The Voice In My Head

Audio Version 

My name is Howard. I’m an alcoholic and a grateful member of Alcoholics Anonymous. We’ve all been to hell, our own hell. I lost my career prospects, relationships, family, marriages, freedom and a few other things as well. I was a working man most of my life. I worked hard, earned the cash, drank the cash but in the end the places where I drank the cash, barred me. I ended up banned from every bar in Oban as well as the supermarkets and the off sales. Things that should never have happened to me, happened. I ended up a public toilet drinker.

On Tuesday 5 November 1996 I was heading to the toilets, praying to God “Please God, let there be someone in the toilets with a drink.” I pushed the toilet door open and heard the skoosh of a can being opened and I heard these words in my head and God is my only witness  “If you take a drink from that can Howard, you’ll feel this way again tomorrow but if you don’t take a drink you’ll feel a hundred times better.”

I went in but when it was my turn to take a drink I walked out  of the door and wandered up and down the street until the police van stopped across the road. Two officers got out and opened the back doors for me and I ended being kept in the cells until the next afternoon for something outstanding. When I appeared in court I was given a 24 hour remand without plea and I had to appear in court the next day as well. As I left the court I heard the voice again “If you take a drink of that can Howard, you’ll feel the same way again tomorrow.”

I didn’t go down to the toilets to celebrate my bail but I was homeless in the town where I had been born. I had relatives in the town but they wouldn’t put me up and I couldn’t find a flat to let. I wasn’t a dirty drunk - my reputation was the problem.  On Tuesday 12 November 1996 at 7.30pm I was standing at the bottom of Argyll Street in Oban wondering where to go for a cup of coffee. It was too late to go up to the convent where I went every day and suddenly I thought “I’ll go to Alcoholics Anonymous.” There was a meeting that night in the Baptist Church Hall. I went there and was met by a man who showed me where to get a coffee. He told me to sit down and listen for the similarities, not the differences. I sat with my coffee and listened from the Preamble to the end of the meeting. I fell in love with Alcoholics Anonymous that night. After the Serenity Prayer I was asked if I would like to go to a meeting the following night and I agreed. What a change for me to be asked back anywhere! I went to the five evening meetings every week, enjoyed hearing the similarities and got on with my life, ODAAT. 

My first time out of Scotland was in 1999 when I went to Blackpool for the AA Convention. I spent as much time at the Pleasure Beach as I did in the Norbreck Castle Hotel. I stayed with family in Atlanta, Georgia in 2004 and we travelled down to Florida, sailed the inner coastal waters, saw blue dolphins, heard thunder and saw lightening. I cruised the Mediterranean on one of the world’s most famous cruise liners, The Queen Victoria, and every night at midnight I went up to Deck 10 dressed in full Highland Dress and walked along saying a few wee prayers and each wee prayer began with the word “Thanks.” The cruise cost me a few bob but then I thought staying away from that first drink for a day at a time was the price of my cruise - a reward for myself.

In 2016 I went on The Western Wonders of America taking in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Francisco. I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, went up the Twin Peaks, sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge and round Alcatraz. I saw the Hoover Dam and I had a front seat in the helicopter going into the Grand Canyon. In Beverley Hills, Hollywood I walked down the Walk of Fame and saw the stars names on the pavement. One night in a hotel on Hollywood Boulevard I got up on the stage and sang two verses of ‘O’ Flower of Scotland’ and ‘Donald, Where’s your Troosers?’

I often look back but I don’t live in the past. I know all the money in the world can’t change the things I did or didn’t do but imagine someone with my background going to all those places - Howard in Hollywood singing the songs that I sang. I was one of the homeless town drunks - a liar, a cheat, a thief and a jail bird.

I still believe after all this time that the voice in my head that day in 1996 was a Power greater than me. I wasn’t alone that night - my Higher Power was with me. The words I heard in the toilets in Market Street didn’t tell me not to take a drink - they told me the consequences if I did.

Howard

Oban Sunday