Brightness. Badness.

Yesterday's good stuff did leech into today. The full schedule, the physical exercise, the social contact and the reduced dose of Trazadone made my start to the day as bright as it has been for a long time.

The sun shone too and I was up fairly early, not long after 9am. I made it out too, and there was where the feeling of well-being really hit me: I was much less nervous of my surroundings than I usually am. Mornings are the best time around here anything, the people who are likely to cause me anxiety - young people, dodgy looking people, are either asleep or in school.

My mood does go up and down through the day and generally follows this pattern. Lets say this is a good day - there are days when there is no variation at all, it's just down - one where I manage to get out of bed properly and get about my business.

I start the day feeling pretty bright and this will continue until I have a low around 3 or 4pm. This coincides with kids coming home from school and I think I've learned to be anxious and fearful around this time. It's just struck me that another learned pattern may be contributing, and that is a drinking pattern. Around 4pm I'd have to start thinking about leaving the pub and returning home to make dinner for Mrs CD. I generally get a bit of an up in the evening too at around 8pm when I get a feeling that there's not going to be any need to leave the house again and that I am safe. Sadly, the day usually ends on a low after staring too long at a computer and knowing that going to bed at 11.30pm means at least an hour of listening to the SSFIs next door.

I'm still pretty bright, but, of course, I've done my best to sabotage it by having a spliff (something that was notable for its absence from yesterday's busy programme). Learn from this Cardiff Drunk, learn from it.

Counselling, my great hope

"You can't expect to well every day, you just have to try and do well more days than not."

That's what Mrs CD just said to me. She's a wise old fish isn't she? I envy her sense of perspective. I'm quite tired now, and I haven't even taken my tablets yet, I don't know why I'm even sitting and starring at this stupid screen. I've got nothing to say, except I hate the SSFIs next door, and that I don't need another spliff but I'm about to have one.

Nighty night sweethearts.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Cardiff Drunk.

Here brain, here!...

I could probably, at a very long stretch, say I'm a good multi-tasker, but the reality is probably that my magpie mind has a magpie mind (smaller I presume) all of its own.

I can't do one thing at once. Simply can't. I always have to be listening to something, or doodling at something, or playing at something, or something at the same time as I try to read or write or work.

I'd love to have a calmer mind you know. It has served me well and the hustle bustle world of knowing a little about a hell of a lot of things of the journalist was where it really came into its own.

In these less busy times however, it's got a tendency to be a bit of an enemy (I did once write a line in a song which talked about being 'At war with your own mind' - don't worry, you'll never have to hear it). It's got a lot to do with my anxiety - I'm always scanning for danger, looking ahead, preparing a defensive response, looking for exits, preparing my excuses. But with nothing to fill it's time it gets nasty, the negative voice in my head is the result of too much time to think. The feeding this negative unicourse (new word ok - I didn't want to say monologue, cos there's definitely an argument of sorts going on) gets from my canabis intake is another debit mark for my current drug of choice - the case against is becomes compelling, but then I've known that for a while - perhaps telling the blog is a way of moving closer towards actual action.

I always said that staying sober would require me to be busy. And, I haven't done all that well at that. I do have things to do, but when my mind is freed from drink it runs around like a lunatic looking for twenty exciting, compelling, things that are going to make my life fantastic. Faced with all of them, I do nothing, then I hate myself for doing nothing.

Meditation is one of the many things I put on that list to do and it's something that might well help me calm my mind - I've got the book... I've got the time... Really, I've got no excuses.

So, what's stopping me? See above.

If you spent it, thank you for your time,

The Cardiff Drunk - I really loves you man, yer me bessht mate

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.

So now what?

Being an experienced detoxer, I like to think I'm fairly aware of the snares of sobriety, that is those things likely to spark a relapse. And, I feel one of them now.

I've arsed on and on about boredom and anxiety being my chief enemies and they're playing their part in the sheer ordinary complication of real life. That's the danger. Good lord it can be dull being sober. Don't misunderstand me, if ever a routine was deadening, limiting and dull it was my drinking routine. My mind loved it though, my mind was in a safe place.

