Counselling again

Counselling again yesterday and a mixed bag. At the very least it means I get up earlyish.

But, I seem a little resistant to counselling at the moment. When I was really storming forward and making progress I couldn't wait for it but at the moment it's hard work to get anything out of me and I feel for my counsellor (who I am now going to start referring to as L) who's pulling teeth at the moment.

I've come to the end of one batch of counselling and we had to have a review to check on progress and how I'm doing. I filled in a CORE form. Anyone who's ever been treated for depression in a serious way will have seen one of these. Over 30 questions on your mood - in the last week... I have felt terribly alone... not at all, sometimes, often, most or all of the time.

We compared it to the form I filled in when I first came in for counselling. L was a little shocked I think, as my score had rocketed from around 30 to 89, and the stuff about ending my own life, hurting myself, being bothered by unwanted thoughts and memories was all in the highest category.

I thought long and hard while filling in the form, and have to acknowledge that the timing was bad, coinciding as it did with a change in medication.

We talked about it - my thoughts about death - and happily agreed it's quite normal for me. I wrote about this the other day but it seems worth repeating so I shall. I think about suicide regularly and quite dispassionately, it's my escape card and it's always somewhere in my mind - well, if things get worse I can always take an overdose. I'm quite relaxed about it but people I tell are less so.

That was the main discussion really. I'm struggling to remember the session even now - it seems terribly important while I'm there, but it goes so quickly, I used to have a magnificent memory (although it's been a curse too, not letting me forget pain I'd be best read of) but it's certainly slipping. Daily dope probably isn't helping.

I was so brave back then - I'm going to change my life completely, live completely differently - and perhaps I'm coming to terms with the fact that I just don't have the courage for that and will continue largely as I have: saying yes when I mean no, keeping my thoughts to myself, anything for a quiet life.

Is that so bad? I'm sober and healthy, I don't have debts, I have a secure home and my thinking has become notably less apocalyptic and focused on burning down my current life in order to build a new one. I told my L how bad I am at noticing or acknowledging change, I can't think of it as something incremental - I don't think, 'Oh, it's good I got up at 9am, not 1pm.' I think, 'It's a fucking disaster I didn't get up at 8am, I am a loser and a failure and always will be, I might as well have a spliff and ruin the day'.

With Mrs CD at home, I'm smoking less and not at all during the day, and when I do, that's when I have my bad moods.

New year is the time for change isn't it, and there are things I want to do - I want to start to earn a living; I've been dependent on others my whole life and I want some independence and that's the big and scary thing I really want to face. I want to have a self, and a self with some self esteem.

I've nearly finished my Charles Bukowski book. I've read it before, many times, so I can't really say that it pressages a great improvement in my concentration, but it's something. I've also started watching a box set of series two (season is for Americans) of The Wire, and am loving it - in so far as I love anything while trying to pick it apart and analyse it as I go.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

If you're reading this because of your own problems with drink and depression I really am thinking of you and hoping that things are going OK - Christmas is a hard time, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE HAVING FUN, it's all about family and pressure and EVERYONE IS DRUNK, so remember to look after yourself. I can't offer any failsafe tactics but having somewhere you can be on your own, quite calmly is I think a good thing.

Cardiff Drunk.

Your hopefully, Cardiff Drunk.

I feel I should write something after my last counselling session. In this big old battle, I think counselling is my potent weapon.

It was a good old session, but it was hard work. I was dragging words out of myself rather and thinking, thinking, thinking. There are some rather unpalatable things about my personality that I have to delve into if I am to change them and a terribly well-defined divide between Good and Evil (sorry for the biblical langauge, but that's the way I think about this) in my life.

It's all very screwed up, very bad, and very damaging. I felt the usual lightness that comes from a bit of confession but it's all kept going round in my head. I'm thinking too much, I'm brooding, I'm spending too long on the computer, I'm smoking too much dope (see recent posts), I'm all in a pickle and very distracted.

