Mo Fanning - British writer and comic

Diary

Beating an addiction helped process growing up an outsider

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Drinking alone

Any recovery programe starts in the same way. You admit you have a problem and it consumes you. In my case, it was drink. It could easily have been any of my other self-destructive behaviour patterns, but as a starter for ten, my body decided to tackle an unfettered love of jar.

For every success story, there’s at least a thousand people ready to stick up their hands and say giving up didn’t work for them. The failure rate is depressing. Those who fail are happy to speak out. Like when you watch reality casting shows and whoever happens to be this month’s Simon Cowell-alike tells a room full of eager faces how most of them won’t have the X-factor.

So what does it feel like to be four years sober and consider yourself a success? I should add, the four-year part doesn’t matter. There’s strength in white-knuckling a single sober day.

There’s one thing of which I am sure. The decision to stop drinking saved my life.

Hangovers

For years, I refused to own my problem. I would drink. A lot. I’d have hangovers and dread facing people the next day. As a functioning alcoholic, my career highlights include: finding myself with no wallet in the middle of nowhere looking for a phone box to call my sleeping parents 200 miles away and ask if they can prepay a cab to get a 25-year-old me home. I’ve woken with two cracked ribs and a broken TV. I’ve found myself thrown from a cab in a foreign city covered in sick that might have been mine.

I stopped drinking much like I stopped smoking. One day it didn’t happen

Towards the end, my evenings always started the same. With the intention to limit myself to what was in the kitchen. Once I took the first sip, I couldn’t stop and wanted to keep going to that place where I got sociable and fun and brave enough to not hide away. I wanted to think nothing. Half way through any evening, I’d stumble to the nearest shop selling wine and slur my orders.

I stopped drinking much like I stopped smoking. One day it didn’t happen. The next day was the same.

It took a year of not taking a drink to deal with the dark cloud that had followed me around. Until I could do that, I was simply a guy who drank too much.

Bit by bit, I asked why I let myself get literally legless, lifting the lid of a box marked PRIVATE. I came face-to-face with the hurt of growing up an only child, with industrial grade acne, no friends, no self-confidence, a weight problem … and a preference for men. In each and every respect, I felt alone. Add them together and the feeling manifested as alcohol abuse in my adult life. I was singled out by the school playground bullies because I didn’t know how to fight back. I stood alone in bars and clubs on account of zero social skills. People didn’t bother getting to know me, because I hid away in shadows.

Drink corrected everything.

Numb

As I identified each cause, the effect lifted. A little each day … until I no longer was consumed by the desire to drink. I no longer needed to be numb.

I don’t call myself sober. I prefer to say I’m not drinking today. Mostly because it saves on the embarrassed silences when ‘fessing up to being a reformed booze bag – or the people who implore me to have just the one glass when I stay quiet.

I let myself have a drink. Because I trust that I know when and how to stop. And why. Drinking was no longer fun. The pain and anxiety that drove my love of the bottle added bubbles to my beer.

Of course, I’m not unique in this. Millions of us only drink once in a while. I have a penchant for an espresso Martini. But drinking is no longer a defined part of my life; something I do every day from 5pm until sleep takes over.

I’ve long been reluctant to write about this part of my life, even though I’ve published stories about recovery and made it the central theme of ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’. The thing is, I realise there are lots of drinkers like me. People who don’t accept their relationship with alcohol might be a problem. They’ll keep tumbling and hit new lows.

One of the best things I ever read is that you don’t have to hit rock-bottom to step out of the lift. You can stop self-sabotaging at any floor.

I was lucky. One day, drinking didn’t happen. I’m grateful it did. I’m grateful to Mark for making it so.

Moderation management
Moderation Management™ is a lay-led non-profit dedicated to reducing the harm caused by the misuse of alcohol. MM provides support through face-to-face meetings, video and phone meetings, chats, and private online support communities.

 

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Writing: How to decide on the story I want to tell

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In the middle of promoting my recent book – Rebuilding Alexandra Small – (99p for the month of July at most eBook sellers) I’m also writing something new. It’s the weird way of the writing world that you truly want to put all your energy into a new project, but need to set a decent chunk of time aside to sell something that’s over a year old in your head.

I’m midway through the third draft of what I hope to share either later this year or early next and the story continues to twist and turn and bend into all kinds of new shapes. I was sure I knew what I wanted to say with this next novel, but it turns out I want to say more thing. With rebuilding Alexandra Small, I wanted to address recovery and making amends – and what happens when someone you forgot about sticks their head up and says ‘what about me?’ The central storyline deals with paying the price for not saying sorry.

