The LSD Trip That Brought All His Feelings to the Surface – John K.

My name is John Keegan and I'm a alcoholic. And this is not only a series of TV days that are made purely to help people in the early days of recovery whether you've been in prison, detox, rehab I'm getting some very, very good feedback Few disabled people find their mood valuable They can't get to meetings during the week and they watch a different one each night. And it feels as if they've been to a meeting, it boosts up their strength and hope and surprise them and that can't be bad. And also hopefully they're going to a lot of prisons and they're helping people in Ireland and believe it or not in Guernsey where apparently they've got a very small circus there And they haven't got a great deal of speakers, so this will go along and help the people. Out there it's well encountered for me. And this one I've got no doubt will help a lot of people all over the place. It's a little gentleman, his name is Tosh. He's been on island, he's suffered, he has been in the depths as you will hear. It's a man I don't know very well, but I was very impressed by him. Any man that's been off the booze as long as he has, you have to listen to. Because he's got some of the answers, otherwise he wouldn't have survived this long. He would have fell before bitches. He'd been around a long, long time. And I would say it's a good idea to have your listener near there and give it one good saying too. And if need be listened to it over and over, and hope that it will rub off. You have to be prepared to put a little bit in. And put it in by concentrating and focusing on the similarities. If there's any differences forget that, you're always going to get that. There's no one mind differences, focus on the similarities. And I think you'll find the strength. And I'm so grateful he's come here tonight. So grateful. and I'll hand you over to the star of the show, real gentleman, Tosh. Thank you very much. Hello everybody, my name's Tosh, I'm an alcoholic, I come from Northern Ireland, come to a wee town called Ulmer and I grew up in an alcoholic home. My father was an alcoholic. My mother was in mental hospital and as a child I grew up with a lot of fear. My father used to drink and I remember one time there was a boy coming along the road and I see this hat in the ditch and I thought, Jesus that's me old man's hat. And about three or four yards ahead it It was my old man who was lying there drunk and I was horrified and my mother used to run after my father and she used to like try and save him and go down and get him. She was lying down the road, she would bring him home and look after him and when I was a wee boy, I used to watch him fall in the fire drunk and it was terrible. I didn't know what this alcohol was but my father loved to drink and cigarettes but my mother used to run after him and try and save him but eventually she used to say leave him down the road let him die do you know what I mean and as a kid I was like horrified at one minute she was like time to save him and then she was saying let him I don't care, he's no good and all that there. I didn't understand this, I didn' t understand alcoholism and I didn''t understand all this saving him and then not caring and all of that there but I understand all of this now because you can't help an alcoholic and I grew up as a child terrified and I saw him hitting his head in the concrete and all this sort of stuff but I couldn't wait to leave home and when I was 15 I joined the Royal Navy and I couldn�t wait to get away on the train and I thought I would leave all this behind me and forget all about like like everything that happened. I enjoyed myself and when I was on the train, I kept, I was involved in fights with people and the only way I could handle things was to fight with people and it was very angry and I didn't know it and I joined the Navy and I spent I spent three years in the Royal Navy and I was a very shy person, painfully shy, couldn't talk to girls and all that but I didn't know this, I thought I was always trying to be normal and not like anybody else but it wasn't, it was different and I didn't know it was different. I didn t know a couple of my aunts how they called them. When my father got up in the morning he didn't say good morning and all that there and how are you and all that sort of thing. My father was like never sitting he was always like uptight and during the week he had no drink or cigarettes and all of that. He was very angry and he couldn't talk to him or like, or he didn't talk. I remember at times walking past my father in the street and he never even said hello and I thought it was something that I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was something that he couldn't communicate. When I was in the Royal Navy, I couldn''t communicate with people. I couldn' t say, like, ''Excuse me.'' Or I would say, ''Can you move out of the way?'' Or, ''Get out of way,'' or whatever. People didn't like this. But that's the way it was brought up. I couldn't say things, it wouldn't come out. I just couldn't. I remember one time there was a rule on the ship where you had to ask somebody if you could come in and take something out of somebody's