Is that all you get for being sober for years? A plastic keyring?

When Charlotte Cripps tracked down Alex to a 12-step recovery meeting in Notting Hill, she was hooked

(Illustration by Amara May)

I knew there was only one thing left to do to see Alex. I needed to track him down to a 12-step meeting in Notting Hill. And there are many to choose from; without Simon’s inside knowledge it would have been like finding a needle in a haystack. It can feel like a social club – as well as a lifesaver – but it’s more glitzy in some pockets of my area, because Notting Hill is a beacon for celebrities also wanting recovery.

Luckily, I didn’t have to fake my membership, unlike Helena Bonham Carter’s Marla in Fight Club, I joined long ago thanks to a frantic decade of complete and wild abandon in my youth. I had collected many keyrings over the years. My long-suffering dad always said to me: “Is that all you get for being sober for years? A plastic keyring? Don’t they swap it around? Give you an ashtray or something?” But he was missing the point. Every clean and sober day is a gift.

The daytime meetings were casual and usually held in stinking damp church halls in west London, unless you went to Soho. But at the 7.30pm meetings in the heart of Notting Hill – where I knew he would be – people often arrived suited and booted. This included Alex, who was also looking to make a good impression as an up-and-coming property tycoon.

The Thursday night meeting where I went to find him was hilariously nicknamed Prada – although many years later it was demoted to Primark because the dress code went downhill. I spent hours getting party-ready and dabbed on some more lip gloss and made sure I looked my best before I entered the crowded room. Recovery is meant to be an inside job; luckily Alex can’t see what is going on inside my mind or he might cut and run.

The room was bulging with recovering addicts, including A-listers sitting on top of radiators and cupboards as the chairs were all taken up. I learnt that addiction is a great leveller and whatever your background, we had all used addictive behaviour to cover up our feelings. Maybe it was genetic, who knows. I had plenty of it in my family.

Luckily, recovery was the solution – if you were lucky enough to get it. So many had died over the years but a small percentage of us made it. Common traits included a feeling of not belonging, not being good enough. Or feeling better than everyone else. Crushing self-doubt. Loneliness. A void that recovery could fill.

Right now, I was back in the land of obsession, and Alex was my drug. “Isn’t that dangerous?” A friend who isn’t in recovery asked? It was and it wasn’t – I felt like I was walking a tightrope but I had to trust my gut instinct.

Nothing else mattered as I waited to see how it would pan out. It was all-consuming, like binge-watching Succession seasons one and two over a weekend, but with a potentially more fatal outcome.

I had heard that if you suffer from too much self-pity, it could become a matter of “poor me, pour me a drink”, which for somebody like me would be disastrous. I have an illness just like anorexia or gambling: if I drink or use substances I can’t stop. There is no one more determined than I but despite all the willpower in the world I just could not stop. It is very frightening when your life spirals out of control.

There is something wonderful about a man who can make you laugh – it’s like finding a golden ticket.  And I wanted to cash it in. I wanted to sweep him into my arms – I wanted to sort out his mind but knew I was powerless

Okay, it was years ago that I got into recovery – but I never forgot where my addiction had taken me. Recovery kept me sane, and gave me the support to get out of a jam. However, if anyone knew the depth of my feelings, they’d have asked me to work the 12-step programme 24/7.

Typically, at the end of a meeting, the group chants the serenity prayer. What if he rushes off after the prayer? Worse still, what if he is not there? Or not interested in me anymore? I’d heard the relationship with his long-suffering girlfriend was finally over. The advice at meetings is not to get into a relationship in your first year of recovery. I had a few years under my belt but Alex always seemed to be in his first year. Even if you fall off the wagon for a week, you have to go back to square one, like in Snakes and Ladders.

What was I meant to do? Ignore love and let his demons win? I was on a mission – and never one to do anything in half measures – I threw myself into Project Alex. Would I be accused of 13th stepping him? It’s a colloquial term for when an old-timer hits on a person with less than a year of sobriety. Luckily, I didn’t need to worry as I wasn’t getting very far.

My thinking was he could do a lot worse than me. I was a good influence. And anyway you can’t choose who you fall in love with.

When I heard Alex talk about his poverty-stricken upbringing in a Dickensian Blackpool I was hooked. He would ham it up with great humour: how they used to pull up the floorboards of the house to make fires; how he had to go to a school dance in Wellington boots, which made a squish squash sound because they had little money.

There is something wonderful about a man who can make you laugh – it’s like finding a golden ticket. And I wanted to cash it in. I wanted to sweep him into my arms – I wanted to sort out his mind but knew I was powerless. I wanted to tell him “I love you, you are on the wrong track, you are a workaholic maniac”.

After the meeting Alex, me, Simon and a few others went for coffee. Oh god, more coffee – I’m going to get too wired if I’m not careful, I thought. Alex led us to a Moroccan cafe on Portobello Road where he and Simon smoked shisha pipes in a dramatic fashion, puffing out apple tobacco.

I always remember Alex saying we are like birds that fly in formation. I imagined he was talking about recovery. But on the other hand, we were so connected on every level. I glanced up at the starry night sky and looked at Alex’s chiselled features. He asked me to pass him the salt as he ate a lamb tagine. I was in heaven.