It feels like a big change is coming somehow. Mrs CD and I spoke about it today, I think she is unsettled too - she spoke about moving away somewhere and living a completely different and very green life, that's her dream - is it mine?

I'm going to London on Friday, to see my brother and I just see it as a chore at the moment, something to be survived. Although I had some wonderful times in the capital city I also had some terrible ones, very specifically in the area I'm going to be visiting. I feel I should be doing other things but I don't know what they are, and besides I have ample opportunity every day to do things and I just sit.

Sometimes I think this whole sobriety thing is just a little step on my journey and there's a big crash to come and a cleansing fire to burn. I mentioned in a comment that I haven't really signed up to the idea that I'm an alcoholic who just can't ever drink again and I know I may well be kidding myself. The thing is, that while I've been mentally in some very bad places, I've always been so molly coddled, so protected and surrounded by people who want to help me I've never, ever, really experienced the consequences of my actions, including my drinking - I've been sad, yes, and I've attempted suicide, but even in that I don't feel as if I've hit rock bottom. The kick has never been hard enough to really jolt me. In fact, my drinking has remained stubbornly damaging but not too damaging, I have been able to control it that much - I've never drunk in the morning, I've very rarely drunk spirits, I feel as if I'm probably going back there some day.

Bad times here, but I won't drink. I won't drink at least until the new year, if I do then - I think about it often, but I won't drink yet, I'm not well enough, not by a long way. The fact is if I think of drinking (as I almost constantly do in these rather troubling days) it's not the nice social couple of pints that should be my aim were I to start drinking again, it's being hammered, it's the magical thrumming of the blood that comes with the first pint of the day as morning turns into afternoon - nothing will ever match that feeling I don't think.

I'm not blogging terribly well at the moment, I'm blogging a lot but it's all rather confused isn't it.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Your's hopefully,

Cardiff Drunk.

Ready, steady, f**k!

Excuse my language in the title. I tone down my language considerably on this blog; were you to meet me in the flesh you'd probably be disgusted by my course and foul speech.

But, that expletive is deserved and, as ever in self-loathing land (which is where I seem to be living this week) it's aimed at me.

It could have been so different, it could have been so much better, but then idiot man had to try and get out of bed.

I'm really starting to feel more and more like that in my doltage.

So, what's the best way for me to start the day? A spliff and a hot bath? No, that's not the right answer. I won't go over in great detail the extent to which that is NOT THE RIGHT ANSWER, but suffice to say that the psychologist who gave me such helpful and splendidly useful advice about dealing with anxiety would be shaking his head at the stupidity of it all were he here to see me.

I had two things to do today. Some little bits of housework and a trip to the Community Addiction Unit to take my Antabuse.

I have, after managing to pull some sort of self-respect out of my wretched arse, managed to make a decent stab at putting out some washing, cooking a meal, picking up some books and stuff. I managed to make it out of the house, just about at around 4.30pm, which is when I got up.

I missed the pills again. I can take them myself perfectly well of course, and sometimes I do, but if I'm honest, usually I don't if I don't make the walk to the Community Addiction Unit (this setting up of rituals the falling apart of one part of which renders the whole excercise spoiled in my mind, is common to much of my life).

This starting to get a bit Russian Roulette-like. I haven't sorted out my other medication either - ritual: it must go in the pill tray on Sunday - and, it's only writing this now and being slapped in the face by my own staggering ability, and even desire to create difficulties for myself that I'll take at least some of it tonight.

Two things I logically know will really, really help me in every way - getting a routine and keeping busy, and I can't even manage that.

I'm making a bit of an attempt tomorrow. I've written it all down. The tasks and appointments I have would cause little trouble to a child of average intelligence, yet to me their completion will be a cause of celebration. I'm probably setting myself up for a fall by even attempting so much, yet, really, I want to be better and I want to live an ordinary - damn it even an interesting, fullfilled and productive - life and this stuff is that at its most basic.

Two of the things on my list are among my big positives: counselling and playing football.

