happen. I always thought I needed to get drunk to facilitate any kind of social activity. It was a lie, a fantasy. No one needs alcohol to do anything, least of all me.

 Today I woke up in good time for my second and final training session at the lesbian and gay phone helpline where I will be starting work soon. It was a challenging and emotional day, given that we had to do lots of role play focusing on abusive/suicidal calls. By now the four of us in the training group had got to know each other quite well, and we got through it together. In the breaks when we were sat round the table eating cake and discussing our progress, we began to share extremely personal information with each other, which just seemed a natural progression of the day’s theme. We related to each other and at the end of it I felt like I’d made some really good friends.

 It’s a shame because we may not see each other again – in our first few months of work we’ll each be paired up with experienced phone workers, and won’t be allowed to do shifts together. By the time we’re all experienced enough to start working without supervision, we may have forgotten about each other, or we may just have different time resources so that we can’t work on the same days. A few years ago I’d probably have been really upset about that, because I had no real circle of friends who I could go back to at the end of the day. I was always on the lookout for new friends, to the extent where I’d cling onto and stretch every opportunity for friendship. Today I didn’t need to chase these people for their numbers, because I have a life outside of that situation. My life is bigger and better than it ever was. I can go home and not get emotional about missing one opportunity to create a new social group. I’m simply looking forward to starting work on the phones, to helping people in the way that I was helped last year. I’m more solid as a person than I was nine months ago. I’m nowhere near perfect, but I can feel the progress that I’ve made in my gut, and I know I have things worth saying to people.

9 months, 10 days (…and breathe!)

The theme of social phobia has kind of continued to be a part of my life in the last two days, although it hasn’t had such a negative effect on me since Wednesday. Yesterday the main thing I did was get my dissertation professionally bound, as we have to hand it in like that next week. I spent a small amount on the binding, thinking the thing was completely finished and ready to be sent off. For one annoying reason which I will go into later, the dissertation is not ready at all, so I’ve just wasted that money because next week I’ll have to print the whole thing out and get it bound again.

 Last night I went to the local step 1 meeting which I’ve attended pretty much every week this year so far. As usual I shared in the final raised hand section reserved for newcomers. I think I talked about how pleased I was to have completed a dissertation that I could be proud of. I really did feel proud of it yesterday. I thought it was proof positive of the progress I’d made in recovery. To find out tonight that there are still bits which need to be changed, is like finding out that I have to go back to seven months sober. Not nice at all.

 Today I’ve spent most of the day out and about. I don’t seem to feel content staying in any more, especially now that the weather’s improving. I did my usual circuit of central London this afternoon, which killed a couple of hours and brought my energy levels right down. By the time I was due to meet fellowship friends in Soho for coffee, I was exhausted, unsurprisingly. I was sure I’d be ready to go to sleep by the time we got to the meeting at 7.30. Unfortunately the room where the meeting is held tends to get very hot, and today it was extremely noticeable. It’s like they forgot to turn the heating off when winter ended. It was terribly uncomfortable, and I didn’t really want to be there.

 Don was at the front as always, doing everything he could to draw attention to himself. Nothing he said during his share made much sense, and during a few other people’s shares he deliberately piped up, determined to make it known that he did not agree with the things being said. It wasn’t as bad as last week, but it was still cringe-worthy, and some of my patience from last week had clearly gone. I realised a long time ago that people like Don make me uncomfortable because I’m incredibly aversive to public embarrassment. Even though I did some hugely embarrassing things during my drinking, I’ve never been able to stand awkward social situations. Weirdoes on the underground always scare me, just because I find the thought of breaking social rules so stomach-churning.

 So to have Don making a fool of himself every week in front of everyone makes me want to run screaming from the room. I know that has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with me. That’s not his fault. I’m the one who has these social issues that make me feel this way. He’s just acting out his own private torment. We all know that. He makes us uncomfortable because he’s breaking social rules which he didn’t write; perhaps he reminds us all of what we are capable of, under the influence of alcohol.

 So I was too hot and too embarrassed to share tonight. I’m not too bothered about that now. All in all it was a nice meeting anyway. I saw loads of friends and managed to go for dinner afterwards with my new friend Alan, who’s been in the program for three months. To be able to chat to people freely and ask them to dinner is wonderful; it hasn’t stopped being wonderful in the whole nine months I’ve been doing it. I was going to say that tonight was like a first for me, but it wasn’t. I’ve been socialising in this way for nine months, all without the help of alcohol. Brilliant!

