One World At A Time

Maybe instead of the famous AA proverb “One Day at a Time”, my credo should be “One World at a Time”, I suppose I have got to come down back to earth.
On Saturday we bowled at a village called Marsden and I wasn’t in my best form since I lost 10/21.
Since my holiday I seem to have lost my momentum at bowling but Luke has continued to improve and got his highest score so far losing 16/21 against one of the best players in our opponent’s team.
On Sunday after going to see the latest Harry Potter film we once again went to see my dad who had managed to fall out of bed whilst he was in the hospital and now was looking in worse shape with a fractured shoulder.
We all had a laugh that the next time we visited him that he might have a pot on his leg but he has now been moved to Halifax hospital which has better physiotherapy facilities.
It had been 2 weeks since my last AA meeting and this I think was starting to show, I was losing my temper at the least little thing, on Saturday night I had suffered a rage attack at our local supermarket because they had sold out of Coca Cola and I had another tantrum with my mum while cooking Lasagne for our Saturday meal.
I felt I was being drawn to the dark side so it was great on Monday to return to the safety and spiritual warmth of our AA meeting, I think everyone thought I had missed my birthday the previous week so I didn’t have to share.
Of course my good friend Uncle Buck who is approaching his second birthday accompanied me and I was nearly reduced to tears when everyone started singing Happy Birthday to me and gave me a card and a cake.
Initially I had thought it was someone else’s birthday, I even joined in the singing until my name was mentioned then I turned bright red and felt that awful embarrassment which I do when I become centre of attention.
You can probably tell sometimes in my blog posts that I long to be popular but if it ever happened I would run a mile, judging though by the number of comments on my last post I think my rise to fame could be some time off yet.
I reckon even if I wasn’t an alcoholic (which I am) I would still attend my lovely Monday night meeting in appropriately titled “Last Of The Summer Wine” country, the feeling of calm afterwards was overwhelming but short lived.
On my way to Halifax Hospital on Tuesday night to see my dad with my mum, Luke and my schizophrenic brother Sylar I suffered severe road rage on two separate occasions…
The first was where a dual carriageway merges to become a single road and while I was sat queuing patiently in the rush hour traffic a car whose driver obviously thought there journey was far more important than anyone else’s pushed its way past the queue and tried to cut me up to get into my lane.
Rather than letting the lady get into my lane I drove as close as I could to the vehicle in front and signalled angry gestured which increased my blood pressure by 70%.
I also managed to have a major tantrum with the barrier for the hospital car park on my way out because it refused to accept my ticket probably due to the fact that I hadn’t paid the fee!
It was nice though to see my dad looking happy for once in his new environment which he expects to stay another 2 weeks or so

Weird Stuff

Its weird isn't it all that stuff, and now by some coincidence I am watching "ghost" at home in my bedroom, Luke is on the other computer behind me, the best one, the one I should be on instead of down on my knees on this one.Oh Well, Patrick Swayze has just discovered why he was killed and he is running around invisible and angry because he cant do anything due to him being unable to touch anything since his body just moves through everything.Its weird is life, it is a mystery, anyway Shadow is right I should concentrate on living in the moment like the AA says, live a day at a time, and try not to think too much.I guess that’s my problem I don’t know how to silence my head sometimes, a whole maelstrom of thoughts constantly whirling around, but I can ask a power that does my higher power.
I know that there is someone there, I have always known it, the time I got burnt when my motorbike blew up and I was in Pinderfields burns unit for 13 weeks, he was there then.
In my first year of being sober I felt overwhelmed by this spiritual warm presence but as the years have past it faded until I moved to The Monastery.
That was the beginning of November last year, since then I feel it has gradually grown stronger at a more natural pace, like an old friend who has always been there.
I feel kind of guilty because I haven’t been to see my dad tonight, we have been practicing have both me and Luke for our bowling for our match tomorrow at Marsden Park, but he is in good hands.
They have to keep him under observation while they adjust his medication for his Parkinson’s Disease and my mum says they are to give him a bit of physiotherapy.
Patrick Swayze has just learned to move things in his ghost like state from the weird bloke on the train, “surely if they just move through solid matter what keeps them standing on the ground” I say to Luke has he tries to kick a can and fall back on the ground hard and the train bloke laughs.
He replies, “yes and what about gravity will they fall to the middle of the earth then”, as he walks over to his bedroom to see cousin Lightbulb playing on the Playstation.
Tomorrow we are playing at a village called Marsden where incidentally the longest canal tunnel in the world is situated and tonight we were having a game of pairs, me and Luke versus Batman and our Captain, it was a close match and dead level until me and Luke messed up and let them get two fours, the game finished 17/9 to them because our Captain had to rush off.
We then had a another game of three singles and Batman won us both, I call him Batman because he seems to play better in the dark and there is a full moon.
Anyway I got cramp in my legs now so I am going to go.

