I don't think I should ever have started to work seriously on the last three Steps if it hadn't been for what seemed a piece of very bad luck at the time. I work in a highly specialized area, and as a result when I'm working I'm paid extremely well. The problem with having this kind of expertise is that it's in very limited demand. If I lose a contract position with one company, it can be a very long time before I find another.

After a very lucrative three-year contract, my period of employment ended with one company. I had been paid well, so I had no short-term financial problems, although you would not have thought so from the whining and moaning that I did about my supposedly perilous monetary situation. But the main problem I had was boredom. There was simply nothing to do. I went to plenty of AA meetings, but they became tedious -- I suppose because I was going for the wrong reason. Then I visited a friend and read a book on meditation. Not only that, I tried it.

That was some years ago now, and my meditation experience has become the most important thing in my life, together with the practice of Steps 10, 11 and 12. If you like, my enforced idleness -- having nothing to do -- turned into the practice of mindfulness -- doing nothing and being aware of it. That layoff was the best thing that ever happened to me.