Minesweeping we have known

Ah yes, mine sweeping. Do you remember mine sweeping? Do you mine sweep yourself? It's probably a teenage thing really, but I've always done it.

And, I remembered it today. All those half-empty glasses my abstemious parents, my sensible drinking Mrs CD and her near teetotal parents left round the place. It comes so naturally that I did in fact find myself scanning for them; the glasses I could filch, take out to the kitchen and neck on the way. The bottles I could fetch and open and sneak swigs from. I offered to go and get the brandy to fire the pudding with (none for me) out of habit, bad habit, dead habit.

So, this is Christmas and what have you done? Survived innit. Not too bad really and sober as a choirboy (I wouldn't have been, when I was a lad I was briefly in a band who rehearsed in a chapel - we stole the communion wine. Imagine our horror when we discovered our Methodist brethren got to God without the use of alcohol, fair play to them.)

It's a bit of a strain being around family, particularly when in counselling most of which is to do with things that happened a long time ago in a place just over an hour's drive away. I love my parents, as far as I feel anything at the moment, but I'm also in long and ongoing discussions about how they fucked me up - as, of course, every one's parents does for everyone. It's one of the reasons I will never have children, why spread the pain further.

Ah, but something of note has occurred! Christmas Eve was a day without dope. I went to make one in the kitchen - I go outside for all my smoking, legal and otherwise so there's no suspicion in that - and Mrs CD's father came towards the door so I stopped. I could have gone back to it I suppose but I was quite pleased with myself for just saying no. I think I'll do the same today. I can't remember the last time I went for a day without smoking; it's been a long time.

I find myself feeling relatively positive about things. I had feared that the local kids would be out in full force, but it's been very quiet around here lately, since the petition came round in fact and I've also found myself worrying less. I'm toodling along quite happily on my lower dose Trazadone, which gives me a good night's sleep. My appetite isn't very good and I'm down to two meals a day, but they tend to be somewhat substantial. Mrs CD's at home, so my domestic duties are shared and the house looks nice and I'm doing more than my share.

Still, there lurk the demons, the misery that can lead to drink, the regret that I can't really socialise without drink - yet, it's supposed to be yet you're saying, let's try and see change as incremental shall we CD?

Mmm, talking to self, time to go.

Somehow I feel large and positive changes are on the horizon.

And of course I wish you a happy Christmas.

Tis the season... Stormy weather....

Ah, Christmas shopping... because the chief thing Jesus was trying to get across in his teachings was, and I think this comes across particularly clearly in the Sermon on the Mount, that we should all have more stuff.

Bah humbug! But, I shouldn't be so cynical, and the last time I posted anything even vaguely religious I got spam comments trying to save my soul, which I truly appreciate believe you me.

But, I don't think Christmas in its modern form brings the best out of us really, and it's not a time of year I enjoy.

It's also - because this is another key tennet of the Christian message - spazzed central.

This will be my second sober Christmas, as, although I hadn't been detoxed and I wasn't really engaging with any treatment for alcoholism last year I was abstinent at the time. It didn't survive long after that.

Actually, the whole bloody set-up seems designed to throw the unsuspecting recoveree (as I am moved to style myself today) screaming towards the nearest gin palace for a 12 day bender.

You're expected to spend money - in fact it's your moral duty and if you fail to do so you are a despicable failure - so any financial problems you may have will be racheted up a notch or two.

Family will come round. In my case two sets of parents who've only met each other once (last Christmas) and to me seem to have little in common. Mrs CD considers herself hostess, which she loves, but which also puts her own often delicate equilibrium under heavy stress. And, of course, everyone drinks, all day.

At the moment, I just want to bugger off somewhere quiet on my own. In fact, it would be perfect! My mum and dad could come here and I could go there. No bother.

Counselling on Tuesday, which, as ever, I'm looking forward to - there's a lot to talk about and at this very moment in time I feel the prospect of it all rather exhausting.

No reply yet, of course, from Ex - is that good or bad? Who knows. It's pretty upsetting - but, knowing the history quite understandable - that someone who means so much to you is unreachable. But then, when I fuck up, I tend to fuck up big time.

Not happy thoughts.

So, this Sunday, I think it's safe to say that while there are some minor improvements in the routines of living, the big picture is one of stormy weather.

Better starts to the day. A stupid thing? Timing tablets. Damp nights.

I feel a bit brighter this morning - working on changing my morning routine is having an effect.

I've still got my ditch and it takes an effort to climb out of it, the pull of habit and routine is mightily strong, but I'm making small steps.

This morning, for example, I got up and instead of going downstairs and sitting smoking in the moping seat, I got up, had a fag and came back upstairs and did 10 minutes on the exercise bike and 10 press ups.

I've started in on my first self-esteem book. I chose the thinnest one first, Gael Lindenfield's Self Esteem and I've read the introduction.

I recognise a lot of the examples of poor self-esteem she uses and the causes. Next I'm going to have to do some work on emotional healing. I love the idea of this and I'm excited by it - so many things in my past fester and rot in my mind; that's what I do on the moping chair.

I'm a bit at a loss about what to do about the expression of some of this past pain that needs to be exorcised, I just don't have those sorts of friends at the moment. But, I'm going to find a notebook for self-esteem today and damn well do it - not just think about it, not just read about it, but actually do it. Hell's bells, that'll be a step in the right direction all on its own.

Quite independently of this I've emailed my ex-girlfriend. This might be a stupid thing to do but somehow it felt right. She's my biggest emotional hurt - a terrible break up and a terrible attempt to get back together that were the immediate triggers for two suicide attempts.

She was my first love and my biggest love, I still think about her every day. I thought if I could establish some sort of adult contact with her as a friend I might find some peace from it.

She's emailed back, very tersely, and I'm guessing that she doesn't much relish hearing from me again - I was an alcoholic all the time we were together and I must have made her life hell. Must have? I know I did.

We'll see how that goes, it might be a huge mistake to even pick at those wounds and it's led to disaster in the past, but I want some sort of closure and the ability to move on properly, which I'm yet to do.

The timing of my Trazadone is still off. My antidepressant 'causes drowsiness' according to the box, in fact it whacks you over the head with a sleepy hammer. Its action used to be so fast that I couldn't take it at any time other than when I was actually ready to sleep. Now, I've got some tolerance to it and as a result I've ended up taking it too late, leaving me with a terrible pill hangover in the mornings. I need to find a better time and to make it a routine.

