Something new

With my newfound spiritual ability to live in the ‘Now’ has come a marked increase in my creative output; today I started on my first ever non-fictional novel, which I think will be about the journey to spirituality and peace. It feels right to start writing this thing at the moment, even though just the other day I was happily in the middle of my other fictional novel about growing up gay in London. I guess I like having several projects on the go at one time; perhaps following the policy of writing what I want to when I want to will provide me with more success in this career path that I have decided to follow.

 I think that what I wrote today was very passable as a piece of non-fiction. The foreword basically covers my life story, which should be relevant to the rest of the book as my life story has been all about looking for peace and contentment. I think the rest of the book might take a more general look at the search for peace in the world. I already have a number of quotations from other esteemed authors lined which I will be able to use to give my book more credibility. I learnt all about referencing in my degree – I had to do a lot of it in my final project – I think I might as well make use of the skill. It’s a nice feeling, knowing I could be about to write something really worthwhile…

“FOREWORD: A Bit About Me

In December of the year 1982, I was born to a single mother of 26 years in working class North London. There was nothing particularly special about my background or circumstances other than the noticeable and permanent absence of my father. I knew from early on that he was not dead, but I was allowed to know nothing else about him. Not why he was absent, not why my parents had split up before I came into the world, not even why I could never see him. The subject of my father was the elephant in the room, at least until I was eighteen years of age. By then I was a shy, insular, angry young man with some intelligence and a profound lack of social skills. I was not autistic, but I was different. It was always just known that I was not like other people of my age. School had been a prolonged prison sentence for me, a nightmare experience that I had run away from just weeks into my first year of A-Level study, terrified that it would kill me if I remained in it any longer. Since the age of twelve I had known that I was homosexual. It was not something that I made a choice about. It was simply something that happened to me, and I had spent a lot of time attempting to convince myself that I could change this fundamental fact about myself. I couldn’t.

            When I was eighteen I had somewhat come to terms with it. Completing my A-Level study, followed quickly by leaving London to go to University in Norwich, was an enormously emancipating experience for me, in that for the first time I could admit to other people that I was a dirty homosexual, and they didn’t try to attack or berate me about it. I learnt that the world out there wasn’t so bad after all. People could like me and get to know me, if I would just let them. But it wasn’t so easy to let them without the fundamental trust in human nature which they all seemed to possess while I didn’t. I was beginning to explore and experiment in life; I found sex for the first time and I realised that other homosexual men could be just as attractive as the typically macho, straight men that I had idolized for years. At this time I was only just skirting the edges of life, however profound and exciting it might have all seemed to me at the time. I was beginning to learn how to have fun, but I wasn’t getting to the deeper meanings in life. I wasn’t really discovering who I am. Now, nearly a decade later, I believe I am only just beginning to get to grips with this question of who I am and what I really need in life. Which does not entail that I am any closer to finding the answers than I was in 2001. The questions become clearer to me every single day; the answers remain fuzzy and untouchable.

            Perhaps ‘finding the answers’ is meant to be a lifelong journey that one cannot possibly hope to complete before the age of 30. If I knew everything I needed to know today, would the rest of my life not be somewhat boring? Meaningless? Since I quit chasing the student dream of endless hedonistic fun I have admittedly discovered a great deal more meaning in the day to day pursuit of truth and happiness. No longer am I fixated on finding a way out of this misery. The seemingly endless supply of cheap alcohol and marijuana on offer at University provided me for years with a convenient get-out clause whenever things around me got too close for comfort. At the time I was able to believe that I was solving all my problems. In an almost constant state of intoxication I could easily convince myself that nothing really mattered. Life would take care of itself. I didn’t feel that I had to do anything other than save all my money for the next drunken fix: a process in itself which has caused a multitude of sinful problems in later years.

