Ten.
“Eudaimonia is a Greek word commonly translated as 'happiness' or 'welfare'; however, more accurate translations have been proposed to be 'human flourishing, prosperity' and 'blessedness'. In the work of Aristotle, eudaimonia (based on older Greek tradition) was used as the term for the highest human good, and so it is the aim of practical philosophy, including ethics and political philosophy, to consider (and also experience) what it really is, and how it can be achieved.”
Eudaimonia was also the name Peter Doherty chose for his post-Libertines jaunt across the UK in the spring of 2016, the same year that ‘might’ also see me get to ten years clean. For those of you, not ‘in the know’ when it comes to either, the subject of staying clean or indeed touring with Peter (trust me, not many are actually as well-informed about either subject as they’d have you believe) it might seem like a slightly precarious engagement to undertake for someone who has eschewed certain ‘lifestyle’ choices associated with those who traverse the country, trying to bring some poetry, music, broken guitars, hearts, and magic to the masses. This tour would not be the high-end hotels, catering, and decent wages of the recent ‘Lib’s assault on the musical scoundrels and wastrels of Europe and the UK. Nor, would it be me driving Mick and whatever various band members we could squeeze in my car, to Hebden Bridge and back from Liverpool. Both of which were absolutely wonderful experiences and very much part of that ‘hidden pathway to happy destiny’ I mentioned already.
What it would be, was a ‘tour bus and trailer’ 8/9 date mini tour, starting in Bristol, ending in Coventry, and passing through Glasgow, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Manchester plus two nights in Hackney at The Empire. For those of you paying attention, you’ll know that Bristol is just a few miles away from where I and *most* Liverpool fans, were born.
*I’m being nice to the ‘bitters of Everton and City here, they’re obsessed and need our sympathy. Nobody ever talks about them so I’ll see if I can mention them more often moving forward *
Coventry is a short bus ride from where I was at school and Hackney is where I’ve called home for 20 years. The Barrowlands in Glasgow is quite possibly one of the greatest venues on the planet to play a gig, I’d never been to Aberdeen or Newcastle, as far as I could remember anyway, so that would be a new experience and Manchester would give me an opportunity to annoy the locals with my “Our new manager’s better than your manager, we’ve won it five times, it’s our year, you’re shite, childish football ‘banter’.
*Point of interest*
You might notice that the ‘other’ team from Manchester rarely seem to feature in my football-related ‘bants’. That’s because they don’t really count do they? Apparently, according to one of their ‘famous’ chants, “We’re not really here, we’re not really here, just like fans of the invisible man, we’re not really here.”
Which, If you’ve ever been to their lovely stadium, you’ll know to be true, there’s a few of them, but mostly, ‘they’ are actually, not there.
Anyway.
The fact that aside from the very wonderful Jack Jones, erstwhile singer/songwriter/poet, and very nice, but very pale person, I would be the only sober person on the bus, did not seem like something to be overly concerned with. That and the reality that I’d not actually been ‘on tour’ playing my own songs since the ‘legendary’ Menswear/Limousine debacle of ’95, well, how could I say no? What’s the worst that could happen?
One of the many things the years of recovery has managed to retain my mind to do, as well as stop it from convincing me that sticking syringes full of drugs in my face etc. is a good idea, Is to also try and move away from the restricted thinking of getting too caught up in negativity. I’m quite good at all that stuff, regardless of how well things might be going. There’s still an almost shadowlike spectre lurking about on some days, which loves a bit of undue worry and stress. It feeds on that nonsense like a half-starved grizzly bear that’s just popped it’s head out of its cave after hibernation, had its first shit in months, and can now smell food. In all honesty, I had absolutely no concerns with taking up the offer of a bunk on the tour bus, what, on reflection I find myself smiling at, is the lesson I learnt from what happened next and how I went from getting caught up in the ‘middle-ground’ thinking of ‘what’s the worst that could happen’ to an even healthier attitude of, what’s the best thing that could happen.
Having said that, even at my most optimistic, childlike, enthusiastic,’ I believe in miracles mode’ I could not have foreseen what was going to happen next. Never in a million years, or Liverpool winning the league, whatever happened sooner, could I have seen it coming, as a direct result of stepping onstage that first night and saying, “Evening Bristol, my name’s Simon Mason and this song is called Last Chance Saloon.”
Maybe now is as good a time as any, to remind myself, that the reason I was able to walk onstage that night in Bristol, in fact the reason much of what was about to happen next and many of the ‘sparkly’ things that had already happened, came about as a result of trying to help other people. That might sound a bit self-congratulatory, conceited even, but it is also the truth in my experience anyway. I’ve mentioned it earlier, but because I can forget, it’s always good to reflect on this fact, and that being able to demonstrate to others, in a ‘show me don’t tell me’ fashion, is a powerful thing to be able to do. I don’t think I’d have had any chance of improving the quality of my life without regularly being witness to this process, my chosen pathway, being 12-step recovery also meant it never cost a penny, aside from chucking in some coins at whatever meeting I was at over the years. The notion that ‘We keep what we have by giving it away’ is perfectly demonstrated by this process, the fact that on occasion over the years, there’s been some financial renumeration for me, is neither here nor there. When I say ‘renumeration’ I mean, at nearly 15 years clean at time of writing, I still have an overdraft. In fact, I’ve recently moved home and found myself slightly amused by the fact that everything I possess materially, could still fit into a few boxes. I arrived in London in 1986 with a couple of boxes of random ephemera, some clothes, and some vinyl, I left 34 years later with more or less the same. You can’t add a child and a new wife to that list, we don’t ‘own’ people.
However, It just goes to show, if ‘we’ keep putting one foot in front of the other, a day at a time, not just in recovery, but in life in general, that which once seemed to be impossible, might just start to seem slightly less so. Getting another day clean can seem like the most gargantuan task in those early weeks, 30 days (and a thousand nights) almost an impossible dream. 3 months? 6 months? A year? Fucking hell, that sounds like a lifetime mate. But ‘we’ can, and ‘we’ do. I recall sitting in a meeting in early days, seeing someone celebrating five years clean and being caught up in an internal, mental- battle of.
‘Fuck me that’s a remarkable achievement.’
And.
‘That prick probably never took ‘real’ drugs.
There will be some people reading this who fully relate to that kind of thinking and others who don’t, but they probably never took real drugs and didn’t end up sitting in damp church halls drinking lukewarm tea, fidgeting, and judging people.
You know who you are, and I love you all.
The tour went well.
I got to 10 years clean.
Then some other remarkable things started to happen.
⭐️💥🏴☠️☠️💥