My Very First Year Sober

I am one year sober tomorrow and I really do feel an accepted member of the AA now, so far I have three birthday cards one from my nearest AA captive The Messiah who shared recently he always wanted to be Knight Rider, in the card he says that the only secret in AA is that there is no secret.
I was expecting a special secret to be shared amongst all members of the AA after one year mark is reached but I should of known that despite the Yellow Card there will always be members of the AA who cannot keep a secret.
I have also got a card from Catwoman who claims I am a totally different Michael to the person who first entered the rooms a year ago… Shaking and without any ounce of demeanour left in me, she has been a great source of inspiration for me but I have not really arrived anywhere I just feel like I am only just beginning a great journey.
I have just returned from a weekend away at a place called “Horton In Ribblesdale” near Settle and the starting point that most people come to, to start the three Yorkshire Peaks, I was of course accompanied by Luke, Squeaky and Miss Boley and somewhat cautiously with Squeak’s friend Sneaky.
We only went for a couple of days and I made sure that Sneak & Squeak had there own tent which is always the wise thing I think to do where young ladies are concerned, however there tent wasn’t too stable since one of the poles was broken when putting the thing up I was very surprised it remained standing.
It is a great ending to the most turbulent four weeks I have had certainly in my short period of sobriety with being made redundant, looking for a job then obtaining an internal vacancy working for my new boss called “The Balloon Warden” who seems a genuine guy and very friendly, he will certainly be a big contrast from working for the Headmistress and will hopefully will be stronger in spirit than my last Balloon Warden from a previous lifetime.
Over the last 4 weeks or so I have attended 5 interviews, the first two I covered in my last entry to my diary and the 3rd I never even had any acknowledgement from that I hadn’t been successful which is even worse I think than getting the disheartening rejection because at least it shows they have observed your presence on this planet.
The fourth was for the internal vacancy, a similar but perhaps more varied role than I do now with good future prospects with the possible expansion of the site and with The Balloon Warden as my new boss it certainly seemed the most suited to me even if it was going to cost me my redundancy.
By the time I had got to the fifth interview for the post of Junior Programmer I had really lost interest and faith in the interview process and developed an overwhelming desire to say something really stupid.
Obviously the “Tell Me About Yourself” popped up again and I launched into a really long winded and detailed story about getting made redundant from my job before last and spending the next six months smoking dope on the canal banks of West Yorkshire.
When the closed the interview with have you any questions I said, “Have either of you ever tried cannabis”, “What did you both dream about last night” and “How many poos have you both had in the last 48 hours”.
Needless to say I wont be getting the job but I knew I would be getting the internal job by the time I was sat there so I opted to live my AA principles of pure honesty and asked the questions that first popped up in my head.
Strangely when you go all out to give really stupid answers the lady interviewer kept making notes and trying her best in front of her male colleague to lead me on to more sensible subjects and therefore answers.
Anyway thank you force it is now all over but my confidence is inspired that if I am ever placed in the interview situation again which I have no doubt in today’s job market I probably will I wont be quite so apprehensive.
My mind is now gone back to that beautiful campsite with our tents packed like sardines and the farmer Willy Wonker is buzzing around and the sun is setting behind Sneak & Squeaks dodgy tent while to the west stands Pen-Y-Ghent.
I feel just a little guilty having chosen not to attend last nights Final Countdown get-together with all my fellow I-bots who were made redundant, I even paid the £5 deposit and still didn’t appear.
I suppose my idea of fun is no longer sat in a corner somewhere watching the Ibot clique celebrating there final evening together drinking massively expensive J2O and here I am reliving the feeling of being at Holme Farm.
What do I enjoy about camping, is it waking at 7:30 am with Sneak & Squeak in the neighbouring tent singing “Jingle Bells” while on the ceiling of our tent a Daddy Long Leg dances away almost in perfect rhythm.
Even Squeakys rendition of Jingle bells is drowned out of the steady conversations of over 50 holiday makers packed into a field the size of quarter of a football pitch making me think I could get more pice trying to sleep on one of the stalls of the Huddersfield Market.
Will Wonker is zooming round now on his lawnmower emptying the bins this has just woke me up from a dream where the Quality Assurance Manager was lending me a combination lock to secure my old motorcycle to a lamppost in the middle of the small town of Brighouse.
My next entry on my pocket book I am now reading says we are all sat round a campfire and in front of us all sits the Guitar Man, it is just like the video for the Abba song “Fernando”, its Sunday Evening and we are all going home tommorow after climbing Pen-Y-Ghent at 2700ft this afternoon.
On our way down out of the clouds Sneak and Squeak had a bit of a tiff but now they are back good friends and are sat with Like in front of the fires glow listening to our free cabaret “The Guitar Man” singing “Knocking On Heavens Door”, in front of my face a nice generous lady is asking me if I want a drink…
“We have some cans of lager in the fridge” she adds, “Sorry”, I respond, “I don’t drink alcohol”, these were the easiest four words I have said thinking back one year ago when I was really “Knocking On Heavens Door”.
She then kindly went off to make me a cup of tea, and I think this was the first time my first year journey into sobriety felt complete, in the sky a shooting star burst forth and burnt away and I quietly made my wish with whatever that power is in the Universe that makes life possible for another year sober.
I realised just how true the Jedi Code is when it mentions the opposite of a God being a world which is nothing but a mass of electrons, created out of nothing, meaning nothing, whirling on into a destiny of nothingness.
This Has been the best year of my life so far I said tonight at our Holmfirth AA meeting and I really did mean it, over 15 years ago I took up a Physics degree hoping to answer the question “Why are we here” and the answer that came back was lots of equations to describe the dances those electrons did in a huge machine.
But by breaking everything apart I had totally lost sight of the bigger picture and now I realise I am finally found the right path, a path that was given to me freely in the AA by others who could only get well by giving it, this was surely Gods way.
The Shop Assistant also gave me a card and I was handed a card tonight signed by many people at the meeting and I shall always remember in times of stress what today meant to me.

