East London Archives of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I was born in Hackney in 1957, and we moved to Welling and went to school in Sidcup [where most of my friends supported Charlton the local team]. My mother was a violent alcoholic, her drinking got worse towards the end of her life. My first memory of being alive was about 5 or 6 and feeling frightened, not specifically aware of what I was frightened of, just felt on edge. Since I came into the fellowship, I found out it was like a free-floating anxiety. I have a lot more empathy for her today. My father was an old-fashioned dictator in his own way. He wouldn’t allow her to work, he earnt the money and was rather quiet and she was full of rage. My sister and I were frightened of her leaving, even though her being there was horrible. Today I feel emotional for that child.   

When I was 15 years old, I went to a party and drank for the first time, all that anxiety left and took away my lack of confidence. I was good at football from an early age and got a status at school and played in the school team, we would win things, yet, nevertheless, once it finished, I had to go home, and I never knew what mood mum in would be. I don’t think it caused me to be an alcoholic, but it certainly caused the personality traits like ACA coming into it, in terms of hypervigilance. I was still at school, so I didn’t drink that often, but when I drank, I got drunk and even in my 18-year-old diaries it shows how much I was drinking.   

My dad worked for a bank in south London and got me a job at Lloyds Bank, I left home at around 19 years old. Everyone at the job was from public schools, I had a cockney accent, and I didn’t fit in until I drank. After four months I was on a disciplinary, so I’d sort myself out. They sent me to college, and I qualified as a Chartered Surveyor. I started going out with a girl and moved in with her and her mum and dad in Leytonstone, near the Heathcote pub. They treated me how I would have loved to have been treated by my parents, I felt like a normal person, I never had role models on how to be a normal person and that relationship ended after 5 years.  

I began playing for Lloyds Bank football team in South London and I lived in East London, so travelled there and after the game, no one stayed for a drink. There was a sports club full of rugby boys, they welcomed me and said to join the rugby club, and I did and played first team Rugby for Lloyds bank. My drinking was starting to stand out as I never knew when to stop, but the thought of stopping was unquestionable.     

In 1982 I met Barbara and was married within 7 months. In in 1986 Barabra was four months pregnant and I was diagnosed with testicular cancer and going through chemo. I went to see Charlton Athletic at Wembley, Barbara came with me, she painted the Charton logo on my bald head, at half time I was surrounded by police as a bald bloke with the Charlton logo on their head had attacked someone. Anyway, that was cleared up and Barbara went home, I stayed out and got arrested again that evening. She put up with stuff like that, I talked about the damage my mum had done, yet I never gave Barbara the time and love that she deserved, I wasn’t capable, and I didn’t have an idea of how to do things like that. My son was born in 1987 and in 1991 I went to A.A.   

When I was arrested in 1987 a policeman said about me being drunk, he said don’t you think you should get help? Ever thought about going A.A? I didn’t know who they were, so I looked them up and went to a couple of meetings in Barking in 1987 and fortunately for me I wasn’t an alcoholic and not as bad as the people there, I still had the wife, the house, the job I said to Barbara “they said I am alright”. Four more years of misery for us all. Weirdly the guy who took me to that meeting gave me the 12×12 and I regularly read step one, it said we are even finding people who have jobs, houses and married are even coming to A.A……  

I went to a meeting in 1991 in Harrow as no one knew me and was worried about my anonymity. Barbara started going to Al-Anon, I don’t know how she found out about them. I got sacked from the job in Harrow, so didn’t need to go back over there, so started going to Chingford. Pat my neighbour had stopped drinking, and we went to Chingford New Road. There was a lot of talk of a fella called ‘Big’ Stan who had just died, I think he was the local guru. There was ‘Chingford’ Alan, another prominent figure. Four women would sit at the back, one was a lady called Sandy, still sober. I remember one of these women came back to the meeting and said they had a drink after six years, it shocked me, as it showed me that people on a pedestal can drink as well, and I thought I’m never gonna be safe if they aren’t safe.   

