"My Other Birthday"

Can you tell me where you were

Exactly eleven years ago today?

I know where I was

Because…..

It was the day

I had to face facts

And accepted I had to act.

Too unwell to get out of bed

If I didn’t change I would be dead.

Coming back from the first time on tour

Realisation I could cope no more

I knew I’d been a total disgrace

Five long days out of my face.

Nothing particularly unusual in that

Everyone used to me a pisshead prat

I’d realised for a while I was mess

But deluding myself I was

‘Just worse than the rest’.

Genuinely thought I could cope

But deep down there was no hope.

One moment I was sweating, baking hot

The I was freezing, shivering as bad as it got.

If I had died in my bed

I couldn’t have cared less

I was in such a pit  of a low

A total mess.

My ‘saviour’ was an ‘ex-drinking partner’ in A.A.

I’ll always be grateful he picked up his phone that day.

Asked him to take me to a meeting

Kindness shown took some beating.

It’s not been easy, I still want to drink

A few dodgy times I’ve been on the brink

But so far-touch wood- not picked up a glass

Managed to make those feeling pass.

Now it’s not often I get to a meeting

Drinking thoughts are mercifully fleeting

But I always know where the A.A. rooms are

If I feel that temptation in a bar.

One thing I know is you can’t change the past

What’s been done is set and cast

In reality I should have no friends

And I’m totally shit at making amends

I’m told by many I should be proud

Can only accept the plaudits under a cloud

I know you shouldn’t dwell on the past

But over my life such a shadow is cast.

I suppose I’ll never be ‘normal’

What that word should actually mean

But I can take comfort from the extraordinary fact

That TODAY I AM ELEVEN YEARS of alcohol clean!

“My  God Edgar

Grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change

The courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference”

Dulwich Poet 28^th May 2013

( I am a recovering alcoholic, and today marked thirteen years since my first day without a drink, after I returned from a Supporters’ Team tour to Amsterdam)