 I was in a good mood right up until I walked through the front door half an hour ago, when I was brought back down to earth by the routine problems of every day life. The hot water here still seems to be working erratically, so my mother’s mood is on the slide once again. I’ve also switched the computer on to find an e-mail from my dissertation supervisor, telling me that I need to rewrite my ‘results’ section again, because it’s just no good. The e-mail details a whole list of corrections, and my heart sank as I read through them. I’d spent all that time yesterday getting what I thought was the final draft professionally bound, only to have this unsympathetic e-mail tonight which I should have got last week. My supervisor’s had a whole bloody week to tell me this. There’s less than a week left til the final deadline now, and to be honest I’m f*cking pissed off with her right now. How dare she wait to criticize my efforts until a week before the deadline! Couldn’t she have found anything positive to say about the work which I sent her last week?

 Together with my mother’s continuing bad mood, this news has put a huge damper on the end of the week. I wouldn’t mind, if it weren’t so close to the deadline, and if it weren’t so important for me to get this project right. Next week not only will I be handing my entire dissertation in – the culmination of a year’s work – I’ll be attending my last ever lectures. We’re finishing early so that we have a few weeks to revise before final exams at the end of May. I’ve felt slightly emotional every time I’ve thought about it this week. It hasn’t really sunk in yet that I’ll actually be finished within a month.

 I’ve been in education my whole life. After May, I won’t be any more. Whatever I end up doing, I won’t be in a formal program of learning any longer. I’ll be out there, fending for myself, making my own way for the first time. I actually want to cry now, not because I wish I wasn’t leaving University. I’m really glad I’m leaving now – I’m ready to start working and earning a wage. I want to cry because I’m at a huge milestone in my life; things are changing for me, once again.

 I felt like this when I was preparing to leave home for the first time at the age of 18. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew everything was going to change, and I was very, very scared, even though I was desperate for things to change. God, this is really scary for me, and do you know what, it’s OK to be scared. I have a tendency to beat myself up for feeling negative emotions, but I don’t want to do that any more. I have to own these feelings, I have to sit with them and deal with them. My life is about to change in the most incredible way, and I’m going to do it sober, with a program of recovery behind me. Right this second, that doesn’t make me feel lucky, but I know I am lucky to have what I have today. I wouldn’t change anything about my life today. It feels so good to be able to say that. I just wish I could go to bed now and let these tears out!!

9 months, 8 days (obsession)

Oh I can’t believe how much of a state I am in right now. As always, there are many reasons for me to be in a hell of mood tonight. While things in life have generally continued to go well, my mood has continued to fluctuate insanely, and after another day of high emotions I am so tired of feeling this way. It’s finally occurred to me that my mood keeps changing because I am utterly, utterly self obsessed. Having begun to analyze the deeper reasons behind my biggest worries in life, I’ve realised that nearly ALL of them focus on what other people think of me. A few of the things that I’m worried about are quite important, such as money and getting a job after graduation. But about 90% of my anxiety is based on other people’s evaluations of me.

 Today I’ve managed to make the leap from thinking it was just other people’s thoughts and judgments which scared me, to the knowledge that I’m only scared about looking bad in people’s eyes. I’m not really worried about people’s feelings, I’m only worried about how I look to them because I want to look good. I’m desperately concerned with doing everything perfectly so that I can get what I want, which is universal approval.

 I’ve come to this realisation as a number of recent occurrences have led me to feel unnecessarily awkward around certain people. I’m talking about silly, embarrassing incidents which always seem to befall me. Yesterday someone from my home group texted me to tell me he wouldn’t be able to make it, and I texted back saying that I hope he gets better soon, automatically assuming that he couldn’t come last night because he was ill. He has a condition, the details of which I can’t go into because it would be breaking anonymity, and in the past he’s missed the meeting due to illness. But yesterday he wasn’t ill, and he told me so, which led me to feel incredibly guilty, as he probably now thinks I’m making all kinds of assumptions about him.

 When I next see him I’m sure I’ll feel so awkward around him that I won’t be able to speak to him for another three months, purely out of shame and guilt. These terrible thoughts made me not want to go to my home group yesterday. Not for the first time, I wanted to stay at home and watch TV, but because I’m the literature secretary I had to force myself to go, which led me to feel resentful of the entire meeting, yet again. When I got there I could hardly speak to people, even friends; I tried to share about how I was feeling but the words wouldn’t come out properly, which led me to feel even angrier. Afterwards I’d promised to go for coffee with one of the newcomers, and I’d been looking forward to having a chat with him, but a whole group ended up going and so I felt like I was tagging along behind while all the others rushed ahead, seemingly so much more confident and comfortable with the social situation than me. It wasn’t so bad in the café, as I realised that any resentment about not being able to have the private chat with this newcomer that I’d been looking forward to was purely about selfishness on my part.

