Yesterday was, quite possibly, the strangest day of my life. In the morning there was a rushed exchange of e-mails between myself and London Metropolitan University, where I hoped to find someone who could write a couple of lines confirming for my new employers that I was once a student there. Positive response was not instantly forthcoming, but once I’d made it known that I had been unemployed since graduating, they seemed to realise that their assistance would keep me from bumping up their graduate unemployment rates. I finally got the head of Psychology to agree to be a referee, even though she never met me and probably hasn’t a clue what to write. With that sorted, I was once again free to worry about the actual job that I had taken on. After training last week I have a fair idea of what the company actually does, but the details of my job specifically are still reasonably vague, partly because it’s a new job that no one’s done before. The job description makes it sound easy, but I’m sure it isn’t going to be, otherwise they wouldn’t be offering to pay me as much as they are. So in spite of their obvious eagerness to employ me, I haven’t a clue whether I can actually do the job or not. I don’t know who I’m going to be working with; I got the impression last week that it was a fairly quiet, serious kind of office, and I just have this impression of people who work in offices as being cold, unhelpful and far more clever than me.

I didn’t have much time to think about these things yesterday, unfortunately, as in the afternoon I had to return to Highbury Magistrates Court to testify against Ben, the mentally unwell individual who attacked my sponsor outside a meeting last year. The hearing has been postponed so many times that by now my memory of it is unhelpfully hazy, and none of us really wanted to go through with the hearing by this point, but I think if my sponsor had just dropped the case, there might have been a risk of Ben getting off scot free without any order to get the help that he desperately needs.

We got to court at 1.30 yesterday afternoon to find the place almost empty. Apparently everyone was still on their lunch break. Part of me was hoping that the whole thing would be called off again like before – I really didn’t want to be spending my last day of freedom in that place – but another part of me just wanted to get it over with. It’s been a year of waiting, wondering, not knowing. By yesterday the case was most certainly something that could not be put off any longer.

My sponsor was the first to be called to the witness stand. The prosecution simply asked him to explain clearly what happened; defense then did their best to pick holes in his story. Up next was me. Within seconds of reading out the oath I was shaking. All of a sudden I seemed to realise where I was, what I was doing. Ben was sitting on the other side of the room, looking alone and lost, and I felt terrible for him. There was no way around what I was about to do to him. In telling the truth of what happened I was to smear his character, make him out to be a villain, because he was one that night. Now, however, he is just a lonely, depressed individual who doesn’t deserve to be where he is.

I stumbled over my words and the judges kept asking me to speak up, which was embarrassing. When the defense started on me, I knew I had no hope. It became clear that they wanted to portray my sponsor as the bad guy, the intimidating one who came in and picked a fight with poor Ben. Apparently, Ben only kicked and punched and threw coffee at us in self defense. I found myself unable to disagree with the argument, even though I knew in my head that it was not right. I was only on the stand for a few minutes at most, which is probably a good thing, though as soon as I got back to my seat I began to wish I could go back and tell my story again.

Next up was Ben himself. He looked a state on the stand: upset, shaky, hardly sure where he was. His story was rambling and inconclusive and he couldn’t answer a question with a simple, straight answer. When it was all over, the judges went out and took about twenty minutes to debate their verdict. When they came back, they explained in far too many words that while they felt sympathy for Ben’s mental condition, they didn’t believe that he had acted in self defense. They found my evidence and that of my sponsor wholly credible, and they believed that what happened was down to a heating of tempers, caused by Ben’s ongoing disruptive and abusive behaviour at the time.

Ben was given a conditional discharge on the grounds that he has been receiving treatment since the time of the incident (I didn’t know this). If he commits any further offences in the next twelve months he will return to court to be sentenced for this as well as any future offence. He was also required to pay £100 in court fees – when he tearfully explained why he could not afford to pay it all in one go, I nearly collapsed in shame. How could I do this to him? We shouldn’t be here. This should have been sorted out months ago with an honest, open, face to face discussion. Not on opposite sides of a court room.

I will probably never see Ben again. I don’t doubt that this is the best thing for both of us, I just wish…I don’t even know what I wish. He’s getting help, he’s not coming to meetings and causing disruption any more, so I suppose everything really has worked out well.

Outside the court there were sad farewells to be exchanged with my former sponsor, who is leaving the country to return to his home, California, for good today. He lost his job in London a couple of months ago and I think he never really intended to stay here permanently, in any case. It would have been nice to have a longer goodbye chat with him, but it was cold and we both wanted to get home. I’m sure I’ll see him again – his long term partner still lives here and I imagine that we’ve become close enough friends through all of this not to lose touch. We have been through a lot together. He took me through the twelve steps – I can’t forget that. Though there was a time earlier this year when there was a great distance between us, I think that’s over now.

So, both of our lives are changing completely today. He’s moving to the other side of the world; I’m starting my first proper, adult job. What a way to end our old lives, in court. Coming home from Highbury Magistrates wasn’t quite the end of my day yesterday. In the evening I received a surprise call from a friend, Jan, who had two tickets to see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in the West End. He told me it was a treat, to celebrate my new job. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I’d been dying to see Priscilla for months, ever since they erected that giant glittering stiletto outside the Palace Theatre on Cambridge Circus. Going to see shows such as this was part of the dream that I envisaged around starting work, having money again. I didn’t think I’d be living the dream quite so soon, though.

The show was, of course, incredible. Priscilla is one of my all time favourite movies, and the stage production doesn’t let the movie fans down. If anything it is bigger, brighter, bolder and more fabulous than the film in many ways. I suppose it has to be – the quieter parts of the film just wouldn’t work on stage. Glitter, pink feathers and confetti flew everywhere; well known classic pop songs were belted out with twirling, kicking dance routines. Everything was camp times a million. I loved it. At several points the worries about starting work today tried to intrude on my enjoyment; I quickly forced them out, telling myself to stay in the moment. That’s where all the fear comes from, not staying in the moment.

When the show was over I couldn’t believe that was it. I wanted to go back and live through it all again. I didn’t want the fun to end. But now it has ended. First thing this morning I woke up with that all too familiar jolt of fear. I knew that the day was finally here, that there was no escaping responsibility any more.

In three hours from now I have to go to work for the first time in years. Though I’ve survived so many frightening things in recovery already, I can’t convince myself that this isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. If I could take to the stand and give evidence in court against an old friend yesterday, surely I can go to Notting Hill and complete a few slightly complicated administrative tasks as part of my brand new role? No. My head cannot believe that I am ready for this.

The hardest thing, as I said before, is the fact that I won’t be able to leave once I’ve got there. I’ve told the job centre about this new job now, so if I end up resigning, I won’t get any more benefits. I have to go along today, tomorrow and every single day for the foreseeable future and I have to see it through. Logic and reason keep butting into my thoughts, telling me that it’s not being sent to Afghanistan, it’s not being banged up in prison for five years – it’s just a job. But it isn’t just a job! It’s the most important thing that’s ever happened to me and I can’t afford to screw it up!

