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The Fellowship acronym (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) for the risks of relapse is absolutely right. I would add Fearful and Confused. It could be argued that these are unavoidable but, even if they are, we need to be aware of them and recognise that they do not inevitably have to lead to a relapse – which would simply make everything worse.

Obviously we try to avoid pain if we can – but it is not always possible or even advisable.
Physical pain is very wearing when it goes on and on and when it results in loss of sleep. The sensible thing to do is to take appropriate pain relief. The tip is to take the medication regularly so as to keep pain away – because it takes even more medication to get rid of it.
Emotional pain is more challenging because the best solution is to go through it, rather than try to avoid it or suppress it. This is easier said than done. Ideally we need to talk things through with other people but the risk here is of boring our friends or becoming dependent upon professional helpers – and broke as a result. Good sponsors should be helpful but they may under-estimate the skill involved in professional work, rather than in referring people back to the Big Book of AA, which is the treatment for spiritual pain.
Mental pain comes when we are trying to prove that black is white in some aspect of our lives. The treatment of that is to be honest with ourselves – which is very difficult. Again, other people can be very helpful – but they may be the very people we do not want to listen to. Also, they may want to talk on the very subjects that we would rather avoid.
In simple terms, looking at pain is itself painful – but that is what we have to do if we want to move on.

We all make mistakes. Furthermore, we make them right across the board in every aspect of life. Learning to accept that generality is the way to reduce the problem: the more we are aware of it the more we can do about it and the more we can avoid repeating it too often. By contrast, thinking that we are perfect – or anything close – is a big accident waiting to happen.

The NHS has changed out of recognition in some areas of clinical practice and some geographical areas. It is time that NHS mental health services caught up their physical counterparts.These are the patients who are least able to help themselves.

Of course she wants financial compensation for what happened to her – but she also wants to get over it and make it a thing of the past. That is why she came to see me. With a positive attitude like that, she deserves to get well.

He told me his concerns about someone else’s recovery rather too late for me to be able to do anything about it – but it is good to know that my own judgement hasn’t gone off: I had already seen the way things were going.

The Times reports that the alcohol strategy, published by the Labour government in 2004, concluded that drink was a problem for a “small minority” in Britain – and yet an estimated ten million adults drink more than the recommended limit every week. The Times also reports that mortality from liver disease (regarded as one of the best barometers of consequences of drink) shows a fivefold increase in the under sixty-fives in the past thirty years.
I am, of course, very familiar with the catastrophic consequences of high alcohol consumption. I a no prohibitionist, despite the widespread secondary consequences to other people, because I believe the better approach is to identify the people who do have a problem and do something to help them.
What interests me here is the attitude of the Labour Party. Ten to fifteen percent of the population is certainly not a small minority and the consequences of their drinking are vast. The National Social Market Centre calculated in 2007 that the total annual cost of alcohol consumption in Britain (including costs of medical care, crime, damage to families, criminal justice costs and the costs to employers) is £50bn. Is all that damage caused by a “small minority”?
I fear that the Labour Party gave up on this issue because they realised how unpopular it would be to try to do anything other than simply wave statistics at people. Hopefully the present government will have more courage – although I should prefer to see a grand coalition of all three major parties on this issue. Party politics should not come into consideration at all.

Sometimes we just need to talk – but that means that there has to be someone who is prepared to listen. This mutual arrangement is what companionship is all about – otherwise we are just boring nuisances.

People come to us – in one capacity or another – if we have something to offer them. If we don’t, they won’t come.