I told one of the nurses in hospital that I used drink as a way to run away from real life - to avoid responsibility. "You've got a head start by admitting that," she said. (I was, and remain, a fervent self-analyser so can come up with this stuff like falling off a log).

Maybe so. And, now I've stopped running, here is real life in all its crushingly tedious monochrome.

That's why cannabis is a danger - forced to face what we'll just call stuff for now, it's another escape and I give in far too easily to its temptations. That it's not physically addictive and one doesn't wake with a terrible hangover gives dope at least two positives over alcohol - but my character is still that of an addict to escape and altering of consciousness and that's what it is, another means towards fleeing.

I mentioned all this to the nurse when I went to take my Antabuse at the Community Addiction Unit yesterday. "The novelty's wearing off," I said. "I need to find something to do."

She recognised the pattern straight away. "There's a real feeling of invincibility when you first detox," she said.

And it is that which is leaving me. Her chief suggestion was the Therapeutic Day Programme, which I completed, for the second time in hospital. I'm also on the list for counselling with the Cardiff Alcohol and Drugs Team, a possibly double-edged sword I'm rather wary about.

So. There is danger and there needs to be action. There needs to be a change beyond, I'm not drunk.

So, that is what I'm trying to do. The nuts and bolts of life I'm coping relatively well with. I've just finished the washing up, put away a load of dried laundry and cleaned the house - tasks which might as well have been the finding of the Holy Grail and the slaying of several particularly tetchy dragons to my alcoholic self. I still have a social life - via the pub, but that, counter intuitively, doesn't feel a danger to my sobriety. So now, that emptiness needs some filling up.

I've got my volunteering once a week, for two hours. I've got my appointments, at the very least three trips out a week, and now I need to write - and do so for money again.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Cardiff Drunk.

A couple of days off air in the smoke... Very much better ta.

Drunk in Cardiff went off air for a couple of days there. Silence. Of all the things I put on pointless lists of what I ought to be doing - every day, every week, this particular day - blogging ought to be the easiest to do. I clucking love it I do and, whatever it might mean to you my lovely 13 or so readers, I do think it's genuinely therapeutic for me. I get stuff out of my head and in the getting do some mulling and such and I love writing so it easily fills time and feels at least useful in a silly old sort of way.

Much more useful than what I did over the last couple of days which was smoke too much dope. D'oh! Nothing too spectacular I should add and I still feel on an upward slope from the bottom of the ditch. However, I did end up doing far too much just sitting around doing sod all. Still, being gently to one's self being the watchword of early recovery - I forgive myself. There, that's that then... This whinge has now ceased to be.

On the Wednesday I had to toddle into town at the unaccustomedly (is that a word? Let's see what dodgy Mr Spellcheck says (Mr Spellchecker say no, Mr Cardiff Drunk say sod yer)) early hour of 10am - I mean, for god's sake, what do they think recovering alcoholics are among Britain's worse at? Enjoyed it really. It feels good to be part of the working, walking world and out of the triangle that my life had become - home - pub - corner shop - home - and getting round a bit more.

The occasion, for it still demands an occasion, was a course at Pathways. Called rather nebulously Directions, it was, in fact, a damn good day's work - well, 10am till 2.30pm is as close to that as I'm likely to get for a while.

As with my little anxiety session, things started well with the course leader (for a dozen of us too-sick-to-workers there was one leader and two 'facilitators', although I think one of them was just sitting in as part of her induction to a slightly different job) telling her own story of depression. As I signed up with a nod to all the confidentiality stuff I won't go into any details, but it was rather moving. As we went round the room we all had similar stories - I think of the 12: one left early, one left at lunch time and of the survivors all but two were there with mental health problems and those with physical ills spoke of similar problems.

It went well enough all things - including my own cynicism - considered. Kind of motivational, kind of self-helpy, a smidgen of positive thinking, a spot of CBT-esque language. I've gone through all this sort of thing before but my own situation is such that I'm so much more open to it now. It helps that the people are coming from the right place - Pathways is proving positive so far, in the preparing you for work, we'll see how touchy feely they are around offers of work and as the time ticks along.