            The inevitable day came when it all became so real and painful that I had to for the first time face up to the elephant in the room. At the age of 21 I had no money, no job prospects that I could conceive of, no loving partner and no purpose in life. I had finally been able to get in contact with my father three years earlier and for a while things had seemed great between us; by now we weren’t really getting on and it seemed like a waste of time trying to make any effort with him. It quickly dawned on me that I had become a lost soul. I could see no salvation anywhere I turned, so I put off dealing with the true extent of my problem by returning to London and becoming a student again. For three more years I lived off government loans and resolutely spent copious amounts of that money in pubs and clubs every weekend. It was so easy to forget about the things I had refused to look at in 2004. I had been given another three years of what I considered freedom to do as I wished. The degree that I had chosen to study this time around, Psychology, was not nearly as easy to sail through as my first degree, Philosophy, had been; but for the first couple of years I was quite happy to be where I was. Being a student entails very few real responsibilities: the work that one is required to do is slightly challenging, of course, but there are usually a plethora of second chances available if one gets something wrong. And the fact that the purpose of the work becomes increasingly interesting as time goes on helps a great deal. Other than that, one does not need to worry much about anything during those three seemingly long years.

            There is no getting up early every morning, no bills to pay (if, like me and many other 21^st century undergraduates, one chooses to live ‘at home’), no council tax to bother with, no career path to forge out in a competitive and highly unpredictable world economy. It is no wonder that many of us automatically chose University as the way to go with hardly a second thought, having heard that it would provide us with the three best years of our lives. I heartily scoff whenever I hear of the idea that school days are supposed to be the best of one’s life: if anything, school is perhaps hundreds of times closer to the real world than University ever could be.

            At the end of my Psychology degree I reached another inevitable crisis point. Three more years of the easy life had not brought me any closer to a realisation of what I wanted to do with my life. I thought perhaps I could enjoy being a writer; somewhere at the back of my mind a career in counselling seemed slightly appealing, too. Neither option gave me something to do that I could start earning money from at that point in my life. Writing is one of the trickiest and most obscure professions to get into, and counselling would have taken up to three more years of expensive studying in which to achieve even a foothold. So I decided to spend the next year or so ‘finding myself’. I quit drinking and for the first time in my life began to look at the questions that have always bothered me without avoidance or fear. The pain at times is immense, unbearable, and it tells me that it’s not worth going on, because the solution to the problem will never come if I carry on this way. I don’t work, I don’t drink, I don’t have much sex, I don’t even get out of bed some days. To the outside world it must look like a meaningless existence, when I contribute nothing tangible to our capitalist society, all the while surviving on meagre benefits that have been paid for by the average taxpayer.

            To me, it feels like the most meaningful existence I have ever had. I get to learn about and explore myself and the world around me every day without the current cultural constraints of work, boozing, endless worrying and chasing after material success holding me back. They held me back for twenty-four years and I don’t wish them to do that any more.

            Why am I writing this book? There’s a part of me that feels this journey of mine ought to be shared with the world. There’s another part of me that feels it will be a worthless endeavour. I have no published works to my name and I might not be a good enough writer for the world. Those doubts, which come from the world around me and not me, have to be ignored if I am to continue meaningfully. Whether this book turns into something that can be appreciated by others or not, it feels like the right thing for me to create at this moment. That feeling is beyond human knowledge; it cannot be quantified or measured as something with external value. It just is, and for now, I am determined to follow it.”

Bed time

It’s been one of those mixed bag weekends. Today was awful; after a busy and tiring few days I had a lot of sleep to catch up on, and ended up laying in bed until 2.30 this afternoon, a very depressing time to get up in my book. I absolutely hate lying in these days, especially when I finally have to get up and realise that I’ve wasted hours that could and should have been put to better use. It’s not so much that I’m doing something immoral, it’s just that I’m missing out on so much of life, and I face a huge dilemma because of the huge fight that my body keeps putting up when I try and force it out of bed before it’s ready. I find the feeling of time wasted that comes every day now so hateful that I’ve spent most of today stuck in one of my depressive stupours, unable to do anything other than watch TV. Let’s hope that today was just a blip, and tomorrow gets me back on track. I take some heart from the fact that today was my first depressive episode in six days, which seems to be the longest I’ve gone without one this year.

 Friday and Saturday were much nicer, helped by the fact of continuing good spring weather. I did a lot of walking in parks, part of the reason why I was so tired today. On Friday evening I rocked up at the Soho meeting where I got chatting to this cute American guy who I ended up spending the rest of the night with. He was over visiting and wanted to go dancing that night, so I took him to G-A-Y, my favourite gay club on Earth. We danced almost continuously until 3 in the morning, all the while getting a bit frisky with each other. I had never gotten so close to another AA member before. Until Friday the idea of touching another AA seemed like a taboo to me. I’ve fancied many men in gay AA, but have never brought myself to get involved until now.

