I was in a very bad state, mentally and emotionally and wanted to die; I was dying. I was useless to everyone around me, pushing them away. I come from a big family, and no one would come near me. I have learned a lot about that since. Speaking for meself, I was suffering from a pitiful incomprehensible demoralisation, which means you’re f**ked, thank you ‘Farmer’ Dave, he put that in perspective for me, and it has always stayed with me. I can see his face smiling at me, what he was looking at was me, who was f**ked.
I came into Alcoholics Anonymous in 1988. My wife got the number from the doctor’s surgery, around the corner; she was down there to get me Valium to knock me out because I was a pain in the arse. I could not sit down, lie down, I couldn’t go to bed, I couldn’t do anything, I was revved up all the time. We were living in a tower block on the 14th floor, and I wanted to jump off it. There definitely is a higher power in my life, because I wanted to go. She caught me hanging out the window, one leg out, and she came flying into the kitchen. I didn’t know whether she was going to pull me in or push me out. It sounds funny now, but at the time, it was a serious rock bottom. That poor woman, I put her through hell. We had two teenage kids as well. I put her through hell. Anyway, she was down at the doctors getting the Valium, and somebody from Alcoholics Anonymous put a poster up in the surgery, somebody doing service, PI work, which I got into later. She took the number down. We never heard the word alcoholic, I had a drink problem, yeah, but not alcoholic. I come from a family of heavy drinkers it was accepted to be drink, it was funny, it was the craic, it because serious business at the end, the last 10 years of my drinking I wasn’t getting drunk at all, I was just getting sick, I suffered tormented of the mine, couldn’t get out of it, caught in a trap, I was in prison in my mind, I know that now, but not then. I rang the A.A. number the day after a letter came through the door from Radcliffe Gardens (the London phone office), with three meetings on it: Lauriston Road (Friday), Hackney Hospital (Monday), and De Beauvoir Road (Saturday) in Stoke Newington. I still have the letter. It says, “Dear Kevin, here are three meetings we hope will be of some use to you.”
Lauriston Road was my first meeting, in 1988, I went to the pub for a drink before the meeting, I see the guvnor looking at me, he weighing me up, I was 38 years old and was desperate, he gave me a pint of draft cider and came out looking for the church, I couldn’t where the meeting was, then this Big and Tall English fella got off a bicycle, he was called Mike ‘ The Bike’ what a lovely fella, such a diamond, I’ll never forget him, he said in a gentle way, are you looking for the meeting? I said I am, I wondered how he knew that. He took me to the back of the church, where the door was. I kept going back on Fridays and to Hackney Hospital on Mondays. I was sitting at the back of Lauriston Road, couldn’t talk, then I got a job, driving a digger and going to one meeting a week, then to the pub after the meeting, drinking Kaliber, playing pool, the fellas asking if I was still off the booze, I said aye. One night, the guvnor said they don’t have any more of that Kaliber stuff, we have Miller Light, it only has 1%, and I was off, not sure how long it was until I fell back on my arse.
I’m sitting beside two fellas in the park who graduated there before me; they had families, great workers, their families had gone, I heard the sniggering in the pubs about them, I wasn’t one of them, but I was in the middle of them. If you were going past the park, you’d see three down and outs sitting there. I could only see two, and who takes you out of there? No human power can, something in me out there and into here, and you know what happened when I get out of my own way, I get happy, because HE has stuff to give me, he can’t give me anything when I am running the show, this is an amazing thing, I cannot wait tomorrow to see what happened.
12 months later, in 1990, I fell back through the door of the Hackney Hospital, there I met Willie, and a big fella called Alan. Lovely man, he used to share stuff that blew me away. I didn’t understand it, of course. He used to say, “When I drink, I don’t get drunk” He would pause, I’d go, ” Why is he pausing, then he finished it off “, I get violently sick.” I use that today on other people. I have been carrying that around with me for a long time because that is exactly what was happening to me. There was no happiness in it; I was getting sick.
I met the right people, like Willie, I was waiting by the bus stop for him and thought he wasn’t coming. I’ve been let down all my life, I’ve let people down, and just before 8 pm, he screeched up. He was running late. He took me around for a week. I was pleased to get away from him finally; he was like a convention on wheels. I love him today, I do, I love that man. He did his job; he showed me where the other meetings were. I started going to Forest Gate on Saturdays, to the Chapter Five meeting at Pope John House, East India Dock Road. I was like a walking panic attack; I was a ball of sweat every time I got off the train at Forest Gate. Today, the only thing I suffer with is an overactive knife and fork.
