God, what an evening. Tonight I attended the famous ‘After 8′ meeting in Chelsea for the first time in a year, as I fancied a change to my routine of exclusively gay AA meetings. Last time I went to After 8 I really liked it and something told me that it would be a good idea to go tonight. Anyone can share there but the main chair is always given by someone with more than 8 years of continuous sobriety, and the general theme is ‘issues of later sobriety’. I can see how that would put some people off, but I find it fascinating. Whereas gay AA is a fairly young fellowship with most of the regulars being under 10 years sober, meetings like this one are full of people with 20 and 30 years of sobriety. So whenever I feel like hearing about what it’s like to have been sober since the 1970’s, I can go there.

Tonight it was no different to how I remembered it. It’s still one of London’s busiest meetings, with over 100 attendees. The sharing is on the whole positive; the real regulars usually have stories to tell about each other that go back years and decades. I like seeing fellowship like that. The main reason I go there is that I see hope there. Some of these people have been best friends since before I was born. Some of them have been sober since before Elvis Presley died. Amazing, isn’t it?

With such long periods of sobriety seems to come a degree of material success. A few of the regulars are obviously well to do people, with amazing jobs and a lot of nice things in their lives. Being able to see that is really another part of the attraction for me. Ever since the first time I went to that meeting I’ve had this dream that one day I will be one of those people in the front row with the posh suit and shoes, keys to the sports car in one pocket and keys to the Chelsea townhouse in the other. It is just a fantasy, I know. Just because God had that planned for those people doesn’t mean that God has it planned for me. And I shouldn’t be basing success in recovery on some sort of fantastical vision of the future where material things mean everything. But it’s quite possible that all of those people were just like me when they came into the rooms. And now look at them.

At the end of the meeting I mistakenly put the remainder of my week’s cash budget into the tradition 7 pot, so I had no money for the train fare home, meaning that I’ve just had to walk all the way across London. It took nearly two hours thanks to getting lost around Buckingham Palace, and I am now shattered. But I was looking forward to getting back so I could write this. When I had been walking for an hour and a half I got to Camden, the home of the alcoholic, or so it seems. There I was accosted by a dangerously drunk person who could hardly walk in a straight line but seemed determined to latch onto me for some reason. It took me five minutes to understand what he saying; to begin with I assumed he was after money and so I did my best to look away and keep on walking. But despite being so drunk he was able to keep up with me, and when I realised that he wasn’t going anywhere I had to stop to listen to him.

It turned out that he wanted to know where the nearest bus stop was. After I had told him he was keen to let me know how much I had hurt his feelings by trying to run off. “Why do you have to be so mean? Why wouldn’t you just look at me? Do you know the meaning of kindness, mate? I don’t think you do…” Finally he wandered off when he saw a bus coming, leaving me to feel ashamed of myself. In the beginning I had simply assumed that he was going to mug me, and when he wouldn’t leave me alone I thought he was going to push me into the road or something equally horrible. If he hadn’t been so drunk I would have been quite happy to stop and listen to his request. As it is I did what I always do when danger appears to present itself. Running away normally works for me, but of course it doesn’t always.

The truth is that this man didn’t need to know the whereabouts of the nearest bus stop, he needed help from another alcoholic, and I didn’t give it to him. There’s always been this unconscious assumption that I am better than people like that because I don’t drink any more, and anyone in that state can only mean harm. If I had been as drunk as that today, however, I could quite easily have found myself in his position, stumbling from one passer by to the next, determined to get someone to listen to me but so wasted that it takes me several minutes to get my words out. In fact I clearly remember being like that at times in my drinking, unable to get the words out of my mouth and scaring people off with what they possibly perceived as aggression. It wouldn’t be entirely unfair to say that at times I could be quite aggressive, if I was in the wrong mood.

So the only difference between me and that man is a few drinks, really, and there’s a chance that I could have really helped him. What should I have done? Given him the AA number? Taken him for coffee and told him my experience of alcoholism? Oh, I don’t know. Such attempts to twelfth step him might not have worked with him being quite so drunk. But his parting words to me did strike a nerve, because although I might not be a bad person deep down, I do fail to help others when help might truly be needed. In AA meetings I don’t speak to newcomers, I don’t pick up the phone, I no longer do very much service. I don’t know why after nearly two years of sobriety I still struggle to get going with any of those things. All I can say is that helping others terrifies me.

I’m thinking that this is the kind of skill I need to be working on at the moment. It’s unfortunate that I sacked my sponsees last month, but perhaps it wasn’t the right time for us to work together. There’s other service I can do. Getting a commitment in a ‘mainstream’ meeting like the one tonight might be really good for me. It would take me away from the small collection of gay meetings that I have firmly stuck to for two years, not that I want to discard those meetings altogether, but something is telling me that I need some balance in my recovery now between different kinds of meetings. I still have no heterosexual friends and thinking about that now, it does seem worth addressing. For some time I’ve simply assumed that getting a job is the only change I need to make in my life, but tonight’s events have made me think that there are other massive changes worth making as well.

If challenged before today I might have said that once I’ve got a job I’ll have all the confidence I need to start making these changes, start giving back to AA and the world again. But with the interminable delays that I have encountered in my job search, it’s crossed my mind that there would be no better time to change my approach to everything than right now. I don’t quite know if or how I’m going to being of service in AA again. Perhaps all I need to do is do as much as I can.