A life well lived

This is my last blog for a while. We are off to New York on Saturday for a week, so with Irony, I will not be able to post to all you people in the USof A as I need to be much further away.

Today I, along with my brother attended the funeral of Robert. Rob, his brother Peter, myself and my brother all grew up together. Rob is the first to pass away, so it is a significant moment.

Rob as a kid had a major heart operation, which they said would need to be re-done in 40 years time. They performed the operation on Monday, and whilst the original problem was still Ok they found something that had been lurking their since birth. Rob never made it off the operating table. He was 57. He left a wife of 35 years, a daughter and grand daughter, all of whom he loved dearly, as they loved him.

I picked my brother up to take him to the church, and he said that there would be quite a crowd, as Rob was a man liked by all. When we got there, there were many, maybe upto 200 people waiting outside for the cortege to arrive. A large part of those who had come to pay their respects were steelworkers. We all worked in the steelworks in those days, Rob was the last one of the 4 of us left their. He was still working there when he went in to hospital, which is some achievement in a steeltown, with few works left.

In the service Robs brother Pete, spoke of the childhood days, playing football, subbuteo, pea picking on the farms. He talked about how they as brothers started to travel in Germany, loving the culture and the beer. He talked about how Rob could always be the maker of a party, no matter how long he had known people. He talked about, how at 55 they had been driving home one day and called in to a strange pub, in a strange town and heard some even stranger music, which they both grew to love. It was called Trance music, they played some at the funeral and It was the most incongrous, out of place music a 55 year old would pick, but that was Rob.

Towards the end a poem was read out. As I listened, tears filled my eyes and I turned around to see 110+ steelworkers stood still with tears streaming down their faces, not flinching, heads held high, looking straight at the coffin. And we just cried.

Tonight at the meeting I listened to a woman talk about how she had been to a school to give a talk about success. She talked of Obama, Mandela et al. She talked about her own book and how successful it had been. She talked about her own success and how good she was.

I thought about all us hardened steelworkers and our tears, and our lack of shame at those tears and at our dignity. I thought about why we had all cried and it was because Rob had touched all our lives in such a fun and positive way, and we had lost something dear to us.

Success isn't what that lady talked of.

The meaning of success? A tear of rememberance and thanks at a life well lived.

I have posted the poem below.

Have a good next few days all of you.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there;
I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there;
I did not die.

Step 12

Have I had that spiritual awakening yet. Well, there was no flash of light, no hand from the clouds, no one even suddenly appeared from nowhere and told me a pearl of wisdom that would change the world.

I did stop drinking though, and more importantly, I did stop having a desire for drink. Now that happened the very day after I had my last drink. One minute I could not function without drink, the next I had no desire. So go figure!!

Of course the desire did return, but 16 years later, when I was feeling self pity and wimpish, but the next thought was get to bed you imbecile, remember the last time you had a drink. You nearly ended up in jail.

But there has been an awakening. A gentle dawning of the spiritual side of life. For me it takes the form of being at one with the world, in step, seeing the very best in life. It is a desire not to cause mayhem, not to alienate, not to be railing against the world. It is sense that I am OK and I don't know why but something out there wants me to be OK with me. The realisation that the world existed for a couple of years before I hove in to view and it will continue after as well. Maybe that's it, time is the crucial part of the awakening. Not just age but experience, suffering, pain, mistakes, triumphs, joy freedom. Maybe the awakening is a result of and a cause of all that is good in my life today, but the price to pay is a belief in something greater than, but unseen. It's handing it over in total and unadulterated faith.

This did happen, and continues to do so, but only as a result of these steps. That's important. as a result AND it keeps on happening as I keep studying and applying the steps.

I used to think that carrying the message, meant running over to the newcomer and making him have my phone number, WTF and starter pack. Tick that box!!
That is part of it, but isn't the message also how I behave, conduct myself, the things I say and do. What is it that is important to me and what I leave behind. Do people think as I do sometimes about others, well I wouldn't want their sobriety, I'll walk a different way. I hope not, but I guess some do. I'm not exactly inundated with people asking for my advice on how to live.