locker and I remember going in and I couldn�t ask, I couldn �t knock the door and say can I take something I couldn't say it. I went and opened the locker, took the thing out and this guy said it was on a charge but you're not supposed to like him. He was actually giving me a chance to say well I'm sorry and all that there but I wouldn't say I was sorry. He said right they're on the charge and I said, what are you on about? On the charge, you know what I mean? And see everybody else could do it but I couldn't do it. I ended up telling them to F off and was put on the charge and at any minute I could have said sorry but forget it but I wouldn't if it was a stupid profiteer. My pride wouldn't let me say sorry or like I'll do it again and knock the door. That's the way I was, I couldn't because I wasn't brought up with this. I wasn' taught life skills, I wasn''t taught to interact with people and so I couldn't. The truth was I couldn t but I didn t know I could n. I didn t know there was anything wrong with me. I did n t know it was different from other people. I didn n t always an alcoholic. I couldn n t fit in but I carried on trying to block my way through life. I put on a front and I remember I said to them, oh I bring the gun myself, it wasn't me, so after about three years in the Royal Navy I was sent to see a psychiatrist in Singapore because I couldn't stick to the rules and all up there. I'd actually had a nervous breakdown cranked up. I was closed up on action stations and supposed to be wearing a gas mask and I tore the gas mask off and I said I'm not playing this game no more and all that. I was put in a charge and court-martialed and just had enough of it. So I couldn't laugh or I had no sense of humour, I couldn t take life light hearted, I could n have a joke for people but I could when I was drinking I could laugh and all that, but I needed a drink to laugh and to let go and to go to sleep and because at night I had everybody in my head and was actually sidetracked by resentments and instead of doing what I was supposed to be doing on the ship it was full of resentment I was going about thinking about the resentment and what it was going to do to people. People used to laugh at me, but I couldn't laugh. I couldn' t find it funny. I'd be always saying, I'll see you later mate and all that. I'll take you off the ship and sort this out. And people were laughing and all up there and like they bring the same people with life and what we're taking the piss out of me and uh they used to talk back the front and uh when i used to get on the microphone up on the bridge with the accountants they used people used to think this was hilarious and my Irish accent and all that, but I didn't think it was very funny. But at the same time everybody liked me. People took me home on leave and things like that there. When I went home and leave were people who used to wreck people's houses in blackouts. One particular guy said to me before we went on the train, when we were leaving his house in Hull, he said, I'll tell you what you've done when we get on the tram. And I thought, well, I don't want to hear this. All I wanted to do was have a drink and forget about it all because because my weekend was a total blackout and when we got on the train he told me that I'd smashed a dog's dish through the window in this kid's house and had urinated up his stairs and he had two young sisters of twelve and eleven and twelve and all this sort of thing and I couldn't believe it. I thought why would I do that? Because I couldn t remember. I thought this, I don't understand this. And I didn't want to hear it. I sort of knew it was true but I didn t want to hear it and so I never spoke with that guy again. I gave him the elbow and so my mother My mother used to, like, wait for me to write from the Navy and all that, and I never wrote to my mother. And the captain used to write on the ship and say that I'd be found dead and they got her from drinking and all. Because when I left home to give my mother the elbow, I thought, well this woman's put me through all this hell and I don't even want to write to her. So I number wrote to my mother and I thought that my mother was the cause of all my problems and before I left she beat the crap out of me with a cane across the shoulders and I was going go on and go on. I was flanking out of the pain, I never really felt the pain and I left home like full of anger and resentment and self-pity and didn't really know where I was. When I was in the Navy I hadn't got I didn't get a clue where it was. It was all screwed up and I couldn't relax, slow down and ask myself what I was doing or where I was going. Every opportunity I used to get drunk, blackouts and wake up in strange places and I didn' t know what was wrong with me. I never thought it was an alcoholic. I didn't actually think my father was an alcoholic because like I had an idea that alcoholics are rich people that could get a drink and like doctors or lawyers or landlords or pubs they can drink all night or like doctors could get plenty of money and uh like people that had loads of money and all of this but my father hadn't got any money so so he couldn't be an alcoholic he's never gotten nothing