Thursday was OK too. I overslept and missed what should have been my second session of the course, but I've got in touch and they're going to send me some literature. I need another pile of paper to sit next to the other 13, so that's good.

So, I pottered around and did a damn fine clean up in the bathroom - you could indeed eat your dinner off it. C came back from the pub with me to listen to a CD and have a small smoke with a coffee. It went a bit off the rails there - I'm still anxious and jittery enough that cannabis is very much a hit-or-miss mixed blessing. It's probably a good thing, but I'm definitely tending towards paranoia and expecting the neighbours to batter the door down with axes, guns and bits of hosepipe stuffed evilly with the very small, crystalline gravel you can buy in garden centres. So, another area of my life with more moderation in it.

Yes, off the rails, like this very digressionary post (that's got to be a word surely, it's staying whatever Mr so-called Spellchecker says). Got a bit nervey so had a bath and went to bed only to have to get up and eat half a reheated corned beef hash - a taste acquired in hospital.

However, in the be-gentle-with-yourself, all-is-forgiven mood of the moment, I still feel better. Things slip a little but I'm more able to stop myself from total annihilation.

So, yes, I'm very much better ta.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Kerdiv Drunk.

Last night a psychologist saved my life. (A day off).

I was doing pretty well yesterday, until I realised that at the rate I do things I don't have enough time to fit everything I want or need to do in a day. Whoops. Hence no blog. Mr Spliff came-a-calling too, but nothing to major and it hasn't engendered any kind of mental breakdown (yet), so we'll let that one pass.

I had to go into town for another appointment at Pathways, the job service for the mentally challenged. This was an occupational therapy kind of deal and it was the best advice on anxiety I've EVER had in all my years haunting GP surgeries and A&R wards and the like and BEGGING to get them to take me seriously and do something to help me with what I, but apparently no-one else, consider serious mental health problems that need treating. Treatment by the way is not the same as approximately one second's thought and then playing a game of "I've taken that, they took me off it, it made me sick" as you roll through the list of antidepressants.

Well, enough of the whining already.

I went into the little office and the guy, who was much younger than me I think and almost aggressively dapper, asked me where I felt I was and what my problems were. Anxiety is a big one when it comes to getting back to work, I told him and bang, he was off.

I'm going to put in another post on what he taught me, which he called PSYCHO EDUCATION (so I will too, him being the psychologist and all), in that one hour session, so impressed was I with this, to me new set of techniques. And that was key - actual practical things you can do to not feel like this.

The first thing he told me was that he had suffered almost constantly and terribly with anxiety in his late teens so knew what it was like and that these techniques work. I was bowled over.

Sadly, just before I left, he said he was going to have to leave the job fairly soon as he was finding it a little difficult to have to spend such a large part of every day talking about the problem that nearly took his life apart - like me hanging round in the pub all day, I offered. It's a shame because he's very good at it.

He also offered advice on getting over my alcohol problems. He was wary of AA, thinking it rather too guilt-based and also putting yourself at the mercy of other people's moral standards. Don't consider drinking again a failure, he said too, that will only make any slips worse and you've already done something incredible already. (I'm really digging all this praise at the moment - D is always telling me how well I look and how proud I should be of what I've achieved, one of the old guys from the pub said pretty much the same the other day. I'd better take it while I can, it's not going to last forever.)

The rest of the day was slightly disappointing really. I didn't do much more than buy some computer games (only a tenner), have a couple of squashes in the pub, cook some dinner, have a smoke and mooch about till bedtime.

No alarums and no surprises.

If you spent it thank you for your time.

Cardiff Drunk.

PS, I think my spell checker on blogger is still highlighting correctly spelled words, anyone else out there having this problem.

Catching up - National Museum of Wales and a nice Italian

I'm still a post behind, so here's what happened yesterday. If you looking for something particularly diverting you might want to look elsewhere, because little of note happened: no addiction thoughts, progress or crises yesterday.