 While my new friend was using the loo at one point that night I was approached by someone else in the club, someone good looking with a can of beer in his hand. I was instantly faced with a tough choice. Should I go for hot, meaningless sex, or should I stick with AA and go for something a bit more interesting? I wanted to see if sleeping with AA could provide my life with the meaning that I’ve been looking for for years, so I waited for my friend to return from the loo and fell into his arms to show the sexy drunk that I wasn’t interested. As soon as that one had walked away looking dejected I felt terrible. For the first time in my life I was turning my back on an offer. More worryingly, I was receiving more male attention than I had in years. Later on that night on a different dancefloor I was nearly approached by someone else who appeared to like my dancing, but by then I had made my mind up and stuck even more closely to my AA friend.

 The night was a lot of fun – highly erotic for me because it wasn’t primarily about sex. We didn’t start off planning to sleep together, we started off as spiritual fellows, and I found that a bigger turn on than the promise of cock and bodily fluids that you get with most normal encounters. The person that I was choosing to spend the night with did not fall into a category that could be described as ‘my type’ – his body and his gait were similar to mine, something that would have turned me off until very recently. But that night I was looking for something different. I was looking for a spiritual connection, and having found it, I was able to see past the physicality and be turned on nonetheless. If he is over-sensitive he might be upset by me saying these things about his body…I don’t mean to say that I didn’t find his body attractive at all. I was able to find him as a person very attractive, and his body followed on from all that. It’s tough to explain because I’ve never felt that way before. For the first time in my life I was seeing past appearances and external concerns. I didn’t need to be rescued and taken care of by a big, strong man on Friday night. I needed the emotional connection, and I got it.

 The next day we talked a lot and found that we wanted to do it again some time. Because he lives in New York it will probably be difficult to call this a ‘relationship’ in the long run. But that doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is my happiness in the Now. Towards the end of yesterday as we talked more deeply about things I felt a little pressured to objectify the sex part of things, to say whether I would enjoy certain things in bed or not. I can understand that sexual compatibility is important, but for some reason I just don’t like analyzing that part of a relationship before a relationship has even started. This year I’ve learnt an awful lot about sex, things that I like to do and things I don’t like doing. The impression I get after all that is there’s only so much talking you can do about it; the real test comes when you actually do it. No amount of talking about sex makes a couple compatible, in my experience. If I am to spend the night with this guy again I want things to happen naturally, like they did on Friday night. I’ve spent hours talking to guys online about sex and it’s only made those encounters feel unnatural, forced and over-planned. I used to think that the internet could be the answer to all my problems when it came to meeting partners, but I’m beginning to think it’s the problem.

Improving me

It has been a very pleasant week, helped by four consecutive days of glorious weather which was always guaranteed to lift my mood and that of everyone around me. Also helpful is the fact that I’ve managed to get up at 8 o’clock every morning for the past four days, after deciding on Monday that enough was enough and I needed to start being strict with myself about the lie-ins. Sleeping in until the afternoon does not feel right any more. Just because I don’t have a job I don’t want to become one of those people who never sees the daylight. Getting out of bed just as the sun is beginning to set is always a depressing experience. It’s just that when the morning comes, there has always been this instant reflex telling me to go back to sleep. For years I have tried to control it, it just won’t go away. Ever since my nightmare school days when I was forced to get up at 6.30 every morning, something about the mornings has scared me. I know it’s silly, and I can’t afford to let it rule my life any more. So much time is wasted, and when I finally get a job, I don’t want it to be any more difficult than it has to be.

 Other highlights of the week include saving money, eating healthily and learning to live in the moment. Since I began reading spiritual literature I have found my outlook on life changing very quickly. I don’t allow negativity to come into my life so easily any more. When I feel it coming on I’ve begun to look outwards instead of inwards, focusing on the present moment instead of the past or the future. I’ve removed nearly all sugar from my diet and have experienced hardly any cravings. Though I’ve never exactly been overweight, I am definitely unhealthy, and with the constant messages in the world about the manifold benefits of healthy food I have decided to give it a proper go, for the first time. I’m already getting impatient to see the results, but I know that like with many things in life, it will take longer to work than a few days.