he used to drink on the weekends but looking back that if we added the money we'd be drunk all the time. So I had an idea that alcoholics were like well-to-do people. I can see that now, that was my perception because I didn't want to think that I was an alcoholic and on the ship when I was getting quarter marshalled the captain of the ship said you're an alcoholic or becoming an alcoholic and I laughed, it was, it's impossible do you know what I mean? I've got these told me and I thought how could an educated man but a captain of a Royal Naval ship come to the conclusion that I'm an alcoholic and looks like they can't get a drink, he couldn't be an alcoholic and can't drink all the time but he was right. Looking back through hindsight that man was absolutely right He knew that there was nothing he could do with me when he discharged me out of the Navy to have been to see a psychiatrist in Singapore and all the boys on the ship they said you're a natural, you'll get out. I mean I didn't even want to get out or I didn t want to stay in or I did not know what I wanted to do. I remember going to this psychiatrist in Singapore and he said it was suffering from like I couldn't do as I was told. He was talking about resentments but in those days I didn't know what resentments were and didn't know what anger was and all that. But he was saying to me, you're no good to me if he was discharging. Discharging meant that you can't do as you're told, you can get on with people, so he discharged me out of the Navy and that's it. That's it. I won't have to cut my hair, I won' t have to all that. In the Navy you had to keep yourself very clean. You couldn't grow a moustache. You had to grow a beard. I see these magazines of their own stones and they had like flared jeans and long hair and moustaches and I thought well that's what I'll do, I've grown my hair long and I'll smoke this dope and uh i'll be going around and going hey man and all that and brings to them over up there but that was the idea that was what i thought other people were having all this like enjoying themselves and relaxing and all of them i thought because it wasn't a maybe I couldn't relax and I had all these ideas that if I moved on somewhere else everything would be alright. And when I got out of the Navy, I did start smoking dope and took LSD and that wasn't what I thought was going to happen and I ended up in a mental hospital on this LSD and was paranoid and I remember lying in the mental hospital the next day after taking this LST and I could see my mother like in the clouds she had died two weeks before and she was like clawing me in the clouds and all that there and I thought this is horrific and I had all the memories of my mother and all the fear and the childhood stuff because my mother used to put this fear in me and it all came out on the LSD My mother used to roast a poker up in the fire and threatened to burn me with this poker. I was apparently. But I can see that my mother just wanted to frighten you. She just wanted make you do exactly what she wanted you to do, to get peace. because I've done that with my children, I've tried to terrify them to get peace and I can see she didn't really mean it like she was trying to frighten the shepherds So, like all this stuff come out on these LSDs and all my feelings come up on this and Frank terrified me. Then I drank more because it was full of fear and in fact I developed more fears of heights and paranoia. I didn't have any fear of heights when I was a kid. When I was in the Navy, I was on a helicopter with no doors and all that and it didn't frighten me. But as soon as I took this LSD, overnight I become like paranoid and full of fear and crossing bridges. I'd be running across the white lines and all that. And when I was in the withdrawals and drinks it was terrible. When I left the Navy and started drinking and picking up drugs and all of that I had this idea that if I got married, it would be alright. People would think it was normal and if I had a child and all that. I see these people walking down the road like married but with a pram and a child and the wife and going shopping. I thought that's what would help me. So I got married to this girl and met her in Dublin. She was an American girl and I thought that would make me look good and after a year it was worse because if you do something to make you look well for the wrong reasons it doesn't work and I was more insane because I was thinking more and I knew this getting married, having children and all that there didn't fix me. But you can only see that in hindsight. And I lived in Dublin and there was like begging, shoplifting, all sorts of things, squatting, drinking, taking drugs. A number was introduced to AA and Omar. There was a guy called Donald McBride, I think he's an old timer now, but a member of Sakai ever me out to his house. I wasn't married at the time, I was getting married and he was saying to me you can't live on fresh air and all that and you can if you're drinking and getting married and all up there. He was telling me he used to beat his wife and he done all these crazy things and all of them. I said well I'm not worried yet, I haven't beaten a light yet, do you know what