East London Archives of Alcoholics Anonymous.

My sobriety date is 31st March 1984, but my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting was in 1973. An American Psychiatrist 12 stepped me; his name has left me. He took me to St Vedest’s lunchtime meeting in St Paul’s. I hadn’t eaten for days, washed or shaved. The bloke doing the chair said he drinks a big bottle of brandy a day, and I remember thinking, “Oh, I don’t do that, so I can’t be an alcoholic.” Off I went and got a drink….it got worse. I wasn’t a rowdy, noisy drunk, but I got in trouble. Most of my drinking was blackout with a criminal record, and I wasn’t a criminal; I thought it was part and parcel of drinking, and everyone had memory losses. Here’s an instance. At seven years sober, my wife mentioned a cat we once had. I asked her how long we’d had it, and she said three years. Now, I’m not saying I was in a blackout for three years, but I still have no recollection or memory of that cat.   

Towards the end, I’d devour stuff you’d buy in a hardware store; I often shared: if it had “flammable” written on the can, then it was alcohol-based. One day, my wife caught me drinking turps at the end of my bed and threw me out. I went to my mum’s, she put me up for a while, but she couldn’t handle it. Social drinkers don’t drink aftershave, turps and surgical spirit. I couldn’t see it.

A family friend joined A.A. He’d been sober six months, and I bumped into him on the street. He took me to Hackney Hospital in September 1983. My older brother came to support me, and a fella called Mike the Merc. Mike took me to a meeting every night for a week. I knew I shouldn’t drink, but part of me wanted to. For the first six months, I was drinking. I could say, “I’m Joe, and I’m an alcoholic”. The only thing I did was keep coming back. I began making tea at the Isle of Dogs Monday evening meeting. I did a chair there while drinking vodka. Everyone slapped me on the back, telling me how good I was, but they knew. I made amends to everyone in that room who was there that night.

The meetings I went to were at Hackney Hospital on Monday and at St. Clement’s on Tuesday. They had these old-fashioned shammy leather chairs with high backs; you could slide up and down them, and I did. When God started being spoken about, I wanted the ground to open up. I mean, grown men and women talking about God, how embarrassing…… Toynbee Hall, Wednesday, Thursday, Seamans Mission, Friday – Royal London Hospital, Saturday – The Fridge in Burdett Road, and Sunday Mile End Hospital. At nine months sober, I became secretary of that group; it kept me from drinking in my tormented moments when the illness had me, and the only reason I didn’t drink was that I knew how the Sunday meeting made me feel.

This is how important step two is for me…came to believe in a power greater than us can restore us to sanity, I needed restoring to sanity, and that was when my gut-level acceptance of being an alcoholic hit me. At that point, I stopped questioning and got on with it. I got interested in the programme itself, the spiritual side of it…well, there is no spiritual side, the whole Alcoholics Anonymous programme is spiritual.

A huge part is service, which I questioned; people tell you it’s good for you. I’m a cynic; I thought it was a con, trying to get us to be the gopher for A.A. I questioned it until I read the book “The Road Less Travelled,” which hit me: it mentions service, not A.A service, but service in general. He wrote, ” If the fruit tree doesn’t shed its fruit, no new fruit will grow…and I remember understanding the principle; there’s no room for anyone new to grow. I felt maybe this isn’t a con, and from that point on, I took to the service like a duck to water.

I attended East London Intergroup as a GSR at a year sober and carried on going for nine years. The meetings were held at St Clement’s Hospital, now it’s Forest Gate, Durning Hall. Plaistow Bill was part of the intergroup and took a shine to me, I looked like a fella, he 12-stepped who wasn’t around anymore. When Bill moved to Tiptree, Don from Ilford, tall Mick, and I would visit him. Bill was a strong member of A.A. It took him a while, but he eventually got on the Spiritual path after sticking his thumb in the top of the whiskey bottle, which sent him back out there for a few years. Intergroup also had Johnny Q and Sailor Dave. There was an issue at the time about accepting contributions from outside that went to parliament. It was over a group called East London Entertainment, or something like that. After that, Alcoholics Anonymous became the only charity in the world that could refuse outside contributions. We are the only charity that can do this by law, and that is a fact.

