What a difference a drug makes.

This morning the alarm went off at 8.15 and I - drum roll, clap of thunder, two-headed lizard child born in Swansea etc - got straight out of bed and went and made my girlfriend a cup of tea.

The fact the doctor prescribed me Diazepam had a great deal to do with that, as did the extra 50mg of Trazadone I was prescribed. I'm not sure it's good healthy sleep, it's something like a coma, but it's not drinking until that drug knocks me off my socks and into a similarly unhealthy sleep and not waking up with a head like a hole.

Then - cymbal clash, fourth horseman of the apocalypse saddles up, sheep fall from the sky over New York - I had breakfast. And... fully washed and dressed too! (I know, gawd bless his little cotton socks.)

I have to say that's the best morning I've had for months. A little woozy, a little shaky, but not hungover and not waking up and simply wishing I hadn't.

Then, things just get better and better, I looked in the fridge to see that rarest of things in my household. A can of beer - completely unmolested. Christ on a bike! That just doesn't happen round these parts. Leave a bottle somewhere in the house and I will, as if by magic, produce an empty bottle in pretty short order.

That means that I only drank three cans last night and made a rather nice beef stew with broccoli too - get me. The GP's encouragement - chemical and otherwise - was a great help: "Maybe with a job you'll start to feel a bit happier about yourself," he said.

And, from the despair I felt on Tuesday, the absolute terror at the prospect of employment - and by employment I mean the start of a 15-hours-a-week call centre position that opens up with 12 weeks of training before I get to get shouted at by irate customers - is vanishing.

OK. Life is not perfect, but I certainly feel a great deal better than I have done for, well, as long as I can remember.

I've disappointed myself since, rather. I'd hoped to get straight onto the computer to write this bloggery thing. Instead, I end up arsing around, back at Comment is Free. But, it's early days even in the cutting down thing, and energy and life should return.

And, I cheated on the Diazepam - taking two at lunchtime, instead of the prescribed one.

Until recently, the main progression in my life was that pint eight followed pint one. Today lunch followed breakfast. Kippers, which is good stuff, full of those lovely omega oils, cheap, nutritious and easy to prepare - I'm still lazy.

The cravings still start at about lunchtime. Which is why I was a bit naughty with the Diazepam. In the past I've been able to cope with them when they arrive, because I know that when 4.30pm comes around I can walk the couple of hundred yards to the local and start drinking - once started I would continue until I knocked myself out.

I've got 28 Diazepam tablets, and I reckon that's effectively enough to detox myself and, by taking my Trazadone a little earlier in the evening I should be able to go drink free on Sunday, the day before I start work.

We shall see. And confidence in such matters is a dangerous thing which sits cosily close to complacency - more oh which tomorrow.

A letter came yesterday confirming my next appointment with the Community Addiction Unit, it's next Wednesday, but because I'm so doped up now I'll leave what that makes me think until tomorrow.

But it's now 7.22 and I haven't had a drink - my girlfriend's just come home and a cup of herbal tea is on the way. I'll probably still go to the shops to get those two cans to make the total up to three. I'm too drowsed to write anymore.

I thought I had so much to say, but I've just run out of steam.

To those people who commented, mostly people who followed from the Brighteye forum (apologies for the previous misspelling - and me a journalist, but you'd be surprised, I've worked with people who were to all intents and purposes functionally illiterate, sub-editors are much undervalued.) Yes, to you people, thank you ever so much - it means a huge amount to know someone's listening (and, I would recommend giving blogging a go if you've got that sort of urge or you enjoy writing at all) and you've been terribly kind.

Cardiff Drunk out.

Nos da.

PS. Oh, and I managed that hot bath that is such a favourite panacea in the Brighteye forum - it was lovely.