The Journey We Must All One Day Make

Today we going on a journey to a place which is not far away, a place where you will experience a feeling of enormous lightness and some visitors liken it to taking off a heavy divers’ suit.
You will appear to others as you did in the prime of your life, usually for most people in there mid to late twenties
Soon after arriving here you will watch the ultimate movie, a movie which will look back at your life so far and no doubt enjoy the moments when you did good things but also feel pain at the things in your life which were selfish or bad
There is no need to talk or use a telephone since all communication is done by telepathy between minds so your beloved mobile phone is no longer required and you don’t have to over-hear one sided conversations on public transport.
In fact there is no need for any transport at all since merely my thinking about a place can propel you at the “speed of thought” to the place in your mind, you imagine you are at any place in the world and you are there instantly.
All physical disabilities people had before they arrive will disappear and once they have adjusted to the beautiful surroundings there will be no such thing as deformity, sickness, blindness or any other thing that adversely affected them before they came.
There is no need to eat or drink or go to sleep, there is no night-time, no rain or bad weather, all is light at about 27 degrees centigrade but it has been noticed that a handful of outlets of McDonalds and Tesco’s have made an appearance just recently
You will have the opportunity to mix with others of the same mind and join with them in co-operative endeavours,
You will usually find yourself in a house, often the exact replica of a favourite house from your life. Of if you have a clear mental picture of the house you have always wanted and you have earned it, you can create it using purely your mind!
All your loving pets that you have known can be found here and there are other sections of this place where undomesticated animals also roam as well as spiders and other lower forms of life such as amoeba’s but you don’t need to go visit them if you don’t want to.
You can continue to pursue your favourite interests. You can continue to read, enjoy art, music, attend concerts or play sports or you could even work at one of the outlets of McDonalds that have recently sprung up.
You may have guessed that this place is where we must all go when we die, so what is the point of coming to Earth in the first place
You do not come into this world to have a dream run without pain, suffering, without problems. The more varied your experience, the more learning from many mistakes, the more valuable your lifetime.
The reason you are on earth is to learn and advance spiritually and indeed this can only happen when bad things happen
Too many people spend too much time worrying about their last ten or twenty years on earth and do not spend a tiny fraction of their time thinking what's going to happen to them in the next ten, twenty thousand years, fifty thousand years ... and much, very much longer.The kind of life to be lived in the afterlife – the beauty, peace, light and love that await most decent people – is unimaginable.

5 Years Today and my dad is back in hospital again

This is the video for last weeks match at New Mill and the "Hall Of Fame" of our pip hill bowlers can be found here, it looks like next year our team will be relegated, we lost 5/11 last week and so far have lost every match this season except the first.
Last week I was defeated 13/21 and Luke got 12/21, This Saturday our match was moved to the end of September due to a Rugby Final, and then it will be that long slow run up to Christmas.
I have just woke up it is Bank Holiday Monday and today I have been 5 years without drinking alcohol, I am very careful when I say 5 years "sober" because I think that has a totally different definition in AA.
Yesterday was "One of them days", I felt not too well and then my dad had to be rushed up to the hospital again after getting a piece of pork he was eating for his dinner stuck in his throat, of course we were there then for the next 4 hours.
He has been kept in since the doctor suspected that the Parkinsons disease is interfering with his swallowing now, anyway no doubt today we will all be venturing up there to see how he is.

Its back to school on Wednesday for Luke after the long summer holiday and with the dark nights on the horizon and the long winter ahead of us I cant help but feel tinged with melancholy, I would of been going to my AA meeting tonight but now I am not sure what I will be doing yet

Nearly Five

Photo is my dad at Saturdays Bowling match which I lost 13/21, he is dressed with his shades and hat as a Gangster...