 Today has been equally stressful, for many more reasons. The weather was beautiful, so I decided to go for a long walk in the afternoon, as I always do in nice weather. London is so much better in the summer. My walk mostly took me around Soho and central London, my second home these days. From the start I kept bumping into people I knew, which was very unusual. One of the people was a girl from my degree course, who I hardly ever speak to. In my head it was an intensely awkward interaction. I seem to find it harder speaking to people I vaguely know than I do to complete strangers. In the early days of the course I was quite good friends with this girl, but we kind of drifted apart after a while, as I have with so many people over the years.

 Anyway, it was very nice of her to stop and chat to me today, but I just didn’t know what to say. I was sure she must be thinking terrible things about me, like: ‘that Josh is such a horrible person, ignoring me for years!’ Even though her exterior suggested nothing but pleasantness, I couldn’t help imagining the resentment underneath, and I bet I won’t be able to speak to her again the next time I see her. I have absolutely no idea what she thinks about me – I just can’t believe she’d actually like me, after all this time. It’s mad, I know, considering she made the effort to approach me today!

 After that I bumped into someone else further down the road, a person I know from one of the social networking websites that I use sporadically. It was a similarly awkward encounter, and again I could only stop to chat for thirty seconds before my fears about being judged negatively forced me to run away. I have absolutely no evidence to suggest that these people dislike me, but my head is determined to believe it, and I keep creating awkward situations with them because I can’t just be normal with them. If I haven’t seen someone for a while, my head just assumes that they’ve gone off me, so I stop making the effort with them, which then causes me embarrassment and shame when an awkward situation like the ones I’ve just described arise. It’s a vicious cycle, and although I know how to stop it, I don’t think I can, because I keep taking my eye off it, which just feeds it more and more.

 I went to a step 11 meeting tonight, where they have ten minutes’ meditation at the beginning, which seemed to help. Afterwards I was meant to be going for coffee with a good friend from the fellowship, but once again a big group seemed to want to join us, and so I was left feeling like an outsider while my friend’s attention was focused on all these other people who I only vaguely knew. I literally had to force myself not to fall behind and disappear home. At the coffee shop I was only a very minor part of the group conversation. Everyone was talking about working in the music industry, for some reason, a subject which is hardly my forté. My friend Andy, who I was sat next to, turned to include me in the conversation a few times, which was nice. But my head was so full of anxiety about being in a daunting social situation that I couldn’t sit comfortably at all. It was that old fear of not fitting in again; they all seemed so attractive and young and interesting, while I felt boring and invisible. I can’t believe this is still happening to me, after all this time. Instead of getting better, it appears to be getting worse.

 By the time everyone had decided to go home I was thoroughly exhausted. All I’d done was sit in a chair drinking tea, hardly a strenuous activity. It’s the washing machine head which physically wears me out. It’s no wonder I get colds and sore throats all the time – I’m chronically stressed out. When I was on the train home I realised I had left my bag in the coffee shop. Just what I needed to happen! And then when I got home I found my mum in a bad mood because the hot water has gone on the blink, as it does sometimes. Whenever she’s in a mood and I’m in a mood, it’s a complete nightmare in this place. It thoroughly depresses me. Right now I’m trying to say helpful things to myself, such as: ‘this will pass’, ‘I’ll probably feel better in the morning’, ‘it’s OK I can go and get my bag back tomorrow’. Even if they don’t have it, I had nothing valuable in it except some photocopying I’d done for University.

 It’s not losing the bag I’m really upset about. If that was the only thing that had happened today, I’m sure I’d be fine tonight. As ever, it’s just one of many stressful things that have happened today. All these things happening on top of each other is not helpful to me in the slightest. Life is like that, I know. Sometimes, things happen on top of each other at the same time. You just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and I will. I certainly have no intention of drinking tonight, which is good. But whenever I’m stressed out by life, the fact that I’m sober doesn’t seem to matter that much to me, while I’m trapped in this prison of anxiety and fear. Sitting with the feelings is a really, really hard thing to do, and I still hate it, and I probably always will. I’m sick and tired of worrying what people think of me all the time, of not being able to feel comfortable in all social situations, of living with a mother who’s emotionally unstable, of being completely unable to control my emotions. I realise that the AA program has an answer to these problems: step 3 tells me that I need to hand it over to my higher power, who always has my best interests at heart. But I still can’t hand everything over, months after I ‘officially’ did step 3, and that bugs me.

 I don’t just want to become less self obsessed, I want my self obsession to be removed completely. I don’t want to wake up one more day and worry about social embarrassment from first thing in the morning. Yet I know I’m going to wake up tomorrow and still be the same, and it drives me crazy. I’m so sick of this illness, it’s like a curse! God, I can’t wait for my sponsor to get back from his holiday next week (he’s been in LA for two weeks). I have sooo much to tell him.

