East London Archives of Alcoholics Anonymous.

My first encounter with Alcoholics Anonymous was in Bermondsey. I was 19 years of age, homeless and attending a day centre after a few suicide attempts. Alcohol has always been in my life, I found it released me from fear, took away my inhibitions. I thought it was freedom, but I became dependent on it. I went to the meeting because a friend was there. At the door I met a lovely man, ‘Galway’ Joe. He must have been 8 years sober at the time. Joe cannot remember our encounter. Looking back, I could see how God worked through people. Joe asked me two questions, “are you an alcoholic?” I said, I don’t know.  He asked, “Do you want to stop drinking?”: I said, no, not really. Joe politely said, “sorry we cannot help ya.” What I heard was fuck off and don’t come back. That was the twist in my mind, how I interpreted what people said; I felt rejected and, in my mind, called him all the names under the sun. If I had come in at that time, the type of person I am, a people pleaser, I would have danced the A.A. dance and not fully conceded. So, Joe, saved my life because I wasn’t ready. It took another six years for that to happen.

The last pub I drank in was Charlie Browns, Limehouse, with Jessie (God rest her soul) and ‘Sneaky’ Pete. The Police from Kings Cross came to arrest me. I began to withdraw from alcohol in Brixton Prison. Because of my pride I did it the hard way, refusing medical help. I didn’t want to go to the hospital wing; they called it Fraggle Rock. I didn’t want to be zombified and locked up yet I was criminally insane. I was in a bad state, physically and mentally and I was only 24 years old. My last drink was on remand at Pentonville. My daughter’s mother visited me with a new set of clothes and a bottle of blue nun: the spiritual drink. The 12th of January 1980 was my last drink and ten months later I went to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

My daughter was in care and the authorities were trying to put her up for adoption. I fought and lost the battle, and my parenting rights were taken. The truth is, I didn’t have anything to offer her; I couldn’t look after myself. It was a blessing. I was full of self-loathing and hate which oozed out of every pore. I was a walking time bomb. I shared a cell with a fella from Peckham. They brought in a guy from the hospital wing who was suicidal and wanted to die. He said to me, what’s life all about Jock? I thought, will I be asking that question when I’m 45? I’m 25 and I don’t know what it’s about. It was a bad atmosphere. In the morning, I said you better get him out before I kill him. They didn’t take him out. Instead, they took me out and put me in a single cell. I was left to reflect on myself. In the exercise yard, a guy called Jackie gave me the poem Man in the Glass. I tried to look at myself in the mirror and couldn’t; that had an impact within me.

My first meeting was in Wandsworth prison.  I decided to go only after the social worker told me my daughter was up for adoption. I listened to the guys talking, they would mention the Big Book of Alcoholic Anonymous and read a passage. I wanted to read it again, so I asked to borrow it. I read it slowly and had to go over it three or four times because there were words I didn’t understand. I read from the beginning as I couldn’t remember the page numbers of the passages I liked. I didn’t know what “phenomenon of craving” meant but got the gist and it told me I was fucked, doctors couldn’t help. I discovered at the age of 25 I was a chronic alcoholic. All my life I knew there was something not right and it was in my mind; my illness dwells between my ears. When I read “we are bodily and mentally different”, that’s me; these pages in the Big Book were telling me what’s wrong with me.

I was asked what I would call the Jaywalker. I said he was mad, then realised I had been doing the same thing with alcohol. I was mad. My concept of insanity was the straitjackets in “One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Mine was a quiet whispering insanity, the lie, and I believed it. That lie was smashed as I continued to read. In chapter 5 I got hope, then it was dampened when I read “there are such unfortunates, they are not at fault, they seem to be born that way, naturally incapable of grasping and developing the manner of living which demands rigorous honesty”. My heart shrank; I was a compulsive liar. My mother said I was a bigger liar than Tom Pepper and he got thrown out of Hell.

I didn’t have a problem with God. There are three types: those who believe, those who don’t and those who think they are God. Well, I was the latter. Then the penny dropped. I’m not God and I received the gift of desperation. My first prayer was a cry from within, asking for help. I had a profound spiritual shift which changed my life. God knew what I needed, electric shock treatment to the spirit. I became one of the Blues Brothers on a mission from God. In the morning, I got the priest to my cell for confession; I was ranting and raving that a miracle had happened. He lifted his hand and twisted it – he said a miracle is a deformity straightened out, I said that’s me, I have straightened out, that was profound for me.

What dawned on me was he didn’t understand the concept of spiritual change because he hadn’t experienced it. Step three, God as you understood him, everybody had an understanding, but I didn’t and now I have. I was touched by his spirit and my life’s journey is to be an alcoholic, one of suffering and one of recovery. From that point on I have experienced life beyond my wildest dreams. It says the best is yet to come!