 Last night was lovely. My recovery friend Gavin celebrated two years of sobriety at a restaurant in Soho – I was one of a small group of people invited to help him celebrate. When I got there I was surprised to see just five other people at the table. I had negatively assumed that he only invited me because everyone else in the fellowship was invited. It turned out that he wanted me there as much as his very closest friends. In our first year of sobriety I wouldn’t have described us as close. In fact for about ten months we were too shy to even talk to each other. Then at some point around a year ago, we grew in confidence enough to approach each other without caution again. Now I think of Gavin as one of the nicest people I know in AA. The meal itself was delicious, and the dinner table conversation was entertaining at all times. I hadn’t hung out with some of those people for months: people such as Colin, who represent the ‘clique’ that I’ve reviled and envied in equal measures for a long time. It felt a bit weird socialising with them again after all this time. It made me realise how successfully I’ve managed to distance myself from the middle of gay AA this year. I don’t go to the same meetings as them any more, so I’m probably not going to see them again for weeks. But it was interesting to catch up with them again. I might even go so far as to say it was nice!

Lazy days

How was my weekend? Great. Almost perfect. Today, Monday? Not so good. It seems that the weekend was so good I had to spend most of today recovering from it, by sleeping in until just before 5pm. I had no intention of sleeping in so late, and I still feel ashamed of the fact that I did now, hours later. I’m almost certain that the excessive sleeping is, rather than simply a symptom of laziness, one of a number of undesirable side effects associated with the anti-depressants that I have been on for nearly a year, and I’m beginning to think that I want to come off the pills. I can’t justify dealing with the side effects any more – I think I’ve learnt more than enough about my anxiety to try and deal with it pill-free. So I’m going to see my doctor soon to discuss it. I don’t like sleeping in all day, it is really depressing. It is in fact something I used to do all the time when I was drinking. I don’t need to be reminded of those lazy days any more.

 The weekend was lovely, mainly because the weather became distinctly summery for the first time. On Saturday I went to Brighton for the day with a couple of friends; the trip had been planned for some time and I was looking forward to it as I’ve always loved Brighton. We spent most of the day walking around in the sun, enjoying the holiday atmosphere in the fashionable seaside resort. In the evening we went to the famous gay bars to look at gorgeous men. Myself and Salim spotted a particularly hunky guy in one of the bars and couldn’t take our eyes off him for some time. I felt that familiar tugging in my gut, telling me that I needed to get with this guy to make the whole day a success. I get that tugging every time I spot someone who fits into my narrow idea of male attractiveness. I’m aware of what it does to me, how damaging it can be; yet I can still engage in the feelings. On Saturday I was so desperate to get with this guy in one of the bars that I considered missing the train home, but luckily my friends managed to talk some sense into me! Other than that, Saturday was possibly the nicest day of the year so far. I discovered new, exciting parts of Brighton that I hadn’t known about before, and I did it all with true friends.

 Yesterday was also nice, as in the evening I had a hot date in my home town. I had been speaking to this interesting and intelligent man called Mark online for a while and was looking forward to finally meeting him yesterday. Unfortunately when I got to the bar that we had agreed to meet in he phoned to say he would be a bit late; I ended up sitting on my own there for more than an hour. I was just about to go home at 8.45pm when he finally showed up with a barrage of profuse apologies, saying he had got lost on the way there! I guess I was more than generous in accepting his apology and going ahead with the date, but part of me thought that if it wasn’t meant to happen, he wouldn’t have showed up at all.

 The evening was fun, as we talked about previous dating disasters, what we’re looking for in relationships and what we hope to achieve in our lives. I did not find Mark instantly attractive physically, but after all I’ve been through recently with relationships and dating, I thought I’d better ignore the physical side of things altogether and focus on his personality. In therapy I’ve identified this pattern of going for typically masculine men who fulfil all my physical needs but none of my emotional ones: I wanted to see if I could fall for someone based on their personality rather than their transient physical features. Mark is a nice guy and by the end of the evening I thought that I might want to see him again. It remains to be seen whether a relationship could actually work between us, but if I am to follow my therapist’s advice, I’m not to think about possible future relationships at all. What I ought to be doing is asking myself whether I like Mark right now. If I do, then I have the choice to see him again. It’s not about figuring out where I want to be with him in a year’s time. I might never see him again – if I don’t, there are millions of other guys out there. And I don’t need to see any particular guy again to be happy right now, because I have everything I need right now. Air, clothes, shelter, and friends who love me.