I was getting into the programme by going to a step meeting at Leytonstone on a Tuesday night, which was the only one around. Teacher Steve, Tall Mick, Andrea, another lady, and I started a Friday-night Step meeting on Lauriston Road in Hackney. We’d read through the 12×12, which got me to realise this isn’t child’s stuff or mumbo jumbo. Johnny Q said the steps are all ideals, but step one is a 100% must.

Teacher Steve took me through step 5. I can share anything with Steve and knew it wouldn’t go any further; he’s still my sponsor/friend today and helps people down in Southend where he lives. It says in the 12×12 that, moment by moment, you’ll feel all this dropping away from you… But after my step 5, I felt more vulnerable. I opened my heart, and no skeletons were left; I didn’t have this euphoric feeling spoken of. What began to happen slowly but surely was that the thoughts and actions of my past began to leave, becoming my first tangible experience of what this programme is about.

When asked to guide another through this stuff, my gut instinct is fear, I’m not good enough, and all that, and it still happens. I don’t say the word sponsor, it’s more like a friend. Some stay in touch, some drift away, but I like to think I’ve helped. People spoke about doing it the Big Book way; some hardliners say it’s the Big Book or nothing. As usual, I questioned and mentioned it to a friend of Teacher Steve. He said Hazelden literature came out and caused conflict. When people say the big book way, they mean using all AA literature, such as 12×12, living sober, etc., and as usual, it gets confusing. I tell anyone new: get to meetings and read as much literature as you can.

I felt the next step was Meditation. It came to me while waiting for an appointment at the Royal London Hospital. I was reading a magazine and came across an article on meditation, using the word ‘One’ as a mantra. I learnt meditation gives the mind some peace and rest. Coming home from work, I’ll be tired and not want to do anything, then that voice says, Joe, your mind needs a rest. The body can relax and sleep, but the mind is always on full blast; meditation gives it rest. I still do it today.

You couldn’t help but meet different characters like Kiwi John. He was 18 months sober when I came in. He picked up again and caused issues at meetings. When he was sober, he carried a great message, but couldn’t get it himself. One evening at St Clément’s, the chairs formed a huge semicircle, with a large space in the middle. Kiwi John pounded in, then started somersaulting and backflipping. He took his hat off and capped it to us all… he was taking the Michael; he was a character. He eventually went back to New Zealand.

There was Tai Chi Dave, who taught Tai Chi in China. He was very good. I was eleven years sober, and he was nine; he struggled with the God bit. I didn’t see him for a while. He started drinking…this is interesting …what happened is, he went out, had one bottle of lager…one bottle, he didn’t have the second drink for three months, up to then his head never left him alone, it tormented him until he picked up the second. The third and fourth, he drank himself to death…that one bottle of beer fucked his head up, and he drank himself to death. It’s the first drink that does the damage. The way he described the head on him always stays with me.

Sailor Dave was the first person to mention meditation, and I have always been grateful to him for getting me on that path. He remained sober up to the time he died. He had a great way of sharing and speaking to people. Johnny Q was one of the most Spiritual people I came across. He didn’t believe in God, but the amount of service he did and the people he was there for were incredible. That’s why this isn’t a religious program; it’s a spiritual one.

Alcoholics Anonymous is different from my early days; there’s more emphasis on the 12 steps and God. You didn’t hear too much about the steps. It’s changed as younger people in the program have become more open-minded. Not only that, but it is more accepting. We are doing a spiritual act; doing service is a spiritual act. I’ve been doing phone service since I was 10 months sober. Mick the Merc brought me to the phone office on Tachbrook Street in Pimlico. Mari, a lovely woman from Northern Ireland, looked after the office. I was on the East London intergroup Thursday evening shift with Marina, Ray, Mike and Chris. I’ve been doing it for 34 years. The office moved from Redcliffe Gardens to Cynthia Street, and now to Lafone Street.

What I’ve learned in this fellowship is more than I could have ever imagined. Alcoholics Anonymous has a programme that keeps you sober. It may not get you sober, but it keeps you sober. There’s a saying, Religion is for people who are frightened to go to Hell, while Spirituality is for people who have already been there. Spot on.

We did this August 2019 in the London AA Helpline office.