How to live, now theres a conundrum. OK here goes.

First and foremost. Don't drink. Not for any reason, no matter what the provocation or occasion.
This is a total abstinence program. That means booze in food as well. And sitting in pubs. Why if you don't drink. would you want to sit in a pub. Why???
Unless your partner, drinks, then don't have booze in the house. It is that simple.

So no drink what else is there. Get to meetings and share, meet people, get in to the middle of the bed. Make sobriety and your meetings the focal point of your life. Make them part of your life, not a part. Before the books, before service, before sponsorship, before church, before twelve stepping, before telephone service, I stopped drinking and went to a meeting. In that order. Dont drink - Go to a meeting - Everything else.

Work- My God in these parts if you mention work in a meeting its worse than mentioning God or the Steps. The drink was affected my head, not my legs, as an old timer likes to repeat.
Work gives me something to do, other than go to meetings, learns me to live with other people, puts food on the table and gives me self respect. On Thursday I sat with an engineer who has lung cancer. He was at work, bloated as hell from the drugs, but work to him gave him a sense of purpose. Now he's got Lung Cancer. Not some pissy little thing like self centred, self pitying alcoholism. So dont tell me you can't work. Its bullshit. You're just bone idle. Get off your ass and look after yourself. Stop scrounging.

Take care of your family. They've been through hell and you just did what you wanted to do, so don't give them a hard time. Put food on the table, mow the lawn, take the kids out. Don't under any circumstances join the professional AA brigade and put losers like me, before your family. Its not right and not healthy. Your family have stood by you. It may end, things do, but if it does, do the right thing and make sure they are provided for and dont whinge about maintenance, settlements. Just do it.

After all of this, then you can start running people to meetings, sponsoring half the town, doing service at 8 meetings a week not including intergroup, region and national.

But most importantly of all, and this is the most important thing of all. When that drunk walks in to the room, reeking of booze, with soiled trousers and a belligerent attitude, you sit beside him and hold the cup to his lips so he can drink the tea, without, whisking it all over the room. You hold his hand, even though you may feel people will think you are strange. You tell him that for you AA worked and that today, you don;t want a drink and you are happy.

This is my message. You may not agree with it, but its all I've got.

Have a good, sober weekend all of you.

Food - Glorious Food

Food has played a part in some significant times in my life, often the event was good but sometimes it has bad connotations.

My earliest food memory is dropping a peach of the end of Blackpool pier. I had never tasted nor even seen a peach before. The way my mother presented it to me confirmed then, that the peach was special and a luxury, which it probably was back in those days. I was knelt on a seat, looking over the edge of the pier at the brown sea below and the thing slipped out of my grasp and plummeted in to the sea. I started to cry and was told off by my mother for wasting the exotic fruit and told off by my father for crying. Such is the stuff of summer holidays in childhood.

Mum steak and kidney pie, chips and gravy. Now that was a meal worth waiting for. Thick gravy packed with meat and held together by an even thicker pastry. The chips cooked to within an inch of their life, not golden, but walnut brown. HP sauce, the only one, drizzled liberally over the whole plate, which steamed wonderful aromas up into my senses. It is probably one of the best meals I have ever had, better than any Michelin starred restaurant.

Three slices of toast, two fried eggs, tomatoes and baked beans. My standard breakfast when I started working in the steelworks. We all sat there, in our overalls, eating our food and talking about what we would be doing that weekend. The best time was Saturday morning, when we talked about the evening to come. Usually there would be a dance to go to, Saturday night was for the ladies, so the whole gang would be meeting up in a pub, the men all dressed in fine expensive suits, the women, natures beauty, all soft and sweet smelling. At breakfast we would talk about where to go, who was coming. We’d talk about the week we’d just had. There was no thought about the future, no mortgages, no children, no responsibilities. Just the lads about town. A great time.

