Reheated Turkey.

I stayed chatting away on Brighteyes last night and found it a great help.

In the end, the idea of going cold turkey went for a burton. It was too much. The physical cravings were too much. I staved them off for a while with tea, apples and a cheese, garlic sausage and bean sprouts sandwich - not exactly Gordon Ramsay, but I have in the past gone for days without eating.

When my girlfriend's here I always get at the very least one meal a day. When she's not that can slide to nothing; to waking up at noon pulling on clothes I just check aren't actually soiled or too humming for public show. (The pubs I drink in are the haunt of heavy drinkers; no-one stands out, no-one judges, we're all pretty much in it together, alone but together - it's actually a very accepting and comforting environment (this parenthesis has now gone too far, so it must end)). Liquid lunches and midlife crises are for lightweights, I was mid-morning crisis and liquid breakfast. Suitably attired, and generally having taken no more care of my appearance than to have cleaned my teeth and smeared on deodorant, and not always that, I'd head straight to the pub to drink off the hangover and start working on the next one.

I'd drink all day. Scared of the loneliness of home and quite happily numbing myself, chatting inconsequentially in the one pub or staring at daytime telly and reading in the other. But, and I wonder how typical this is of drinkers, I had a real hatred of the day and its so-slow seconds, meandering minutes and hour-long hours - I was very literally killing time - long day's journey to the off licence and the joy of sleep. On the way home I'd pick up enough booze to knock me out and if hunger was pinging its pangs enough a kebab or something too. Cooking was far too much effort. Washing? Pah! Keeping myself and the house in a decent state? You jest, surely?

But, I digress, back to the turkey - 'tis the flipping season and all that after all.

I held off in the end, until my girlfriend came home. By then I was in what I believe is referred to in the text books as a right tizzy. My hands were shaking when I unlocked the door to go to the shop, I was getting chest pains and in was in a maelstrom of panic and anxiety. Rarely has a stroll to the corner shop been so single-minded, rarely has a short wait in a queue been so ill-born.

You cannot (or perhaps you can, and if you can you have my sympathy) imagine the sheer physical relief of taking that first drink.

However, despite the failure to make it through to my target time; 8pm, when I will have to finish my work on Monday, or make my hopelessly ambitious no drink at all target, I did better. On Tuesday I cut down from eight to seven, yesterday I cut down to four cans (three or four of my seven or eight would have been pints) and a glass-and-a-half of wine, small glasses so probably a unit-and-a-half.

I took my Trazodone at about 9pm and watched a couple of shows on the telly and went to bed at about 11.30. I slept in the spare room because I didn't want to disturb my girlfriend with what I was sure would be a sweaty and disturbed night. I woke at about 4.30am and then slept through till the alarm at 9am.

Read on for more exciting alcohol reduction adventures from Cardiff's premier blogging drunkard.

Are you a blogging drunkard? Do get in touch - we should go for a pint.