9 months, 7 days (psychology and truth)

Good meeting last night, in the end. We moved to a new venue this week, which felt rather like moving house as in the past nine months I had got rather used to the old venue. I was apprehensive about the move as I’d never been to the new venue, and I wasn’t sure which floor the meeting room would be on. I went to see the new building half an hour before the start of the meeting, and from the outside it looked big and daunting. I could have gone inside and found someone to ask where the new AA meeting was going to be, but I was too nervous, so I walked around the block a few times to wait for the meeting’s secretary. In the end a big group of familiar faces arrived and we all went up to find the room together. It was an awful lot smaller than the old room, and it reminded me of one of the classrooms at University. Twenty at most would be able to fit in comfortably; unfortunately everyone had decided to come and see what the new meeting room was like, and we got over 25 in the end. People were sitting on the floor; it felt very cramped. There were people I’d never seen before. Hopefully it won’t always be like that!

 Part of my anxiety about the new meeting location had been down to my role as the tea-maker. I’d need to know where I could find cups and kettles and plates. Luckily the kitchen in the new venue is right outside the meeting room, with all the tea-making implements easy to find, and it’s a lot nicer than the kitchen in the old place! All in all, last night was very interesting, with a fresh and new feeling to the meeting.

 Today I’ve been busy catching up on some reading for my degree. For weeks I’ve been focused on my dissertation, forgetting about the other modules that I’m taking this term. Now that the dissertation is over I can think about those other modules again. Today I read a textbook chapter about anxiety disorders for the ‘Abnormal Psychology’ unit. It was an informative and enthralling read. By the end of it I felt somewhat emotional, because most of the symptoms being described seemed to fit into the problems I had been experiencing all my life.

 It talked a lot about social phobia, something I’ve always known I have. Before taking Psychology, I never knew that social phobia was actually classed by the medical community as a psychological disorder. Apparently it is, and there various kinds of treatment for it. The reading went into lots of detail about the theoretical causes of social phobia, as well as the different treatments on offer. Apparently research has shown that social phobia can be both learnt and inherited. If one has parents who are socially anxious, one is likely to be the same. Social phobia isn’t just mere ’shyness’, which everyone can suffer from in certain situations from time to time; it’s a lot more serious than that. It is pervasive, stressful and life-inhibiting. A socially phobic child tends to have no friends, does not tend to enjoy school, and can become greatly dependent on parents/close relatives for support in external situations. I fit the criteria so perfectly, I could have given myself a diagnosis there and then.

 Part of the chapter went into even greater detail about a specific form of social phobia, called ’school phobia’. As soon as I saw the section title, I knew I was going to identify with all the symptoms. Children who are school-phobic are not just scared of other children, they are scared of school itself, of the rules and the responsibility and the institutional atmosphere. Many children with this disorder refuse to go to school and tend to develop depression/psychopathology when forced to go in. One part of the article described a fascinating method of treatment for the condition. A therapist in America took a child with school phobia into school on a number of occasions; on the first occasion they simply went into the playground and then went back out. On the second occasion they stayed at school for a little while longer, with the therapist sat beside the child all the time. On the next occasion the therapist retreated into the background a little, to let the child become accustomed to dealing with the situation on its own. After that, the child began to spend longer and longer at school, increasingly on his own, until he felt comfortable becoming a fully-fledged pupil again. All the time, the child was rewarded for his efforts. Rather than being told to ‘hurry up and get better’, he was allowed to develop and grow in his own time.

 As I was reading this, tears almost came to my eyes, because I couldn’t believe I’d gone through such a traumatic experience at school for so many years without a clinically recognised disorder being spotted. All those years of feeling isolated, almost invisible, because I was so scared of my peers and the teachers – I thought it was just me who had a problem. I really thought I was abnormal, that I was doing something wrong. If I’d been taken to a therapist and diagnosed with a real and treatable condition, I can’t begin to imagine how different my life would have been. Yes, school phobia is relatively rare in children, as is social phobia – about 1% of children have it, according to the stats. But it’s still a real problem. If someone had said to me at the age of thirteen or fourteen: ‘No, Josh, you’re not weird or bad, you have a condition which we’re going to help you with now,’ I doubt I would have nearly screwed my education up by deliberately missing school all the time, and I doubt I would have tried to commit suicide twice at the age of sixteen.

 Instead of being reintroduced to the school environment slowly by a caring helper, I was dragged to school time after time after time, shouted at for being ‘lazy’ and ’selfish’, ridiculed by peers who saw it as another weakness to pick on. Am I victimising myself by saying that I had a really hard time? Probably. Steps 4 and 5 have shown me that I could have handled the school situation a whole lot differently, that I have no one to blame but myself for the fact that I never got on with peers. Step 4 doesn’t encourage one to blame oneself, exactly, but it removes the possibility that anyone else could be at serious fault for situations which have caused us difficulty. That’s the way my sponsor has taught it to me, anyway.