Redundancy - The Final Countdown (Unedited)

The Final Countdown
The time has finally come for me to be released from this psychological prison I have been in for so long and nervously make my way out into a world with an extra dimension to it.
You carry on in the comfort zone of your own construction, running on self will you try to mould the future but as time moves incessantly forward your mould begins to crack at the seems but still you endeavour to patch it up.
Eventually things become so bad that your higher power, God or The Force intervenes and your path of life starts to curve off sharply from the one you was following and projecting into the future of.
Well what am I on about now you may ask, well I have been made redundant from The Flintstones where I work by Neanderthal man for my continuous dedication to my job for the last four years.
It all began the Sunday after I had returned from my holiday in the Lake District with Luke and I had my first signal that life was about to get increasingly bumpy when my car got a puncture en route to Sundays AA meeting the first I had attended for 9 days and indeed the longest I had gone since I had been reborn without one.
Now I drive a six month old Ford Focus C-max which is my fathers motobility car and I jacked up the front offside wheel only to find that I couldn’t undo one of the bolts and when I examined the spare tyre I was sure it was the wrong sort being much narrower than the rest.
Stuck at the side of the road I proceeded to call out the RAC on my mobile phone who when they promptly arrived managed to find the special tool in the glove box behind piles of CDs and assured me that the spare was for temporary use and I would have to get the main one fixed as soon as possible.
Needless to say that I missed the AA meeting and drove to work at 50mph that was the maximum speed allowed on the spare and when I entered Flintstones Central Sales office I was immediately struck by a wave of gloominess and deep collective anxiety.
I quickly made my way to my empty office because I was in early and proceeded to log on to my computer and into Mollys to have a quick look at the gossip…
At 9:19 I posted the following:
Just got into work this morning and I thought it a little strange that the atmosphere was so low, Marti Pellow came into the office to say he was getting made redundant and they were closing down the Sales section at Howley Park.
Where does that leave me was the first selfish thought that entered my head but I sat and awaited The Headmistress my boss coming in and after exchanging pleasantries about my holiday I said "So they are shutting down the place then?" Can I have a word? she said and off we went into another office only to be told that I was getting made redundant at the end of August and she would give me time off for interviews and help to look for jobs etc, I knew I could see this coming since January.
I was apparently supposed to sit here until Neanderthal Man our local leader came into work at 11 am oblivious to the fact that everyone in the sales department were loosing there job but obviously my immediate boss The Headmistress could not possible pretend she didn’t know so she choose to do the right thing and tell me.
Jedess Padawan Katkins was the first pick up on my cry for help, at this point I felt really empty and I was on the brink of just walking out and going home and saying f*** AA, F*** life since I knew how uncertain the future was…