Before sitting down to write this I spent about half an hour crying my eyes out on the sofa. This is just like leaving home all over again; going to school for the first time; leaving the safety and comfort of the only home I’ve ever known to step out into the real world. I experienced the exact same emotions the day I left for University in 2001, the day I started secondary school in 1994, and the day I started primary school in 1987. Despite the years that have passed, the feelings haven’t changed. I know this is wrong, I shouldn’t be feeling that fear any more, but I never got over it, I never learnt whatever I needed to learn to deal with growing up. In the most significant and memorable dream I ever had, I was forced to go back to school to rearrange some tables in a large hallway. At first all my old school ‘friends’ were there, pointing and laughing at me, not helping at all. After a while I was on my own in the hallway, and the tables just kept multiplying, growing and growing in number until there were hundreds in front of me and I didn’t know what to do. Today, I face that challenge. I’ve run away from it all my life. I can’t run any more. I can cry, I can plead, I can panic, but I can’t run away. Mum isn’t here to hold my hand now. Is God going to take care of me? He took care of me when I went to school, left home for University, and when I stopped drinking and joined AA. All those major turning points in my life were huge, terrifying, and I survived them with God’s help. Why can’t I trust in God today? How could I think that He would abandon me now, when I need Him the most? This is it, then. This is where my faith really gets tested. By the end of the day, I’ll know the answers to all the questions. I’ll know what the rest of my life is going to be like.

I am so scared right now I could weep. I’m due to be starting work in two days’ time, and one of the names that I gave my new employers as a reference, a former lecturer who supervised my final year Psychology dissertation, is refusing to write me a reference because she is on maternity leave at the moment.

This is the very last thing I need to happen. My new boss wants proper references covering the last three years. Three years ago I was at London Metropolitan University, and the only person who might remember me from that time is not going to help me. Because of this I don’t know if I will be able to start my new job or not. Just fucking brilliant.

I’ve searched the London Met website for other staff from my time who I might once have had a conversation with, but practically all of them have left since then. So basically this one woman who is on maternity leave is the only person who could help me. My future might depend on her. It kills me that it has all come down to this. My career is on the line because I never spoke to the other lecturers, because I kept myself to myself for three years, got on with my work and never asked for help. If only I’d been more visible, if only I’d known how to form relationships with people outside the small drinking circle that I immersed myself in outside lectures – but I didn’t. I was never the type of student to hang around with academics in the hope of bettering myself. That’s the sort of thing clever people do. I never believed I was that clever.

Of course I could be panicking unnecessarily. I do have a tendency to catastrophize the smallest things. Maybe there’ll be a kind professor who doesn’t mind writing references for former students he or she never knew. That’s the kind of person I really need. I can’t believe for one minute that God will be good enough to put that kind of person in my path. I’m starting to think that God wants me to fall at this hurdle, that it was never God’s intention for me to work, that it was a waste of time me going through all that training last week because I am meant to be unemployed forever. I’m clearly not cut out for the world of work, so why should I care that I can’t get a reference from my former tutor?

This time last week I was terrified that I could be on the verge of re-entering the world of work; now I’m terrified that I might never work again. In this world you NEED references for any job – not even the manager of a McDonalds would employ someone without proof that they’ve worked before. I can easily provide references from the past year, thanks to all the voluntary work that I’ve sweated over at London Friend, but it’s the murky past, pre-recovery, that I cannot account for. If the new job didn’t need evidence covering the last three years it would be all right, I would be sailing into this new role, but it was never to be that easy. Oh fuck, what am I going to do?

I should be so happy tonight. I should be on cloud 9. I’ve spent the day with my dad, who seems happier to see me with every meeting. We met in Covent Garden and spent three hours chatting over coffee. At no point did the conversation dry up or get awkward, like it would have done a few years ago. We seem to have worked out how to get along: we know each other’s comfort zones, the things that can be talked about and the things that should be avoided. I’ll never get him to open up about his feelings towards me. But I guess the fact that he’s willing to spend time with me, after all our history, all the acrimony, anguish and heartache we went through, is all the evidence I need about how he feels. Before tonight’s goodbyes he gave me a Christmas card, thinking he might not see me again before the end of the year, and inside there was a £50 note, a sort of early birthday/Christmas present. The most he’s ever given me, without any asking or hinting from me. I guess, unbelievable as it is, he must love me in his own way. All my life, until the last year or so, I lived in the shadow of his rejection. Now I suppose we are like any normal father and son. Not that I need money from him to show that he actually cares about me – his presence in my life says it all.

I should be fucking joyous tonight, but coming home to this e-mail from my former lecturer, explaining why in very few words she won’t write me a reference, has brought me crashing down. The dark thoughts that were going through my mind earlier in the week are now back, and they’re not going away. Drinking, drugging, suicide, I want to do it all tonight. I’d really rather not be here if I have to go to the job centre to start signing on again. How dare God get my hopes up for this job, only to dash them all in one horrible, mean gesture. How dare He?

Who the hell am I to question God’s motives? I should be grateful to have a roof over my head, food on the table, clothes on my back and a bed to sleep in. That is what I would say if I were feeling more sane tonight, anyway. I’m not sane, and I’m not remotely grateful for any of the things I happen to have. I’ve been stuck in this rut my entire fucking life, I want to get out of it. Why am I not allowed to get a job, move on and make a place for myself in the world? Why should I accept unemployment as the content and purpose of my life?

Oh, how deliciously ironic it is that I am bemoaning unemployment now, after all the time and energy I spent desperately trying to avoid work. How humorous God is!

What am I going to do? AA would tell me that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle…right now I’m quite sure that there isn’t much more I can take.

My facebook status, when I next update it, should read something like this: ‘Josh is at peace with life and the world’. I’ve just finished two days of training for my new job – two days of intense, laborious training in which I was required to learn everything there is to know about the company that I am to start working for next week. And there is a lot to know about it. There were about eight other people on the training course to begin with; by the end of it only five of us were left. I couldn’t believe that I was one of those five at the end. Me! The one who always walks out of job situations as soon as they get tough!

The company is an exceptionally busy, fast-moving company but, over all, full of nice people. I was surprised by this as similar places where I’ve worked in the past have been full of bland, robotic people that all address you by your surname and look at you with the same dead expression. Here, colleagues all seem to be on good terms. And the working hours are not bad.

The reason why my facebook status update should read that I am at peace with the world is because of something wholly unexpected that happened this afternoon, just before the end of the official training. I was plucked from the group and taken to one of the trainers’ offices, where she explained to me that one of the other divisions in the company, website development, are looking for a person to fill an admin role. Would I be interested?

I was of course very interested, not just because it would mean I don’t have to deal with actual people on the phone all day, like I would in the helpdesk role that I originally applied for. I was promptly introduced to the head of the development team, a loud, scary lady with a BIG personality and even bigger bosom who told me all about the admin role and the reasons why she thought I would be perfect for it. To be ‘chosen’ in this way was such a shock that I can hardly remember most of what we spoke about now; the main thing that sticks out in my memory is the bit where she told me she liked me because I had done two degrees at University, both completely irrelevant to any vocation in the real world. She didn’t say this in a derogatory or arrogant way: she really meant it as a compliment, implying that she liked me for doing something so different to the norm, i.e. going to University twice to learn about subjects I actually found interesting. I got the impression that she had done the same thing herself.

So, my two degrees get to be useful after all! There was a time, not too long ago, when I thought I’d never, ever use my degree in a career. Not that I was horrified or upset by this – I’ve always been glad that I got to study Psychology on top of Philosophy. I won’t exactly be using my psychological or philosophical qualifications in this new role, but it’s nice to know that my unique ‘experience’ is after all appreciated by someone.