I mean? I couldn't see ahead that I would end up doing the same things. I didn't actually know what he was talking about. I was brought there by the psychiatrist from the mental hospital I'd been in previous years before with this Dr. Henn and he was an alcoholic. I remember my father saying this Dr Henn is an alcoholic and the doctor GP that I went to, I knew he was a alcoholic but I didn't think I was an alcohol. So that was my first introduction to AA and I left there and carried carried on drinking and I think that was so in the sea, carried on drinking and went from Dublin to London. My wife was six months pregnant and we went on the boat and I knew if I didn't leave Dublin with all the drinking and that I would die there, and I thought I've got to get away from Dublin otherwise I won't stop drinking. I've gotta get away with my people that I'm hanging about with and all of it and the wrong drug addicts and shoplifters and same as myself alcoholic and selling drugs and all things like that. I arrived in London and had no place to live. I went to the Eyley Centre, and they couldn't help me. I ended up squatting down at Mikesmere Road, in a There was no hot water. I couldn't find how to get the water under the surface of it. I didn't know where I was. I was taking drugs, drinking. I didn t know what time of day it was or what season it was or my memory at all from taking LSD and sleeping tablets and anything that could keep me calm and at peace. In fact, I hated this LSD but as soon as I got a drink I'd be taking more and all of it. I didn't know what was wrong with me because because I had horrendous trips on that and it was all insanity. I remember my wife was pregnant and the social workers started coming up in the hospital and they were trying to help us and they were telling me that they can't live like this in the squat and can't bring up a child and all that there, so I didn't want to hear what they were saying and off it was nothing wrong with it. I was in the Squat and used to cook when an electric fire turned upside down and I had the gas connected up to a bicycle tube and all that sort of stuff and I was terrified. When I woke up in the morning, I think the house could have blown up or whatever. So I just took these risks and wouldn't pay any rent or electricity or gas. I thought it was a great life behind it all. Smoking and dope drinking. I was actually a vegetarian. Once a week I used to get these sour beans. grains and vegetarian stuff like once I got me dough in there once a week. I was looking at cookware like brown rice and all that there once a week and the damage it was doing to myself with the drinking and all of that there. And all of them when I was listening to music and Tim Floyd and The Who, Tommy, Pinball Luttered and all of that. He used to sit drinking and all that with all these other head cases with the... I mean I never thought about my son or my wife or how they were going to like... I mean the guilt behind it all, the guilt was killing me and these social workers give me money and a drink of money, just fifty twid. Then the second time they gave me a mother's care voucher and I thought oh, I remember thinking if I took this down to mother's If I got some young girl, she might give me like some money back if I get a pair of socks and ask her to give me the 48 quid change so I could buy a drink. But I actually got 2 quid back and I had to buy 48 quids. I managed to get 2 quids for a bottle of wine. and see I didn't care about buying my son. My son was in Springfield Hospital in the baby unit with my ex-wife and I didn t care about the clothes because I thought well he'll get clothes anyway, someday he'll getting close. So I'd actually drank the 50 foot and the shame and all the whitening up and so that was the, I think that was about the end of my drinking and I remember the social workers put me in a, it was a mother and child unit And it was an experiment in them that was over 28 years ago and they put me in there with these unmarried mothers and single parents and people with problems, alcohol and drugs and broken homes and all of that. but it was all women that killed him and he decided to put me in there with my son and agreed to sign this piece of paper saying that I wouldn't drink, I wouldn t take any drugs and I hadn t been to AA and I didn t know that it was mentally ill and I had all these fears. I was in this place with children, single parents, some girls had children only 13 and 14 and all up there, and I'd washed dishes with them and all up there. I remember it was these big knives and I felt something like sticking them in saw the knives run out and think what's wrong with me. See I hadn't been to AA and I hadn t heard people saying these things so I had all these things in my head and couldn't understand it and couldn t tell anybody. I remember going up to Springfield Hospital when my wife was and this unit allowed me out once a week to see my wife. I hadn't had a drink for a week and I had that experience before where I didn't drink for a week and when I started drinking I felt so sick and I had to wean myself back into the drink. It took me about a week to get back into drinking. I remember going up to Springfield