For my (as yet untitled) work in progress, I have three key storylines. An older couple, a younger couple. A gay couple, a straight couple. Something nefarious involving the church. And it’s all set on a Christmas cruise to the Bahamas. I started with the focus firmly on one of the key players, allowing others occasional goes at speaking to the reader. Then I switched in the second draft, dividing time equally. It’s just dawned on me in the third draft, that my previous favourite character is actually quite safe. She takes few risks. She could even be called dull (but only by a close friend). And I wanted to explore why. It’s helped me focus the theme for the new book. One of the other key characters suffers from the weight of meeting expectations and feeling inadequate. Another struggles to make good for an impulsive argument that split his family. I thought I might have many things to say with this one, but now I see I have just one: being true to yourself comes with a cost, but it’s worth paying.

Pitching your writing

As a writer, it’s vital to distil your story into one or two lines. This lets you stay focussed on the end-game and kill any non-helpful darlings in the edit – taking out each and every fabulously written chunk of prose that fails to advance the story. Having this essence bottled makes it so much easier to talk about your book when you reach the marketing or pitch stage. It’s a way to be sure of meeting the expectations of your genre, your readers and that demanding inner critic – the one who keeps bleating on about imposter syndrome. For me, everything starts with one (or more) character(s). You might work differently.

I’ll aim to share some pages with my mailing list subscribers in the coming weeks. In the meantime, enjoy the sun. If you’ve never tried placing a bottle of frozen water in front of a table fan, do it now. You’ll thank me.

And if you can spare a pound/buck/yoyo, please buy an e-book this month. It’ll help make paying my mortgage that little bit easier.

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How was your lockdown?

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Lockdown 2021

How was lockdown for you? Boris Johnson has released us into our own care. We’re free. And the government is free to stop having to pay their way out of a crisis and gets to blame us for any further deaths under the guise of personal responsibility. I suppose more than anything, I’d like a PM who doesn’t act like he might fail the ReCAPTCHA on an Internet contact form.

Rebuilding Alexandra SmallI’ll miss lockdown. It was like a series of duvet days. Combined with the fear of death. As an introvert, Corona was my Christmas. No more needing to make up surgery to get out of drinks after work. I was waiting for the perfect time to change my Netflix password so my ex couldn’t use it any more, and it doesn’t really get much better than a national lockdown. All those guys on Tinder who say they’re “5’10, if it matters” must be feeling pretty satisfied with everyone stuck at home so it…didn’t matter.

I always told myself I’d prepare for the inevitable apocalypse, but then got to thinking what if I succeeded and then had to spend eternity eating fox meat in an abandoned Toys R Us with the type of people who prepare for an apocalypse.

Coronavirus finally got men washing their hands after a piss. We’re literally two epidemics away from them learning how to wash their dicks.

There’s something about knowing that none of your friends are doing anything fun that feels good. Quitting drinking really prepared me for quarantine: it’s all about taking it one day at a time and never seeing your friends again.

Lockdown downsides

There were downsides. It’s hard to know if someone you care about is self-isolating or having a three day wankathon/Pornhub box set binge. I could no longer pretend to be out when people called, or end calls fast because I had to be somewhere. My life really wasn’t good enough for it to get drastically worse. I could no longer say for sure I was having a mid life crisis, given I could easily die within days. One time, I coughed in the queue at Sainsbury’s and four people turned round. It felt like I was on The Voice. I’ve started watching porn and making up dialogue. I stopped shaving and downgraded my skincare regime. The facial recognition on my phone insists on a password as proof.

I miss the office. It’s weird not having people around I leave passive aggressive notes when I don’t put mugs in the dishwasher. I’ve written my name on food in the fridge. Again it has an upside. No avoiding twats who want to get a team together to go on The Crystal Maze.

I’m going to come out of this a better person.

Labels and why they matter to me as a gay man

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Rainbow Flag

“Diversity is being asked to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance.” – Vernã Myers.

It’s almost the end of PRIDE MONTH, and I wanted to reflect on life for people who identify as LGBTQIA+ in 2021. To compare the experience of someone seeking to figure out their part of the current rainbow, and consider my own struggles as a gay man coming to terms with choosing a label.

I had few role models growing up. I noticed feelings for boys rather than girls at an early age, but in the early 70s, being gay wasn’t talked about in anything but a dismissive way. Poofs found jobs in the entertainment industry. Larry Grayson, Kenneth Williams and Liberace were on the telly, but they were more camp (or effeminate) than explicitly gay.

A big gay drum

Gay Pride protest against Section 28By the time I met my first boyfriend, Boy George was banging a big gay drum. It should have been the start of something. And yet, just a year or two later, Margaret Thatcher introduced laws to make it illegal for teachers to talk about homosexuality in schools. Local authorities were banned from aiming AIDS prevention materials at gay men.