I'm sleeping as well as ever with the Trazadone but in the last couple of weeks I've been suffering from night sweats again. Mrs CD assures me it's not as bad as when I used to drink but it's a bother and I'll ask the doctor about it when I see her at the end of this month.

The probable reasons I've come up with are the lake of tea I drink every day, lots of fluid. Perhaps it's the dope (another routine I'm changing, I don't smoke during the day if I can manage it - which on many days I don't).

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Cardiff Drunk.

So, this drinking thing

I haven't regaled anyone much with anything on drink of late have I?

And for a drunkard's blog that's not flipping well good enough. It's always there in my mind though - a constant hum and siren song. Time's the trigger. Some mornings I might walk past a pub at around opening time and remember the endorphin rush of the first drink of the day.

Sport too - always a good excuse for me to go to the pub in the past - strums a few strings. I've managed to watch a Wales rugby international in the pub, but all the way through I was thinking how much better it would be if I had a drink.

Occasionally too, anxiety has made me want to drink. When the streets are full of shrieking youths in the afternoon and I'm confining myself to my room and praying for sleep, I'm aware of how much better I would feel if I could just go and hide in the pub.

But, I haven't drunk. Not a drop. And, with Antabuse in my veins I can't. Without the Antabuse I don't think I would have done it and without the supervised way I'm taking it I don't think I would have managed to stay on the pills for so long.

I'm committed to the six months I've almost managed - about two weeks now. I'm also likely to ask for an extension to my Antabuse to see me through Christmas and the New Year too.

At the bottom of all the efforts to get well is the knowledge that I want to get well so I can drink again - enjoy it, socially and responsibly, not as an instant cure for fear or a hiding place from self-hatred, but as a social lubricant.

That may well make me an idiot, but that's my feeling at the moment, that if I can fix my messed up head I won't need to self-medicate and won't be an addict. There are medical opinions both ways, but, I think most professionals would, after looking at my history with drink, advise me to not drink ever again.

The big thing is, that in a couple of months it will be my choice.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Deciding to be happy

I have decided to decide to be happy - ok, no-one gets to walk through the flowers under the sun every day of their life, but I have decided to be happier.

Taking this decision is, I think, an important change for me.

I had previously believed a number of things about my illnesses (for want of a better word), which I no longer believe to be true.

I still believe that I suffer from clinical depression - that is, I don't believe it's all psychological, I believe there is probably a chemical element to my sadness, adiction and anxiety. But, I now accept that's it's down to me to do something about it.

I used to sneer at self-help books, and part of me believed that depression was a political act - it's your duty to be depressed in this world of war, injustice, suffering, Manchester United title wins and so on.

Not any more.

I came back from the library today with three, count 'em!, self help books. All recommended by the local alcohol and drugs service.

They are:

10 Days To Great Self Esteem by Dr David Burns
Self Esteem by Gael Lindenfield, and,
Overcoming Low Self-Esteem by Melanie Fennell

I'll let you know how I get along with those, I feel uncharacteristically excited about reading them.

I heard an interesting show on the radio about happiness, three journalists but one was a doctor and another a Positive Psychologist.

Again, I used to sneer at the idea that you could control the way you feel and I actually considered it cheating in some way. Not any more.

The positive psychologist was interesting. Practise feeling good and you probably will.

She kept a gratitude diary she said, and I'm not yet ready to go that far, but I am pleased with a couple of things in the last couple of days.

I have managed to break a couple of unhelpful routines; I spend much less time sitting in the moping seat for example.
I've attended nearly all my appointments and kept up with my blogging.

So, I'm not swinging from the tree tops in the unalloyed joy of an Oran Utang's giant ginger hug, (Anybeth) but I am coming round to the idea of taking part in this battle. I'm more accepting of things I can't change and learning a little to ignore some of the things that were previously making me anxious.

Long way to travel I guess but I feel like I've started.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

The Cardiff Drunk.

Why I am so sad when Jeff Bridges can make me so happy

We went to the cinema the other day. Quite spontaneously! Wow. We were just in town and I just said, why don't we go to the cinema, and we did! The exclamation marks are justified, this happens literally almost never. Never!

We were just in time to catch The Men Who Stare At Goats - a comedy about United States military research into the use of psychic powers in warfare. Not you would have thought an obvious subject for the comedy film maker. Well, it turns out you'd be wrong. Acclaim and Oscars for screenwriting shall surely rain down upon this film.

I always get a bit carried away if I like I film because I currently like so few. I say currently because I hope that's yet another of the things I can put down to my illness and whatever it is that makes my head such a donkey's nest of twattery.

So, that's a good thing then. Yes. It is. Indeed, part of my homework after my last counselling session was to try and engage with my withered and neglected emotions in a 'safe' way by watching a bit of a weepy now and then or by laughing to the point of vomiting (I paraphrase) with some super funny DVD.

And, laugh I did. Out loud and genuinely! (The exclamation mark is more for the genuinely than the out loud - I often go through the physical act of laughter, I rarely feel the rumble of real mirth currently - another hopeful currently.)

Jeff Bridges just makes me smile. If I could buy a Jeff Bridges and let it roam around my house and garden, I think I'd have the best cure for what ails me there is. Can't this be done in this magical internet age? I suggest someone starts working on it with the highest priority possibly imaginable.

I won't drag you by your hand through the whole plot - and I hope you go and see it - but, I ended up crying almost uncontrollably at this comedy. I currently do when I see goodness - and Jeff plays, in his beautiful bouncing bearlike way, a good person who believes in love and peace and gentleness. Goodness makes me horribly sad. So does happiness and I'm not just being flippant there, it's true.

It's not conscious. I had to explain to Mrs CD that I had tears in my eyes when I looked at some photos of her as a little girl because she looked so happy.

Something about goodness and happiness brings me out in the weeps and it's that I feel so alien from it - even in joy I feel the sadness of its passing. Goodness makes me so aware of all the badness there is in the world.

I could, I think, bore you now with a very long and tedious recitation on why I think I feel like this but I don't think I should bother because I would, bore you.

I'd like to change it though and over thinking is a big part of it.

Sometimes I think I'm just a miserable bastard.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Cardiff Drunk.