Hospital and I thought well I just nipped into the auto license, there's no way I'll have two cans of McEwan's lager and I remember sitting on a bench outside Springfield and I remembered drinking this I was out of my head, but I wasn't drunk, but it was like torturing people, saying to myself, I'm not talking to myself here. I'm serious. I am going to get these social workers and I'm going to torture them. I said to myself, i'm serious, I am gonna carry this out. There there's nobody else there. The next morning I woke up and thought, Jesus Christ what was all of it? And I found Doo-Lally. When I drank this stuff of this Doo-lally it was talking rubbish. It was like going all over these people that they were just going to kill them and all that there. I mean, I've seen people over the years like talking to themselves and all up there. And I thought when I start doing that it's time to stop drinking. And that's what I was doing. It was like going over all the resentments on this can of beer and I couldn't believe it, I thought Jesus. Anyway the next day I thought I better get to AA and get this sort of out. Because I knew that if I didn't get some of this stuff out of my head I would start shouting it out in the street because I've actually heard people shouting all all this stuff out in the street. I remember in Dublin, I was drinking with a friend, he was always well dressed in his suit and all that and I remember one time he came into Stephen's ring and he was like shouting at the people there and all of it and he was trying to light two cigarettes at the same time and he would stab them in the mouth and all and I thought Jesus Christ. I said I'll end up like him. Like I had a fear fear that I'd crack up one day and nothing was happening. I had all these fears and phobias and I couldn't, I was housed in a high-rise wooden flat and I kept thinking I was going to jump out of the window. But then we got to AA and the first night in the window there was in Clanton Common. When I got there, it was a rainy day and I had no cigarettes. I couldn't get a dog in and I waited till everybody went into the meeting. I went into this meeting with a Scotch guy doing the psychiatry. He kept selling me cigarettes and I kept smoking. My wife was in Atkinson Morley, in the Psychiatry Unit in Atkinson Morley. I'd just left there and I begged her to give me 40 pence for a can of Charley Pro Special. Even crying to get this, she wanted the money for cigarettes and I was crying to give this money. It's all a mess. But I got this can and as I was coming down the road in Mumble my jacket caught on the fence I didn't even see it going down through the tarmac. But I went to this meeting and I thought I better get to AA, I better go to meetings and get myself sorted out and that's where I ended up at Clapham Common. And I remember Clapham George was there, he was an old timer I remember thinking, identified with what people were sharing. I couldn't really listen to those in the DTs. But the next day I walked all the way over to Tower Hill and got a where to find and I just heard the day card. card and I remember walking all the way over to Tower Hill. I walked from Fantasy to Tower Hill and there was a meeting on Tower Hill and they had no cigarettes and the one that had blown all the tobacco out of the cigarette, every dog in it went to pick up this light was empty. I thought, I'll give a cigarette in the meetings. I remember washing the dishes after the meeting. I think somebody had given me a cigarette and nobody did. Nobody gave me a cigar. And I thought I will wash the dishes for nothing. And then we walked all I remember I was starving with hunger and I had nothing to eat for days and I was hallucinating and everything. And I remember, I stopped at Sloane Square and I see these Kentucky chicken boxes. I see them sitting with these summer seats in Sloane square outside Peter Jones and I I thought maybe they'll have left some chicken in the boxes and I remember sitting there for half an hour homing in on these boxes and when I opened the boxes up there was nothing, there was no chicken left and it was all just bones. It must have been alcoholics that ate these chickens because there was nothing left on them and I thought this must be with self-pity. And I thought, with all the money I've spent and drank and all that there, now I'm sitting here like opening somebody's chicken boxes, like trying to get the scraps and I though this is what they're talking about and they're making self- pity. I thought all the money I spent, all the people that abused and used and now here I am. And I walked to Ayers Court, was meeting in Ayers court and there was a guy in the chair and told Tom he was saying that he'd got a job in AA making the tea and I thought he had a permanent job making the teeth and I said Jesus we all get a job making tea but it was only once a week on a Friday night. But anyway I kept on with the meetings and I kept meeting people. I went on a Saturday morning sitting outside the graveyards up in Streatham and I had a word of I was looking at the square to find and I thought, well these people in AA are fantastic. They're going to like get me a job, they're going look after my son, they