I kept coming back, the biggest thing I did. I was doing two or three meetings a day, I would listen, I couldn’t talk, I talked after the meetings. I just loved it but didn’t understand it. I didn’t know what sobriety meant. I heard a fella at the Hackney Hospital doing a chair; he said, “This is a disease, this is not a disgrace.” Jesus, it’s not a disgrace to be an alcoholic. I had my head down, peeping up at him. It felt like he said it straight to me. I came home that night, my wife and kids were watching the telly, I turned the telly off and said to my wife I have a disease, she’s looking at me like, ” What’s wrong with him now. I couldn’t elaborate, as I didn’t know what it meant. Two three months around ‘Tyrone’ Gerry offered me a job on the digger, that is when my sobriety began. I was revved up, wired to the moon. I jumped into this machine and was on fire. I got fed up with the building game after a while. I have been doing this since I was 16.
After a while, I needed someone to help me; I was getting angry. I was driving the digger and lost it at this lorry driver. I asked this fella at the Lauriston Road meeting. I practised on my dog first, but I did it. I’ll be your temporary sponsor. That was the start of me opening my mind to this, simple, I emphasise it, it is simple. Just let it go, let it go, read the black bits, he told me. I called him about a resentment I had toward a brother of mine, and after half an hour of me yapping, him saying nothing, he said to me, “I wonder what’s the matter with him.” He emphasised the word “him” and put the phone down. It took me three weeks to figure out that I was the problem. I read in this morning’s daily reflections that the spiritual axiom is: if I am mad or angry, what is happening to me? Anytime I get angry now, I always hear his voice, and I say, I wonder what’s wrong with him or her, it’s me. If I spot it, I go for it. That’s in the East End. I have been getting sober in the East End all the time. I heard a tape of an Irish fella doing a music tape, he was popular, and my head said, ” You can do that…where did that come from? I didn’t fall through the door at the Hackney Hospital to learn to play the piano. I spoke to Tim at the time, he said go for it, do your best, may be you’’ end up teaching it, he’d always throw it back at me, he taught me to use my own brain, I didn’t know I had one, but you know what I found out, I found out I had a brand new brain, it was never used before, it was sparkling, shiny, new, never been used.
Monday night meeting at Manchester Road, Isle of Dogs, it was small meeting for a while, then ore people would come, the fella said to me “Kev, would you mind being my sponser” my head said to me, he thinks you’re well, I did it, I said yes, all I have to do, is pass on what was passed on to me. Keep it simple. If you want what we have, then do what we do. I went mad with all that for a while; if I had fellows in the morning session, afternoon, and evening, God knows who I thought I was. Some are still around; they helped me.
I was liaison officer for Inner East London with ‘Big’ Sam and would go to the hospitals and out up posters, speak to nurses and doctors, because that’s how I found A.A. Intergroup met in the Dellow Centre, intergroup wasn’t for me, I was struggling with intergroup, I phone Tim in desperation, he just said ‘Stop it’. I handed it in and felt very free. We all have positions we can slide into, do a job we’re happy at.
I started the program and began playing the music, I borrowed money to the gear, got myself into debt, I said to myself, its shit or bust, people said I was mad going into pubs and clubs, a woman at the hackney hospital said to me I don’t know how you handle the smell of it, I said, look I didn’t get into A.A. by smelling it, I had to apologise to her a week later, she didn’t deserve that. Anyway, 28 years later, I retired from music, and I was booked up from August to August. I did parties, weddings, using my own brain, I found something in me I didn’t know I had, I had a gift from God, I could hear a tune and could play it in my head. I played loads of pubs and clubs and loads of meetings in between.
I went through a lot of fear; facing myself is the hardest thing I had to do. I figured out that fear is a coward; every time I face it, it runs away. I labelled it yellow; it’s like a bully. I faced up to a few in my life. When you face up to a bully, it goes away. I kept going. I was about two years sober when I started doing the music. I tried to cab in my early days, I wouldn’t recommend that, I was mad, I’d say my early days were the 6 or 7 years. Took a long time for me to calm down. I was riddled with fear, and I was doing my job and putting the cornflakes on the table. MY higher power kept me safe; a lot of people outside of AA helped me. I could go from an old-time waltz to a bit of rock n roll….oh man, I couldn’t talk when I came into AA, and then I am on stage singing. My birthday is 23rd January. On top of the daily reflections for that day, it says… having fun yet? That’s it, I have been an avid reader of the reflections every morning. I learn a lot from the reflections, the simplicity, and taking one thing out and looking at it. My sponsor said to me, ” Write all the defects down, what you think, anger, fear, etc., put them in a list, pick one out each day and work on it today, most of all of them, just one of them, simplicity is genius, says that in the 12×12.
