I had never felt comfortable in my own skin. As a child, I remember always having this fear, this anxiety inside me. Along with other factors, my adoption played a big part in this, as my birth mother wasn’t around in my childhood. I also lost all my friends in an aeroplane crash when I was 12 or 13.
My anxiety was terrifying. It would start in the heart, and then I’d get these very powerful feelings coming up to my head and in my temples – it felt like burning. I was convinced there was something wrong with me; I once collapsed outside the doctor’s surgery, believing I was dying. An ambulance was called, but the doctor assured me I was healthy.
My anxiety was terrifying. It would start in the heart, and then I’d get these very powerful feelings coming up to my head and in my temples – it felt like burning.
When I first drank some wine I found in my parents’ cupboard at the age of 15, I found something that could change that feeling. It was amazing, like the key to life. But I’ve never liked the taste of any alcoholic drink I ever had.
I started drinking regularly, and in considerable amounts. I realised it was getting out of hand when at the pub with friends, I would always want to stay longer for that extra one, two or three. I once even tried to sell my leather jacket for ten quid so I could afford a few more pints. And my drunkenness was leading to other problems – falling, getting arrested for being drunk and incapable, and other offences. I stole a tailor’s dummy from a shop window at 5am one morning while drunk. This led to my first time at the magistrate’s court. I ended up with a hefty fine and was placed on probation for two years.
On another occasion, I was summoned to the magistrate for failure to pay a fine. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to give him a line from an episode of Monty Python I’d seen the night before. So when he asked me to explain myself, I said, “It’s alright for you, isn’t it? You sit there on your spotty behind with your silver spoon, judging me”. Before I knew it, two policemen were escorting me to a black van destined for HMP Brixton! Talk about a culture shock – I was a spoiled 18 year-old who suddenly found himself in prison for six weeks.
I was an only child and my parents were good people, but I was coming back drunk all the time, stealing from them and pawning what I stole so I could buy alcohol.
Things were also getting bad at home. I was an only child and my parents were good people, but I was coming back drunk all the time, stealing from them and pawning what I stole so I could buy alcohol. I’d tell myself I would buy it back, but I never did. I felt incredibly guilty and ashamed about this.
I’d started drinking to help deal with my anxiety, but it became so problematic that it made my anxiety much worse when I stopped. When I was nearly 16 I went to my GP, who treated me for anxiety. This was 1963 and Valium had just hit the market, so he prescribed it to me. When I first tried it, I remember thinking, ‘wow, this is the answer’, because it made the fear and anxiety go away. But I became addicted to that as well, and remained so for the rest of my life as an active addict.
At 16 I was already quite a competent guitarist. My guitar mentor at the time managed to set up an audition with Cat Stevens – but I never got there because I was drunk. He also arranged a job for me on a yacht in the south of France. I never made it to that job either – I stayed in Paris for ten months instead, singing on the streets.
The darkest phase of my addiction began when my parents retired to a caravan site in Kent. Aged 21 and incapable of working because of my mental health and addiction, I had no choice but to move there with them. Before long I was drinking surgical spirit every day.
Hearing other people talk about their struggles with alcohol gave me hope, for the first time, that things could change.
In a sense, it led to me finally getting the help I so desperately needed. One morning, a voice in my head said, ‘come on Jim, you know this is not good’. So I took myself to my local GP and confessed that I had been drinking surgical spirit for ten months. The doctor connected me with a 12-step fellowship and I went to a meeting the following day. Hearing other people talk about their struggles with alcohol gave me hope, for the first time, that things could change. From then on, men and women in the fellowship gave me constant support, including visiting me in psychiatric units on each of the four occasions I was sectioned. I even met the woman I went on to marry and have three daughters with through the fellowship.
Over the years that followed, I was in and out of hospital, until both of my parents died within a year of each other. I just couldn’t cope, and my behaviour became extreme: I was even sectioned for being out of control, and put into a strait-jacket. During a stay in hospital, I met another man being treated for alcoholism. He was a pharmacist who had just sold his shop, and we ended up back at his house working our way through his old stock. I don’t know what I took, but my behaviour became so outrageous that he knocked me unconscious and drove me back to the psychiatric hospital.
For the first time in my life, I thought, “I’m finished with alcohol and drugs. I have had enough. I want to live”.
One day, I woke up after a stint in intensive care, and had an amazing, life-changing, spiritual experience. In recovery, we talk about ‘rock bottom’, in the east they talk of ‘Satori’; a point in one’s life where, for the first time, you visualise the true nature of life and yourself. This is what happened to me, on Sunday 27th October 1976. Until that point, I didn’t have any hope – I thought I’d end my days in a psychiatric hospital. But then, for the first time in my life, I thought, “I’m finished with alcohol and drugs. I have had enough. I want to live”.
After my epiphany, I went to Pinel House in Warlingham Park Hospital near London. It was set up by Dr Max Glatt, who was a pioneer in the treatment of addiction. I was there for three months, having group therapy with AA meetings in the evenings. When the programme finished I was homeless, so I went on to stay in supported housing run by Richmond Fellowship. It was an important step forward into my new life. In the 15 months of my stay there, I made my first friend outside of recovery, met my partner again and got my first job. I also got in touch with a great aunt, who became a mother figure to me and a grandmother to my children, and stayed in my life for many years until she died at the age of 96.
There is so much to do, and so little time to do it, but in the end, I have today. It’s all that any of us has, so we should make most of it.
My life in recovery continues to be full of adventures and wonderful experiences. I became a social worker – after years in which I was the one to whom social workers were assigned. I ran recovery holidays in Spain, and started performing my story for residents of rehabilitation centres – which I’m still doing, 20 years later. I became a father and grandfather – I have six grandchildren ranging from ten months to 18 years. A few years ago, I rediscovered my birth family – so now my daughters have aunts and uncles! And in 2011, I successfully applied to the Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship Memorial Fund. This enabled me to travel the USA for three months to explore music and recovery there.
Of course, there have been challenges and difficult times along the way. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with low level prostate cancer. A few months later, problems with my left ear turned out to be a benign tumour. Luckily, the cancer is in remission, although I’m now completely deaf in my left ear. I’m still able to perform my music though.
Different people have different paths; mine is spiritual. I do believe, and I do have a faith. It might not be conventional, but it’s of great comfort to me. I have come to realise that the older I get, the less I know – but the greater my desire is to learn and discover. There is so much to do, and so little time to do it, but in the end, I have today. It’s all that any of us has, so we should make most of it.
#MTMPLockdownStories
Over the course of the coronavirus lockdown, More Than My Past ambassadors have been sending in videos of their experiences to share a message of strength and solidarity with others in the community.
Here’s Jim’s, where he talks about how he’s been managing to stay in the ‘here and now’ with music, phone calls, and by regulating his intake of negative news and media.