Still a bit down in sober towers

You tell lies thinking I can't see,
You can't cry because you're laughing at me,
And I'm down,
I'm really down.

Thank you Macca for that, very nice. Unlike Beatle Paul no-one's hurling obvious falsehoods around, or writing them on placards seeing as Paul reckons Miss Down-Causer (as we shall call this horrific slattern) thinks he can't see them. No-one's chuckling either; sniggering while they should be joining me in empathetic melancholy.

Yet still, I'm down. Yeah thanks Paul, you'll get paid mate don't worry - yeah, thumbs up yours too.

A bit melancholy me. I'm sure the reasons are the usual, which are too archetypal to bother listing again, and it, like all things (royalties for George!) must pass.

The atypical, and therefore interesting factors in this, of all the downs, are a bit of cognitive dissonance (I'm quite verbose tonight aren't I) and the fact that I feel more relaxed about it than maybe I should feel.

I'm probably misusing cognitive dissonance, but, never mind, it's a phrase I like so I'll go on merrily misusing it all I damn well like. I've been down the pub (orange squash) this evening and discovered I've been misusing winsome. I'd been saying my mate D liked winsome girls, thinking I meant rather wholesomely appealing women. D said he'd looked it up and it just meant pretty - I'm not convinced.

Cognitive dissonance though, I'm a bit stronger on. Down to D again. I gave him a book called The Psychology of Military Incompetence which he, an anarchist by leaning, has devoured and praises so highly that he's lent it back to me to try and get through it again.

Cognitive dissonance - which quite often afflicts our martial leaders so the book would lead us to believe - is an inability to cope with a change in circumstances which contradicts the plan of action. In the case of our generals it would appear this often leads to massive tragedy - sending troops to die futile deaths after an objective has become unreachable because the commander simply cannot accept failure is a possibility.

That sounds just like my favourite film, Paths Of Glory, an extraordinarily moving account of an episode in the First World War in which French troops are tried for cowardice for failing to take an enemy position against impossible odds. I get the feeling the First World War is filled with cognitive dissonance, and on Armistice Day it seems right to mourn all those who have died in war, whether the reasons have been given a fancy psychological name or not.

My cognitive dissonance is of a much smaller order with far lesser consequences, but I'm sure when I get round to reading this fascinating tome of which D is such an evangelist I'll discover that the outcomes for individuals with a touch of the old cognitive dissonance are Not Good Things.

So, I'm having trouble matching the man who tells his counsellor so brightly that he's going to do this or that, and the loathsome lethargist who spends most of the next day in bed or sitting, spliff paralysed, by a window or in joyless masturbation (apologies for the unpleasantness, I'm trying to be honest here).

The loathsome lethargist seems to be winning the battle at the moment, so, I've got to make sure he doesn't win the way.

In some ways I think I deal too easily with these dual personas of mine - and do occasionally worry that it could be a sign of a more serious mental health problem. With over-protective parents and terrible social anxiety I've grown quite the expert at appearing to be not what I am - oh, the disguises and deceptions I've played out. And, I think of this as quite natural, to the extent that I believe that if I'm not observed then nothing I do matters at all or has any consequences - at it's crudest level this is why I so often fall apart when Mrs CD is away. There is no reason to appear kempt, clean, engaged.

And, as I said, I feel quite relaxed about this, it's another routine in which I can hide, like not going to the doctors if I can't get there by noon, like always walking the same way to the Community Addiction Unit, like always going there before anywhere else, like always listening to Radio Four on my headphones as I go to sleep and countless, countless others.

Something to be thought of there. And, something to be challenged: my weapons? Well, I'm awaiting my three book prescriptions on self-esteem and if I start to believe I matter then there will be motivation to look after myself, enjoy myself even - God, that would be good, I miss enjoyment and it comes along so rarely now.

Perhaps, as my other two bestest imaginary friends say, I should turn off my mind, relax and float down an octopus's garden in my yellow submarine?

Now, there's a thought.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Cardiff Drunk.

Hello keyboard, whatcha knowing?

It takes such little effort to blog and I know the good it can do for me that I don't know why I don't do it more often.

A rhetorical question that, because I do.

The little effort is a teensy weeny blob of a falsehood. It comes easily once I'm sat here tapping away but getting into this seat with this window open and something to say takes a fair amount of soul searching, which is why - today being an example - I'm much more likely to blog after counselling.

The rhetorical answer to my rhetorical question is that I know why I don't do it more often and it's because I stop myself from doing it. As I know why I screw up so many days by having a recreational cigarette before lunchtime and sending myself into misery - it's me. I do it. It's not alcohol, it's not a symptom, it's a choice which I make.

Now, I'm not about to turn into one of those - what's the word? The word is too rude for a family blog, so I'll leave it at git. One of those gits, who I've seen of late, publicising books claiming that alcoholism and the like are simply bad choices made by bad people.

Nah. That's enormous bollocks of the worst kind - way to attack the 'therapy industry' by the way founders of the anti-therapy industry, you unconscionable feckwits.

However. My recent down - guess the trigger? Mrs CD going away - did precipitate me giving myself a stern talking to about some of the choices I make.

I think getting better is going to have a lot to do with taking more responsibility and making some better choices.

The reasons why I don't do so are simple. Same as the kids round here have the manners of Greek dogs and can only communicate by shouting obscenities - that's what they learn off their parents.

I'm not going to go down the whole miserable childhood path, because my childhood wasn't miserable, but it did leave me with a terrible lack of self worth and belief.

So much for self knowledge. Now, let's change it.

Counselling this morning, so I've got something to work on. My task after the last session was to try and get through a structured day, which I haven't managed to do so there was a fair amount of talk of regret and self-loathing as ever.

But my counsellor is a star and she gets me onto practical solutions - this is cracking and quite new to me. I want to get better and I'm starting to take little staggers towards it.

I haven't managed to get through a day, so let's try changing one little thing - my sitting in the moping seat first thing every morning. Change that. One little piece of the huge framework of safety catches, routines, time-tabling, avoidance and rituals that makes me feel safe - miserable, but miserable and safe.

So. I'm on it.

I've also been given a book prescription list. I've written about this before - I think the scheme is gaining popularity - and I'm enthused again.