A gentle sunny day with light rain squalls in Cardiff, and tout de South Wales out in the streets promenading and the like. Mrs CD and I bobbed to the National Museum of Wales to take a squint at their Diane Arbus exhibition. I think they've had a bit of a revamp lately, opening up some new galleries and putting more of their collections on display. Certainly, on a couple of previous visits I felt the building rather overshadowed the exhibits - it's monumental, classically inspired civic architecture. Nothing wrong with that, it's a very nice building, but there seemed a lot in the way of empty space, especially in the massive entrance hall.

I enjoyed the photography. I see, some critics think of Arbus's work as a little exploitative; a freak show. You're certainly stared at a lot by her black and white subjects, who might be generally classed as outsiders and indeed freaks, from the sideshow world of sword swallowers, tattooed men; but also the non-white, the mentally ill, strangely intense looking little children, transvestites and dominatrices. I liked the sharpness of the images and the everyday boredom of their cheap rooms and the parks and squares of New York.

"You can't help thinking about what future they had," Mrs CD said. And, if you did, you wouldn't be imagining an enormously happy world of joy unbounded and success everlasting. But, you did care, and you can't say more than that for a photographer, can you?

We popped into an Italian restaurant afterwards for their cheap lunch special and very nice it was too. Pizza for me, Spaghetti Marinara for Mrs CD. The waiting staff were like dancers, run off their feet but very professional and smiling all the way through an efficiently marshaled lunchtime rush. The rain got up and drove the foolhardy souls who had taken advantage of the outside seating back indoors, all brilliantly handled by the staff, who grabbed their plates and shuffled tables to squeeze them in.

Then home, too late to catch the battle of the incredible Williams sisters. Liver for tea (it's, like, way cheap), a bit of telly and early to bed. My nerves got their usual rattling with a something that went bump in the night: "Someone's throwing things at the door," I panicked, an idea that Mrs CD had no time for, and, who was the voice of reason come the morning? Not Mr Paranoid, but Mrs Calm Reason, who had a fallen ornament to point to rather than my imagined horde of knife wielding night crawlers.

Lessons to be learned. My nerves are still awful and my usual nerve tonic is out of bounds - I drank for armour and I drank for courage - so, I'm just going to have to get used to a life where children scream and shout happily in the street and I don't extrapolate away to some victimisation or attack.

It will come, we must hope for that.

One good thing that's come out of my jangled hyper-sensitive nerves is that I've barely touched a spliff since leaving hospital. What's the point? Where's the joy when you just end up a bag of jelly praying for sleep. No bad thing at all.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

CD.

Silly boy. Not so bad though.

Well, I don't feel too bad after yesterday's escapades.

First to shine a sunny sunbeam on my mood is the fact that I'm getting on top of my eczema (if eczema it really be). I say I, but in accepting this My Skin Is Slightly Better Than It Was Award I would like to thank Mrs Cardiff Drunk, without whom etc.

I'm not hungover either and feel a certain strength from my success in stopping drinking yesterday. I'd always heard rumours and myths about this thing called will-power, but I never really believed in it.

Possibly, things are just getting better for me. Atypical! As Bill and Ted would have it.

I'm not abstinent yet, but my drinking is massively reduced from what it was in November. I'm working: no, I don't always enjoy it, I'm nervous about what will happen when the training ends and the actual work starts and I'd be lying if I said I skipped into work with rubber heels; but it's given me some routine, some non-pub social interaction and maybe even a bit of pride. I'm also getting more on top of other things in my life - I'm better around the house, I'm eating more regularly and healthily and I do get more exercise.

Oh yes, there are long miles yet to be covered and I don't know where they will lead me but I do not feel as if I have plummeted down to the bottom of the chasm again.

The silly part is that I've had a spliff this morning. I picked up a very small amount yesterday and my first act of the day was to smoke a one-skinner. It's not the end of the world but I'm going to try very hard not to get into that habit again.