Of everything on that list it's counselling that I simply will not miss. It's been very important for me lately - hard work sometimes, but giving me a taste of the great release I think I'm going to have to go through on this li'l ol' journey of mine (sorry, hateful reality tv bogwort that journey stuff).

Anyone who's been reading this at all regularly of late will have seen a lot of self-criticism on here and that I fear is going to come up in the session tomorrow - I don't like myself, and what do you have to say about that?

I'm looking forward to it and will no doubt tell you all about it.

If you spent it, thank you for your time,

Take it steady youngsters, Cardiff Drunk. X

Out of the past

Ah, or aaarrrgggh even! It's my life. Yoiks! That's me becoming sober. I'm not going to try and universalise my experience, but for me drinking has certainly been a good place to hide from some of the more unpalatable truths of my personality and my history.

And, drinking has gone. My little cave is opened to the elements, my own horrible self is in the sunlight, all naked and revealed. And, it's not very nice. Twenty years of drinking leaves a lot of regrets. It's partly, I believe, why alcoholism is described as a progressive illness. Medically, it's physically progressive and there's tolerance too, but I think the longer you drink the more you have to regret and a very, very good way of avoiding thinking about that is to drink more - "Nurse! The anasthetic!"

Anyway so here I am. I had a career, but I drank it away. I had the opportunity for a very good education, but I drank it away. I had a very significant relationship, but I drank it away.

Now, I know the common sense advice is to acknowledge these facts, accept that thinking about them can't possibly change anything and accept the exciting new opportunities life has on offer. I don't know why I'm qualifying that as advice, it's just damn true, and I know this, so why am I wallowing in the misery of my past? Because, I'm an idiot that's why. (Let's have a kinder version too: because, I've been very, very ill and I'm only just coming out of it.)

It's the significant relationship that hangs over me now, as it did the last time I got sober, and my regrets and my attempt to do something about them ended horribly for all concerned with much pain that could have been avoided spread liberally around - with me being the chief spreader.

But, I can't seem to leave it alone. It's partly guilt and the need to receive absolution and fogiveness from someone who means a huge amount to me and was very important in my life, who made me very happy and who I made very unhappy. It's also partly a matter of the strength of those feelings - they just won't leave me alone. Now, the common sense advice would be to just move on - she doesn't want to hear from you and is probably quite happily getting on with her own life, which is probably now a damned sight happier for your absence.

I have emailed her twice now. Once, a short pithy, 'I just wanted to see how you are' and 'I'm sorry'. I got a very short and polite reply congratulating me on getting sober and wishing me well for the future. So, I sent a long, self-obsessed, self-justifying, moaning email - I said I wanted to explain and apologise, but probably did neither. I haven't received a reply, so I sent another - truly lengthy, but trying so hard to be less self-justifying and expressing more of the sorrow I feel about what I did. I also asked, rather pathetically, for her friendship. And, promised, rather sinisterly, to phone her if she didn't respond.

Stupid? Yes, it probably is, but I feel I can't help it, I need to try, if not to put things right between us achieve some sort of closure or even civilised adult contact. (Isn't that stupid - you can't help it? That's what little children say when they're caught doing something naughty like picking they're noses. I can help it of course, just as I can help having bad days by smoking dope in the morning, just as I can help getting angry and disappointed with the things I haven't done, I can help by doing them - it's not impossible, it shouldn't be.)

But, I really don't know how to live. I was never taught and I have never learned. I have learned to get away with things, to get by on the least, to hide from hard things in drink and drugs, to avoid responsibility by relying on others or using my 'illness' as an excuse and a hiding place - I can't work, I'm a drunk, I can't go out and do things, I'm a drunk...

God, I'm not a very likeable person, and I'm going to have to change into someone who is if I'm going to have any self-esteem. So, talk about those things that shame me with my counsellor? It's probably a good idea.

The days of harm reduction

Harm reduction is the result of my last counselling session, the verdict of my counsellor on what I have to be doing at the moment.

As ever, counselling felt a good and releasing thing, and some big things came out - big things about my life and what I want from it. Too big to manage at the moment, so at the moment my task is not to harm myself.