Sadly, I went to the library and successfully ordered my three books on a better self-esteem before browsing and spending a good half hour reading a couple of books on societal breakdown and yob culture which left me fearing for my safety on the streets again.

Hey ho. At least it was different.

Back soon, cos this is good for me. And, I'm playing football tonight too, which is also good for me. Hells bells, I'll be prime minsiter by this time next week.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Cardiff Drunk.

Four days lost

Just checking in and I see I haven't blogged for four days, which is fine, although not quite the once-a-day I'd planned for.

Not a disaster though.

My down has continued a little and last night I managed to explain it to Mrs CD a little - hey, perhaps I should try talking to real people more and put less emphasis on spieling at you imaginary friends out there? Just a thought - which I think helped. Talking's good we're learning.

I'm pretty sure of the reasons for this blip. They are:

• The weather and changing seasons. It's been pretty good lately, but Autumn's coming on and we lost an hour of daylight this week as the clocks went back. The grey skies and early evening haven't helped.
• Five months of being sober. The euphoria has definitely passed and now you're left with both the 'what now' and also the 'what have I done'. We all know the hangover version, but when you come round from more than 20 years on the pop it's a bit bigger than that. I'm awake in my life, looking round somewhat bewildered and having to take stock of where I am, what I am and so on. A lot of it, it nearly went without saying, is regretful and that's tough to deal with.
• Five months of being sober, b. I miss it. Of course I do, it's been my love, my everyday and my extraordinary for so long. I know I need to try and fill that gap and I'm obviously not completely there yet. I've also used drink as a means of escaping the responsibilities and realities of life; now they're here and I have to deal with them - or try to - and I'm not used to it. My benefit is constantly being withdrawn and reinstated and I have to complete an appeal for example. Undoubtedly, I am getting better at this and practice will continue to move me further towards perfect but the short of is that at the moment, I'm not very good at anything - which is no natural high.
• I'm doing a fair amount of unpaid writing at the moment - experience and with the possibility of going into business in that way - and It's starting to feel like a pressure. I feel guilty when I'm not at it, this weight isn't lightened any by my partner in the proposed business, who is at it 24-hours-a-day; it's his obsession.
• Counselling. I now accept that this is doing me good. I also accept that my depression is to a great degree in my own hands. I have to make changes in order to, for want of a better word, defeat it. This is painful, it's a healing pain but it hurts just the same. I'm wallowing around in my past and coming up with the deficits in my character and personality - try it, it's not big smiles.
• I'm lonely. I'm new in Cardiff and don't have many friends and I've started to get into a bit of a rut. My old rut was lubricated with a big old stream of high strength lager and involved a fair amount of social interaction. The new one has less. I spend too much time at home, and in trying to get into a routine I've quite limited myself. I'm either staring at this screen or meeting people involved with my treatment. Playing football should help, but it's obvious my new sportsmates' primary social environment is the pub.

I managed to snap myself out of it yesterday. I'd been out in the morning but come home had tea and stupidly had a spliff (see self-inflicted damage vols 1-1,000,000) and got on with my computery business and just got stuck there. I finally came out of it at about 7.30pm (Mrs CD has been working late a lot lately - add that to the above list) and forced myself to make a nice meal, that helped - smoked mackerel fish cakes with stir fried vegetables as you ask.

I apologise if this blog is getting rather tedious at the moment - that's the nature of my life at the moment. Attempt, fail, attempt again. Treadmills used to be a punishment for a good reason.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

And another thing

A very good thing happened last week and I forgot all about it. I've started playing football - in the pouring rain first time out. This is an overwhelmingly positive thing. Excercise produces endorphins, it's social and it's pleasure.

I'm signed up to be a regular player every Tuesday night, which will help with my routine building and building a sense of responsibility and I hope it'll decrease my feeling of physical fear.

Yes, football is a good medicine. They're a nice set of lads, it's a friendly game at just about the right standard for me. I'll try and stay on for a drink afterwards next week - I've even been told that one of the players is a freelance journalist who might be a good contact.

I've also asked my doctor to sign me as fit to work from November 1, the date my partner and I set for starting trading in our web business - there's lots to do and I alternate between extremely high hopes and blank fear. I'm working away quite busily on what we can do in advance and well, I'll let you know. I've got so much that I want to do - writing for publication, working on a novel, doing more of my music, running this website on a commercial basis and so on - that I end up paralysed and doing nothing.

I feel the latter right now. Hopefully, tomorrow will help me feel more of the former. I'm apprehensive because it's half-term next week and halloween, with fireworks night to come, giving the local feral youth plenty of opportunities for mischief - paranoia of course, they're really harmless, just a pain who need something useful to fill their time.

It'll be my five month sober birthday next week too. I committed myself to six months sober, but on advice, I'm going to stay on antabuse for at least another month to get me over the holiday season of good cheer and all day drinking to all men - I bet Jesus would be thrilled - and then we'll see. I haven't got my head around the concept of complete sobriety forever and hope that I'll have made enough changes to my mind, my basic being, my whole identity, that I'll be able to use drink (and all drinkers use it - it's a drug and has those effects) as others do, as a pleasant social lubricant. I need to be in a position where I don't need it as an escape from a life I cannot face, because if I start to experiment with it in that state, disaster will befall me - seeking the safety and warmth I can't find in myself in a glass.

Right, I'm going to have a bath and take my pills and watch Match of the Day - football again - and get some sleep. I really feel exhausted and dispirited, but rather than wanting sleep to make life go away I want it so I can start tomorrow.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Love, the Cardiff Drunk.

Counselling - part two

The second part of my homework is much more practical - to build a framework for this new life.

I explained to my counsellor the trouble I have motivating myself and the time I waste in bed just moping and self-loathing.

She has suggested getting into a routine.

I've made my first attempt and failed, but I'm under strict orders not to let this get me down, so I'll try again. The first attempt was stymied by what we'll cause the usual, dope and lethargy. It's another hangover (ahem) from being over-protected as child and having my life so run for me - I'll do stuff when other people tell me too but when that is removed it's as if a great weight has been lifted and I go into massive self-indulgence.

This is a good start though. Trying to get into a simple routine for myself - getting up, getting through a day doing what has to be done - really simple things like eating three meals, washing up, putting things away. I reall am a child, more than a child in fact, I'm a baby, and I need to learn the whole living thing from the bottom up. Now, feeling a bit low, it feels very hard - a baby is safe and coddled and protected and spoiled and doesn't have to worry about anything.