I went through a phase - when I was last sober particularly - when I smoked an absolutely enormous amount of high-potency weed. It's something I used to enjoy when I was a student but it became part of the problem in the end. There was no real joy in it and paranoia wasn't ever very far away, it increased my isolation and removed my wish to do anything. I don't want to go back there again.

It also makes me lie. I haven't told Mrs CD what I've done and one of the reasons I do it so early in the morning when I do is that I want to be completely cleared up by the time she returns - of course, this evening I have to work so that's another need for a clear head.

So, I really ought to be doing stuff and that's not going to be helpful is it?

Cheers,

CD

On the seventh day God created Brain's bitter.

My six day sober ended today. I am determined not to allow wailing and gnashing of teeth to rule the day however.

I have been to The C, to see D, and once there partook of four pints of Brains Bitter. This started at around 1pm, it is now 8.41pm and I'm pleased to report that's where that particular bout of drinking ended. I'm rather astounded to be honest and, to a degree, proud of what I see as an achievement.

This despite the reflex action that pushed me into the shop to buy four cans of Guinness on the way home. They sit downstairs now, unloved and unquaffed.

I'd be a fool to myself (and when am I not), to see this as much of a good thing however. I really should have stayed off the pop. And, stopping is a chore - at least it feels like it now; and the day is not yet done and those cans are still there.

Nevertheless, I've still drunk substantially less than I have done on previous 'relapses' - less than half the usual in fact, so we'll look at positives here for once.

My skin continues to cause me great concern. I'm using a steroid cream and a simple moisturiser. The steroid thins the skin and, I'm sorry to say, I must have been over applying it to my hands, which are the worst victims of this bloody awful rash/eczema/whatever. They're permanently red and irritated in a self-consciousness inducing way. But last night I could see the blood through the skin, which is not good.

So, with the help of Mrs Cardiff Drunk, I gave myself a damn good moisturising, which calmed down the irritation after an initial bout of horrible stinging pain.

I think I'm going to have to go back to the doctor about this. If it's the Trazodone I'm going to have to stop taking the tablets because this is starting to get me down in quite a serious way.

The sleep too is odd. I've never dreamed much, or, rather as I gather we all dream, I've rarely remembered my dreams. This is something else though. It's out like a light into total darkness, Mrs CD calls it a coma, and I'm undisturbable, unshakable. Then, around eight hours later, pop! I'm awake, straight up and out of utter darkness. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just seems a bit odd.

Well, I shall report how the rest of the day passes tomorrow. I'm nicely tired, but craving oblivion from the black stuff too - perhaps the best plan is to go to bed and take the blackout pills. I won't drink tomorrow because of work and the same on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Oh yeah. And the reason I HAD to go out today was to pick up some dope. Another piece of foolishness arranged in my cups.

Could be worse.

How be you?

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

CD.

Saturday - back on the booze again.

Now that title may look rather sad and tragic even. But, I knew I was going to drink again at some point and I'm quite relaxed about it.

Yesterday went pretty well in fact. Training at work was rather good fun. Lots of little games and stuff, quite silly and enjoyable. It was the first day I had a 9am start and I made it on time which greatly pleased me - despite getting nearly half way to the call centre before realising I'd left my badge at home and having to race back to get it. Bit of exercise you see, that's good for depression - or rather that's good for alleviating depression.

Since stopping drinking last Friday, my energy levels have shot through the roof and I've just been much better in every way.

But, I know I'm not ready to completely abstain, and, I hope I don't need to. Now, this may be stupid, this may be fooling myself, this may be denial. But, I know I need to try and find a place with drink where I can enjoy it socially and responsibly. Quite simply it's been such a part of my life that I can't imagine life without it.

I'm fairly relaxed too about the fact that when I do drink I am likely to drink too much. What I am desperate to avoid is the awful and joyless necessity to grind my way through eight pints a day. There's quite a debate about this at the Brighteye forums I use.

There's a thread for people who want to cut down and drink socially, which is regularly invaded by a couple of posters who, with a missionary zeal, insist all these people are fooling themselves; that anyone who has had a problem with alcohol should label themselves an alcoholic and practice abstinence.