 Last time I did step 5 with him I was sure I’d made some sort of breakthrough. Suddenly I could see where I’d been going wrong all those years, and I didn’t feel angry at my old school any more. But now I’m feeling angry once again, because the truth is that for years I had a problem which went completely unnoticed by the so-called ‘responsible’ adults in my life. The consequences of this screw-up were nearly catastrophic. I really did mean to kill myself on those two occasions in 1999, I just didn’t know how to do it properly. The textbook I read today states that symptoms of social phobia in adulthood include extreme dependence on parents, chronic underachievement in the career field, and most importantly, alcohol abuse.

 I don’t know if I’m so much angry after all this as I am sad. Here I am again, faced so clearly with the reason why my life has been so shit, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with it. Things are so much better for me now than they were ten years ago, because I’ve finally found a social support network which values me unconditionally. If I am to continue being sad about my childhood, I suppose that’s my right, but would it really serve me? I know I’ve been here before, most recently with my step 4 and 5 work, which is basically a catalogue of all the things I didn’t like about my childhood and all the reasons why I don’t need to be angry about those things any more.

 What continues to worry me is what this could all mean for my alcoholism. I know now that my dependence on alcohol was a symptom of the deeper problems that I’ve just described. If I learnt to be socially phobic because I had a mother who was the same, or because I was bullied at school, or because I simply didn’t have the resources to cope with all the demands that school placed on me, then surely I can unlearn that social phobia. A theory which lends itself to the idea that alcoholism, too, can be unlearnt. Maybe I can go back to social drinking, once I’ve dealt with the underlying psychological disturbance which years of school caused me.

 As I write that, I already know that trying social drinking would be like a wild goose chase. I tried to control my drinking for at least two years before I gave up. It never worked because I always wanted more. Two, three or four drinks are just never enough. Which leads me to the conclusion that at least part of my alcoholism must be biological. My dissertation supervisor has even said to me that she thinks true alcoholism is inherited in the genes. I can’t learn to control alcohol because I was built with an addictive personality. If I wanted to drink again, I wouldn’t see the point in just sticking to three or four pints. I’d want to do it properly, I’d want to go all the way and drink to oblivion again. Nothing less would satisfy me. I can’t think of any reason for that other than that it must be a biological urge.

 I’m much happier not drinking, I know I am. So many benefits have come to me from not drinking. I don’t have to hang around in dirty, dingy pubs any more until three in the morning. I don’t have to waste money on expensive drinks to make myself feel comfortable around other human beings any more. I can do interesting, constructive things with my time now, such as trying exotic foods in trendy cafés, seeing cool films at the cinema. In AA I’ve become friends with a bunch of fresh, young, exciting people. Outside AA people tend to have the impression that we’re all park bench tramps, but we’re not. I’ve met writers, actors, musicians, teachers, nurses and doctors in AA. I never met people like that in pubs and clubs. 90% of all the people I met in my drinking experiences were sleazy and unfriendly. I love being in AA – I don’t need drink in my life any more. To be honest, I can’t understand why so-called ‘normal’ drinkers need alcohol in their lives!

9 months, 5 days

Against all expectations, I managed to get quite a lot done yesterday, the most important thing being my dissertation, which is now just about finished. It hasn’t sunk in yet that it’s over - I keep having to remind myself that there’s nothing left to do! I’m almost expecting something else to come up, because it’s been a part of my life for so long I suppose. I’ve been building up to it in this degree for three years. Of course, I’ll have to go through the report again before I hand it in, to iron out any mistakes. But the hard work is all done now. I don’t feel free, because there are more challenges ahead of me, such as finding work after graduation. I’m still a bit nervous about that, as I always have been, but it’s not nearly as daunting as it was a year ago.

 In the evening I went to the meeting in Notting Hill that I’ve always really liked. It doesn’t usually get very busy, so everyone gets to share for a bit longer than normal. The chair was really good, given by a woman who’s been in the fellowship for nearly fourteen years. She mainly talked about the perspective and security that long term sobriety gives you. It’s funny how I seem to identify with every chair I hear now, even though I’ve only been around for nine months and many of these people have been sober for years. One thing the lady said last night really stood out for me: that long term sobriety doesn’t make you a better person or make life any easier, but it does give you insight and perspective into situations and behaviours that you’re not comfortable with. I suppose if one was to relate that to the 12 steps, step 4 teaches us about our character defects and in discovering these things we gradually identify and change behaviours which are bad for us. I’m definitely becoming aware of situations and behaviours that have never served me but which I keep doing, like the isolating, which comes from paranoia about what people are thinking of me. I keep slipping into that mindset because it is my natural way of operating, but the difference now is that I know exactly what it is, and I know it doesn’t have to be my only way of interacting with people any more. I feel a lot more secure in the fellowship now, and it’s not such a struggle to be sociable any more, whereas in the beginning it was always a struggle.