The turn of events is just so unexpected, so unusual, I can’t feel any nerves about entering the world of work at the moment. How often does someone apply for one job in an organisation, get spotted and promoted to another, better position on the spot? Maybe it happens all the time, I really don’t know. Everyone concerned was complimentary about my abilities during training. And the best thing is, I’ve been able to choose my hours. I will be working part time to begin with, five hours per day Monday to Friday, to allow me to ease in to the organisation. Having been unemployed for so long, I knew I wouldn’t be able to cope with being thrown in at the deep end of full time employment straight away. I don’t mind that I won’t get paid so much as everyone else. It’s not like I have family responsibilities or anything, I’m just getting on my feet.

This morning on my way into work I felt those usual nerves. It was probably worse than ever, as I knew that now I was really on the verge of proper work, and this was the moment I had been dreading all year. Though I hated unemployment, that old, sick part of me still would have loved to avoid work altogether. You get used to being at home every day. If I’m honest, not counting the odd hours I had to go into University, I’ve probably been  living the lifestyle of an unemployed person for the best part of ten years. It is great to be able to choose your own schedule, to do what you want with your days, to not be accountable or responsible to anyone except yourself. I only threw myself into the job search this year because I had to, because of all the debts I still have to pay off and the fact that I now have the jobcentre on my back.

I won’t say I can’t wait to start work next week, but at least my new employer has proved herself to have a personality, and at least I know I’m liked there. I have no real idea what the work is going to entail – needless to say I’ve never been involved with website development before – but apparently I’m going to get on the job training. The child in me is scared I’m just going to arrive there and be expected to get on with things by myself immediately. Of course that won’t happen, but until I’m actually there and getting the training I need, I can’t be 100% certain in my heart.

When I was completely feared up this morning on my way to Notting Hill I used a technique to calm myself which I’ve entirely learnt about through AA. I started to re-parent myself, which means I took my scared inner child by the hand and walked him to work, comforting and soothing him all the way. “It’s going to be all right, you’ll be fine, you can do this.” At first it sounds so silly and weird, but it really works. In the arena of work I never grew up from that terrified little nine year old boy, so for years I just kept being terrified. The only way I knew how to deal with the terror before was to run away. Thank God I didn’t run away today – I was sorely tempted to not turn up. If I had done what I normally do, I would never have been headhunted in the way that I was and chosen for the much better website development job upstairs.

I’ve experienced all manner of dark thoughts this week, not just about running away and not turning up to work. I’ve thought about drinking, drugging, jumping in front of the traffic and ending it all. Things that I guess any alcoholic would think in a situation as petrifying as mine. At the end of it all, I just cannot believe I’ve got to this point. I have a job; I don’t have to go to the bloody job centre to sign on any more; I don’t have to live on £7 a day any more! Obviously there’s a whole lot of hard work still to do. I still have to learn the ropes of my new job, settle in, see if I’m really cut out for this business or not.  But, right now, I feel OK about it all, and I didn’t expect to feel that way.

While I may have been feeling fairly positive about the situation this morning, that is not quite the case this evening. I’ve spent the day trying to run away from my feelings of deep apprehension and doubt; a long walk around Hyde Park didn’t do the trick; sharing about it at my old home group didn’t really help either. Tonight I attended the Hyde Park Crescent newcomer’s meeting for the first time in months, having just finished the literature commitment at the other meeting which has been my home group all this year. I had every intention of sharing tonight, and I knew I could only talk about my fears concerning starting work, even though it’s a newcomer’s meeting and there has always been a tacit agreement that you share positively for the newcomer. I needed to share honestly and openly and part of me thought the newcomers might need to hear some of this stuff.

When I got to the meeting I was almost in tears. All day my emotions had been up and down like a yoyo. One minute I’d be glad to finally have a job and the chance to pay off my debts; the next I’d be dreading what’s to come like a little boy dreading his first day at school. As soon as I’d managed to convince myself that everything was bound to be all right, doubt would swoop back in and drown the positive feelings out. Practically everyone in the fellowship knows I’ve got a job now – news always travels fast in AA – and there was the expected barrage of congratulations and well wishes. Before the meeting I couldn’t tell anyone how I really felt about the impending transformation in my life. Only when all the newcomers had shared and us old-timers were allowed to speak could I put my hand up and spew the toxic rot that had been clogging up my being all day.

Unfortunately in the middle of my share one of the newcomers at the back of the room seemed to burst into tears and ran dramatically outside, making a lot of noise on the way. I immediately felt awful and tried to swing my words round to a positive angle, but I couldn’t. A big part of me knows that honesty is the only policy that works in recovery. I’m more scared than I have ever been in my life right now: I have to talk about this. There isn’t anywhere else I can get it out of my system.

There are many reasons why I am so scared today. In therapy earlier this year I learnt how to sift through the myriad of problems that inevitably swirl around my head in circumstances such as these, in order to get to the core of what I am really feeling. The main reason I’m scared is that I am convinced I will screw this job up, like nearly every job I ever had in my life. I’m terrified of looking a fool, of making mistakes and being told off – of, worst of all, being laughed at. In reality I’m unlikely to end up looking a fool if I do everything I’m told and use the brain that I know I’ve got – but if by some misfortune I happen to make a mistake and find myself being reprimanded by a superior in the organization, what would be so terrible about that? What’s the worst that could happen? I could lose my job, but that isn’t the worst thing in my mind, because I could still claim benefits from the government in that improbable eventuality.  It’s the being reprimanded bit that I find the most horrifying. Being shouted at, made to feel small, stupid and unworthy were all things that happened to me from time to time at school. I hated the feelings those experiences brought up in me so much. But why? What is it about being told off that causes me to feel as if the ground is being pulled from underneath my feet?

It’s the idea that I’m hated which really gets under my skin. The idea that I’ve done something bad and I’m going to be punished, and ultimately rejected and abandoned. That’s why I felt so terrible tonight when that poor person ran out of the room in tears during my share – I felt as if I was solely responsible for their pain, and that any minute I would be pulled up by my hair and humiliated in front of everyone for committing the crime of scaring a newcomer. That sort of thing never happens in AA – I know it doesn’t – but in the part of my head that has nothing to do with reality, the childish part of me, this is exactly the eventuality that I fear all the time.

At the end of the meeting I was prepared to run off and cry, when a dear friend, Eleanor, stopped me to impart some useful words of wisdom. “Don’t worry about starting work next week, Josh. You will be absolutely fine. You will go to work and you will impress them all. You will find that it is the perfect job for you, as if it was tailor made for you! This time next week you’ll come back here and you will share about how ridiculous it was to be so scared. Trust me.”

Dearest, loveliest Eleanor. How I wish I could believe you!

In the midst of all this abject terror and violent self pity, there is a miniscule glimmer of what I am very reluctant to call ‘hope’. Hope that perhaps, actually, I am wrong and the job I’m due to start in a week’s time will be totally fine. All the experiences I’ve feared in recovery have turned out to be a hundred fold better than I could have predicted. Look at my creative retreat in the North last month – look how petrified I was in the days and weeks leading up to that! Of course my head is replying to these ideas with the fact that all of that was different. Nothing I’ve been through in recovery is quite the same as starting full time work. Yes, I was close to wetting myself the day I arrived at Lumb Bank and had to meet fifteen perfect strangers who I was going to be living with for a week. But I can’t convince myself that that is the same thing, even though it is.

