Dangers of success revisited. Unleashing the unquiet mind.

This feels a dangerous time.

Thanks to my lovely GP and his Diazepam I'm well on the way to detoxing - day two is reckoned to be the worse for withdrawal and I'm on day four now, the cravings are lessening each day.

Why dangerous then? Well, next week I'm due back at the Community Addictions Unit for my next appointment. What do I tell them? Well, I will tell them my GP prescribed me Diazepam and with the help of that I've managed however many days I've managed without a drink and that, all things considered, I'm really very grateful and thank you very much, but I don't need a detox, sorry to waste your time and all that.

And, with that, I reckon I'll be out of treatment. The danger is of course the danger of confidence - the 'I can do this' that could so easily to lead to the 'I can have a drink' and so on and so on and so on.

I believe it's an Alcoholics Anonymous maxim, an urging towards abstinence, that to continue to do the same thing and to expect a different outcome is a sort of insanity.

But, you know what, I already miss it so much. I miss the pub and its companionship, I miss the warm fug around my skittering mind which slows it and eases it.

Now, the good thing, the ideal thing, would be if I can say I've dealt with the problems that made alcohol such a good answer to my questions that I seem inevitably to end up physically in its thrall. That I can fill my days and cool my thoughts in other ways so I can enjoy drinking sensibly and safely.

This will almost certainly happen. I will almost certainly drink again. Sorry to disappoint you if that's not what you want to read.

Already, without drink, my mind is all over the shop again. Yes, I am enormously more energetic and healthy feeling than I was before, but I just can't stop my mind.

Nature abhors a vacuum they say. Well, I abhor silence. I can't bear it. The radio is on all day. I simply cannot do one thing at a time - I just can't get my mind to focus on a single thing, I must have something else to distract the other parts of it that aren't taken up by reading or watching a film or whatever.

I can't explain this - I've had ADD suggested as a possible diagnosis - but, I guess I'm going to have to look for ways to control it. I've tried meditation in the past - not in a class just from books and it was a complete dead loss for me, but I think I must try again, try and bring some discipline to the chorus line of particularly frisky thoughts that kick round my mind destroying any peace. I have got as far as emailing a local Tai Chi (I'm sorry, I don't think that's the correct term for the classes this fella runs, but it's what most people would understand and recognise as Tai Chi) teacher to ask about his classes. Will I do anything about it, almost certainly not.

Writing helps. It's one of the few things that can fill my mind. The only job I only ever really excelled at was journalism - on a very small scale, a little local weekly, but a good one. We had such a small staff that everyone had to do everything and I was king of the multi-taskers. It goes with the job of course - you're writing a story and the phone goes and you need to scan a photograph and you've got eight other stories to do as well and the proofs need to be read and you're talking on the phone and taking notes at the same time - it's the only thing I've ever done that filled my mind.

As I've just said in my previous post about memory, I don't offer this as some evidence of genius or specialness or whatever and I HATE IT. I wish I could sit and read and concentrate on what I'm reading. I wish I could talk to people without knowing how their sentences are going to end before they get there and being bored. I wish I wasn't hyper-aware of my surroundings, constantly distracted by other's conversations, constantly paranoid about everyone around me and what they're doing and what they're thinking.

It happened last time I detoxed though. Then, I was working for the paper so that filled my days. But, I also split up from Mrs Cardiff Drunk for a while - I just couldn't bear to be in someone's company so much, to be so aware of them and what they're feeling and them expecting me to listen to them (ie, while not doing so many other things).

So, meditation will be tried again, and I'm going to look out that email from the Tai Chi master to see if it might fit in around my job (still can't believe I'm typing that).

Sorry if this all sounds like I'm a huge egomaniac - I can assure you I absolutely hate myself (although perhaps that's just a measure of constantly looking at myself - I need to escape myself, get out of my mind, and we know where that leads.)

Anyhow, I reckon that's probably it for today. I've got a list of things to get done. Things that mean leaving the house. I'm still hugely nervous, but nothing like as paranoid as I was at the end of my drinking, germs of confidence are growing, so it's off to the shops with me. Hi Ho.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Leave a comment - egotists need their egos feeding you know.