Not to drink is the best way to do this and, I admitted I had come very close to drinking recently. It seems to just happen, but of course, that's not how these things work, it was me who just happened not to go to the Community Addiction Unit to take my antabuse and then, all of it sudden, it just happened that I was a day short of not taking it for a week, and a week is a long time in Antabuse. After I left counselling, I passed a pub I used to drink in and had the worst cravings I've had this sober period. I went straight home and took my tablets. Of course, not taking my medication also means not taking the anti-craving drug campral and maybe that had an effect too.

What did we talk about? Me, me, me... great for the over-analytical and self obsessed (I do sometimes think I should just stop and start living - just forget labelling myself an alcoholic and a depressive and live, but I'm just not able to). I spoke about the unhappiness with the life in which I have woken up after 20 years drinking and the shame I feel for that life - if I'm OK with it she said we can talk in more detail about this next time.

So, harm reduction for now, just staying alive and staying sober. Staying alive and staying sober.

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.

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

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.

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.

A small bad... small goods too... counselling... on the piss with the boys.

If I don't blog for a day or two that's always a sign of a small bad in my life. Nothing major though, just slipping into drifting and boredom slightly. It's coinciding with Mrs CD working away, so, must do better next week when she's away again.

I'd love to delight, shock and entrance you now with tales of sober derring do and edge-of-the-pintglass thrills, but there's little of that going on. Antabuse you see, if I drink, I'm in hospital and I don't want to go to hospital.

Things have moved along though.

The big news treatment wise is my first counselling session. Not a full blown talkathon but rather an assessment to see how I am and if counselling is for me at the moment. After my previous bad experiences I honestly ummed and aahed quite a bit about whether to go back. I was honest enough to tell the lady from Cardiff Alcohol and Drugs Team (CADT) that one of the reasons I was thinking of coming back is that I'm benefiting greatly from having things to do and appointments to keep. I told he about my excellent experience with the anxiety man at Pathways and that the short, sharp, practical nature of it had really helped.

Talking about the past isn't for me at the moment. I'm finding the longer I'm sober the more able I am not to wallow in painful memories. The blights of my youngsterism are mild compared to many and I'm in a position now where I think I want to say - that was then and thinking about it is not going to help me now. What I need is a future, I've spent too long as a victim of perceived slights in the mists of memory. There are a couple of things I'd maybe like to get off my chest but, avanti!

The waiting list is around a month, so we shall see what we shall see in due course.

That was about it for appointments this week. The other biggie this week has been a successful afternoon out with M and D. This really felt like a big step for me. I've been popping into the pub, but not for sustained lengths of time and just to chat. But this was my friends going out for a session - meeting in a pub and then going to other pubs.

And, it was great - I honestly can't remember having laughed so much in, well, in years. And that felt very good. My menu for the afternoon was:

One Pint gingerbeer and lemonade.
One Applejuice, to wash down some of all you can eat for £6.50 Chinese buffet in Queen Street - another first for me, and lovely.
One coffee.
Two teas.
Another coffee, a glass of water.

Too much coffee there, and I'm going to have to try and get out of the habit that there must be a full drink in front of me. It's a hangover from alcoholique days - as a drinker I always saw the glass as on its dregs and I'm sure others have faced the panic of NO MORE CANS AFTER THIS ONE.

We met at two and I gave a massive double take when I was told it was gone 6pm as I headed home while they went on to another bar.

And that's that. The screaming of children still perturbs me and was a fly in the ointment of that lovely day but I'm getting a little better with experience and I know one way to not make it worse - lay off the dope you idiot.

I've also met a fellow about writing for his website, and he's very keen and encouraging and also did my volunteering today - nothing more than putting stuff in envelopes but a welcome change from walls and computer screens.

Maybe more tonight, but I'm hoping to have a good long session on the music machine.

I hope you're all well and if you spent it, thank you for your time.

Cardiff Drunk.