While Eleanor was pep-talking me a few other members of the meeting tried to approach me with similar words of encouragement and advice, but before they could open their mouths I was running off, as fast as I could, desperate not to let anyone see me cry. I wanted to cry, so much, but like so many times before, I was too repulsed by the thought of making myself even more vulnerable to try it. So in running away, I once again deprived myself of the opportunity to get any of the support that I really needed. For two years I have secretly complained about the lack of support that I perceive myself to be getting from people in the fellowship – yet on the rare occasions when it is right there for the taking, I abandon it willingly in favour of isolation. This time next week I’m going to need a lot of support, more than I’ve ever needed – I’m probably going to have to pick up the phone and call someone at least once. Dear God, I don’t want to fucking do that! I want to see myself through this alone, mainly because in the end, I will be on my own. I’m going to have to learn to take on the responsibility by myself eventually, why not start learning now?

It’s just that kind of attitude which sends people to relapse in AA, you know. “I need to do this by myself, I can’t rely on other people to look after me.” Tonight, for possibly the first time in ages, the thought of having a drink crossed my mind momentarily. “If it all goes wrong next week, I could always have a drink and forget about it.” This thought was the one that brought me the closest to tears. It would be insane to throw my sobriety away over a job – if I can’t deal with starting work then how the hell would I deal with something really major like what Earl is going through right now? This is how fucking insane I am. If I carry on feeling the way I felt today, I’m either going to make myself sick or lose my mind. I have to get over this phobia of work, I really do. If I can’t stop myself from believing that everything is going to go tits up then it probably is going to go tits up at some point – it could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, right now I’m attempting to imagine things going right next week. A harder challenge I’ve never faced. Actually picturing myself still in the job after three months is like trying to picture myself on the moon. In spite of the initial difficulty in imagining success, little by little the process is chipping away at my anxiety, and those moments of feeling OK are beginning to come back. Very slowly, of course. I don’t know if by this time next week I’ll be any better at thinking positive thoughts, but I have to keep trying. If I don’t try then I’ll just go mad and that will be the end of any future I might have had.

So, I had the interview yesterday. And…unbelievably…I got the job! The interview went remarkably well, really. The lady I spoke to was really nice and I didn’t feel as nervous as I might have done. I was able to answer all the questions about the previous telephone work I’d done, as well as sell my IT skills. Training starts on Thursday for two days, then from next week I will be a full timer on £9 an hour. Can I wait til then? Yes, I can probably wait. In fact, the longer my last week of freedom lasts, the better I’ll probably feel. I need to work, but of course I don’t want to work. I’ve been used to a lifetime of dependence on my mother, of not needing to look after myself. Now that’s all about to change, and my inner child doesn’t like it. It feels like starting school again, just as I knew it would. Going to the interview yesterday I felt like that five year old again, not a clue what was ahead of me, sad because my mother wasn’t there to hold my hand. I never completely got past that stage in my development, that point where I metaphorically let go of my mother’s hand and run out into the world on my own. I’ve always kept behind, as close to mum as possible, even when I lived in Norwich for three years. All the time I complained about my continuing dependence on her, resenting myself and her for allowing this toxic co-dependency to live on years after it should have ended, but really I liked it, because it was safe. It was what I knew.

Now it’s all changing and I can’t stop the progress. I have to become independent now; I have to branch out on my own; I have to work. It possibly helps that I feel better about this job than I would most ordinary office jobs. I’ll be in a call centre, dealing with customer queries for this company that designs employee discount schemes for other companies. Attached to its discount schemes are a number of lifestyle initiatives, such as cycling to work, which it advertises and tries to promote in the population. There’s something I could make a difference in, something I could really get into, feel confident about. Maybe I’ll like this job. Who knows?

The first few weeks will be hard, that’s for sure. Having not worked in a paid capacity for years, it will take a lot of getting used to. Obviously, I’ve known it would be like this for a long time. I’m walking into this with my eyes open. I need to be prepared for some very hard work because I can’t afford to walk out after a week like I always did before. I have to stick at this, not least because I won’t get any government benefits again if I resign. That’s the scariest thing about it, not being able to walk out. Physically I could walk out if it all gets too much, of course I could, but economically and spiritually, I can’t. I’ll have to work harder than I’ve ever worked in my life and I really have no idea what it’s going to do to me.

The hope is that it will change me into a better person. A stronger person, a more confident person. Being able to get up whenever I want and do nothing if I want for the past sixteen months has hardly made me confident. I’ve never been more anxious in my life than I was at times during unemployment – having a job is unlikely to be that bad. Best of all, I’ll be able to afford things again. Clothes, food, theatre tickets, holidays…things I’ve only dreamed of spending on this year. Not too long ago I believed I would never be able to go to the theatre or have a holiday again. Now I might be able to live my dream of flying to New York in 2010 after all………….wildest dreams, and all that.

On Sunday night I was so nervous about the interview I shared about it in a SLAA meeting that I don’t really know. I needed to get things off my chest. I shared with deep honesty, and afterwards the release of tension was physically noticeable. I literally felt like I had just let out a huge breath that I’d been holding in for hours. Everyone laughed as I talked about hating the job centre; they all understood. After the meeting because I felt particularly anorexic I didn’t stop for long to let anyone follow up on my share, I simply walked out of the room as I always do. Which made me a bit sad, but at least I’d found the courage to share about what was really going on for me.

Halloween was lovely. Dean invited a bunch of us over to his flat in Brixton for dinner and X Factor watching. I haven’t watched any X Factor this year, thinking it would be good to see if I could avoid the whole thing for once, though I couldn’t bring myself to turn Dean’s invitation down on the basis that there would be a lot of Simon Cowell to endure. I got to Brixton at 7 o’clock and was instantly greeted by a community that is completely different to any I know in London. It is undoubtedly the heart of multicultural London; I was certainly part of a very small minority of white people there. In the past this would have bothered me, but last night I found it to be quite an interesting experience. I quite liked being in a place that’s so far from what I know; Brixton is unpredictable, unique, alive. I guess I’ve changed. I’m glad I enjoyed it so much actually as I will be living there over the Christmas and New Year period. Dean and his boyfriend are going away to the far East for a month and need someone to look after their cat. Having already done the same favour for my friend in Tottenham back in the summer, I seemed like the natural candidate for the job.

Dean’s flat is small but gorgeous. Just five minutes away from the high street in Brixton, it is surprisingly quiet. To my amazement, dinner was waiting for me when I got there. I hadn’t been warned that there would be dinner, so I had stopped off at the supermarket on the way to get a little pot of pasta for my evening meal. Thank God Dean had thought to cook – the cheap Tesco pasta would not have been as enjoyable. Five of us were there last night and we were treated to three courses of rather delicious food. I never knew Dean was such a good cook.

After dinner there was an hour and a half of X Factor to endure. I quickly realised why it’s a good thing that I decided to not to follow it this year. Not to be cynical – some of the god awful attempts at signing were quite funny and there were many enjoyable moments – I just can’t see the point in the thing any more. My relationship with all reality TV has gone the same way in recent years. I just can’t get into it any more. I’d only sit in front of it if I’m with a bunch of friends, like last night. Bitching about the contestants that we hated (and making fun of Simon Cowell’s hair) was the highlight of the evening.

I had an excellent time from start to finish. I was certainly reminded of why it is good to have friends in this world. What I was saying the other night about hating people didn’t cross my mind. Even when I had to suffer the ordeal of late night public transport as I made my way home, I was in such a good mood that I didn’t feel like hitting or strangling anyone. A lot of people in funny Halloween costumes were around to provide entertainment. I finally got home at 1am, the latest I’ve been out in ages, and went straight to bed (rather than switch the computer on and browse facebook for five hours like I used to).