There's another thread there called Fear Of Sobriety, which I really recognise. A lot of people post on there describing the sort of problems I've had with racing thoughts and finding alcohol the best way to calm a skittering brain - lawks, do I recognise that.

I already feel in a better place. I have a job, which I am absolutely not going to do anything to jeopardise. I'm happier and busier than I've been for a long time - housework mainly, but also going out every day for some sort of walk. I've got my voluntary work to start up next week - after Thursday's false start. I'm going to email them after this with a couple of ideas for their newsletter.

Let's see yesterday's drink diary then.

I intended to go out just to watch the football and have maybe four pints in so doing. (You may be saying denial already, particularly after you've read what actually happened).

It was Mrs Cardiff Drunk's works Christmas do. She doesn't enjoy these occasions at all and worked herself into quite a palaver at the thought of it, so she asked me to come along.

So, off to the C I went at about six and had three pints of weak bitter (that's part of the plan you see - I always used to drink the strongest stuff I could, without slipping over into those drinks I consider beyond the pale, like Special Brew, white cider and the like - I've had quite enough of those in the past).

Then Mrs CD came along and into town we went where I drank two pints of 5% lager, a black Russian and once home, a bottle of Dragon Stout - which was very small, but a naughty 7%.

Doesn't sound too great does it? But, I'm cool with it, it was a one off, a special occasion and all that and there was no way I was going to cope with the 22 work colleagues of Mrs CD, very few of whom I know.

The Dragon Stout I bought for nostalgic reasons. I saw it in a Kurdish shop as we walked home - I had a nice, tiddly chat with the man behind the counter, telling him nos da was Welsh for good night and him telling me the Kurdish equivalent, which I've now forgotten apart from it ends with Osh. We had a natter about the PKK and Kurdish nationalism - something I was taught about by a minicab driver in London, drinking heavily and breaking your inhibitions down can be a real help with learning my friends.

I went to university in Birmingham - many, many moons ago now - and lived in an appallingly drunk and drugged up household in Balsall Heath. The area may well have changed by now, but, when me and my legless compadres lived there it was notorious as a red light district and drug dealing area - there was even a road, Cheddar Road it was called, which had Amsterdam-style sex workers sitting, scantily clad in the windows of the nondescript terraced houses there. It was the least discreet type of prostitution you can imagine and as the road was a dead end you could assume that every car that went down there was doing so for one purpose alone.

There was plenty of on-street dealing. We only ever bought cannabis on the street but I'll assume that there was plenty of other stuff on offer. In fact, one memorable night, a housemate and I were out on the streets after coming back from a club, desperate to find something to smoke, and, I (speeding and drunk to hell) ended up going into a crack house to see if anyone had any marijuana on offer - I never want to do that again, it scared the bejeeber-creepers out of me.

In the end, a street walking prostitute took pity on us - it must have been about 3.30am - and called her pimp for us. He drove us to his place and sold us a big bag of home grown weed, then very kindly dropped us back at ours. Now that's what I call customer service.

Anyway. Most of the dealers were West Indian in origin and had pretty much taken over the local pub called the Cannon Hill - we were much too scared to go in there. Racism and discrimination of any sort profoundly depresses and repulses me, but, this was an all black pub and we formed the impression (we were young and foolish and inexperienced and two of the four came from rural West Country towns with little or no ethnic mix) that white faces would not be welcomed there.

The dealers would all sit outside drinking bottles of Dragon Stout, which is a West Indian brew, and it was in the local shops that we got a taste for it.

We actually got well known enough among the local dealers that they have us nicknames - something we considered quite an achievement. "Hey Longhairs," they would assail us, offering their wares, which was simply descriptive of how we looked in those days of grunge and grebo, but, after a while, we graduated to become "The Lightning Posse." Perhaps I'm full of rubbish and they shouted that at everyone, but, foolishly or not, we were right proud of that.

This morning, after a bit of a binge, I did feel a little rough around the edges, but a proper breakfast, plenty of juice and detox tea with milk thistle, has done the trick and I don't feel as bad as I used to every single morning.