 I wanted to share last night but unfortunately I left it right to the end, and the secretary ended the meeting just as I was about to open my mouth. I keep managing to do that, and it’s annoying, and I know I need to assert myself and open my mouth earlier in meetings to avoid it happening in future. In the past I wouldn’t have been aware that I could even change the situation myself – I’d have just been resentful at the secretary for ending the meeting too quickly.

 Because I hadn’t shared for a few days, there was a moment last night when I was quite resentful, and I didn’t want to speak to anybody when the meeting was over, I just wanted to go home and remain invisible. But very quickly I was able to snap out of it, as my higher power reminded me that I was among friends. I didn’t have to isolate to deal with the situation. I knew that going for coffee and speaking to people would be much more beneficial for me, and this is what I did. In the café it turned out that I was able to help some of the others, by talking about my feelings and my experiences. I told the group about a new AA cliché I’d heard the other day in a meeting: ‘you wouldn’t care what others thought about you if you knew how seldom they did it.’ One of the guys in the café was so keen on this cliché that he got me to write it down in his notebook for him, so he would never forget it. He said I’d helped him out by passing this piece of information onto him. I really like the AA clichés, because they’re all so true. I’m glad I was able to help that person out last night. It shows me I don’t always have to be in the perfect frame of mind to help others – I only have to say one thing and it might be useful to somebody. So I got a lot out of last night, despite the fact that I hadn’t shared in the meeting.

 I love that Saturday meeting now because it’s not quite in central London, so it’s a bit out of the way of the classic gay ’scene’ which we’ve all felt disillusioned with over the years. They go to a nice little café in Notting Hill where the staff all know us, so it’s very relaxing for me. It’s nice to have that on Saturdays. In my drinking days I used to get so disappointed when I couldn’t go out clubbing and drinking into the early hours of Sunday morning. Now I can go to Notting Hill for a few hours, spend time with genuinely nice people, then go home at a reasonably early time and get to sleep sober. My life isn’t ruled by Saturday night clubbing any more!!

 Today it was my second training session in phone counselling, which I will be starting soon for a lesbian & gay charity organisation in North London. There was a lot of role play, which was very nerve-racking, but over all I really enjoyed it. I feel like I’ve learned a lot today. Even though it’s very different to face to face counselling, a career I eventually want to go into, I can tell phone counselling will be a great preparatory experience for me. We had to talk about counselling skills today, such as empathy and acceptance. The people I’ll be working with are all very nice, so I’m really keen to get going with it now. There were slight nerves before the day had started, but by the time the session was finished I’d forgotten all about fear. I think because I’ve done quite a bit of voluntary work in sobriety so far, I’m used to that kind of role now, so I know there’s nothing to be nervous about. Soon I’ll be training as a befriender to autistic youths as well, which I can’t wait for. I only hope I haven’t given myself too much to do this year!

9 months, 4 days (Don)

Yesterday started with some good news, as I bumped into my supervisor when I arrived in Uni to be told that I didn’t have to find ten more participants for my project, if I absolutely couldn’t. She said that the research would be feasible with just 90 participants; in fact I’ve probably got more participants than some of my fellow students at the moment. So, the research is finally over. All that remains for me to do is finish the report, then it’s all done! Yesterday I managed to write up the results properly, with the help of a statistics text book taken from the library. Not the kind of book I’d choose to read in my spare time! Some of it was plain foreign to me, but by the end of the day I had a reasonable grasp of what I needed to do, and now all that remains for me to do is write the ‘discussion’ section. I hope I can get that done by the end of today. It shouldn’t take very long; the other parts of the report are traditionally more difficult to finish.

 No, I can’t believe it’s nearly over now. All year I’ve had this project hanging over me. It’s never been more of a burden than it is at the moment. Through my own sheer determination I’ve managed to do nearly everything on my own, and I’ve nearly finished two weeks before the deadline. I can’t imagine how much more difficult the whole thing would have been if I was drinking. I dread to think what this year would have been like if that were the case. I’d probably have left University by now, because I couldn’t have afforded to carry on with the amount I was spending before.

 Last night’s meeting in Soho was quite dramatic. For years this guy called Don has been turning up at meetings drunk; he always insists on sharing for about ten minutes, and the stuff he shares about is usually completely irrelevant to the meeting. Last night he was absolutely wasted, and after he’d taken his turn to speak he kept interrupting other sharers, shouting at them for talking about stuff which he couldn’t relate to. He also called the chair ‘arrogant’ for saying that he never wanted to drink again.