Tomorrow's a good chance because I have to go out to go to a business course, so I have to leave the lovely warmth of my bed early and do something. In fact, I've got a couple of these courses this week, so I should be quite busy, it's trying to keep that going once I'm home. With my ambition being to run my own business as a freelance writer that's going to be important - it's all down to you after all.

We shall see.

One routine I could get into - and I've written this so many times I've lost count - would be to make half-an-hour every day to update this li'l ol' blog of mine.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Love Cardiff Drunk.

Counselling again - part one

Councelling continues to go well, and I've split the last session into two parts, because my homework from my counsellor is in two parts, and you know me - I just go on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

We talked about my mood, and the fact that I had gone into a down when Mrs CD went away - went to bed for a couple of days in fact. It's not so bad, and I'm not drinking which is a good thing.

My mood's very volatile at the moment, I alternate between huge self-confidence (rather vainglorious really) about my future and finding work and so on and black, black, black depression.

I've gone into a down just now to be honest - the result of going to the shop past the local depressing kids. They don't do or say anything to me, they just exude an air of stupidity and pointlessness and lack of respect for anything or anyone.

Hey ho. Stupid I know.

I also just watched a Youtube documentary on racism, which wasn't such a cracking idea I think. He and again ho again.

Well, the talk at counselling is about connecting with my emotions again. They're locked away you see - I was never encouraged to express emotion as a child and I need to turn my thoughts off in order to feel, in order to feel real pleasure, or pain or happiness even. I'd love to get angry once in a while, but I just can't.

So, I've been given an exercise. Get in touch with them through film - it's a nice idea from my counsellor (writing's another one) - who sees it as a safe way to reopen those pathways. Watch some sad films, watch some funny shows, have a good cry and a laugh.

We'll see how that goes. I've just watched a film - not a particularly sad one - and managed a tear when the antihero died (it was This Gun for Sale, with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, based on the Graham Greene novel). I'll have to try laughter soon.

I'm too bottled up; that's the problem. Encouraged to be quiet and not make a fuss and be ultra polite and care about others more than myself. And, then, as I grew up I learned to keep myself secret - the things that became mine were things my parents disapproved of - drinking, smoking, drugs. Now, I see they're not the greatest things in the world, as I once thought they were, but they were mine, my own independent life and my whole identity. This world was secret and I became adept at keeping it so and this persists - I'm good at lying (not a pleasant thing to admit), hiding things and appearing as people wish me to appear.

I'm annoyed now - angry with myself and determined to find a new me who isn't like this. I don't have any old model to look back on because there's never been one, just a long history of shite.

Oh well. We're learning to improve these things and it's slow but steady I hope. A couple of months ago I wouldn't have gone outside at all for fear of these people, now I just walk past them but today has shown I need to do an awful lot more to build my confidence and my sense of self.

There may be troubles ahead... Finding a new self... Why I write this bobbins...

Friday, and blogging again already, wow, that's good. Although I can remember the days when I used to do this once a day.

Anyway. A good couple of days after a bit of a down - important times ahead though.

Thursday I went to counselling, which was great, really productive. I've talked more about my lack of self-esteem, self-respect, self-confidence and indeed self and also my inability to cope with or express my emotions - I consider them my enemy.

And, I did manage to ask my question: Does this work? Well, my counsellor said yes, but then she would say that wouldn't she. But, I agree. I've seen what it can do already, my confidence has been improved by visualising a metal ball as my core - silly isn't it, but it's worked, and by constant, nagging, mantra-like repetition of the belief that I do not need to fear, I have reduced my fear.

My next task - should I agree to accept it (and I think I did) is to unleash those emotions and, baby, I'm looking forward to it. I'd love to feel, what's it like?

Sometimes when writing this I have a real sense of my own ridiculousness. I'm extremely pleased and proud that 15 people 'follow' this blog (hello, I love you!) and so get little updates every time I post, but what the flibbety gibbet does my w*****g on about counselling sessions achieve?

Well, I always wanted to be honest in doing this, and, although it sounds ridiculously self-aggrandising, I'd love people to find some help from this. I felt very alone for a long time and found the best help I'd had to that point on a website with a forum - it's called Brighteyes and it's on my sidebar - for drinkers. I've also found strength in the writings of others, more than from any of the self-help (self is the word of the day, 50 uses and I win a tin star with a picture of David Cameron on it) book I tried. So, do say hello if you're reading this, it's great for my ego if nothing else.

And, if you're looking at blogs about alcohol and depression because those twin seven-sided bastards are on your case, I hope you do get some hope from this - I now firmly believe that it's kind of in my hands and it'll be in yours too. The treatment I've received I believe is typical of what you'll get on the NHS in the UK and the main plank of it is going to be counselling.

That's one of the reasons I asked the doctor this morning about coming off antidepressants, and the lady at the Community Addiction Unit (CAU) about coming off Antabuse and trying social drinking again - again is a misnomer, I've never drunk socially or sensibly.

The doctor urged me to at least complete the six months on antabuse that is the usual course before thinking about tailing off the Trazadone - and then probably not until the new year. The CAU lady was even more cautious, advising considering extending the Antabuse course until the new year because of our delightful national habit of celebrating the birth of a now little-regarded religious figure (whose chief message was, so it seems to me, to turn our backs on material things and seek joy in a life of love and its promulgation) by drinking like lunatics and consuming, consuming, consuming.

We shall see.

I feel positive now and hopeful that the changes in my personality that are going on will be GOOD, will be MIGHTY, and will be PERMANENT. Essentially that I'll be a new person. Now, that would be cool - a whole new life.

The interesting times I refer to above are Mrs CD impending departure for foreign shores, leaving me to my own devices for getting of for two weeks - my parents will harass me to visit them, or for them to visit here, but, largely I'll be alone.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Cardiff Drunk (four months sober yesterday.)

It also helps me and maybe it will help you

Antabuse works! But, does it have its dangers?

I can now say officially that Antabuse works.

I don't mean that of course, I'm not an official of anything, barely even the boss of me and I don't wear a uniform or have a clip board.