A big week - hospitals, volunteering, work

I'm working tomorrow; a long day for me, 9am till 3.30pm. But, the prospect of the early start has helped me stay sober today and do some busy round the house stuff.

I've got a couple of big days this week. Wednesday I work in the evening, but also have to get myself to a hospital in north Cardiff for an assessment prior to entering the therapy programme there. This would normally follow an in-patient detox, but the doctor from the Community Addiction Unit (CAU) after hearing of my relatively successful self-detox has sent me along early doors.

I don't know quite what to expect from such an appointment but I'm not hugely keen on the idea of group therapy - one of the reasons I still kick against Alcoholics Anonymous (suggested by both my GP and the CAU doctor - the organisation's much mulled over religious aspects also give me pause for thought). I've been in group therapy before and lasted one session.

Oh, I was but a youngster then, and drunk in North London. I'd done my detox and went along to the group therapy with, I think, a pretty open mind about what was going to happen.

It was, to my mind, a disaster.

You'll have gathered that without six pints in me I'm pretty chary of talking to anyone I don't already know. I did manage to speak up given the opportunity but there were stronger personalities there who took over and, sad to recount, it became an alcoholic misery competition straight out of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch.

"Well, I was drinking a bottle of whisky a day."

"A day! I'd got through that by lunch, then I was off to the pub till closing time."

"I didn't mention the vodka yet. And, the pubs never closed for me, I was king of the lock-in and a mate and me always used to buy four pints at last orders if they were shutting on time."

And so on and so on.

There's a serious point to this I think. I have (and I know this is pretty stupid) felt something of a lightweight and therefor, less deserving of serious help. Since my early 20s I haven't drunk spirits and even when I've realised I'm addicted and reached out for help I am drinking a relatively small amount - I know 8 - 10 pints a day is not inconsiderable, but I would guess of those who reach out for help it's probably nothing much to write home about.

I've also never reached that magical place for drinkers - rock bottom (Carreg Cennen is top rock, this is different).

This is usually due to the efforts of others. My parents have constantly come to my rescue and bailed me out like a drunken investment bank. Girlfriends too have cushioned my fall.

I'm not beyond attempting to manufacture super lows, but rather in relation to depression and other problems than the drinking (to which, of course, I always cling to and distance it from blame in my problems: "It was something else, not my mate booze, he's here to help.")

I've spoken to counsellors about this. I'm so keen that everyone should think I am OK, so insistent that nothing is wrong, so desperate to avoid causing upset that I wait until I'm close to disaster and suicide before I ask for help.

Anyhow. That's all by-the-by.

The day after the assessment, I'm due to start my volunteering with Journeys, which is a good and positive thing. I'm hoping the work will be challenging and allow me to write - they're keen on the fact that I used to be a journalist - but I'm happy to stuff envelopes, type and make the tea to be honest.

Well, I shall no doubt let you know how it all goes.

Take it easy out there and be sure to wrap up warm now.

Diolch yn fawr, the CD.

Alcohol, the excuse or the problem? Am I a dimwit?

Anybeth left a comment which was substantial enough to be worth a post I think. Also, wise enough.

Anybeth, who writes, Swimming in Clear Waters (which is very good, you should read it), used to consider herself an alcoholic but has managed to get to a place where she can drink when and where she wants (please correct me if I'm getting this wrong Anybeth, and I'll change the post), and wrote:

Oi, you went through all that detox mess just to drink after a week?Honey! give it a month, two months. shit, give it six months and see how you feel.When I quit drinking (for total abstinence) I was in a dark place and needed 100% sobriety to deal with life, feelings, counseling, learning, stress, health, exercise. I needed that time to process my emotions and really get good with my head and heart.I'm not saying you are an alcoholic, only you can decide that. BUT I'm saying if you ever think you can drink again without bad effect on your emotion and life....you need a DOSE of sobriety that lasts a bit longer than a week or two. You need to deal with you, and that stuff in your head that you are self-medicating.