Hi Kat, Not much to do here except scan through the Yorkshire post, off to get my dinner in a bit, its good to have at least someone to share it with. I have had it announced officially now by Neanderthal Man our manager, he said there are two internal vacancies for me to apply for at two of the sites both with a salary of £13.5k which is 1.5k more than I get now and they will be advertised internally in the next few days.
I phoned up and told my dad and he said that this was a chance for me to break out - what I needed a kick up the bum, also told I will get 2.5k redundancy and The Headmistress said she will help me with my CV.
I am just glad I have got AA now, they always say its the little things not the big that make you fall, strangely I feel quite liberated
As for drinking it’s just not worth it I would spiral straight out of control, the depression/drink cycle

So here it was at last I blankly stared at the issue of The Yorkshire Post that the headmistress had passed me my mind going back nearly five years to the last occasion I was in this position, the vacancies in the paper hit me like a swirling confused mass but I still managed to keep these feelings deep inside me and painted on a happy face.
At the same time I did feel liberated, I had got fed up of the job which had degenerated to just placing purchase orders on to the antiquated system for stores managers of the four sites, a job they could perfectly well do themselves.
I had also dreamt the night before that I was in this new classroom with “Bob The Builder” a person from the Fellowship and we were awaiting a decision on who was going to get this job, maybe subconsciously I knew what was about to occur.
By now Jedess Padawan Kitten was also at Mollys helping me and her advice was exactly what I needed, following reading this I went into the cubicles in the toilets to pray and came back feeling so much stronger, thankyou Kitten…

Hi Michael,
I'm sorry you've had such bad news straight after such a fab holiday, but weren't you saying not long ago that you knew you could do so much better ? Like you've said, this could quite easily be your HP giving you that little push to get out there. A redundancy package of what you're being offered might just give you a financial cushion to look for something that will stretch you, and give you something to aim for. You've been talking recently about the depression you've been feeling - maybe having the ability to push yourself just a little bit, and achieve it will give you such a boost ?
Good luck,