They helped me open my mind, so I could see what is really going on here. My sponsor spoke to me neutrally; once or twice, he gave that left hook and said it differently. He gave me the language of the heart, don’t tell me, show me, that’s how I kept a gold of my family here, I came too, I came out of my head, and there I have a wife and two teenage kids. I was the youngest, and I didn’t know, they are cockneys, aren’t they; they won’t take anything from me. I was going round the meeting saying my kids don’t respect me….and this lovely fella ‘Australian’ Shaun, he’s dead now, I was in Pope John House he said come here Kevin I want to talk to you, he said “I’m sick of hearing you complain about your kids, I wanted to hit him, he said “what do you expect, all they ever seen was a drunk”…oh my god I was like he slapped me across the face, I went away and actually thought about it, I got a massive resentment against him, I became secretary of Pope John House and asked everyone in that meeting to do a chair an not him, everyone loved this man, I avoided him like the plague, he knew. 5 years later I apologised to him, he just laughed, he said I know, I could feel it. I needed tolerance and patience; I taught my sponsor a lot of patience. This table in my kitchen has been a place of teaching tolerance and patience. I don’t know how many people have been through this kitchen of mine, and I’m not counting, they have helped me so much, that’s why I’m still here, it’s not about me anymore…when I drank…
So many of my friends have gone, such as ‘Driving Instructor’ John, I think of him a lot, I pray for them, like ‘Plaistow’ Bill, ‘Limerick’ Sean, and ‘Fireman’ Tony. ‘Little Phil helped me, he was talking about emotional sobriety years ago, I didn’t understand him, I went to Whitechapel meeting and heard all he laughter, and I turned around and walked down, this fella came up, he saw the where to find, he said follow me, and followed him into that room where they were all having the craic. ‘Boxer’ Frank was telling jokes. There was Jacob, all gone now, great members, they kept it simple, they would go to any length to help. I was standing in the corridor. ‘Little’ Phil was going into the kitchen with the tea urn. He looked at me, came back, looked up at me, and said, ‘Keep doing positive things with negative thoughts,’ and walked away again. I been trying to do that ever since. Very hard to do. In the beginning, I knew it was the right thing to do. My ego wants me in conflict with someone or something; it is me. I must look at myself and get off this roundabout. In chapter 5, the path isn’t straight. I have been stuck on roundabouts, my negative head telling me, it’s the disease whispering to me. I said to Tim once, I told him I was entitled to a bit of fun, this was the first time I heard him swear…he said “Kevin, you are entitled to f**k all”. Be grateful for what you have. Do the honourable thing, I didn’t know these words, so I had to get the dictionary. Be true to yourself. The only thing I can get away with today is the truth, no bother. I can put my head on the pillow and go to sleep. Any time I am disturbed, I won’t sleep. I always said to fella, when we are having a cup of tea, I asked, ” Are you sleeping alright? If they are, then they are alright—selfish and self to the core.
After 10 years, I hit another rock bottom. I was flying everywhere, doing all this. I asked this fella to help me, and he told me to listen to the Power of Now and a New Earth and it lifted me, I was off again, I have tinnitus, it’s up here going mad, Echart Tolle helped me with it a lot, being present, great message, I cannot live with myself, I can’t live with me. A couple of years ago, I found Dr Allen Berger, who does emotional sobriety, 50-odd years sober. I love it. You have to be ready; I couldn’t hear that stuff until I am in pain, pain is my best teacher.
With the kids, we were sitting around this table, and I’d be telling them what they should be doing, and I stopped putting them down, like my son. My son is a lovely man, he’s 50 years old now, he has a wife with kids, I started praising him, he had a tough time because of me, all they saw was a drunk, I was able to turn it around, the best thing I could do for them, is be an example, what I do is more important to what I say, it is what I am doing that matters. I stopped reacting, we were at the table here, my son, wife and daughter and he was throwing things up in the ait at me, he looked at his mum, he said I cannot get him all today mum, I knew I had him, I let it all go, he didn’t leave here until he was 30, I as bringing my gear him, he is a lift engineer, he was sitting here, I said “Kevin, are you ever thinking of getting your own place?”, he looked at me. He said, “Why would I? I’m very comfortable here” Haha, God love him, lovely man, love him to bits.
I have three grandchildren: one was 16 the other day; another will be 17 soon. My granddaughter is 25. She had a daughter, so I have a great-grandson. Nice homes, they are happy out. My wife and I are here; we have a little car. I ask her every day, ” Would you like me to stay home or go anywhere? If she says yes, then I take her where she wants to go. I love it, once I stop thinking of me, just let go, keep letting go.
This interview took place at Kevin’s Kitchen table. 2024
East London Archives of Alcoholics Anonymous. 