Over all it’s been a great week, I think. Friday I went to Trent Country Park on the edge of London for my weekly Artist’s date. I thought I might take a few photos, after the photos I’d taken on my creative retreat last month were so unbelievably good – I ended up going a bit mad with my phone and took hundreds of pictures of trees. I really like the results. I’d say that Friday was something of a spiritual experience for me. I had my ipod on the whole time as I walked about the beautiful countryside; the music I’d chosen really added to my appreciation of the place. The Beatles’ ‘Across the Universe’ is a song that I’ve found goes extremely well with a walk through the park in the autumn. Yellow and brown leaves blew from the trees and across my path like snow; I felt something inside me changing as the weak sun shone through the autumn colours. This moment right now is absolutely perfect, I kept thinking. I was happy.

The moments of happiness are increasing in intensity, I think. Like the sun breaking through the clouds, I’m noticing more and more peace breaking through the cracks in my negative thought stream. I’m starting to believe that because it’s started, it can’t stop now. A momentum is building up; things are really getting better with time.

I have a job interview tomorrow. My second this year. It’s for an administrative position in Notting Hill. I’m nervous but excited by the prospect for a few reasons. It could finally be the end of unemployment – I think I’m ready for it to end now. Signing on at the job centre is getting to be more a slog, more depressing. Going to work will be hard for me, I’ve always known this. But surely everything I’ve been doing recently has been good preparation. Getting up in the mornings, installing a routine into my days, building up my skills in voluntary work. It’s all up to God, of course. Pained as I am to say it, I trust that whatever God has planned for me is the right thing. I have to trust.

I’ve had a really stupid evening. At 6 o’clock I want a meeting but I cannot decide where to go – AA, SLAA, SAA, or CODA. I could go to any but I do not have the conviction to choose one. I let a coin choose for me and it sends me south of the river to a SLAA HOW meeting that I have not been to before. I’m not entirely convinced that I want this meeting but I’m not convinced that I don’t want it either. It might be easier to go to a meeting I know, like the AA newcomer group in Hyde Park where I have not been for ages, but if I go there I will definitely regret not going to SLAA. So I arrive south of the river and find the church where the SLAA meeting is supposed to be quite easily. With just minutes to go before the start, I cannot walk in. I see other people walking in, none of whom I recognise, and a sudden terror that I’ve come to the wrong place hits me. I’m 99% sure that this is the right place, but the 1% makes me dither, and by the time I’ve been dithering for two minutes I have to walk away from the entrance because the thought of being seen dithering is too humiliating to bear. I just can’t walk into the room. The people going in past me don’t look like sex and love addicts – I’ve never known sex and love addicts to have a ‘look’, but tonight I expect them to – and my dithering is bound to have offended somebody, so I can’t walk in now that I’ve been seen to do something so heinous as dither outside for two minutes.

I’ve wasted over an hour travelling here but I don’t beat myself up for too long as it occurs to me I could still get a meeting in somewhere else. I’m still not sure that an ordinary AA meeting will be enough for me – SLAA is what I really want – but there are no other SLAA groups tonight and I only have an AA where to find on me, so I will have to make do. If I rush I could make it to Hyde Park Crescent and be half an hour late, but I can’t bring myself to do that. I need to be in a meeting from start to end. In the where to find I see that there is a late meeting at Hinde Street starting in an hour. Jump on the tube, spend more money than I wanted to tonight, and I land in the heart of London with quite a bit of time to spare. The only place in the vicinity where I can kill some time is a Lebanese café where I’ve sat once or twice in the past drinking expensive tea. I don’t want to be here, I want to go home and sleep, I want to get away to safety, but I need a meeting, I can’t let the whole trip into London be a waste of time.

Everyone else in the café is part of a group. I take a solitary table in the corner, try to ignore the nagging certainty that everyone is staring at me. They’re not staring at me, but that doesn’t stop me obsessing about it. A middle aged woman with tightly curled red hair and deep, smoky voice waxes lyrical to her male companion about the new St Pancras station. A girl fiddles incessantly with the zip on the pink parka jacket that seems to be drowning her. I tear myself away after finishing my tea far too quickly. Between the café and the church there is a pub outside which dozens of drinkers stand hollering brazenly at the unfortunate passers by. An old bearded man in a trench coat lies flat on his back in front of a side door, with an empty pint glass placed innocently beside him.

When I’m feet away from the church I hear that voice in my head saying: ‘the meeting will have been cancelled, you’ve wasted your time coming here, you might as well go home and not even bother going in.’ Why do I put myself through this? When I need a meeting the most, why do I find it so traumatic to go to one?  Entering the church’s side entrance and descending the stairs to the meeting hall feels exactly like walking through fire. I haven’t seen anyone else coming in this way, which makes me all the more certain that there will be no meeting tonight. The where to find I have is quite old. I don’t know why I so strongly feel that entering a building where there is no AA meeting on will get me into trouble, but I do.

Finally I come to the door of the main hall, and I can hear people inside. Relieved, I open it, and the first thing I see at the back of the room are the twelve steps with the Narcotics Anonymous logo at the bottom. Oops! I’ve stumbled into forbidden territory. Get me out before someone picks up a bow and arrow and shoots me! I’m so terrified that my presence is going to offend somebody, I literally run out of the room and back into the street. I’m so wrapped up in being judged negatively that the entire journey home is miserable. I resent everybody that I come across on the bus that takes me home. Being in close proximity with other human beings often makes me anxious and irritable; tonight it’s as bad as it can be. I want to hit the bloke who won’t move so that I can place myself in a more comfortable position by the window. I want to spit at the girl who keeps laughing violently into her mobile phone.

The problem with me is that I hate people. Deep inside I know that if I was the only person alive in the world, my life would be so much easier. I have to say this in all seriousness. I’ve shared it in meetings before and people have laughed; at first it seems quite a ridiculous thing to say. Unfortunately, there is a part of me that wishes there were no other people around to bother me like people do. I’m terrified of people; I can’t stop myself from obsessing on what they’re thinking about me, how I’m coming across in every single situation. After all these years, more than a decade since I left school, since I escaped from the only place where I have ever been judged and ridiculed for being me. Since school I’ve never had to face anything like the kind of abuse that I faced there, but ten years down the line I am still carrying that fear of abuse everywhere with me. I don’t know why I’m particularly angry about it at the moment, but I am, and I have to get it out. Every time I’m on a bus or a train full of bodies, trying to shrink myself to the point of invisibility so that I can avoid being looked at, I experience such a great deal of anger that has nowhere to go. I need to write about this stuff, random or screwed up as it may seem.

Sunday started off on a good note, went through a bad patch then ended up back on a good note. Not sure what the main reason for the bad patch was; can think of many little reasons. Didn’t sleep at all last night, due to a developing sore throat and cold. Wasn’t as tired as I thought I would be when this morning finally arrived, and the weather was gorgeous, so decided to go out for a long walk and enjoy what was sure to be the last of the year’s sunshine. Had a feeling the tiredness would catch up with me, and I was sort of right. Ended up in Soho at 3pm, realised that I could pop into the Covent Garden gay meeting where I hadn’t been for months and see some friendly faces. I forgot that the reason I hadn’t been there in ages is because I never liked the meeting. This afternoon I was reminded quite severely that it is my least favourite meeting IN THE WORLD. I hate the meeting room – it’s in an old people’s home that really feels like an old people’s home, not one of these bright modern places that tries to help its residents to forget where they are. I hate the sharing – all the happy clappy AA stuff that I’ve complained about many times before. I can’t say I hate the people because the same group doesn’t always go there – but just because I was in a bad mood this afternoon, I hated everyone anyway. I hadn’t slept, I was suffering with a cold and sore throat, and the clocks had gone back an hour meaning it was going to get dark significantly earlier. Wondering what the point in being there was, I got up and left after half an hour, just as the chair was finishing.