Crayfish in seawater with dill. Eaten in Café Opera in Stockholm Sweden. I had gone to work there for 6 months. My first time abroad. A boy from a council estate in Rotherham, an ex steelworker, now in Sweden because I was good at my job. I hadn’t drunk for 4 years and was starting to be able to appreciate good things in life. I was also becoming more adventurous in the things I ate. Never in a month of Sundays would I have eaten such a thing a few years before. Courage to change the things I can could mean more than just stopping drinking.

My first Michelin starred restaurant meal. Fishers in Baslow. Fine dining at the highest level and me with my Beautiful. The meal was exquisite, not because of the food, I can’t remember what we had, but because of my Beautiful. She sat there in the midst of all those extravagant surroundings and eclipsed it all with her poise and beauty and elegance. Dining isn’t about expensive food, it isn’t about exotic locations, it’s about who you are with.

Pan fried scallops with garlic. My signature dish and the first piece of real cooking I did. Refined over the years, it is now a fine dining experience, to be savoured together of an evening.

Fish, chips and mushy peas. Every Friday when we had the business, I bought all the workers this meal for lunch. We would sit there, on rubble, scaffolding, in demolished rooms and eat this meal out of paper wrapping, with tons of salt and vinegar. Laughter, some ribbing of the apprentice, football, women, clothes, any topic and every topic was discussed. Then someone would make the tea, cigs would be lit if we were outside and we would sit there, kings of our own realm. Happy, joyous and free.

Have a good weekend all of you.

Rigorous Honesty

A recent post by Mary Christian at http://marychristineg.blogspot.com/ and a main share last night from yours truly prompted some thoughts.

I sit in meetings and listen to people share about whatever it is in their lives. Occasionally they will mention the steps, although the 12 and 12 is becoming less well known in these parts as the Big Book brigade gather momentum. Their credo, that EVERYTHING you need is in the BB, becomes louder and louder as more of them totter in and out of the rooms. They focus on the black bits of the programme because I guess you have the illusion of control then.

I tend to share at most meetings, having not yet reached the age of sobriety when I can sit at the back, eyes closed and never share, but look omniscient, and probably have a nickname along the lines of Findon the silent. This is something I aspire to as it seems much more interesting than just talking. If I talk people can gauge how well I am, but if I stay silent then that has the aura of mystery and possibly wisdom of a degree that mere striplings in the programme would find slightly threatening.

Last night, having no speaker arranged the secretary asked someone to read from the BB. A page or so from “The Family Afterwards” was read out and then having no main share the meeting was thrown open. It was a small meeting only 6 people so after a brief silence I started to talk. I talked about what it was like for my family when I was drinking, the rows, the pain, the trashing of numerous kitchens. I talked about the family when I had finally put the booze down. About how not much changed in some ways, the distance between each trashing of the kitchen just got longer. The emotional damage to my children and then wife was greater and that in recovery I guessed it was not supposed to happen, but it had. I talked about making amends to them after the divorce and how now they have no contact with me and that I have settled that in my own mind and accepted that is how it shall be from now on. I shared that I have a right to be happy, not at the cost of others no, but I don’t have to be unhappy at the cost of myself either. Which is how it had always been for me.

I shared about how it was now in my family. About how difficult I can be to live with. How my Beautiful has hard time trying to second guess which Findon will be in the house today, this hour, this minute, this second. It must be hard for her, because it’s damn near impossible for me. I talked about how being me often left me feeling regretful about me. How I miss out on so much because of the whirligig in my head that constantly whirrs round and round. And how those around me are also affected by how I live my life and that too often that is for the worse and not the better.

I shared about how I am a person who is capable of extreme kindnesses and unbelievable cruelties, and there can be nanoseconds in between the two. I talked about proposing to my Beautiful on the Ponte Vecchio, about always telling her I love her, about the little love notes I leave hidden in books and under little used crockery. That I am loyal and trust worthy. That I work hard and am successful at what I do.