Coming out of prison, I went to Jessies and tried to 12-step all of them with the Big Book under my arm, telling them about God. They thought I was mad. My parole officer tried to get me into a treatment centre in west London, a project called Accept. I’m 26 years old, just out of prison and wouldn’t accept me. He said the A.A. meetings are your work, keep going to them. So, I did.

I was a shy sharer. Shyness was my pride. I read a book by John Powell called “Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am”. I always felt If I told you who I am, you might not like me and I lived a life of pretending like Walty Mitty, never authentic. Today, I don’t wear a mask; you either like me or you don’t. It doesn’t matter which. I like me, I love me, yet when I was young and vain, if I was a bar of chocolate, I would have licked myself to death.

After that spiritual shift I still had self-doubt and fear; that Star Trek gambit to boldly go where no one has gone before. It was inner space, an inside job, to have a relationship with yourself. I thought I was incomplete because I didn’t have a partner. I was a physically healthy young man and my sister described me as a dog in heat, which is a good description of me at the time. They would say things like don’t get involved in a relationship until you’ve done the ninth step. Jesus, I flew through them just to get laid. I got burnt because that isn’t what it’s about. 

I learnt that if I’ve only got 10%, I can only give 10%. I promised the moon but had no shares in NASA. It’s an illusion. Going to people who I could talk to, who wouldn’t laugh at me, asking how to talk to girls, one said “keep it light”. What’s light? I learnt not everything is based on my physical animal loneliness; it’s what’s behind that. Discovering sex itself is not love, it’s a physical act: when it’s selfish it’s unfulfilling. It was trial and error and saying I don’t know when I didn’t know. I have had many teachers. If I hadn’t been in those situations, I wouldn’t have learned from them.

My sponsors were the first hundred Members of Alcoholics Anonymous. I had a trust issue. I did my first 5th step in prison and felt absolution. I felt it. I knew whatever I had to do; I’d do it. They say more will be revealed. There came a point when I needed to reach out and ask for help. The first guy was an atheist, he showed me pure unselfishness, a man of action and I see spirituality all the way through him. He’s 50-odd years sober now. Another I spoke to about prayer.  I did step 3 with another human being and he got me to four; the pupil was ready and the teacher appeared. 

I didn’t know what an inventory was, so I got help from David B. He got me through the 4th step. David meant well and I was argumentative. I had a conviction but was open to direction, not dictated to. He explained the structure of the 4th step, the four columns, you’ve got Fear in brackets and Fear is your seventh step. character defects. A defect isn’t a shortcoming; a shortcoming is a result of your defects. The groundwork was the fourth step. 

A list of people I harmed, with me at the top. It’s self-preservation, me, my parents, siblings and other people. It’s that moment in time when you’re ready, not when your sponsor is ready. More will be revealed. I went to another guy for steps 6 and 7. I did step 8 with a sponsee. It is a lifelong process of going deep. I use the St Francis Prayer for meditation: better to understand that to be understood, better to give than get. It’s about me understanding myself, to thine own self be true. I have always been open to other ideas and things but Alcoholics Anonymous is my mothership.

What’s important to me today is knowledge. They say knowledge isn’t enough; it’s true it’s the combination of how it works. The knowledge that if you don’t pick up the first drink you can’t get drunk. You put that piece of knowledge into action, you don’t pick up the first drink, so you stay sober; that becomes your experience. I liken this to Humpty Dumpty, who was full of knowledge. All he did was sit on a wall, he fell and got broken, and all the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men couldn’t put Humpty together again. Why? Because Humpty knew it all, he didn’t need help, I am fine. That is what I used to be like. I did nothing with the information, but now I put it into action. How I make amends today is by not drinking, that’s how simple it is, the simplicity, the willingness to ask for help. It was a slow process.

I haven’t drunk in 43 years and 10 months and that’s a miracle. At 29 years sober my daughter came back into my life. I was at a Greek convention listening to an Al-Anon speaker who spoke about letting go of her children which she had, absolutely: I hadn’t. The moment I went home I let go. In May 2008 my partner’s son asked if I had looked for my daughter on Facebook. I found someone who may be her and went to her area to see if it was. All during this time, a friend of mine in America, who was an adoptee, was looking for her parents. We bounced ideas off each other. The ironic part is her father was a Judge, the same judge who signed the adoption papers for my daughter. 

I wrote to my daughter; she got back to me and we met in Islington. I was so nervous. She let me into her life, and a few weeks later she let me meet my granddaughter and grandson. It took a while for my grandson to warm up to me, like my daughter said all the males had left him. I said I’m gonna be here until the end of my days. My grandson is now 30 years old and he has two little girls. I was sitting with my daughter, my granddaughter and my two great-granddaughters on the floor playing and it was priceless. They couldn’t see what I was seeing, seeing them on the floor playing with a dolls house…….that is God, thank You God.

This interview took place in a café in Stratford 2024