Thought for the day

My lack is my salvation. I wrote this on my Facebook page and here on May 2nd, 2014. I'd had an insight that my very shortage of practically everything (I was then trying to live on between 5 and 8 euros a day) was in a way both a liberation, and a protection for me, a way of forcing a kind of asceticism on myself that I am otherwise too weak willed, or weak minded, too willing to be distracted by things I can pay for, to seriously undertake. Now I am even poorer (financially). I have £1 in my bank account and nil in my pocket. I have no tobacco, nothing to drink, enough food for a few days. I have a comfortable bed. I am warm and dry. If I want to go anywhere, I can cycle, or walk. And I know, if I did have any money, the first thing I would want to do is buy tobacco, or alcohol, or both. Which is why, if I do get any money, after buying myself some good food, I will use what's left to pay off those people who have been kind enough to lend me money over the past few months.

Confession time

How meditation did and didn't help me face my alcoholism
I came from a drinking family and a drinking culture. My parents nicknamed me “Booze” when I was a tiny baby, I was so desperate for my bottle (my mother tried breast feeding me but could not produce enough milk so I started life starving). I probably had my first drink when I was twelve. At fourteen I went on my first bender. By my twenties I had learnt how to drink 'responsibly' and only occasionally got pie-eyed or behaved inappropriately. I started a career, got married, brought up a family. Each year, the amount I drank steadily increased. It was just a habit, something I did every day. Not getting drunk, usually, just going up to bed relaxed and happy.