This morning, during a bit of banter with a friend—actually, he’s more than a friend, I see him as my soul brother—we had one of our usual light-hearted exchanges in the meeting text chat area. In response to the question, “How many are there of you today?” I replied with the joke: “Me, Myself, and I.” It’s a running gag between us, but for some reason, that phrase hit me differently today. It stirred up a wave of reflection, triggering deeper thoughts about identity, authenticity, and the long journey I’ve taken to get to where I am now.
For most of my life—stretching all the way back to childhood and continuing right up until I was 47—I was never truly one person. I was a collection of masks, roles, and performances, each one depending on who I was with, what I thought they wanted, how I felt, or more often, how drunk I was. I had a version of me for every situation, for every person, and even then, I never truly felt known. Despite all these different personas spinning around in my head, I felt desperately alone. At the root of it all was a crippling fear—FOBFO: fear of being found out. Found out for what I really was—a fraud. And this fear extended into every relationship I had, even with the people who loved me most: my wife, my children, my mum and dad. I gave them fragments, illusions. I lied about pointless things, made up stories, invented drama, just to make my life seem more exciting or more tragic than it really was. It was madness.
That constant performance came at a cost. Living with FOBFO meant my anxiety was relentless and exhausting. Keeping up with all the lies became like managing a web that kept growing more tangled and complex with every passing day. Some lies went deep—too deep—and trying to maintain them all was a full-time job. In hindsight, I see now that I was living in a prison of my own construction, where I was both the inmate and the jailer. Alcohol was the guard at the door, making sure the walls only got higher and thicker. Eventually, those walls became so vast I couldn’t see out. I couldn’t hear other people. I was completely shut off from the world and from any real connection.
But today, things are very different. It’s no longer “Me, Myself, and I—and the bottle.” As one of my good friends often says during the morning Sunrise AA meeting—and did again this morning—“I can’t do this on my own, and I don’t want to today.” That really hits home. I don’t want to live in a fantasy world anymore. That world is isolating, draining, and lonely. I want to be present in this world—the real one, the one that unfolds in each moment, right here, right now. Like the moment I’m writing this, then pausing to look out the window at soft fair-weather clouds drifting across a perfect blue sky. Or the next moment when my 90-year-old dad just walked in, sat down with his breakfast, and let out a loud trump as he did—hilarious and human. This is life, and I’m finally part of it. When I started to open my heart and mind and committed to living as honestly as I could, those prison walls came crumbling down. What I found on the other side was a world full of connection, full of love, full of fellowship.
And here’s the thing—none of this would have been possible without a few essential, life-saving truths. It would never have happened if I hadn’t learned how to be honest, truly honest—not just with others but with myself. If I hadn’t learned how to show up and be a real friend. If I hadn’t started being an actual dad, son, husband, and human being. None of this healing, this connection, this clarity, would have happened without the guidance, structure, and grace of Alcoholics Anonymous. But even AA alone wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t wanted it—if I hadn’t needed it, if I hadn’t fully participated and committed to every suggestion, every uncomfortable bit of truth, every step, every moment of service. It took willingness. It took surrender. It took Me, Myself, and I—showing up not as three versions, but as one whole, honest, grateful man. And for that, I am deeply, deeply thankful.
And guess what, the world is as interesting as YOU make it, and today mine is, and that’s the truth 😁
Now I Am
Me,
Myself,
and I.
once three shadows,
each afraid of the light.
I wore faces like armour,
voices like costumes.
Laughed in places I wanted to cry,
cried in secret when no one watched.
To be many
is to be none.
To be none,
is to vanish,
in plain sight.
Fear made a home in me,
not a guest,
but a landlord.
FOBFO,
the whisper beneath every mask:
“If they see me, they’ll leave.”
So I built walls.
Tall.
Thick.
Drink by drink.
Lie by lie.
A fortress that became a tomb.
And inside, I was both prisoner and warden.
But even stone weathers.
Even silence can be broken
by the truth of a sunrise
or the trumpet of a father’s breakfast
in a room filled with light.
I once thought strength meant hiding.
Now I know it means surrender.
Surrender to what is:
this moment,
this breath,
this sky,
this laugh,
this pain,
this truth.
Me, Myself, and I
are no longer at war.
We sit at the same table.
We drink tea.
We listen.
We speak honestly.
No bottle between us.
No story that needs changing.
No audience to impress.
Just presence.
I can’t do this on my own,
and I don’t want to.
That, too, is strength.
The way teaches:
to be whole
is to return.
To return
is to remember.
To remember
is to become what you were
before you forgot.
Today, I remember.
Today, I belong.
Today, the world
is as full
as I allow it to be.
And it is.
It is.