Got home, collapsed into my bed and tried to sleep for the next few hours. Couldn’t do it. Don’t know what’s wrong with me today. I should be really tired, but I’m not. I did drink quite a lot of caffeine yesterday (I’m trying to give sugar up again and yesterday realised that caffeine is a great replacement) but I can’t believe the effects of that would be this severe. It’s really quite alarming. In my head I’m already terrified I’ll never sleep again. I know I will sleep again, but knowing it doesn’t stop the terror.

I was given the opportunity to forget about my problems when Cole, my friend from the States, texted to let me know he was in town. Whenever he visits London I’m keen to see him as much as possible, because we built up quite a connection last year and I consider him a very close friend. We met in the Angel and sat in my favourite independent coffee house for three hours, chatting and snuggling up, laughing and bickering. Cole always picks up on the inconsistencies in the things I’m saying, and when attempting to explain why I think I’m sexually anorexic, there seemed to be a lot of inconsistencies to be picked up on. I was irritable from my bad afternoon and I suppose going into detail about the intricacies of having a problem as complicated and as subtle as sexual anorexia is never the best thing for someone who’s in a bit of a mood to do. I did my best, and I think in the end we managed to come to some sort of understanding about it, though it seems clear that the problem (hate that word), if there actually is one, is far vaster than one can describe in just a few sentences.

I had a lovely time in the end, thanks entirely to Cole. He asked if I thought there was any chance of me ever having with someone else in the fellowship what I’ve had with him – i.e. a romantic ‘relationship’ of sorts. I don’t honestly think there is a chance. Cole seemed disappointed by this answer. Well, it would be nice to think that one day I could have that connection with another recovering alcoholic. It is a profound, life-changing connection, and with Cole it came totally out of the blue. The day we met a whole set of helpful circumstances came together to make our ‘connection’ possible. Everything felt right; I suppose we were both in the right place at the right time. Experience has shown me that it is incredibly rare to be in the right place at the right time for anything – or perhaps I’m just pessimistic. Either way, I’m pretty sure I’ll never meet another Cole. At the end tonight he told me I looked beautiful, and my instant reaction was the usual disbelief. I’ve never thought of myself as beautiful, ever. I have had a haircut and a shave this week, and I’ve bought a nice new jacket, so I can see that looks-wise things are up rather than down. It’s going to take a long time for me to believe that I’m beautiful, though. Wish it wasn’t so, but it is.

There’s a bit of sadness in there, where there shouldn’t be. I should be feeling brilliant tonight. I have friends who love me, people who think I’m great. I have a life, I have a passion, blah blah blah. But there was a moment this evening, just before I went out to meet Cole, when I thought it was all over for me. I haven’t thought that for ages, since the depression that hit me in the summer ended, at least. After the isolating experience of walking out of the Covent Garden meeting, coming home to lie in my darkened bedroom for three hours, a mini-depression just seemed to settle on me. I’m sure it can’t help that I didn’t sleep last night. AND the clocks have gone back, signifying the onset of another dreary winter.

Oh it’s fucking annoying being depressed. I wasn’t depressed half an hour ago. Now I’m home and it’s like the whole fucking evening never happened. I need to sleep, but I’ll probably lie awake thinking. I have lots planned tomorrow. Just hope it will do the trick.

On Monday I began to suffer an acute bout of self doubt, and it doesn’t seem to have ended since then. I tentatively approached a newspaper editor, as advised by professional writers on my week away in the Pennines, with an article that I had written and felt pleased with. As soon as I had pressed ‘send’ on the e-mail my head was filled with awful questions such as: what the hell do you think you’re doing? Who in their right mind would publish you? What have you got that a million other writers in the world haven’t? As a consequence of this lip-biting insecurity in my own abilities, I had a pretty rotten Monday evening. Yesterday was not much better. I’ve forced myself to keep writing, even though I haven’t heard anything back from the editor that I approached yet, and it doesn’t look as if I will hear anything. I have to keep writing because as time passes it becomes increasingly evident that I will never make a living any other way. Writing is the one talent I think I might have a chance of being able to rely on. I don’t know how to do anything else. I am not being pessimistic – fifteen months in the dole queue has proved if nothing else that I stand little chance of finding success in a ‘normal’ job. Writing is what I want to do, it is the reason I get up in the mornings. I’ve been really good at getting up recently, setting my alarm for 7.30 every day and pretty much obeying it. Facing the mornings was until very recently a fear I never thought I would conquer. I’m taking writing as a career choice very seriously, sitting down at the computer every day from 9am – 12pm because it is the only way I get things done. If I had not been unemployed these past fifteen months, I would never have found the passion and the will to stick to this routine. I would never have found the time to learn my craft, which is precisely what I am doing now. God isn’t putting paid work in my way at the moment: writing has to be the reason.

I took a break from working at home to go to a new sex addicts meeting in Notting Hill tonight. I desperately needed a meeting of some sort, and since I am trying to focus on this part of my recovery at the moment, an SAA meeting seemed like as good a choice as any other. I got there and found a brightly lit conference room with strip lighting full of heterosexual men: not the most enticing of prospects for someone who’s never been friends with a heterosexual male in his life. I figured a while ago that the only way to get over my fear of straight men is to meet and talk to some of them. Through most of my recovery I have avoided the ‘mainstream’ 12 step meetings, making a beeline for specifically gay groups when I can. Whenever I’ve gone to a straight meeting it has always been good for me in some way, and tonight followed in that fashion. I met and spoke to a bunch of really friendly straight men all of whom are struggling with an addiction to sex in the same way as I am. The most unfortunate thing about my addiction is that it causes me to fantasize and obsess about obviously straight men, when I’m not careful. There were a few very attractive men in the meeting tonight – there’s always one or two in every SAA or SLAA meeting I go to – but I know by now what the obsession is about, and I for the most part managed not to stare at them for too long.

I fantasize because it’s a way of escaping from my reality. Alcohol used to serve as that escape; for the past two years fantasy, love addiction and compulsive masturbation have all been great escapes at different times. They are all addictions as serious as alcoholism, and I know the sex fellowships are the right place for me to be as much as AA is. I faced a lot of fear tonight, firstly by walking into the meeting, and secondly by sharing there. My face went bright red as soon as I started talking about masturbation – this is still all very new to me – but it needs to be talked about and exposed, until its power is taken away. The ultimate goal of all of this is, I think, to find a way of having healthy, intimate, real relationships. At the moment I feel completely incapable of having a healthy relationship with anyone. The addiction to fantasy has slowly but surely killed my ability to love and be intimate with anyone. I hope that one day my deadened propensity to love is restored. For now, I have to be a newcomer in this new fellowship and, as they say, keep coming back.

Went to Dorset early yesterday morning with Earl and had a thoroughly nice day out with my closest friend. We saw some of southern England’s nicest sights: the cliffs at Swanage, quaint little cobbled streets and houses with thatched roofs, and the 11^th century Corfe Castle. It’s my new favourite place in England. I’ll never live there, but I will dream about it. Earl was on top form all day. In spite of being seriously ill he was laughing and chatty and refreshingly accepting of his condition. The doctors say that the chemotherapy has an 80% chance of curing him, which seems rather encouraging. He was even eating properly, the first time I had seen him do so. We came back to London in the evening and enjoyed a plentiful supply of food in this great new Indian restaurant near Waterloo, which featured a creative menu and two-tier booths, with upper levels that could only be accessed by step ladders. I enjoyed my final day out with Earl. If he survives, which I’m starting to think he will, there won’t be any more long journeys like that. Not least because full train fares are so extortionately expensive these days.