What I mean to say is that I accidentally ingested some alcohol - nearly a week ago now, last Friday - and the Antabuse in my system reacted badly to it in the promised way.

We had someone over for dinner and Mrs CD cooked. I remember her asking if anyone minded if she put some wine in the sauce (our guest had a couple of food allergies) and no-one did. Least of all me, I believed it would be cooked off.

Sadly, dear reader, it was not.

So. Later that evening my heart started to race. I did notice it at the time, but didn't pay it too much attention. I'd had a couple of spliffs and found the experience of having a guest over (both she and Mrs CD drank a bit of wine and got a bit tiddly) nerve wracking.

In the morning however, it was obvious that this was more than a passing little bit of physical silliness.

I woke up with the racing heart still racing and a headache. I went downstairs to make a cup of tea for us both and the effort made me light-headed and shaky. Mrs CD tried to take my pulse when I told her and reported that it was too irregular to count.

I must admit I wasn't overly concerned. Apart from anything, I pay my physical health very little regard and, through all the years of drinking as much as anything, I'm used to being in bad physical state - it's my default setting. But, we did phone NHS direct, who were very nice and said if it got any worse we should call an ambulance.

It didn't, so we didn't.

It had passed by Sunday and on Monday I had the strange feeling of being hungover.

I mentioned this to my website pal when I went round - it put me out of action for a whole day after all - and he popped Antabuse into google and got up the wikipedia page.

It turns out that Antabuse stops the breakdown of dopamine too. I am not a chemist, I'm not very much, but I am starting to get more and more wary of the stuff that's going on in my brain and wondering if it's part of the reason that I feel so grey and flat and emotionless at the minute.

My brain is being treated by Antabuse (as it turns out); Trazadone (a sort of SSRI antidepressant), and Campral, and I don't have any emotions! Really, that's how it feels - I've spoken about it in counselling in terms of my lack of anger about anything, and recently my lack of pleasure in anything, and it's put down to the things the rest of my addiction is put down to - stuff from childhood. But, maybe there's a chemical thing too. I wonder what it's like to not f**k up your brain chemistry, to just have the natural stuff in there? I wonder, because I don't know - I've been taking antidepressants for a dozen years.

I'd like to find out. I'd like to be normal.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

At the lip of the slough of despond.

I've never been to Slough (which may have been unfairly maligned in all sorts of way), I have been to despond quite regularly and I don't wish to go there again, have I ever been to me? Not sure, I'm working on it in counselling... In fact, I think I have - I spend a fair amount of time thinking about how terrible/awful/cowardly/stupid/pointless and so on and so on I am, and, I've thought a good deal about how to change that.

I did go into a down recently. People who read this at all regularly will be unsurprised that it coincided with MRS Cardiff Drunk going away for work again.

I haven't drunk, so that's a good thing. But I overdid it on the wacky backy (I was at the Community Addiction Unit this morning and got talking to a lad who was weaning himself off Cider, and, with the help of an increased marijuana intake, he reckoned, had got down from 16 pints a day to four or five) and got lazy and scared again.

Idiot!

Not as scared as I have been actually and here I can see that the work I do after counselling does have some effect, so a plus point in the 'does it work' debate. Constantly visualising myself as having a strong core really is helping. In anxiety terms I'm not so bad.

But dope makes you introverted and makes your thoughts more important - that's the effect on me anyway, others claim to be immune and we're all our own unique little balls of chemicals and neurons and string and paper aren't we. So, it's ergo, a bad thing for me, who is far too inclined that way.

I slipped into that slough for a couple of days and was coming out of it today - getting out of bed, going down to the CAU to take my Antabuse, doing some shopping, feeling a bit busy - until some loon shouted at me from a passing car. It happened a few weeks ago too, when Mrs CD and I were walking along a busy main road near here. Now, I'm pretty convinced that this was the same car and I'm wracking my brains as to who I might have offended. It's not great, but I could cope with a bit of random abuse and put it down to idiocy, but why twice? I haven't come into contact with anyone who, offended by me, would act in such a manner. All I can do is hope it goes away, but it's a tiny little piece of grit in my pearl.

So, I do feel better today and I have counselling tomorrow, which I'm looking forward to. My homework was to be more assertive in my day to day life, which I don't know if I've achieved.

I think I'm going to go back to the does it work question with my counsellor - we've come to a fair few conclusions about the whys of my addictive behaviour, and I think I know a couple more I've kept to myself, but I really want to know that it works.

This post is going on a little bit, so I shall consign my other two thoughts (that's a lot for me) to another post.

If you spent it, thank you for your time - if you're struggling with something you have my love. Leave a comment, I do try and reply when I can.

Nos da.

I haven't drunk anything - er, that's it really.

I haven't been on here much of late. That's a bad thing in its way but not a disaster - I enjoy writing this and it feels like useful therapy. When I can't face it, that means there's something going on I can't face - facing things, we have been told, is a good thing.

I haven't drunk, I'm still sober. I haven't come close to drinking; I still think about it every day - the taste, the warmth, the freedom from fear.

My work on anxiety has gone on pretty well, I'm visualising myself as a super powerful metal ball and forswearing strong coffee has been a great success. The local children are much less a source of absolute, go-back-to-bed misery. They still make me jumpy, but I'm learning to cope with that.

Mrs CD went away last week - the first in a series of trips off - and I survived OK. I kept what appointments I had and took my medication with a decent amount of regularity. I cooked for myself and tried to keep busy. I wasted too much time in marijuana-monged, not quite misery, but nothingness and I need to watch myself with dope - you name it, I'll overdo it.

I've also had another counselling session since I've been here and that too continues to be useful and productive. My homework this time was to be more assertive of my own needs in my relationship with Mrs CD. Have I done much on this? No, not really. It's tough, I'm so grateful to her for her support and love that I don't want to deny her anything; usually that's OK, but it does mean going along with stuff I'm not so enamoured of - nothing like slaughtering whales when I don't think you should slaughter whales, just little things.

I'm looking forward to the next session. I always come out a little drained, in a good way, and feeling I've talked about something that I needed to talk about. I've been busy-ish on my other blog - the one that might become a business at some point, but I find myself shying away from it too much - thinking I'm not up to it and therefore not even trying anything.

There we go, quite a long way of saying I haven't drunk anything.

If you spent it, thank you for your time and I hope you're good too.