And, I very much see her point. So, am I being a bit of a dimwit - alcoholics after all spend a lot of time in Egypt's famous river (sorry) - and kidding myself?

I've been sober before - properly detoxed and in counselling sober - but the longest I've lasted was six months. To stop for a week might seem, well, a little weak. To be honest it was and it is but it was the best I could manage.

Being cast from counselling sort of opened up my eyes. I'm going to have to do a lot of this myself. I spoke to my counsellor about one view I have of my drinking (and I've got lots, believe you me, by the day, by the hour, by the minute - I'm a living Google newsfeed on my own drinking) which is that I use it as an excuse.

A reason to be able to say: I can't cope, I can't work, I can't do anything. Why's that Cardiff Drunk? Well, you see, I'm an alcoholic and I have to drink eight pints a day. And, I'm going to have to stop using excuses and I'm going to have to do a lot of the work myself and part of that is just developing a backbone and to mine own self being truer.

Part of that own self is one who likes drinking. Alcoholics are often said only to be able to start recovering when they hit the fabled 'rock bottom' - stealing your grandmother's pension to buy booze, pimping your dog out to the local whippet fanciers, that sort of stuff. At that point, they hate drink but you can bet your sweet I hate Eric Cantona T-shirt (you don't have one?!) that they flipping well started out loving it. (Sorry, is this all terribly obvious?)

I too have been in very dark places because of drink, and my other pharmaceutical pals, but now I'm saying no to them and, I'm currently also saying no to treatment, to counselling and anything other than that which I do myself.

However, I do very much see Anybeth's point. A week is a long time in politics (I'm Mr Cliche today, all day) but not in 'recovery' or addiction. There are dangers ahead, but I'm now finally sick of giving in to every fear. I'm also sick of counselling, of looking at myself - I'm far too far that way inclined as it is and need to start looking outward (although, you may have noted, I'm writing a blog entirely about myself: I'm also Mr Hypocrite today, all day) and using the inward stuff to my own advantage - in writing, in making music, in ignoring that dricking inner voice, telling it to shut up and sod off thank you very much.

I may well go longer periods of abstinence as I go along the road. I'm not going to set myself rules - because I know what I'm like - if I break them I will go 100% the other way (see the previous post on yoga) consider myself a failure and slink straight back into my, "I'm an alcoholic I can't do anything, you see I have to drink eight pints a day," persona.

It's a big change for me. I've been weak and I'm trying to learn how to be strong.

On Wednesday I'm due back at the Community Addictions Unit. My last appointment there was the first assessment, and this one is supposed to be about the discussion of treatment options (there appear to be two - inpatient or outpatient detox) and I'm not in a place where I currently need either of those.

However, I am absolutely determined to be completely honest with the doctor. I will tell him what I've done and I will show him a drink diary for the time I've been stopped. And, then, I'm tempted to be a teeny tiny bit dishonest with the doctor. I might tell him that my weekend's drinking was a slip up and that I'm abstinent now and can I go on Campral please.

I've taken Campral before after detox and I found it a help, I found that when I did relapse once I didn't go straight back into the eight pint ditch - that was a decision I made for myself when as a result of my relapse (it's a long story) my whole life imploded and into my drinker's persona I went - for safety. Now, I don't think he'll prescribe it if I'm drinking, but we shall see. We shall see.

I may well be fooling myself - but I still feel better today than I have for Bill Hicks knows how long - and I may well need to go back for help again in the future but at the moment helping myself seems the best way forward. And, as Anybeth says on her own blog - You can watch me succeed or watch me crash and burn.

What happened on Wednesday - part one: cast from counselling and the addiction assesement

I went to counselling on Wednesday morning. A 9.15 start, which is a sharply double edged sword. It's good that I'm not able to wallow in the misery pit that my bed becomes every morning. But, anyone who drinks heavily is never going to be much of a 'morning person' and walking round feeling like you've been smashed in the face by a lorry is not going to make the counselling process easier.


