The Mystery [see the world]
1 sound
Um, hello, I'm alcoholic and a recovering addict. I've been asked to speak to you for a few minutes about my recovery and how I found it basically. Um… fucking hell. They’ve got a saying in the house, it's called “in the madness”. You know, when you’re in addiction, we call it “in the madness”. And I was in the madness for a long time, me. I didn't find recovery until I was 58, um, and not-not a long time, I haven't been in recovery for a long time at all… How I found it was, um, I reached out to a friend, I was at my witts end, I was at the, you know, last chance, on my knees, when the drugs stop being fun and the alcohol doesn't have no effect on you just, yeah, just keep you in that, you know, the horrible morbid state. So I got to that stage, and I reached out to someone, and he mentioned about the house on, um, Picton Road. To be honest with you, I wasn't too sure about it, do you know what I mean, I had lived a very insular life. You know what I mean? I hadn’t integrated with other people, other cultures or anything like that. And I was a bit very, very insular. So I found it a bit difficult, but I did, I did, you know, I-I made the first step, I took the first step, and I reached out to the guys in the house, um, and it's a bit of a funny story really, I turned up on the first day, they have an end-of-week meeting on a Friday. I turned up the Friday, and walked in the room to see ten strange white faces looking at me. [laughs] I just turned and fucking walked out, you know what I mean? I thought “Nah, these people have got nothing for me, we've got nothing in common. No, they don't understand my-my situation.” But! For some reason, um, the boss of the house. She reached out to me and told me to come back and see her personally, have a one-to-one with her, and for some reason I-I did. I just went for it and I went and had a one-to one with And she’s just, um, she’s good. She's really good at what she does, and she talked me to coming back the following Friday. So I came back the following Friday. And, to honest with you, I struggled. I really struggled fitting in. Just felt like a fucking, um, what is it, a square peg in a round hole, do you know what I mean, but I stuck with it for some reason. Something I haven’t really, never done in all my life, stuck with something. But I stuck with this, and, um, over the weeks and that I actually found that it was useful, it was something about it, there was something, something, something in it, that I wanted. You know, the end-of-week meetings on a Friday, for me, cause I’m, 'cause I'm new in recovery. it's all about proof, and show me this works, you know you're telling me “do this, do that”, show me the end result. And in that meeting on a Friday, there’s, there’s just evidence of–of evidence and all the proof you need. That it works. So I stuck with it. Getting to know myself. Found out that we’re not here to, um, deal with drug or alcohol issues, we’re here to learn how to live without them. And someone like me, living with–with them, using drink and drugs as a crutch all my life, it’s oh, fucking hell, it was a big wake-up call, it was a slap in the face. I’d look in the mirror, look at myself for the first time probably, and, um you know just getting to know myself really. Do you know what I mean? That’s what, that’s what the the first- the early days of recovery had been for me, getting to know myself, do you know what I mean? One of the little adventures that the guys took me on, to, um, a little mountain walk, I’ll call it a mountain walk, u,, and–and something they said at the mountain, it just stuck in my head. And resonated with me, I – just, it just made so much sense to me. What he said, was, before we went up this hill, this mountain or whatever you wanna call it, he said “Some people go around the world and see nothing, and others go around the corner and see the world”. And it just clicked in my head, I thought “Oh yeah! That’s what’s happened to me!” I’m nearly sixty fucking years of age, I’ve been around the world, but I’ve seen nothing. I’ve been around but I haven’t been present. You get me? And, you know, it’s like, I walked around the corner ‘cause the house isn’t far from where I was brought up, where I've lived most of my life, it's only round the corner. So for me, I've walked around the corner onto Picton Road, met yous guys, met the guys in the house, and, you sorta showed me the world. It sounds a little bit dramatic but, but it's not, it's the truth. I'm doing things now at this age, nearly 60 years of age, that I've never done for the whole of my life. I’ve thought about them, but, you know what I mean? It's opened just so much. I can't really go into it too much, because, I’m new, I'm brand new. One of the guys there told me “Five years is early recovery” and when he told me that I thought “Oh, for fuck’s sake, five years?! What about when I get to 12 months?” But now I realise, fucking hell, I now realise, from what I've seen and experienced, that five years is early, early recovery, early recovery. Loads of pitfalls and things to learn and you know, ways, new ways you gotta teach yourself of acting and thinking. It's fucking difficult. It's not easy, but, if you stick with it, it's, you know, the benefits outweigh the fucking, the down side, you know what I mean? And what else can I say? I could say, you know, I could go on a lot longer to be honest with you, but I just want to keep it short and sweet 'cause I'm, you know, as I said, I'm new and I can get a little bit lost in myself sometimes. So if that's any good to you lad. Yeah, there you go. Um, anything else, no that’ll do. Go on.