are going to do all these different things for me. This AA is fantastic. People in AA did, people help me and all of them but they helped me to do it myself I thought we're gonna do it for me and sort of fall on my feet here but they did. I remember thinking like in the where to find was like names like Brendan, Fawn Brendan and Fawn Shaw with all the Irish names and I can imagine myself sitting in the graveyard but not indeed. I remember thinking, I phoned on this Brenton and I phoning him up and saying hello Brenton it's Tosh and him saying ah Tosh come round and he was telling my wife to put the roast beef on in Yorkshire Puddin' you know what I mean and the water was running down my teeth and I was thinking these AA's is great and it was all fantasy, it was It was all like an illusion. But this would happen. People didn't give their all to eat in Yorkshire, they couldn't. Not in the way I was thinking but all these things come. I remember being imprisoned and being up in the Old Bailey and all sorts of places like that there I remember going for a job on London Transport and they had some of these references in them and had to get somebody in AA to give me a reference because all of them that got this job were the good people in AA. I remember asking this guy who was my sponsor, me Jimmy, and I said could you give me a reference to me, I've got an application form here for long transfers and he said oh what do you want on the reference and I said well just put down you know me and all that and I remember he put down on the references that he knew me for 10 years, a good character and the hair was standing in my head and I thought Jesus these AAs are great don't they Where else can you get a reference for a job? People, I mean he only knew me for like six months or so. But he knew that I was serious about stopping drinking and he must have known that I wasn't willing to do anything. So he gave me this reference and he had a sponsor who was also called Big Jim. I remember asking Big Jim for a reference and this guy was an art detective. He had a big briefcase and he took out this head of paper and he said, in all those one or ten years, good character. I mean the hair was down on my head, I couldn't believe it. I thought this is great and I got the job at Mountain Transport because of these two references. See these are the things that predict the good will of AA people and people have fed me me and kept me going. I stuck that job out for a year. I remember they gave me a suit and a peep cap, and they gave a wee book to write things notes in it. I worked in the And the northern man, as a railman, also was collecting the money, standing in to collect the money. I remember when we were standing at the borough collecting money there used to be these people that would come by and they would sort of look twice and they'd say, And I would say, yeah. And they'd say, Jesus, what's happened to you? And I'd say I'm in AA now. I had short hair and was all dressed up like this. Couldn't believe it. Like just the one time when they seen me I was like long hair and all that sort of stuff on earrings and struck me dressed, dressed like a hippie and all that. So they were amused when I said I'm going to AA now, I'm an AA, I don't drink. And they couldn't believe it. I remember giving out newcomers packs because all the alcohol they used to end up in morgans And I used to be doing a night shift there and used to give all these alcoholics newcomers tags, where to find them and tell them to go to AA and all up there. Now I'm on a mission for a long time and like a good advertisement for drugs and drinking and all up there. Now I'm telling everybody just drinking drugs is evil and all that. Going from one extreme to the other, getting involved in AA, making tea, 12-step people people and all this sort of thing. All these things kept me sober. As time went along, I was on the journey of discovering who I was. When I was five years sober, I had another I was doing a chair one time at a meeting and there would be some walled grid chair and all up there and I was walking in the air and I went home and ended up bumping my wife and she ended up in a battered home for like battered wives and I always amazed that this happened because I thought like for years I was telling my wife we would stop drinking you know going holidays would get new troopers new beds and all up there i did all this stuff and promised all this that went all up the end was angry and didn't always angry this was the first thing that really took me back i thought jesus what's the matter with me baby i'm crazy i felt like an animal i had to go back to the the meetings and say what happened. It was really taken right, it really shut me up. I thought there's something not right with me that I'm covering things up. So I realised I wasn't the person that was making out to be. I was suppressing all my feelings and was like full of fear and I didn't know it. And after 10 years, I got divorced and after 10 years I had a... I went into the job centre and looked for a job and I wasn't feeling that well that day and I had my job, I had good job and uh I got into a punch up in the the job centre and those whole things happened. And