When I stopped drinking all my defects stayed, I wasn’t pleasant, yet me and Barbara remained married for forty years. Barbara said the first year of my not drinking was the worst year of our marriage, I was still an arsehole. I would argue with people in the meetings and after two years I was at the Chingford meeting and asked the guy doing the chair to be my sponsor, that was ‘Filofax’ Peter. He said to me, are you willing to go to any lengths? I said I’m not running down the Roman Road with a Millwall Scarf on but within reason “yes” I am. Peter gave me an immense amount of time as we went through the Big Book, he never pushed me, I was in the fake it to make it phase. I pretended to believe in God and did the first three steps. I found it easy as I knew I was insane and needed to be brought back to sanity, and in a reasonably quick time life did start getting better, and being honest was ok. I was four years sober when I did step four, I found it difficult and blamed my mum for everything, but Peter pointed out where was my dad in this. Steps six and seven, have been the hardest, I found out shouting at people at work mean they would get the job done. I held on to my defects because I thought they were useful, they weren’t useful and I reap what I sow, I had put a sticking plaster on it and it wasn’t healing. I was fighting against the need to change, and I knew it, but I didn’t want the pain of this change as it would be scary.   

Peter would take me to Claybury Hospital meeting, that building frightened me. When it closed, I valued the flats and thought why would anyone want to live somewhere with all that suffering, but they all sold. I went to Whipps Cross Hospital meetings it was in the Maternity unit at one stage. In the Seamans mission, I was friends with Bill who was with ‘Irish’ Jean. Leytonstone step was a good meeting to go, I was the secretary at some stage for a year. The Monday Leytonstone started elsewhere, and ‘Awesome’ Terry moved it to the united reform church. At the Chingford meeting, you had Willie, who helped a lot of people, that kept him sober. On Hibbert Road in Leyton, I used to go there with Irish Kevin, and in that meeting you would get a lot more drunks than you do nowadays. I tried Intergroup. I liked an argument and knew that was all I would be doing, I knew I wasn’t well enough to go there as I had just stopped arguing with everyone at meetings, I stepped down as GSR and haven’t been back.    

‘Filofax’ Peter has now passed away, he was so brave in his death, he ran our psychodrama group, a week before he died, we had a psycho drama meeting in his house. We had massive disputes over the years, I think we didn’t speak for four years, but as soon as something happened, and it was problematic he would say right I will be around in five minutes, and he would be there. Since he has gone, I haven’t got a new sponsor, but I have four or five people who talk if I need them.  

A.A. has moved dramatically from being 90% men to around 50% women. There were more war stories when I came around, that were never going to keep me sober. Women brought more talk about feelings, which men started doing, which is one of the biggest changes, there is a much younger crowd which I think is good and that brings up more talk of the steps in A.A.  

There are very few organisations that have guidelines, like in the Big Book, which says the reason for this book is to find God, I genuinely feel it is tough old business to believe in God and I was brought up a Catholic. Not only have I not found God, but I’ve got no intention to find God, I’m not looking for him and I’m still in. The flexibility of this is mindboggling and one of the fundamentals of this is to not drink. Sometimes it feels like their God is a lot of pressure to seek what they want them to do. I genuinely feel it is tough old business to believe in God, I was brought up a Catholic and one.   

I’ll tell you about a chartered surveyor, he was meant to mentor me, and I had to take over the office he was in charge of. He had to stay there for a year to mentor me to run it, someone said he had thirty years’ experience as a surveyor and while being with him, I realised he had one year’s experience thirty times, he hadn’t changed, and I think that can apply to A.A. as well. It’s about having that willingness to look at yourself, if your whole life is looking at how other people have done you wrong, it isn’t going to be good.  

Peter always went on about being ready to sponsor. This guy phoned the helpline, I called him, and he said he couldn’t stop drinking, I said can you stop today, he said no and I asked him have you drunk today, he said no, I said try for an hour and I’ll call you, an hour later I called him he hadn’t drunk, we spoke for a few minutes and we did this all day, he went the whole day without drinking and we did it all day the following day. We went to Chingford meetings, and we would chat, I have always felt you get to know someone before doing the sponsor side of it. This guy went through a lot in his persona life. He got remarried and asked me to be his best man at his wedding. My sober date is 24th August 1991 which has given me good friends along with a new way of life.