Paradoxically, the thing that bonds Meg and me together most firmly is our independence of each other. We think for ourselves and often do different things. We do not live in each other’s pockets. From that independence comes intense closeness when we are together.

I am not a great one for looking back. I remember very little of my childhood because I never bothered to look back to those years. The memories dimmed because I did not refresh them. I focused my mental energy on looking forward. From the moment in my adult life when I began to create it for myself – choosing my wife, my home, my career – I have enjoyed every minute of it. There have been hard times, unpleasant times, tragic times but I enjoyed being alive. Now that I am in the most difficult time that I have ever experienced, I still enjoy being alive. Good God, I’m not the only person who has ever lost something important: far worse things happen to other people every day than have ever happened to me. If I look back I shall cripple my future and I have absolutely no intention of doing that.

Let’s be specific. Will I be a doctor again? I doubt it. Will I sing again? No. Farm again. No. Get involved in party politics again? No. All that is probably past history. But I can counsel, I can write, I can lecture, I can train – there are lots of things I can do. Or may be something else will turn up that I had never previously thought of. That might be fun. One thing I do know: if I look back, I am finished but if I look forward, the whole world will be my lobster.

I woke up before the designated time and waited….and waited. It didn’t go off at all. It keeps time well but the alarm part of its function has clearly failed – and it’s only forty years old. I feel I have lost a friend.

They got it wrong. Inadvertently, they could hardly have made a more damaging error. But they were not to know that. It was just a mistake. I am not going to get upset about that. I would rather stay friends and build for the future.

My parents are both dead. So are all my childhood guardians. I’m the next in line but I have no intention of going just yet. Sorry, Death, I do not wish to be rude, nor disrespectful, but I’m not ready.

“I’ll be with you in ten minutes”, he said. Two hours later I was still waiting but I had written a stack of blog entries. On thing I do not do is waste time.

He showed me his catalogue. It is beautiful. I forgot to tell him that my paternal uncle and grandfather were furniture makers, as were generations of Lefevers before them. I do not have their skill but I may possibly have their eye. My brother has the skill. So does my son Henry. The family tradition lives on.

They wanted me to join them canoeing. I declined politely: I had no shorts. I anticipate that next time they will provide some and I shall have no excuse. My fear is that my prowess in this sport will be no better than in any other and that I shall spend most of the time upside down.

Her records show the same three words again and again. Maybe to get the therapeutic process going, I’ll have to go to her.

“When I left treatment ten years ago, I thought you were completely wrong about me and that you were on a mission. Since then, I’ve had a dreadful time with alcohol and drugs and now I am completely abstinent and I go regularly to meetings. You were right.”

The truth is that I am on a mission: to try to help people to get into recovery as young as possible before they do too much damage to themselves and to other people. It simply is not true that people have to “hit rock bottom” or be “ready”. The whole intention of trained professional intervention is to help to pre-empt years of suffering. As in this case, it doesn’t always work straight away but it is worth a try.