The plan today is to keep busy this morning and then pop out for the 4pm football. The test is to STOP after what will probably be four pints of weak bitter again. That's the test. And that's when I'll start to see how I'm doing. After that I'm working Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday so I don't want to drink at all for those three days.

I'll let you know how it goes. Maybe I'm being an idiot. We shall see.

All the best.

The Cardiff Drunk.

What happened on Wednesday - part two, Community Addictions Unit assessment

Have no doubt, the services that deal with addicts of various stripe are stretched and could probably hoover up a whole pot of further funding.

What this means for the patient, service user or (shudder) customer of these services is simply that there's a fair amount of waiting around to be done.

After my counselling on Wednesday I went home waisted (as I do far too readily and far too often) a couple of hours on the Guardian's Comment is Free website and then headed back out for my first appointment with a doctor at the Community Addictions Unit.

And there I sat. The appointment was at high noon and the letter confirming it had told me to expect it to take around an hour. I left in the end at 2.45.

Not that I minded. I avoid going out of the house, partly through anxiety and fear and partly because I know if I do I will sooner rather than later end up in the pub. Sitting in a dingy NHS corridor is at least harmless. It also humbles and shames me: I see others struggling with far harder problems than I have and who are in a plainly evident far worse state in terms of physical or mental health. I sometimes feel a fraud: you should be able to pull yourself together I tell myself as I watch people collect their methadone scrips and read the posters about open wounds and the safest way to inject and clean works using water from a toilet.

The doctor was Asian and quietly spoken and patient. He ran through a long list of questions - asking about my history of drinking (I started pretty early in my teens, developed into a heavy binger and from there to pretty constant and addicted drinking from my late 20s onwards, it's been a problem for 20 years now), use of other drugs, family relationships, mental and physical health, my suicide attempts, where I am now and what I hope to get from the process.

It was all rather cathartic, it's nice to be able to speak openly and honestly to a sympathetic ear. He told me the options: basically in patient or outpatient detox using diazepam. I told him I'd prefer an outpatient detox because that's what I've experienced before and I'm nervous about being admitted to hospital.

In reality, I know this is unlikely to get the thumbs up. There is a risk of fitting during detox and with my girlfriend at work I'll be on my own during the day. I must admit I dread hospitalisation - there surely aren't many people who look forward to spending time in hospital - and the attendant group therapy: I find it very hard to open up to a therapist in one-on-one situations, competing for air in a group is something I'll find incredibly hard. But, perhaps that's something that has to be got through and will induce the sort of cathartic breakdown into real tears that will help cleanse me.

I raised the idea with the doctor that I was a self-medicator; that I find my thoughts very hard to control, and that drink really is the best way I've found to do this. He nodded, but it's early days in the process and the first aim is to get me off the booze, that's the only aim really, the rest may well be down to me. He certainly accepted the fact that I'm currently depressed and said he would write to my GPs to ask them to raise the dose of my antidepressants. "It could be prolonging your problems with alcohol," he said.

I wasn't able to provide a urine sample but had two sets of blood tests down - all I heard was renal and liver function. Despite everything, I think I'm probably in relatively good physical health and I hope there's nothing serious hidden under my irritable skin.

My blood pressure was taken and is apparently good, my pulse was 74 I think, which is a bit high but there's a certain amount of stress in having needles stuck in your arms and I should imagine that would account for that.

I left feeling lighter still. Something's moving at least. It'll be slow I know, the doctor told me to expect another appointment in three weeks and asked me to think more about the treatment options and also to think about reasons why I've relapsed three times before after detox.

(If you are reading this thinking, "You feckless waster of NHS resources that could go to people that are really ill and who chooses the path of addiction," I have every sympathy with your view. All I can say is the hatred and opprobrium of others merely confirms my own opinion of myself (although I doubt anyone could hate me as much as I hate myself), and that I really don't want to be like this anymore and I will try as hard as I can. I want desperately to be a useful person.)