The Manchester chief of police went on record to tell Britain that gay men were ‘swirling around in a human cesspit of their own making.’ He advocated the reintroduction of corporal punishment: ‘They should be punished until they repent of their sins. I’d thrash some criminals myself.’

For many years, I stayed in the closet to friends and colleagues, never actually declaring myself gay, but never denying it. I’m sure like any astute parent, everyone guessed.

I discovered the gay scene – and alcohol – the latter is no longer part of my life. The former is on ice. And so on and so on until I married my partner of 21 years in San Francisco two years ago. In that one (not especially political act), I labelled myself a gay man on an official document.

Labels matter

Labels matter. We all feel we want to belong. I grew up in what now looks like a golden age of gay liberation. We had just two letters. L and G. Even if God Hated Fags, it became accepted that sexuality needed to be part of any inclusion and diversity discussion. As the other rainbow stripes became a part of the conversation, I witnessed a rise in hate speech and oppression.

It’s too easy to put this down to the growth of social media and giving every fool a soapbox. Even the more liberal commentators (and comedians) roll their eyes and joke about how many more letters we plan on adding. The more our community includes, the more we exclude. Straight cisgender people no longer feel able to understand us or our struggles.

LGBTQIA+Even within the LGBTQIA+ community, people disagree about how effective the various labels are and whether anyone wants to use some of them at all.

While labels can help establish a community and promote self-expression, they can also exclude people and inhibit their growth. As a white, cisgender gay man, a lot of privilege is granted to me. I need to acknowledge the battle other groups within my community went through, for the rights I enjoy.

The case against all-inclusive labelling is unpopular amongst those who subscribe to the full LBGTQIA+ initialism. It pays to see there are both positives and negatives in this promotion of an overarching label.

For me, the key message is that labels exist for an individual to identify with. They can’t be put on you. You can’t be forced into a group or a community you don’t relate to.

LGBTQIA+ gives recognition for existing.

Rebuilding Alexandra Small

Think of the neighbours

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Neighbours

It’s time for the Fannings to leave Brighton and float up the country. Hopefully coming to land somewhere in the middle – far, far from neighbours.

Like Alexandra Small in my upcoming book, we’re moving from the home we’ve never really loved enough to want to make it forever. While Allie’s hand is somewhat forced after losing her job and her husband all in the space of a few hours, the need for quiet guides our hunt. I’m dread invites to ‘supper’ from former public schoolboys wearing red jeans. I end up sat next to a skinny branding consultant called Justin. We’ll chat about hot yoga, Tom Hiddleston, the hazards of buy-to-let, and the novels of Elena Ferrante. There’s always some woman crying about an imaginary problem she won’t remember in the morning. We don’t fit in.

I’ve had neighbours most everywhere I lived. In Amsterdam, we were crammed in tight, under a hockey teacher who made vigorous love each Sunday afternoon at 3pm to her otherwise placid looking companion, and next door to a man who wore very little in the house, but surely should have. We overlooked one of the five most fascinating places … to pass out wasted. Smoking strong Dutch weed is perfect if you need psychological help, but have made a conscious decision not to get any.

Cigarette stealing spaniels

Years ago, in Manchester I lived next to lesbians whose King Charles Spaniels made it their mission to steal my Marlboro Lights – I was drinking a lot back then, and found it charming.

Our temporary bolthole is my late mother’s house. Or ‘the money pit’ as I like to call it, with a leaking roof, dodgy heating systems, rising, falling and ingress damp and taps that refuse to switch off. Or on again. New neighbours have made matters worse. They have five cars between the two of them and an addiction to solar lighting. I swear the lady of the house is on a mission to create the summer version of those Christmas houses that were all the rage a few years back.

Anti-vaxxer neighbours

And they’re anti-vaxxers. It’s tempting to pass comment as they stage yet another family barbecue on people who’ll eat sausage but decline a vaccine … because they don’t know what’s in it.

Mr Fanning has used the lockdown well. He’s learned how to plaster a wall, plumb in a sink, move electrical sockets and lay paving slabs. I’ve reorganised my spice collection and reupholstered a chair. Badly. And lost most of a fingernail. Something they seldom mention in those smug YouTube videos.

There’s one month to go before we put the place on the market. By a curious twist of fate, that’s when ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’ hits the shops for real. I’m expecting to have the audio book on sale around about the same time, so that’s three ways to show you love me more than any of those dreadful neighbours.

Rebuilding Alexandra Small by Mo Fanning