She was right, every problem that you face in life was an opportunity in disguise and I for one wasn’t going to be reduced to nothing by a company that quite honestly does not seem to know what they are doing.
That all occurred nearly two weeks ago and I have faithfully gone into work everyday only really to use the place as a jobcentre, and out of 16 of us who were thrown on the scrap heap only Talula Bell and Tokyo Yoko have so far been offered a new job.
In that time I have sent off for nearly 45 jobs most of them via websites such has Hays, Reed, Jobs Today and Fish 4 Jobs and have seen two agencies that came into work to interview us all called AKA and Elite and have gained two interviews out of four replies.
I have also applied for both the internal vacancies, which were leaked out to us all on clay tablets secretly in the characteristic Flintstones fashion.
I have certainly come to realise that no matter how hard you try in a job at the end of the road you are just simply a number, when Neanderthal Man told me of my imminent redundancy he was also rambling on about synergies and integration.
Well in my view if synergy is defined as the output being far greater than the sum of its constituents then the Sales team was one of the greatest examples of teamwork I have ever witnessed and I have no doubt that The Flintstones as a group will come to realise this has there sales begins to plummet.
When I was made redundant from my old job at Sellers I promised our Accountant Director Mr Morecambe that, “if he should strike me down now I will become more powerful than he can imagine”, and the prophesy is slowly manifesting itself in reality since my old company is now a mere shadow of its former self.
I know now that thinking bad and vindictive thoughts has a powerful effect on naïve companies and in retrospect realised that carrying such resentments also damaged me just as much and therefore I must learn to accept that companies such has the Flintstones are too naïve to see the bigger picture of life and are mainly concerned with pleasing there shareholders.
This time I therefore wish the company the best of luck and have done everything I can to hand my duties over smoothly to be run from the individual four sites because afterall I learned so much there especially under the old Hogwarts regime.
My boss, The Headmistress has been absolutely brilliant and very supportive offering generous advice and even checking my CV and covering letters for grammar and spelling as well as making the fit for the modern job market.
She has also written me an excellent reference that reads as follows…
Michael has worked for [Flintstones] from the 4th January 2005 when they took over [Hogwarts] where he had been employed since 31st July 2001
Michael originally held the position of Production Data Manager, but since January has been working for me as Assistant Buyer in conjunction with his previous role.
Michael is punctual, conscientious and pays attention to detail. He has excellent knowledge of computer programmes and his contribution to purchasing division in this area will be severely missed.
The only criticism really is that he wears his dads socks with them little diamonds on them and generally has unfashionable clothes, he smells usually of man stuff, smokes and talks a load of sh**te about Star Wars.
Other than that he is trust worthy and works well independent of a great deal of supervision. I wish him well in his new role and will be sorry to see him leave.
I also bought a book called “Great Answers To Tough Interview Questions” by Martin John Yate which is an absolutely excellent companion taking you through the whole subject of finding a job right from where to look to constructing your CV to good answers to common interview questions.
I obtained two interviews almost immediately and have had none more since for the last week, the first being an assistant stock controller and the second being a bit more exciting at a very local company about 5 minutes from where I live.
The first one I would be working with this young lady and was interviewed by her and what I assumed to be her boss and I feel I did okay until they asked me to “tell me about myself”
Now at this point I am sure any alcoholic knows that if they are asked a question like that the answer is usually long and involved and to normal people can be very boring, it was almost as if I was doing a share at one of my AA meetings.
I did luckily manage to avoid starting with “My names Michael and I am an alcoholic” and even avoided any drunkalogues or any connotations with drink but I did observe when I finally reached the end of my chronological summary with my journey to the interview and my explanation of finally finding a parking space both the interviewers were fast asleep.
Well not really, the guy who was her boss was playing with his feet under the table and the young lady was carefully examining her watch.
I found out yesterday that I didn’t get that job by letter despite sending a follow up email like the handbook says explaining how much I enjoyed the interview but the letter did say they would keep my application on file probably in case they obtained an employee who has a problem with insomnia.
My second interview so far I think I managed to avoid the mistakes of the last one by keeping my ramblings brief and to the point, I was interviewed in the boardroom by two blokes because they had lost the key for the interview room.
I was told it would be two weeks before they could let me know but the job seemed far more exciting than the first with visits to the 23 other sites up and down the country to check on their stock control procedures.
So that is where I am at the moment, I have two weeks left to work before the countdown ends and I am on the dole and I am fed up with looking for a job already.
Interviews are such unnatural events that it makes you wonder how anyone ever gets a job that is suitable to them and for me being certainly very computer geekified is a major obstacle to surmount.
I have a great fear of being stuck at home with the last bit of motivation ebbing away watching Trisha and other daytime telly absolutely bored beyond comprehension but I am sure the Force has something planned for me that is far removed from this nightmare scenario.
At last nights meeting at Huddersfield The Reflection who works for Kirklees council kindly gave me some pointers on the correct method for filing in council application forms which you are guaranteed an interview and Jedi Master Wise kindly pointed out that it pays when working for the council to know as little as possible.
JM Wise also added that it was definitely my higher power who was finally releasing me from my comfort zone and when I look back in years to come I will see it was the best thing that ever happened to me
Anyway despite all this on my 340th day of sobriety, I still enjoy my weekends and I have just come back from the field with the children of the revolution who I have been supervised riding on Christine and The Falcon, some things just never change.
Oh and before I forget the shortcut below made me realise the really important things in life it was sent to me by my fellow padawan from Molly’s called Neil…
http://www.theinterviewwithgod.com/popup-frame.html