I left at 2.45, knowing I was going to go straight to the C. As I've said, I've avoided the place of late, it's been getting me down, it's the only pub I use where I have people to speak to but they too have their problems and that tends to be what we talk about. As it happened I bumped into my best mate from the all-day-drinking gang, he'd just left the C and was on his way to one of the social/working men's/sporting clubs in the area.

I didn't want to go. The last time I went there was bad. My girlfriend was working away as she often does. While she's here I do much better, I desperately want not to upset her so my drinking stays relatively stable. With her gone the brakes come off. I'd gone out to watch football that time and ended up spending 12 hours on the pop, I'm sure I got mouthy and obnoxious in the club and couldn't remember much after arriving and certainly couldn't recall getting home. That was Jack Daniels. I rarely drink spirits, almost never in fact, I drink pints far too quickly - I drink everything far too quickly and even when I've been dry I've chugged through pint after pint of soft drinks when I go out, it's all to do with nerves I think - so spirits vanish even faster.

As it happened I did fine. Four pints, relatively slowly, after downing the first two.

Again, it was a sobering experience. Most of the pubs I use are filled with habitual drinkers and the club was no different, I see faces not so much damaged as completely wrecked by alcohol. People on the margins and with troubles, often unemployed and with money troubles who spend all day drinking and desperately staring at the horse racing on the screens waiting for a much-needed winner.

A man came in with a terrible facial wound - his left eye was hugely swollen with an open wound beneath it. He said he'd had a plate put in.

"I haven't had a pint since Monday," he said, "so don't look at me I've got the ******* shakes."

The barman offered him a straw.

The place stank of weed after a while. No-one inside was smoking, but it was drifting in strong and unmistakable from somewhere.

I'm angry with myself for trying to score some weed through my mate - which was easily arranged. I've been without for maybe two weeks and I should have accepted that that's a good thing. But, when I'm in my cups I do crave it. I was weak and stupid.

Onwards and upwards nevertheless.

What happened on Tuesday.

Tuesday seemed a slightly brighter day to me.

The reason was not very substantial and very much of this internet age - I 'spoke' to people. Rather I interacted with them remotely.

Part of the rut into which I've sunk is to log onto the Guardian website each day. Specifically, the Comment is Free section - a robust discussion forum if ever there was one. Seeing an article on cannabis - something I know plenty about - I joined the discussion and got some nice responses.

Although the Guardian is quite the home of the liberal left, a Labour Party house journal even, Comment is Free draws a much broader spectrum of views - in fact the comments tend towards the right in my view. Perhaps it's because the Guardian has that reputation and those on the right see the chance to beard the so-called Guardianistas in their den. Maybe it's simply because the site is the best established, nicest looking and easiest to use (the simple expedient of putting new comments at the bottom rather than the top of threads makes a great deal of difference; that's the way we read innit).

I should stop going there to be honest. I just read the comments generally, not being brave enough to enter the fray myself very often. And, believe you me, a fray it is. The words 'I think', or 'in my opinion' rarely feature in comments, everyone's so fricking certain, it's seldom 'I disagree', it's 'you're an idiot'.

The level of polarisation it reveals in our society I find rather distressing. But, I've never coped well with conflict, I hate it.

A further reason for cheer popped into my email inbox. On my walkabouts I'd seen the offices of an organisation called Journeys, recovery from depression, and in one of my days of real despair I dropped them a line. Partly bemoaning my own unhappiness and also mentioning that I'd been a journalist and was keen to find voluntary work as part of my recovery - feeling useful would be, I believe, a great boost.

Some weeks had passed since I sent the mail, but the reply made my day. They offer a self-help approach, including stuff like diet and exercise, which makes sound sense to me. They also asked me in to discuss volunteering. I haven't replied yet - falling into my slough of despond again - but I shall today and hopefully it will go somewhere.

Just reading up on the coverage of their launch is sobering - not literally in my case.

In Wales, the adult suicide rate is nearly double that of England, while amongst Wales’ young people the suicide rate is five times higher than England’s.

Stereotypes are rarely helpful, but perhaps there is some truth in the idea of the melancholy Celt. It seems more likely that the frightening figures reflect a country that has lost its economic heart.