Today I’ve dutifully attended my local SLAA meeting, continuing the shift towards this new fellowship that has been taking place in my recovery. I’m not giving up on AA, but as time goes on I know that SLAA and SAA have to take up more space in my weekly routine. Despite feeling awful sometimes, I know the sex fellowships are working for me. It’s been a week since I acted out on my biggest addiction, internet pornography, which is an achievement I never thought would be possible. I can’t imagine going months and years without porn, but I couldn’t see myself going a month without alcohol and look what happened there. I felt the usual nerves walking into the meeting tonight; there were a few guys I knew from AA but most of the regulars are still strangers to me. It’s only been four weeks since I started going. I really want to get to know people there, but it’s so hard given my strong tendency to isolate. I’ve discovered that I am socially anorexic, which indicates a more willful social isolation than the serious shyness I used to think was my problem. If I call myself anorexic then it makes sense why it’s taken me so many years to recognize it. No one talks about social/sexual anorexia in AA, which is why I know I need SLAA. It’s taken me a long time to feel comfortable admitting that I need SLAA. Progress is much harder to measure and attain in SLAA, but I feel I am finally about to start changing. One of the guys at tonight’s meeting offered to take me to a HOW meeting tomorrow, where it should be easy to find a temporary sponsor without too much dilly-dallying. HOW is a much more structured form of recovery than the normal twelve steps: you answer a set series of questions in order to complete the first three steps, and you have to pick up the phone every single day. It’s not something I’m really looking forward to doing, but I know it will take me forward in my journey. All the signs are pointing towards it. I felt better after tonight’s meeting, which came as a surprise. I’m a bit less of a newcomer there than I was a week ago.

I’ve written masses at home this week. Since I made an agreement with myself to write every day that I could, I’ve produced hundreds of pages, and my autobiography is nearly finished. I am now up to the point in my life where I stopped drinking. It sounds silly to say, but I can’t believe I’ve got this far with the book. It will be the second book I’ve written this year. If that doesn’t prove that recovery is conducive to creativity, I don’t know what does. Writing my life story has of course been a cathartic experience of sorts. It’s put my life into clear perspective; my powerlessness over people, places, things and substances has been confirmed over and over again. I’ve enjoyed writing it, and though I don’t think I will ever publish it, I will be proud to have such a record of my life.

Here’s the first chapter, for anyone who’s interested:

“It is the 16^th July, 2007, and I am two days sober. My name is Josh, and I am an alcoholic. I am walking briskly along New Oxford Street, preparing to meet a man in Starbucks called Eddie, who will take me to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am as nervous as hell, partly because I have never liked meeting strangers, partly because I know that getting well in Alcoholics Anonymous involves hard work. I have been to a couple of meetings before, when I was 21 and not ready to stop drinking yet. Those meetings scared me. I don’t count that as my first visit to AA because I didn’t have a desire to stop drinking at that time, which is the only requirement for membership of this fellowship. This time round, I don’t know if I am ready to stop drinking, but I know that I am ready for something to change. My life is stagnating, and it is completely out of my control. I can’t remember exactly when I lost control. It could have been six years ago when I started drinking, or it could have been long before that, when I was an isolated, depressed teenager with no choice in how much abuse I had to take from day to day at school. Or it could have been before that, on my first day at primary school at the age of five, when I walked into a classroom full of strange creatures called children, without a single social skill to my name. Or maybe it was before that, when I was born into a world that didn’t seem to like me very much. Regardless of when I lost control, throughout all of my experiences in life I have been scared. No more so than right now, here on a busy New Oxford Street on a Monday evening rush hour as I approach a multi-story Starbucks where a fellow alcoholic is waiting for me. I have agreed to meet him because I’ve realised that I have a drinking problem, and I need help. I don’t really believe that AA can help me, because it didn’t before, but talking to someone with the exact same problem has got to be better than sitting at home on my own, recovering from another hangover.

Starbucks is even busier than the street outside and I wait in a long queue to buy a coffee that I won’t be able to drink. I’ve never liked coffee, but I can’t think what else I’m supposed to drink. They don’t serve alcohol here, and I’m not supposed to be drinking alcohol anyway. What am I going to drink when I go out from now on? I haven’t thought about that yet. I try not to dwell on it as I move slowly forward in the queue, hoping that Eddie will text me to inform me that he has to cancel our meeting because something has come up. I don’t want to be here – it is an unfamiliar, non-alcoholic environment and I’ve never done those environments well. Just as I am paying for a medium sized café latté my phone makes a loud noise in my pocket. Thank God, I think: Eddie can’t make it after all. I’ll be able to drink my coffee quickly, go home and forget all about this. AA was a stupid idea. I’m still not ready to stop drinking. I’m only 24 years old, for fuck’s sake!

I pull my phone out of my pocket and already I am thinking how to tell Eddie that it’s OK, I’ll meet him another time when he’s free, which means that we will never meet at all. I have found over the years that being as vague and unspecific as possible enables me to get away with cutting all contact. If I don’t specify when I would like to arrange another meeting, then the other person could technically wait for years and not be pissed off, by which time they will have forgotten all about me and our date. It’s an old trick of mine, an easy way of getting out of things that I thought were good ideas to begin with. I have a habit of changing my mind about such things when the time is upon me and it’s all about to become real. I’m fine thinking and fantasizing about it, but when I actually have to go out and do it, I am almost always paralyzed with fear.

Eddie’s text message does not say what I want it to say. “Hi, I am upstairs by the front window.” This means I have to go and meet him, explain why I want to stop drinking, and eventually go to AA for the first time in three years. I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to walk up these stairs, I don’t want this coffee, I want to turn around and run, I want to go home to my mum, where it is safe and where I don’t have to deal with things. But there he is, sat by the window in smart work clothes as described. He wears a dark suit, trousers and tie like most of the other men here. This is the time of the day when all the workers of London descend upon coffee shops and pubs, ready for an evening of relaxation and fun to help them forget about the hard day just finished. I’ve never known that experience, because I have never had a regular 9 – 5 job which requires me to put my feet up in the evening just to get over it. It is one of the reasons why I think I might have a drinking problem. Work and me don’t go together: socialising and drinking have always been more important than finding paid employment.

Eddie strikes me as a caring but fairly nervous man. He does not smile much as I sit down opposite him and introduce myself. Being around other nervous people always makes me want to drink. Alcohol is the only way I know how to overcome social nerves. How on earth do people in AA go years without it? I remember them talking about being ten, twenty years sober the last time I went to a meeting. The thought of not drinking for more than a week makes me shudder. Eddie tells me that he is nearly five years sober. I don’t ask him how he managed it – the answer would surely alarm me.

“So, why are you here?” he asks, sipping his coffee slowly and carefully. I, meanwhile, have nearly finished mine. I drink quickly out of habit. If I was in the pub it would enable me to get drunker that much quicker.