I finished by saying perhaps they thought, someone with 21 ½ years of sobriety of working a programme should not be talking like this, that I should have this thing sorted, rather like the person who 2 weeks sober told a group that they had just finished doing the steps in 8 days and now they were recovered.

But in a way I have more questions about life now than I did back then at the beginning. This is how it is for me. This IS me. That’s the point I suppose. I no longer feel the need to BE what I think I should be. If people want to say, and they do, that poor old Findon, his life is such a mess, obviously he has never properly worked the programme, then let em. Spend a day in my shoes, wear my hat and see how well you do, because I sure as hell don’t want anyone else’s.

It feels much better being honest about how life is for me than whistling in the dark pretending.

Have a good weekend all of you.

The Ten Best moments of my life

Syd posted his 10 best moments in life. Never one to miss a trend I thought I would hop on the back of the band wagon too.


1. Playing the cornet 9 years old at the school concert. The wind blew the music off the stand of the piano player teacher and me. I carried on and he had to try and catch up. The whole school stood and cheered.

2. My first visit to the Peak District National Park

3. Getting my first job

4. Finally putting the drink down

5. Getting my first real sale

6. Realising I had a value

7. Meeting my Beautiful

8. Listening to my Beautiful as she opened her first one woman show and being so proud of her

9. On bended knee, on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, asking my Beautiful to marry me. She said yes and everyone cheered and clapped

10. Seeing My Beautiful walk down the aisle on our wedding day and realising how much we loved each other. I knew what true love was at last.

Sobriety in the fast lane

Recently heard at a meeting from a person just back, after spending 6 months getting sober and then throwing it all away.

" The answers lie in the Big Book. That's all I need. I just need to follow exactly what it says in the Big Book. I've just completed the steps in 8 days. Now I need to get on with life."

She hails from a Primary Purpose Big Book meeting where people are not allowed to read the white parts of the Big Book.

To read the white bits, takes time and effort and understanding and many, many mistakes. The white bit, in my opinion, is where the spiritual side of the programme resides. Where's the rush?? God can wait for us can't he? After going back to drink, is a person really capable of passing judgement on how well they are 8 days after completing the steps.

Maybe I'm a slow learner, but for me I am still learning about the steps. Or maybe I have been wrong all these 21 and half years. She says she is "recovered", the rallying cry of the PPBB. Then why go to meetings, why continue to take the medicine. If I have a cold, I take as much medicine as I need to keep going and get over it. Once I am recovered, I stop taking the powders, pills and lotions. Isn't that what recovered means. Of course the rallying cry comes from one sentence on one page of the BB. Yet they never repeat the sentences about annual inventory, or never being cured.

No what we have is people whistling in the dark to keep their spirits up. The sadness in it all is that they have been seduced by a couple of people who could not give themselves to the programme , but KNEW they had the right way and that way was to do exactly what it said in the book, nothing more and nothing less. Controlling what they do maintains their being recovered.

This sounds like my drinking to me. I will just take £5 out , then I can'tt get drunk. I'll stick to beer, then I can't get drunk.

The white bits are every bit as important, maybe more so, than the black bits in the BB. As is a persons right to find their own way through.

Boy we're smoking at the moment

Life is just great at the moment. Since all the upheavel with my heart, life sort of went on hold. But the docs have resolved all the problems, I've started exercising more, eating better, taking more of an interest in leisure things. Beautiful is creating a great business and I think feels really supported by me. The love is just flowing right through our life at the moment, which makes being together even more of a smiling day.

I've settled back down into a regular pattern of meetings and am enjoying them, I'm also managing to stay out of the politics. Work is chugging a long and a new project has popped its head above the horizon, which may be of interest to me.

No thought of a drink, no thought of running away. Just wanting to stay in the moment we have now.

Its wonderful. truly wonderful. I am very thankful for all that I have been given.

Take care and have a good week