The isolater

Today was going to be a quiet stay-at-home day, the kind of thing I very rarely have these days. I wanted to see if I could resist heading out in the evening as I usually do, find out whether I could cope with being indoors for an entire day with no one but myself and my mother for company. I have only stayed in on one evening this year: the rest of the time I’ve managed to find excuses to go out, sometimes to AA meetings, sometimes just to Soho where I like to sit and drink tea whilst watching the beautiful people pass by. Today I had no money for Soho’s expensive tea, and I didn’t really fancy an AA meeting, so I thought it would be healthy to try another evening indoors. Years ago I used to be able to sit indoors quite happily, as it felt a lot safer than going out into the world. Nowadays I seem to be addicted to going out. I’ve fallen in love with the world, to such an extent that one evening away from it is too much to contemplate. By 4 o’clock this afternoon the feeling of loneliness was beginning to creep up on me. The hours seemed to stretch painfully ahead of me – I was desperate to find any reason not to stay in.

 With no money, my only option would be a free of charge AA meeting, which would at least occupy the whole evening. But I didn’t just want a meeting, I wanted to go somewhere nice for dinner first and coffee in Soho afterwards. It was Friday evening, the best night for socialising around meetings. But I couldn’t do those things, and all the resentment and pain and fear at being broke hit me like a tidal wave. It’s not just about having no money: it’s about not being able to live my life freely. The choice to go out and eat nice things has been taken away from me yet again because the money that I have to live on is not enough. Of course if I knew how to cope without these luxuries I would have been fine tonight, but as far as I’m concerned, life is incredibly boring without nice things. I hate feeling bored more than anything else in the world. Earlier today as I faced the prospect of having nothing to do except go to an AA meeting or stay at home watching TV, I felt as trapped in my circumstances as I did ten years ago when I sat on the same sofa in the same living room, facing a whole summer with nothing to do.

 I went to the AA meeting in Covent Garden with that familiar lump in my throat, wanting to cry at how hopeless and alone I felt. I tried to meditate myself out of the pain, to bring myself firmly into the present, but it didn’t work. I knew I would give myself a chance of getting over it by sharing about it in the meeting. Often the most painful sharing is the most cathartic and healing. But the meeting was as busy as it always is, and I could tell straight away that it would be impossible to get a word in once the chair had finished speaking. This week the chair was given by a proper celebrity, someone everyone in this country would know, who finally seems to have found some peace in the AA rooms. It was a great chair – of course it was always going to be, coming from the person who gave it. And unsurprisingly, every single person in the room wanted to share back once he had finished.

 I could have used the fifteen minutes in the middle of the meeting designated for ’shy sharers’, but the thought that people might be resentful at me for using it when other less sober people in the room might need the time wouldn’t leave me alone, so I kept my mouth shut. As soon as we had chanted the serenity prayer together at the end I was out of the room before anyone could speak to me. Sticking around to speak to friendly faces might have given me another opportunity to recover from my emotional pain, but I couldn’t do it this week. Staying around after that meeting is always a difficult experience – it can be a bit like a big gay social gathering, where those who speak the loudest get all the attention. In the wrong mood, I always find it uncomfortable, though I recognise that is not the meeting’s fault. About a month ago, when I was in a much better mood I managed to tag along with the clique for coffee in Soho, where I made a couple of new friends. The contrast between that night and nights like tonight is startling. I just wish I knew how to make it like that night last month all the time.

 So I came home tonight almost in tears, remembering the first time I ever went to the meeting two years ago: I was six days sober, and I unexpectedly shared during the shy sharer’s section. It was perhaps the first time in my life I had ever spoken honestly about my feelings. It was certainly the first time I had ever spoken in front of a room full of people I didn’t know. After that meeting I got attention from lots of people, and I was taken to coffee in Soho where I ended up having a lot of fun. It seems like the days of that kind of thing happening are over for me. I’ve been in the rooms for a long time and I shouldn’t have to be a newcomer to get attention and make friends. The funniest thing is, I know in reality that I don’t have to go back to six days of sobriety to have that impact on a meeting again. I could have opened my mouth tonight, I simply didn’t because the chair had been so eloquent and insightful, far better than anything I thought I could have said. My illness wanted me to believe that no one would like what I had to say. The celebrity would have looked down his nose at me; it would have been an embarrassing disaster.