“I guess I’m fed up of not getting anywhere in life. Being so hungover all the time that I can’t hold down a job. Yesterday I started this new voluntary work, and I was sick halfway through the shift because of a hangover and I had to go home and let them down.” I speak as quickly as I drink; people often tell me to slow down and relax a bit, but I don’t know how to. Already I appear to have the insight into my own problems which will get me better. Until very recently, I didn’t know I was getting nowhere in life. I will soon come to realise that this ability not to know things which are blatantly obvious is called ‘denial’. I decided to start doing voluntary work this summer because I had nothing else useful to do with my time. I am currently studying for a degree in Psychology, my second undergraduate degree, and once again I find myself with four long holiday months to fill. While other students go out and get jobs to earn a bit of handy money, I tend to use the time to practise lying in and surfing the internet. Recently I have started going on holidays abroad; my good friend Phil just a few weeks ago invited me to stay at his parents’ holiday flat in the South of France for a week. That was a nice week. I only got drunk once, which is incredible for me. Unfortunately, that one occasion was bad enough for the entire week. I drank to blackout, as usual, and had to spend the next day recovering in bed. A beautiful, sunny day on the Mediterranean coast passed me by because the slightest movement in bed made me feel sick. Well, it’s not as if I wasn’t used to that kind of thing.

Coming back from France I seemed to understand that I couldn’t spend the next three months doing nothing at home. I have no more holidays planned, not that I could afford another one in any case. So I wrote to the Food Chain, a charity that cooks and distributes food every Sunday to HIV and AIDS sufferers around London. It seemed like a worthwhile thing to do, something fun and rewarding that would look good on my CV. I chose to be a navigator rather than a kitchen assistant, which meant I could start work at 11 o’clock on Sunday morning rather than 8 o’clock as those poor kitchen people have to. I’ve never been a kitchen person, anyhow. I can’t cook to save my life, and the last time I worked in a kitchen I had to resign after a week because it was an unmitigated disaster.

As a navigator all I have to be able to do is read maps. I am assigned to a driver who I will direct to the nine or ten addresses that make up our particular ‘route’. We have a box full of hot food sitting in the boot, waiting to be delivered. When all the food is ready at about midday we can go. I’ve spent the past hour studying my route on the map, because I do not want anything to go wrong today. I need to know exactly what I am doing. I can’t bear the thought of making mistakes, of – God forbid – getting lost. I’d rather die in a car crash than get us lost in London. This is another reason why I’ve never managed employment very well: responsibility absolutely terrifies me. Unfortunately I have just come to realise that I will never learn how to deal with responsibility until I begin taking some of it on. So here I am, trying to be a good citizen, hoping I can pull it off and fool them all. They can’t find out that I’m a fraud, that I’m really a lazy, unreliable student with no people skills. Maybe this will actually work. So far, everything is going well. No one has bitten my head off yet. They all seem like pretty nice people. My driver, a friendly Irish man called Fergal seems OK. I feel a bit dizzy as we climb into the car – I was out drinking last night, of course. Saturday night never just passes me by. I can’t remember the last time I stayed in on a Saturday.

To begin with, the hangover doesn’t present much of a concern. I know where I’m going, and Fergal is really easy to talk to. My fear of strangers goes right back to my early years, to before I can remember anything. I have this innate fear that everyone who meets me will dislike me by default. It is why I’ve never been great at making friends. Alcohol helped with that, of course. Fergal, however, is asking me about myself. “So, whereabouts do you live? What do you do for work? Oh, that’s interesting – what are you studying?” Ordinary small talk for a Sunday morning. You wouldn’t know we were at work. It couldn’t be easier. Our route takes us through Holloway, the part of North London where I happen to live. I know exactly where I am, and I should have nothing to worry about. But I am worried. After we have delivered three meals, I start to feel very ill. We’re driving slowly up Green Lanes towards Turnpike Lane; I didn’t know the traffic was always bad around here on Sundays. It’s a hot summer’s day and Fergal doesn’t have the windows open. My hangover is quickly becoming a pressing concern. I should have known this would happen. I never, ever get into cars when I’m feeling ill. When I was younger, I experienced carsickness on a regular basis because of the smell of petrol fumes that you get in all vehicles over a certain age. Today, the petrol fumes are a lot more noticeable than they have been in years. Eventually, when we get past Wood Green Shopping City I have to get out of the car and vomit on the pavement. We are parked outside one of the addresses on our route. People are looking through their net curtains at me. I can’t stop myself from puking my breakfast up, I never can once I’ve started. Fergal puts his hand on my shoulder to ask if I’m all right. Of course I’m not all right, I’m throwing up in front of the house of someone we are supposed to be delivering food to.

I don’t say anything to Fergal, I simply do what I need to do then begin to make my way home. Fergal is sure that I would be better off leaving now, rather than trying to carry on with the work and risk humiliating myself even further. He assures me that he is absolutely not pissed off with me; I haven’t left him in the lurch because he knows the rest of the route pretty well. While he gets the food out of the boot and goes to knock on the client’s door, I slowly and unsteadily make my way to Turnpike Lane underground station. It is a very long walk, and I have a lot of time to think about what’s happened. I can’t believe this is happening to me. I’m 24 years old, I have one year left at University and very soon I’m going to have to think about making my way in the real world. If I carry on like this, I’ll never achieve anything. No, my sickness isn’t the end of the world for the Food Chain. They will carry on without me. But can I carry on? I’ve never had real responsibility for anything in my life. Being in charge of something important always horrifies me because inside, I don’t really believe that I am up to the challenge. There’s never been any evidence to suggest that I am up to the challenge. Every paid job I’ve ever had, I’ve either been sacked from or had to walk away from after a week or two because I started to not turn up when I was supposed to, usually because I was too hungover to go in, sometimes because I was so scared about going in that I had brought on a panic attack.

What happened to me on the 15^th July 2007 was undoubtedly one of those panic attacks. If I wasn’t nervous about not being able to do the job, then what was a very mild hangover might have turned into nothing more. As it is, I had to go home halfway through my shift, once again a complete failure at something simple that I had been asked to do. That night I spent hours talking to internet friends at home, as I regularly do in the evenings, and I told them all about what had happened. For the first time in my life, I was honest about the fact that I felt like a stupid, weak, irresponsible failure. Being honest is scary, because it leaves you vulnerable, but something inside me told me I ought to be honest. I was at the end of my tether and I couldn’t help myself any more. I needed the help of someone, or something, else.

Eddie, who I had never spoken to or met before, messages me online that night to invite me to an AA meeting the following day. Apparently, there are meetings for gay people in London, a piece of information which momentarily excites me because I was never aware of it before. When I went to those AA meetings three years ago, they were full of married, heterosexual Irish men who had each drank for about thirty years and whose collective age was somewhere in the thousands. It’s no wonder I felt out of place. Today, I’m going to an AA meeting specifically for gay people in London, which is the only comforting thing about the situation that I currently find myself in.

“Shall we go?” Eddie asks at 7 o’clock, signalling towards the stairs for the exit. This is the moment I have been dreading. There’s no backing out now. Even though I will be meeting gay people who I might have stuff in common with other than the taste for alcohol, I am still bricking it. Meeting one stranger is bad enough; meeting dozens of strangers at the same time is unbearable to imagine. What will they think of me? I’ll probably be at least ten years younger than the youngest person there. I won’t understand what they are talking about, because there is a whole language in AA that people outside aren’t supposed to know about. I’m going to sit in a room full of alcoholics for an hour and a half and listen to them speak about how terrible alcohol is and how great sobriety has been for them. Worst of all, I’m going to see the word ‘God’ everywhere; a loaded word that I’ve never exactly had a great relationship with. What the hell have I done? How did I get here?”