‘Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book’. Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) author of ‘The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’.

My journey from accountant number cruncher to wordsmith author may not have been as dramatic as my journey from drunk to happily sober. But both were long and arduous, and both ended up, giving me great pleasure and unexpected rewards, and both of course are interconnected.
As a frustrated accountant I used to fantasise when drunk that I would one day write a great novel. But I never dreamt I would write a daily meditation book for recovering addicts. I’m no Marcus Aurelius (the Roman emperor who started the whole meditation book thing), I’m not the Dalai Lama either. Just a bog-standard Chartered Accountant turned therapist, with more affinity to spirits of the bottled kind than those found around the soul. Nevertheless, writing a daily meditation book is what I have done. Thirty-five years after my last drink, the drunken accountant embarked on a great literary endeavour, those famous opening words of historian Edward Gibbon never far from his mind.
How did the book happen? Well, it began in rehab in 1987, where I found a Higher Power (amongst many other things).
The need for spirituality was a difficult concept for me but I was advised to keep an open mind. That was easy – my mind was largely composed of wide, open spaces. I found the idea of a search for spirituality quite appealing – voyages of discovery are exciting, and I set out hopeful of finding good things. My began by looking at the big picture – how could such an awesome universe be a random event? Surely something so interconnected, governed by profoundly meaningful laws yet so full of joyful surprises, had to be the work of a Great Creator? Isaac Newton and a lot of other clever folk with foreign names like Pascal and Einstein appeared to think so too. This, I found comforting and reasonable – the idea of a power greater than myself, that could restore me to sanity – there was logic in the concept. Had I enough intrinsic power to run my own life successfully? As I took inventory of the morally and financially bankrupt cockroach I saw in the mirror, the answer was achingly plain – no way. I needed help and the more powerful that help was, the better it would work for me. Welcome to my world, Higher Power.
Secondly, I found long term recovery from addiction. Finding a Higher Power was a huge part of that, of course. Recovery for me meant re-connection – with my family and friends, with other sober people and with the world at large. I found in AA a sense of belonging that I had never truly experienced before. The support and kindness I received from many people, and the massive power of their example as they went about their daily lives in happy recovery, was a huge influence. Alone, I had been unable to achieve anything but together with these people, anything seemed possible.
Thirdly, I found myself. Or rather, I found my self-respect, a feeling of empowerment and a sense of purpose. I discovered not just peace of mind but new friends and new interests too. I understood what it meant to become ‘better than well’ as described in that famous passage in the AA Big Book – The Promises: ‘We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness…’
One of the new interests I developed was writing. I had always enjoyed reading and writing and had even written some pieces for boring accountancy magazines. Now, my writing became not just an enjoyable pastime but a therapeutic activity too. I saw how writing could help express deep feelings, how it gave insights into one’s character and how it could be a means of connection with others. I joined a local poetry group and a book club, and I began holding workshops on creative writing in the residential rehab where I worked. All these activities were intensely enjoyable and great for self- discovery and general education too. I also wrote workbooks on subjects like ‘personal responsibility’ and ‘relapse prevention’. After a few years my writing had become a whole new interest and a source of income too. I published a book and then another and started calling myself a ‘writer’. That felt nice.
I’m also a psychotherapist and as a form of therapy, writing – especially poetry writing – can be surprisingly effective. As a member of the US based National Association for Poetry Therapy, I know how much more widely it is used in that country and wish it was better understood in the UK. I realised the power of poetry therapy when in rehab myself. My therapist at that time saw the difficulty I had in expressing myself verbally and suggested I try writing a poem about what I was feeling, instead. My first poor effort, along the lines of:
Roses are red violets are blue
I wish I was not here with you….
was actually highly therapeutic in showing, as my therapist pointed out, how negative and unwilling to change I was. I learnt from it.
Working in creative writing sessions with others in rehab helps them discover new aspects of themselves – as one person put it:
Digging and blasting
For jewels in the quarry
Of who I am..
It gives them an interest and a new way of handling life’s problems, which is what recovery is about.
Another course participant wrote to me later:
‘Creative writing has helped me in so many ways – analysing problems and finding creative solutions, communicating these to colleagues, and guiding me to deal with day-to-day emotions that arise when one is doing a demanding job. And when I go home, it helps me relax and to see my day from a different viewpoint.’

When Castle Craig Hospital was considering producing a book of daily thoughts, I jumped at the opportunity. A little later, thinking of the three hundred and sixty-five pages to be filled, a few doubts crept in. I thought of Edward Gibbon again, embarking on his famous History, and I also thought of the admirable AA member, Richmond Walker who eighty years ago in 1942, had pencilled a reminder to himself inside his copy of the AA Big Book ‘Make book for morning quiet times – short passages for each day – on different phases of AA – Call it Twenty-Four Hours A Day’. From that scribbled note emerged the iconic Twenty-Four Hours A Day – the book that many consider the greatest meditation book of all time. I remembered Bill W too, writing in upstate New York at his desk scarred by cigarette burns – books, articles, letters by the score. I was indeed ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ as Isaac Newton had put it. It was a reassuring but also an inspiring way to begin.