On Monday it will be my 5th AA birthday and by coincidence the days are exactly as they were way back in 2004, I had my last drink on Sunday Morning after a long night of cold sweats following the Holiday from Hell which I had spent in permanent oblivion.
It just all happened so quick from then on, I phoned the AA after dinner on the Sunday and was taken to my first meeting that evening and went every night for the next hundred plus days.
Now 5 years on I have just returned once again from a Holiday at Skipsea and even with 17 other friends and family, many who were drinking I managed to survive with just a few dark thoughts.
At AA last Monday my friend Uncle Buck told everyone in my Home Group that it was my AA anniversary again so I am pretty sure that come next week I will be expected to share my experience, strength and hope.
I think with me it has been a very gradual process has recovery, no dazzling spiritual awakening just a gradual narrowing of the path which I can safely follow, before 2004 life was black, white and grey but since then colour has returned.
I have certainly recently become aware of my many defects of character, I told my niece “Mrs Bates” (as I call her now) that I was sorry for interfering in her life but it has been a recurrent theme throughout my existence so far – taking other peoples inventory.
I also find it very difficult to put me out of the picture, indeed in the 13 years of stories that I have written (http://madmickstories4.blogspot.com/) I seem to portray myself as some kind of God which is precisely the opposite of what I should be and is I believe where I am going wrong.
I also analyse too much, instead of accepting a Higher Power in my life I have to rationalise it in my mind which I guess is the scientist inside me or maybe the way that my education has brainwashed me.
I reckon I love the magical “Force” concept from Star Wars which I see as a opposite of entropy and maybe the biggest questions I strive to understand is can the mind continue to live without the body?
You see there I go again, more analysis…
I also am prone if left to my own devices to isolate myself, I still dream of living in a tree in the Amazon Jungle with some indigenous natives and adopting a simple way of life the way nature intended.

My home life at the moment is good, tomorrow I will be taking another days holiday to take my mum to a Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield for some tests, my dad seems to be borrowing life force from elsewhere and despite his progressive Parkinson’s Disease has come back from the brink of death back in February and now even comes along to watch us Bowling on Saturday.
Luke my son who is now 15 in January now plays for our team and in the last 12 months has gone from being a child to being a man and is nearly as tall as me now.
At work, life at the monastery proceeds from one day to the next, in fact when I arrived here on Monday I half expected to be greeted by a mound of rubble where the works once stood such is the uncertainty, I don’t however blog too much about work like I used to do when I was at The Lost World.

Recharged and Refreshed

I feel good for the 2 weeks away from work, its the longest I have had off for ages and all thanks to The Teacher who is covering for my absense.
Had a great Holiday and of course I have written a full account of it, day by day in pdf format, if you have got a few minutes spare take a peak here
Today I have just finished the DVD of the holiday and Triple M gave loads of copies to those of us round Huddersfield who went, 17 of us and 2 dogs.
Tonight we have been trying to get back into the bowling again but its hard going, had quite a lazy week really the second one after i got back, but enjoyed being out of the routine, I guess i will have to plug myself back in again on monday and it will be soon here.
I have also started enjoying facebook, especially this new game we are "all" playing called barn buddy!
Anyway here is another video from the Holiday, its quite good this one I promise...
I made peace with my niece who I now call Miss Bates in the video (and the story if you were bored enough to read it)
I have also put (finally) everything I have ever written online in one place...
http://madmickstories4.blogspot.com/
I can now go back to work knowing everything is all correctly in order on my computers a bit like those who like all the items in there fridge in there places.
It will be my 5th AA birthday one week on Monday, I think there was just one night when I felt a bit weak on holiday but I think I have no doubt I am powerless, my rock bottom was just too deep to forget.
I still have nightmares that I am drunk and am trying to get somewhere but I just cant for falling over, I guess there is so many memories stored away in my confused brain.
I cant really think of any poems to write tonight so I guess Ill leave it there

I am back

Came back Saturday dinnertime from our camping trip to Skipsea Sands with a total of 16 people although only three of us stayed in tent.
I have posted a video on you tube about our Holiday and am in the process of completing my memoirs, luckily I have got another week away from work and so far I have done very little.
Anyway just thought I would pop in to say Im still ok, hope you enjoy the vid