 He’s been bad before, but never this bad. By the end of the meeting the secretary was forced to tell Don to shut up, but Don wouldn’t keep quiet. He just got louder and louder, screaming at the room about how hard it was for him. I’ve seen him cause scenes in meetings before, so I wasn’t at all shocked at his behaviour, though it was still incredibly embarrassing and painful to watch. Part of me just wanted to go over and plead with him to stop. It’s so obvious to me, and probably everyone else, that he is going out of his way to get attention. He is a true alcoholic, and he knows it. He keeps saying that he wants to stop drinking, but he never actually does. He must be so hooked on booze, I fear for him if he ever does try to stop. Alcohol withdrawal can be the worst kind of withdrawal; it can be fatal in very exceptional cases.

 When I first came into the fellowship and saw him behaving like that, I was repulsed by him, and I wanted nothing to do with him. These days, I have a lot more compassion, because there’ve been a few occasions when I’ve actually stood outside talking to him, and he can be quite nice. It’s only inside the meetings that he is a nightmare, for some reason. Last weekend after I gave my chair, he came up to me outside the meeting and said I had ‘humility’. From him, that seems like a great compliment. I can tell he wants to make friends and become part of the fellowship, but he’s never managed to get to the point where he can change. He just goes home and starts drinking again.

 Last night he came up to me after the meeting as usual, and I walked with him a while, as I realised that I had an opportunity to say some important things to him. He told me that he was scared of getting close to people, because it made him vulnerable; he also said that the reason he gets so angry in meetings is because he feels like people are looking down their nose at him. I reassured him that no one is looking down their nose at anyone; people are merely upset because he’s taking their chance to share from them. I didn’t quite know how to inform him that he could end up being barred from meetings, because his behaviour is going against the tradition which states that the group’s welfare must come first. He probably wouldn’t have listened if I’d said that, so I didn’t say anything. Before leaving him I struggled not to beg him to stop drinking; I simply said that it is much better not drinking, and he seemed to hear me. He smiled and said ‘thankyou’ before running to catch the tube. I have no idea if I got through to him in the end. I probably didn’t, but isn’t it worth trying? The thing is, by all accounts he’s been like this for years, and many others have tried to help him in the past, only to be let down time and time again. Why would I have any luck when all those other people didn’t?

 I realised immediately that I want to help Don for entirely selfish reasons. I’d love to see him get well with my help because it would make me look good. Helping him to get better would in turn help me. Yes it’s selfish, but it’s completely human for me to feel that way. Recently in counselling I learnt that in healing others we heal ourselves. Surely that’s the principle that sponsorship rests on. What I have to be careful of with Don is getting too involved. After leaving him last night I went to coffee with the group as usual, and I was glad that Don hadn’t come with us, because I would have ended up speaking to him all night. If I decide to help him, I could end up getting badly let down, because the likelihood is that he will keep slipping. So I don’t really know what to do now. I can’t just ignore him when he comes up to talk to me, but part of me thinks I just haven’t got the experience or knowledge to give him the help he needs.

 I think the fact that I know all this shows the strength of my recovery. I’m proud of myself for staying to talk to him for a bit last night, rather than running off with the group as I had done before. Not many people seem to want to talk to him any more. That’s probably because they’ve all been in the program a lot longer than me, and they’ve all got a bit sick of him. In the end I may get sick of him too, but I hope I don’t. I hope I can keep talking to him every now and then, because I have an idea of what he’s going through. Sure, there are times when I’ve felt like screaming and shouting in meetings because I’m so furious with everyone there. I’d never do that because I’m far too polite. What’s true is that Don’s behaviour is NOT alien to any of us. We’ve all done that kind of thing in pubs during our drinking. So we cannot sit in judgement, much as we’d like to.

9 months, 2 days (research)

Right now I’m probably going through the most stressful experience of my life, let alone my sobriety. This morning I discovered something which could have thrown my whole Psychology research project, and hence my degree, into jeopardy. For some reason, about half of the questionnaires which I handed out to be completed in University last month have a major error on them (it’s too complicated to explain here), which means that the results I’ve got are plain wrong. I was instantly thrown into turmoil and panic, because when we hand the final project in in two weeks from now we have to hand in all the raw data too. I can’t hand in these questionnaires that have a glaring error on them, because the markers will spot it and probably tell me to do the whole thing again.

 It took me a few minutes to realise that the only thing I could do was get the questionnaires reprinted without the mistake, and get them completed by a new set of participitants. Somehow, I’d have to find 40 new participants in the space of a day. When I handed out the questionnaires the first time round, it was the most painful experience of my life, because I HATE approaching strangers for anything (I cannot emphasize the word ‘hate’ enough!) But somehow, with the help of friends, I managed to get over 80 people to do my research, something I never thought I’d manage. You can’t really use a smaller number of participants in Psychological research, because the results have to be representative of the norm.