Hey, what's that noise

I'd say I'm going along pretty well at the moment. Considering. Considering what? Considering that I only stopped drinking three months and a few days ago.

I'm still jittery as hell and fearful and I still have up and down days - Rome wasn't built in a day and if it had have been it would have been crap and we wouldn't be making proverbs out of it.

I still don't like noises in the street. I still probably smoke too much dope - any dope may well be too much dope. Should I worry about this? I do, of course, and when I'm having a bad time with my nerves and racing thoughts then I worry about it and swear I won't smoke so much. And yet I do. Part of me justifies this as nothing too bad - nobody, or not many people, are completely clean and sober and it was drink I was physically addicted too. I know there's a basic human need to alter consciousness and I probably need to indulge it in some way or another. My intake is modest but it's quite routine now and not related to any particular ceremony or treat. We shall see how things go on that - alcohol and coffee gone, will I make it three?

I'm kind of looking forward to going to counselling. It's opened up something in me and I want to find out more. What I really want to know is will it work? There's something pretty clear we've identified, a deep-seated lack of self worth which almost certainly has its routes in my childhood. But does knowing this - which I guess on a subconscious level I already knew - make it go away. Is there a catharsis in which all that changes - poof, as if by magic. I f*****g hope so, that would be cracking - going through some sort of tearful door and walking out the other side with the self worth that should be there, with the wall to expressing any feeling, emotion, opinion or even acknowledgement of my own existence and importance as an individual broken down.

I'm guessing it doesn't work like that. I'm guessing I have to build that myself, which is fair enough, but it seems like quite a process at the moment; a long road to walk and I don't know if I have the energy for that.

I'm going to ask. I've managed to be more honest with this counsellor than I have before. I'm thinking about what I say rather than saying what I think she wants to hear.

This seems to be a post quite like life at the moment. Not a great deal of point to it really but quite slow and thoughtful. I think I'm marking today down as a bit of a low one really. I hope tomorrow is better. It usually is and I'm usually better in the mornings, then the day just seems to slip downhill somehow.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Cardiff Drunk.

Better times

Things have improved here at Cardiff Drunk Towers.

Stopping the coffee has been a big thing. A very big thing indeed. I'm writing this with a cup of green tea at my side, so I certainly haven't forsworn all caffeine, but ditching the enormous pot of syrupy black stuff with which I used to start each day has been so beneficial.

I've got more energy, I sleep better, I'm avoiding the hideous jitters that used to plague me, and Mrs CD has been delighted to note that the bags under my eyes have gone.

There's also been a circumstantial change that has made a huge, in fact the biggest, difference, and that is that the kids have gone. Where they've gone I don't know, but gone they have and that's fantastic. There are still kids around, of course, and still noisy and I still have to walk past them in the street, but apart from a flutter there's not much for me to deal with.

I've been back to counselling too and had another good session. A lot of it relates back to my childhood, when I got this idea of my own personal worthlessness - how this is defeated I don't know. But, I've done some good positive work with visualising - I was skeptical about this but it's working.

I initially chose a tree as the image of my inner core but that changed to a shiny steel ball. I don't really know why; it just came naturally and I guess subconsciously.

I've also done a little exercise. Nothing major, but more regular than I have done in the past. So, I now do 15 press ups-a-day. There's a big test for me today. I've been talking about going to a martial arts class for a while - talking and talking in fact - and this time I've gone as far as phoning an Aikido guy and tonight's the night of the class. Will I make it? My counsellor asked me how likely I thought it was that I would go - I said 50 - 60% and I reckon that still stands. My worries are about meeting new people and going out at night - which, up to now I've largely avoided.

I also stopped smoking dope for a few days when my nerves were at their worst but now I'm puffing again. In fact, I had a bad weekend in that respect - Mrs CD was away and that's always been a signal for binging while drinking. Nothing bad happened, apart from the fact that I was rather lazier than I should have been. I still ate properly and took my medication but I have to avoid this now I think. Mrs CD is away quite a bit over the next few months and, if I am to be able to say that I'm getting better and working hard at it in order to make a new life then I can't have times like these when I switch off my life and indulge myself.

I'm also keen to get into more of a routine. The website work is becoming quite an issue - there's simply too much of it for me to manage and I run away from it too easily thinking it's a big scary thing. But the web guy and I are now meeting regularly and looking at ways we can make a business out of this that might pay us both. In fact, tomorrow, we're both at a business start up course which is exciting.

I've also been asked to do some writing for another project - an exciting new sort of political movement. I've so far just managed to get myself into a tizzy about all this, but, hopefully we'll see the improvements continuing, and, if I make it Aikido class tonight I think I'll really have something to congratulate myself for - the obverse must not result in too much in the way of self-recrimination.

Mrs CD seems almost blissfully happy with how things are going with us and I'm quite a good house husband, keeping on top of washing, washing up and bits of cleaning. Next weekend we're going to try and move some stuff around to give me a proper office in which to work.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

What anxiety is doing to me.

I want to be sick. Right now, I want to throw up and it's all because of anxiety.

I spoke in my last post about what counselling had dug up - a heart, not even of glass, but of nothing. Now the counsellor said that the amount of skill and energy I devote to my anxiety shows that, in fact, I am at least a capable person. Building that core is going take time and I've only just started.

So, at the moment, I am trapped in anxiety hell.

First of all, I should make clear, some of this anxiety is rational, the consequences I create are not. It has a very specific focus at that moment but I've always been anxious around other people and feared them to a degree that is out of all proportion to any real threat.

This fear, of course, is much worse in cities simply because there are more people.

At the moment my focus is entirely on a group of kids who gather and play in our street; I would guess they range in age from six to 11. The rational part of my fear is that they are bad, nasty, naughty kids (or so I have convinced myself, maybe I am wrong and they're just mischievous and noisy). However, I know that they roam the streets till around 10pm or 11pm each night. I know their language is appalling, that they bully each other and fight terribly, that they throw rubbish wherever they feel like throwing it, including our garden and that a couple of them I've seen getting up to other stuff like throwing stones at people's doors. They run in and out of people's gardens, ride their bikes like lunatics up and down the pavements and basically show no consideration for anyone. Their only means of communication is screaming; which like everything else they get from their parents.

You'll see already what anxiety is doing to me. How much time I've wasted on these kids and what they do. And that's what it's doing to me - it's eating my life.

