Back in July 2000, when I was a wee nipper of just 20, I went along with some friends to Nottingham Rock City. The band we’d gone to see, Fantomas, are not massively well known – but their singer and creator is a rock megastar: Mike Patton, vocalist for Faith No More. The band is also made up of members of Slayer, Mr Bungle, and The Melvins. Pretty sweet huh. Continue reading
Do Recovering Boozers Secretly Plan To Drink Again?
Imagine that you love pizza. Not just love pizza, but LOVE pizza. It makes you a bit chubby, but it’s worth it for the taste and the way it makes you feel. You love pizza so much that you even plan your life around it – you let it dictate how you spend your time. You sometimes even take a day off sick just so that you can stay at home and eat pizza. Mmmm you love that tasty goddamn pizza. But then you hit your mid-thirties and BLAM!… Continue reading
Am I Part Of A Secretive Derren Brown Booze Recovery Experiment?
Me and the fiancee went to see Derren Brown live last night at the Royal & Derngate theater in Northampton. I’ve seen his stuff on telly before and was always a bit of a sceptic, but last year I was dragged along to see him live in Milton Keynes and subsequently had my brain properly melted by his insanely baffling magical fuckery. It blew my mind a bit, and I loved it, so I wasn’t going to miss a chance to catch him again on his latest tour, entitled Underground, when it came through our neighbouring town Northampton.
Climbing Out Of Alcoholism
I’ve mentioned my love of climbing quite often in this blog, but I’ve never really gotten around to writing anything specifically about climbing and, more importantly for this here blog, the specific benefits of climbing for a recovering alcoholic. Continue reading
Guest Blog: I’ve Been Pissed Or Drugged For 27 Years
When I first left school I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life (still don’t really), and so I followed my school mates into engineering training. Engineering turned out to not be the career I wanted, so I ditched it, but whilst I was training I made a few good friends. One of these was Float, a lad who is the same age as me (37ish as this is written), and who also grew up in West Yorkshire. He was Halifax, I was Mirfield then Huddersfield. Continue reading
Number Of The Beast
Today it’s exactly 666 days since I last drank any booze. I get married in 2 months so I’ll be celebrating the 2 year mark on my honeymoon. Pretty fitting I reckon, considering that I wouldn’t be getting married had I still been drinking. I was a different person – not particularly the marrying type – but also no woman in her right mind would have wanted to marry that guy. Skint, sweaty, selfish, paranoid, unhealthy… dashingly handsome though so, you know, every cloud an that.
A Huge Cannon
That’s what I’ve always wanted, really. A huge cannon surrounded by an Alton Towers-esque fenced queuing system, where I can send endless processions of bad drivers to slowly shuffle their way towards the front of the pack. At the front they would be gently but efficiently loaded into the huge barrel by a squad of highly trained and super-friendly staff. Continue reading
Punk In Drublic
I read a lot of stuff about quitting drinking, especially blog posts and stuff shared on social media about people’s own experiences of trying to quit. One thing that pops up quite a lot seems to be negative pressure; friends and family trying to convince the quitter that their problem isn’t really that bad, and that they should stop all this silliness and just have a drink like everyone else. This has NEVER happened to me, which must be a testament to the awesome company I keep. Man, if a friend tried to convince me that I was in the wrong for choosing to dodge the booze, or tried to guilt me in to getting drunk with them, I would have no choice but to stand tall and do the manly thing. I’d secretly pay someone to hit them for me.
Alcohol Doesn’t Exist…
…not in my world anyway, not anymore. I’m hurtling towards the 2-year marker, and I’ve reached a point where any residual habits or cravings have completely dried up. This is one of the reasons that my blogs have been getting less frequent – I’m just running out of things to say. Continue reading
Easter Sober Musings
In a few months I’ll have been sober for two years. It’s flown by, but the changes have been huge – and it feels a bit surreal when I look back at drunk Jon and his antics (the chubby scamp). In comparison life appears to have become quite ‘normal’. I keep fit, I visit friends, I go to gigs, I watch movies, I wash my car (okay that one’s a lie – I pay these local Polish guys to do it), I read books, and I’ve even grown up a bit and bought a flat with the missus. Continue reading
SoberPunks 