 Now that I would have to find 40 more people, I just wanted to die. I felt like the whole world was crashing down on me this morning. Somehow, I don’t know how, I managed to get myself into University by 10am, which would give me plenty of time to print the new questionnaires and get plenty of participants, should I find the courage to do so. I found the man who does all the big printing orders straight away, who told me at first that it would take five days for my new questionnaires to be done. I nearly screamed! ‘I don’t have five days,’ I said calmly, several times, which eventually convinced him to do the printing there and then. He must have seen the desperation in my eyes!

 I sat there watching reams and reams of paper come out of a printer for THREE hours. I kept thinking: ‘what a waste of paper!’ All those questionnaires I’d printed before, would now just go in the bin. It’s not just a one-page questionnaire, each one is four pages long. After an hour of watching questionnaire after questionnaire emerge from the printer today, I was climbing the walls. They have the slowest, cheapest printers you could possibly imagine in my University. By the time it had finally finished it was lunch time. I didn’t want to lose a single minute, but I was starving hungry and knew I would have to go and eat before setting out to find participants. I resented every mouthful of food that went into my mouth, for the amount of time it was taking out of my research.

 I started eating very quickly, but as my plate got increasingly emtpy I began to slow down, as I knew that the most challenging task of my life was about to begin. Once I’d finished eating, I would have to start approaching strangers to ask them for help all over again. Last time around, I was with friends when I had to do this, and to be honest, it was mostly my friends who did the asking. Today I was on my own. I felt like I was truly being punished, for the sloppy job I had done with the whole project so far.

 I was in the canteen for a couple of hours, and by some miracle I managed to ask thirty people to do my questionnaire. After that, I was so physically and emotionally drained, I had to go home. I was deeply, deeply resentful of my project by now, and I just wanted it to be over. Despite the fact I’d found thirty participants all on my own, all I could think about as I journeyed home is that there were still ten questionnaires left to complete. I’ll have to go in again tomorrow and find those last ten people, and the thought of it is just killing me right now. Even though I turned today’s disaster around and got thirty people, I can’t rest tonight because it’s not over yet. There’s one more challenge left, one more bit of work to do. And then once I’ve got those remaining questionnaires done, I’ve still got to finish writing the bloody report up. I had planned to finish it today; it would have been wonderful to hand the thing in two weeks early. Now I probably won’t have it finished until this time next week.

 I know it’s just a week – seven measly days – but at the moment that feels like seven years. I want to be done with it right now. I can’t bear this thing hanging over me any more. I’m sick to the back teeth of it! This evening after I’d rushed dinner down I literally ran to the step 1 meeting in Islington where I’ve shared every week for months, as I had a lot to talk about. By now I know I can’t hold anything back in recovery; when something is bothering me, I must share about it in a meeting. I can’t keep anything a secret now because secrets are like poison to me. So I listened to the chair, which was wonderful this week, then I rose my hand and spoke for five minutes about this f*cking Psychology project. I just let it all out, not because I wanted to, but because I needed to. Once I’d done so, I felt somewhat better. I’m still worried about tomorrow, but I guess everything will get done, because it has to get done. This is one of those things I can’t put off, so I won’t.

9 months, 1 day

Most of yesterday was spent on my old diaries, which I am still copying up to the computer. I’m on early 2002 now, an exciting and dramatic time in my life as it was when I really started to get into socialising and drinking. I was making friends for the first time; falling in love for the first time. Everything was huge drama; my emotions were all over the place, as they are today. Most of the time I think I haven’t changed at all in the last six years, though it feels like a whole world away now. In many ways I am still that fearful 19 year old, but the difference is that now I have hope, and experience, and a program of recovery.

 My home group last night was OK. I had a splitting headache, which I think was caused by a sudden drop in sugar in my diet (I’m trying to eat healthily this week) so I didn’t feel much like socialising or talking to anyone. I managed to share, though, and the literature got put out as neatly as ever. At the end I went to collect my 9 month chip, something I’d been looking forward to for days. It was nice to be clapped by the group as I am every month, and as I stood at the front the secretary said he was proud of me again. But when I got home I was miffed to discover that they’d given me a 10 month chip instead of 9 months. I guess I must be superstitious, because this mistake really bothered me last night, and I didn’t get a very good night’s sleep.

 I think I was also worrying about money, which is starting to run low again. The financial situation is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, but I’ve had my last student loan from the government now, which means that the next time any money goes into my account, it will be in the form of wages for whatever job I’m in. I’ve been very careful with money in the last few months, so I can survive quite comfortably in the near future, but this does mean that I’ll have to be working by the end of spring. I still don’t know what I’m going to do for work, as I want to focus on my degree right to the end. University isn’t over til it’s over. I can’t think about looking for work while I’ve got so much to do for Psychology.

 The dissertation is going amazingly well – I’m about halfway through with the corrections now. I spent half of today just rewriting it. I’m really pleased with myself on that score, and I suppose if I can succeed in this, I’ll succeed in work, eventually.