It's the consequences I create that are the reason that I am so upset by this. If they shout at me (as they have not, as they show no signs of doing) I believe I will be destroyed. It's hard to describe what I mean by destroyed beyond what it says on the tin - I will in some important way cease to exist. My mind races on to this conclusion without regard to logic or evidence, something like this: they will shout at me, I will shout back, they will follow me shouting this abuse, they will follow me home, I will be forced to confront them and say 'shut up' they will wait outside the house shouting this abuse and throwing stones at the door and window and what? And, blackness. I can't imagine anything or describe it as anything other than destruction, inside I know I mean running home to my parents, losing my relationship and any good I had done in my life, and a suicide attempt is likely.

I'm paranoid. I won't go in the front room without the blinds down. Whenever I go out - and it takes a while to get up the courage to do this - I scan for them everywhere. This is bringing me to their attention because I'm always looking at them and in my mind I believe they can sense my fear and will therefore see their prey. I go through an elaborate mental dance each time I have to walk past them - should I cross the road early, possibly showing fear, should I carry on and possibly invite words, should I try and say 'all right' to them in the vain hope they will like me (this pathetic craven belief has been with me for a long time; as a child I sought the approval of bullies in a desperate attempt to escape being their victim - the upshot, I made lots of crap friends.)

So, this is killing my life and endangering my recovery. I have no appetite and I often feel sick. I'm putting a lot of things off limits and I'm exhausted all the time for this expending constant nervous energy. It is upsetting Mrs CD and spoiling our relationship. I'm getting headaches. It takes me ages of psyching to get out of the house and when I do I stay out all day stopping me getting on with my volunteering on the computer, I shelter naturally in the pub and that's not a good thing.

But, I am fighting it. First of all, I have started repeating mantra-like to myself that I am strong and using the visualisation techniques I've been taught. I am forcing myself to do what I have to do. I am turning up radios and television in the house so I simply don't have to hear their noise. Today, I've gone cold turkey on caffeine, which is why I currently have a splitting headache.

It's hard and it's dangerous and it will take a long time. This helps. I have historically used alcohol to self-medicate for anxiety, but I've never really had it this badly - when I was drunk and living here I didn't notice them so much. It has got worse lately as two little groups have made friends and they gather round our neighbours' house.

I want a drink so badly and were I not on antabuse I would have had one by now. (I typed one, that's ridiculous, I would have drunk myself insensible).

The struggle continues. I have good times too, but they are getting increasingly fleeting.

Counselling again - a much better experience.

I'm back in counselling, through the Cardiff Alcohol and Drugs Team (CADT). My last experience was bad: alienating and even damaging to my mental health, although the caveat must be added that I was drinking and fighting a fruitless and painful battle to control it.

This time has started better. I went on Thursday and saw a very nice lady who had given me my assessment interview. I was amazed at the speed at which things happened and how skillfully she guided the conversation.

Initially, she just asked me how I was. I told her I thought that the entirely positive golden days of early sobriety were passed and my anxiety was ramping up and endangering my sobriety, because my way of dealing with fear is to drown it and it works, in the moment as my counsellor said.

From there it went so quickly that I'm struggling to recall the session properly. I'm sure she asked me what the cause of my anxiety was - I told her about the noisy local children. She asked me what I was scared of - I told her I feared being mocked. She asked me what would happen, what could be the worst thing that could happen in that event - I said I would be destroyed, my being would vanish.

Again, it was so fast and so emotional - and I've waited an unpardonable three days before blogging it - I can't recall everything, but, I broke down when she asked me to start visualising. See yourself as a little child she said - and that was enough, I broke down, describing how scared that little child was. "No-one ever told him things would be safe and it would be alright," she said. And it was true so I cried.

Before long I was visualising the children. I told he I would think of them as angry chimpanzees turning on one of their own number, bullying and victimising. She asked me to think of a more positive image and we agreed on baby orang utans playing. As to myself. My inner core became dust - nothing, blown away in an instant by the slightest breath of wind, by any criticism or mockery or conflict or abuse.

And that's my homework. To work on visualising myself as having a stronger sense of my own worth. And, that will take time. I have tried however, trying to tell myself my core is first a tree (what we agreed on in the session) and more recently as a metal ball and I'm trying to work on it. She pointed out that my constant monitoring of the world for threats was, in itself, a capability of a sort - a debilitating and exhausting one but one requiring some sort of skill.

This may sound ridiculous, particularly to those who don't have much time for counselling and who will find all this talk of trees and orang utans ridiculous, but to me it felt enormously powerful.

As a result, I've had a bit of an emotional week. My anxiety hasn't of course vanished, like my dusty inner core, but I felt those tears presaged some breakthrough and I know that my self-image is the one thing I have to change if I am ever going to learn to live in this world without smashing my self out with drugs or alcohol, if I am able to live without fear being my constant companion.

Ever since I can remember I have wanted not to be myself, to alter my consciousness in whatever way I possibly can. As a child by spinning, then by hyper ventilating, then by drinking, later with drugs. So, I need to go back to that to sort this all out - and it's going to be frooking hard, but it feels like the start of something.

I got myself a book on meditation out of the library and have collected another couple of numbers for martial arts groups - a way of building self-confidence. So far no call has been made, but I've made the first steps in meditation and Mrs CD very kindly just gave me a very calming massage. Both of which helped in a small way.

Because it's there and it's a real danger that could so easily push me to breakdown. The noise of children has already made me far too ready to leave the house and stay out all day to escape their noise and their conflict, and I often shelter in the pub. I do sincerely believe that a certain amount of altering of the consciousness is an entirely natural and healthy thing and maybe something like that will come through meditation. My other alternatives of choice - coffee and marijuana are starting to assume damaging characteristics. Coffee you might thing is nothing, but the amount and strength of it I drink is quite enough to cause a high - it's a cause of anxiety, so I'm an idiot inflicting pain on myself. I'm so nervous already that a spliff brings the terror of paranoia to the table, added to coffee and I'm off to the bath (the quietest room in the house) and then to bed. It's a shame, but in this state I really can't be doing with it - my intake is incredibly minimal, especially compared to my friends, but it's going to have to get lesser still.

So, a good start and two weeks to work on what I've learned about myself.