that's brought me down to earth as well. I think that was the best thing with sobriety when I look back at it now, because it brought me down the earth. It was another stage where the journey perceived like I couldn't cover myself up, suppressing all my anger and it's all a front. So I've done all these amends and all up there. But it was intellectually that I read all the stuff on Liptogen, but now my feelings were coming up. I was feeling very angry and stuff was coming back. So that was the best day of my sobriety. It brought me down to earth And the next day it was instead of like when I was driving along, not letting people out and all that there was going. Letting people out where I was working as a bricklayer saying excuse me and all up there. See it brought me down to earth that was able to treat people like human beings. I was coming into the meetings saying to everybody alright mate you've got a nice day and all that there but outside I wasn't practicing in all my affairs. I was angry but the funny thing is I didn't know I was I didn't know it was full of fear and all this had to come out. This was another stage in recovery where all these things started coming up and my childhood started to come up more and more. I remember when I was 7 years sober, I used to tell people at the meetings that my father and mother were lovely people, but sort of subconsciously I didn't think they were lovely But when I was seven years sober, I thought well hang on I don't feel that. When I'd go home at night I'd think that my mother was evil and my father drank all the money and all this sort of stuff. I didn't feel that they were nice people and I had to let the feelings come up and realize that it suppressed all my childhood And I was saying to God, can you show me something good about my mother? It was wrecking my brain. You actually couldn't see anything good about this woman who brought me up. One of the things that came into my head was that she made good chips. Not only did she make good chips, that opened the door. When I was willing to look at some of the good things about my mother, all these other things they recommend. My mother made chips, she made wheat bread, soda bread, triangle bread, apple tarts, triangles. See these are all the things that I forgot because one bad thing blinks out all the good. It took me seven years to look at some of the good things about my mother. I started to see that the woman, like she knitted blankets, she knited gloves, bunny slaps. Every time I talk with my mother someone else comes out and some of the good things. When I was a wee boy, I went into the shop and this woman said that you're Alice's son and I thought someone borrowed it. This woman said you're Maura's lovely lovely woman and she knits all these blankets and does all this good stuff. And I wanted to say that, no, that's not my mother. She doesn't make a bank in Sobriety. I was ashamed of my mother and I was suppressed and I could only see the bad things. As it went on, there and every time I think of my mother I think more of good things which outweighs all the resentments and stuff like that. So now I see my mother in a different light and my mother was mentally ill since she had ECT treatment and she was in mental hospital. So for me to see where my mother came from I had to look at her mother, my granny and all that. My granny was always angry and shouting and my mother always shouted at me. Like she was always full of anger, suppressed anger. She used to beat the crap out of you and all this sort of stuff. So I could start to see where my mother had come from and where my father had come from and then I could let go and forgive them and see these things that I couldn't see because all I was doing was self-centred, thinking of myself. All of the normal way I think it takes a long time for these things to come up and to see where other people come from. All I could see was where I come from and nothing ever worked out for me, I was always full of self pity. I remember when I was a boy my father said to me no matter what you get your never happy and he was applying that I was getting something but really I wasn't getting nothing he was conning me because he drank all the money and he trying to con me with his guilt I was thinking if you hadn't of drank all of the money we could have had new bicycles and all this like normal people and it took me years to realise that all these things that I was chasing like in sobriety and all my life was got involved in relationships, I thought they're going to make me happy. Showers, bicycles, houses and all this money but it's taken me a long time to realise these things don't make me happy. If I'm not happy from the start then material things won't make me happy and remember when I came into AA that people used to say that it's a spiritual program, if you get the spiritual part of the program right that all these things will come with And I can see that that's why today was taking me a long time to realize that and to put the spiritual part first. When I realized that everything that I got never made me happy. Today, I'm happy with nothing. I mean that was a miracle. Anyway, we'll close there and thanks very much for listening.