 None of what my illness tells me is true, so why do I still listen to it? After all I’ve been through, nights like tonight continue to happen on a regular basis. I continue to isolate myself; in doing so I make myself absolutely miserable. I never, ever want to come home from a meeting without speaking to anyone again, it is such a lonely and soul-destroying experience. I had the choice to make tonight work for me, and I was too scared to use that choice. I reverted to the old safety behaviours that my therapist has warned me against.

 Tomorrow will be better. Knowing that doesn’t make me feel any lighter right now, because the illness will still be there, under the surface, ready to pounce again in a week or so. The pattern is so familiar to me, and I know how to change it. Next time I’m at that meeting I have to force myself to engage with it, it’s no good just sitting there and listening. I’ve done enough listening, now is the time to act. I don’t expect to be friends with everyone in the room, I don’t expect or want to have a full to bursting social diary like the celebrity chair obviously does.

 I would like to be able to have conversations with people, though. Sometimes I do have conversations there, when I’m in a good mood. Sometimes I can go for coffee with the group after the meeting, like I did last month. But I can’t all the time. I haven’t yet reached the stage where I can function in all social settings regardless of my mood. If I’m in a mood like the one I was in tonight, functioning normally is out of the question, which is really unfortunate. I don’t want to be slave to my emotions any more, I don’t want to isolate myself any more. I don’t want to walk home alone almost in tears remembering better times again. I want to be able to look at people and say ‘hello’, to have a friendly chat with a few of them, to talk about things that we have in common, to laugh about things that have happened to us. Sometimes, I can do those things. But not all the time. Sometimes I still walk home feeling like the only lonely person in the world. If I continue to feel like that, I will go out and drink again eventually. Something big has to change, I just wish I knew what.

Chances

I am officially not a fan of the Easter weekend. In this country at least, the televisual entertainment on offer is annually terrible, the weather is always bad and for four long days most of the shops are closed. Which is why from last Friday until this evening I was in a fairly horrendous mood. Easter Sunday was especially bad – I could hardly get out of bed until the day was nearly over. I would love to have gone away somewhere for the weekend but in the last month I have blindly overspent, something I can’t stop doing, so I was stuck at home. Today I thought I might have one of my internet dates to look forward to, but the nice guy who I had been chatting to seemed unwilling to commit, and I ended up waiting all day to hear back from him about his plans. A silly way for me to spend the day, I know, waiting for someone I’ve never met to confirm whether they want to meet for sex or not. I should have made other plans for myself, but for the first time in weeks I found myself stuck with nothing else to do. In the end I got fed up of waiting and decided to go into town on my own, where I would sit and drink tea in the Soho coffee house where members of the gay fellowship can always be found. There I encountered a great stroke of luck, bumping into three good friends from the fellowship who wanted to go for dinner. They say there are no coincidences in AA, and I’m beginning to believe it. I could have gone to any coffee house, anywhere in London, but something drew me there – probably the knowledge that it is a regular haunt of many of my AA friends. But still, the chances of finding those three particular friends there tonight were slim; the chances of going to dinner with them were even slimmer. I had a lovely night in the end, and the melancholy of the weekend finally seems to have worn off. Things should be getting back to normal tomorrow: everyone goes back to work, shops re-open and TV schedules return to their usual. When I was drinking I never particularly liked public holidays, either. Back then I would head straight for the pub to get drunk on my own. Today’s outcome was much nicer and, dare I say it, much more spiritual.

Standing back

To make up for the fact that I have not posted anything for nearly two weeks, I would like to write something incredibly long and detailed today. But that would be putting pressure on myself, so it’s just going to have to be a normal length blog today, as my busy life dictates that little more will be possible. It’s mainly due to my busy life that I have been unable to post for so long. I seem to spend very little time at home these days. In fact, it’s been like that ever since I came into recovery, really, which is nice to know because my biggest worry about quitting drink was that I’d have nothing to fill my time with any more.

 The past two weeks have been spent mostly socialising and thinking about where I want my life to go next. A good friend from California is visiting London this week and we’ve spent time catching up and enjoying each other’s company. I’ve been to the cinema, for long walks, I’ve read a lot and in rare unoccupied moments at home have harnessed a new creative energy to do some drawings. In spite of being so seemingly busy, I have found myself thinking a lot in the meantime. Thinking about sobriety, relationships, love and spirituality. Since finishing Tolle’s ‘Power of Now’ there has been an almost constant need to place myself in the moment, to ignore the ego’s urge to dwell in the future and the past; it’s still incredibly difficult and at the moment there is an underlying anxiety in the pit of my stomach. Though nothing bad is coming, the anxiety constantly tells me to be on guard. I think it’s more powerful now because it knows that I am gaining the knowledge to tear myself away from it. Tolle says that as we move deeper into the present and away from our own pain-body, it wakes from dormancy to fight for its survival. Inside me the pain-body, a.k.a. the illness, a.k.a. ‘the -ism’, is fighting to stay alive. It is reacting to my newfound sense of independence from it. It doesn’t like the fact that I’m starting to get better. All that pain from the past and fear from the future wants to stay right where it is. Because I have allowed it to live inside me all my life, it has a lot of power now, and it is going to fight for a long time.

 My job is not to fight back. My job is to accept the pain and let it pass over me so that it can be transmuted into joy. That is Tolle’s advice, anyway. Entering pain directly and allowing it to wash over me has never come naturally to me. I’m so used to fighting and resisting my feelings that I’m not at all sure how to respond any differently to them. I don’t like accepting my feelings as they are because I’m scared of what they will do to me. But as long as I try to fight them I will be keeping them alive. Which is why complete surrender is the only way forward. This month I’ve been on constant lookout for these feelings: whenever they come up, I have to practise surrendering to them. They come up a lot, so it’s not like I don’t have regular opportunities to practise my new spiritual way of being. But there is a part of the pain-body that wants to keep me in denial, that tells me to resist and fight the feelings. This is how clever the disease can be. It tells me that there’s not a problem, it tells me that feelings are always bad and I can win all battles by fighting and resisting and getting angry. It doesn’t want me to win, which is why it has directed me to the wrong ways of dealing with it all my life.

 Every time I face anxiety now, I have to consciously keep myself in the present and surrender to the pain so that it can pass over me unimpeded. It is a brand new, unnatural way of being which I have hardly begun to practise successfully yet. When I’m walking down the street trying to keep my held held up to look at the people and things in front of me, I have the fear inside me constantly trying to get me to look down and make myself as invisible as possible. When I’m in social situations trying to engage and be present with friends, the fear is shouting at me to isolate myself from imminent danger. That fear is so powerful, it has its own voice, which sounds just like mine. Every second of the day the fear wants to get me to retreat from life so that it can get me on my own, where I will eventually drink again and die. By fighting the fear with anger and retaliation, I only strengthen it. I can’t fight with my own pain. I have to be thoroughly accepting of myself: the only way is to let myself feel the fear without argument or objection. So I’m feeling scared right now, and that’s OK. It cannot be a reason for me to get angry and upset, the way I felt all the time before. I’m feeling scared right now, and it’s OK, and I can do what I need to do anyway. I can be present in the world at all times even with the fear washing over me. There is a lot of fear, but there is infinitely more ME to deal with it.

 By holding my head up to the world and looking straight ahead I have noticed so much that I didn’t notice before; by keeping myself present and alert in social situations I am catching and hearing things that would have been completely missed. Taking myself out of the past and the future has enabled me to see more of life – accepting the feelings instead of wasting mental energy trying to fight them has created more space for life to show itself to me. When I came into sobriety I noticed an instant increase in clarity of vision; this month I’ve noticed a similarly sharp increase. And all the while the fear and anxiety wants to make itself heard, sitting in my gut and whining at me like a hungry child. Particularly stressful events in my life will of course appeal to the whining child’s appetite for drama and pain. When relationships appear to go wrong, as they often do for me, the most natural thing for me to do is cry and imagine that my life is over, no will ever love me and I’ll have to die to cope with the misery. That comes from the whining inner child’s belief that I have to be loved by others to be OK. Just a fortnight ago I was lying in bed sobbing my heart out over Gareth again – how can I stop another event like that taking up an entire day? The feelings will come again, that is for sure. Both Eckhart Tolle and AA can probably agree on that. The feelings will have to be experienced in their entirety. They are a form of grief, grief for the dying fantasy of my knight in shining armour, and we all know that grief cannot be avoided or reasoned with. Remembering that I don’t need Mr Perfect to wrap his arms around me and rescue me might help. The other part of me, the recovering REAL me might be able to stand back and observe the feelings with compassion and understanding. That is all I can hope for.