I'd worked myself into a terrible state in preparation of this session. My homework after the last session was to prepare myself for a whopping great dollop of self-revelation. The theory was illuminated in the copy of the worthlessness schema - the counsellor, by listening to the supposedly unbearable secrets of the worthless schema patient, and by still caring for them can show them that what they had done is bearable and they are not beyond the pale.

Sadly, the counsellor seemed to have forgotten that this was the plan and we began as usual with a "How are you?" and my predictable account of stable but heavy drinking and continued stumbling through a numb half-life.

Then she dropped the bombshell, wanting to "Put it on the table," that we should take a break from counselling. This has happened before - I've been prescribed a cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) book and asked to work through a chapter for discussion at the following session, only for the sessions to drift back to the same old same old.

The title says cast from counselling and that's unfair and far too melodramatic. I could quite easily have said that I wanted to carry on, as I could previously have guided the sessions more strongly. But, expressing my self and leading the way in conversation are very much part of my problems.

I certainly don't feel any resentment towards my counsellor. We haven't really clicked and I've never felt truly comfortable. She almost certainly has too many cases and why should I expect to receive months and months of publicly-funded counselling when little progress is being made and someone else, with much worse problems, could be benefiting. She told me that new users were facing a month long waiting list to even get an initial assessment appointment.

"You're stable and we need to wait for the medical intervention of detox," she said, promising to fit me in ASAP, should I need help urgently; should my drinking increase, or my assessment of my mood pick up on a real down.

Should neither of those scenarios come to pass the plan is for me to come back in for counselling around six weeks before the detox to start work on preparing for abstinence.

I've also been prescribed a book. This is a neat little scheme whereby you are genuinely given a prescription to hand in at your local library. My book is Mind Over Mood, which seems to be the CBT book.

I sensed she was starting to get a little nervous at the end of the session. I was asked to fill in one of those self-assessment forms anyone who's been treated for depression will almost certainly be familiar with; a list of questions about mood (have you felt despairing) with multiple choice options - never, sometimes, often, everyday.

The fact that I remain ticking the often or worse option for all the negative questions made her a little nervous I think - including the, have you thought of hurting yourself.

Sad to recount, I do think about suicide every day. My suicide. It's always there as an option and I'm so used to thinking of it it's a constant background noise. However, it's nothing more than a fantasy - I look at pills but I never have any real intention of taking an overdose and the fact that it's overdose I always think of (rather than the more certainly successful options - and I'm sorry to say that I have visited some of the notorious suicide websites to research this in the past, although not recently) means a 'cry for help' is as far as I am ever likely to go in that direction. I'm simply far too much of a physical coward to take such things likely, I'm also scared of death, I'm very far from a happy camper, but I do still have things to live for. I also have no faith - I've often wished that I had, and, although I'd probably call myself an agnostic at best I do 'pray' - and don't believe I will be swept to heaven when I pass on.

I think I felt slightly lighter, released in a way, and determined to do more for myself. I've ordered the library book and will contact the depression charity offering self-help and volunteer work.

Cheers.

The Drinker.

I'm worthless. Which is good news

"That was a good session, very open and honest," my counsellor said as we walked towards reception to make the next appointment.

That was on Wednesday. It was a good session, I had been open and honest and cried (or rather welled-up; if I let go enough to actually cry properly I completely fall apart) three times as I made my confessions or inadequacy, self-loathing and the deep-seated belief I have that I am an evil person.

This, apparently, is my schema. Counsellor promised to post me a chapter from a book that described this belief system that rules my thinking.

I'd asked if we could take a route towards Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), because I believed it would be more positive and active than what I had experienced before - simply talking about my past and events that may have contributed towards my drinking and depression.

The schema description arrived on Friday: Defectiveness/Shame is my name.

"Patients with this schema believe that they are defective, flawed, inferior, bad, worthless or unlovable. Consequently, they often experience chronic feelings of shame about who they are."

That fits the bill nicely.

The next session is designed to be a confession, a revealing of what I feel is bad, worthless and unlovable about myself. It's going to be tough I think but I have to hope that in revealing I will find some escape.

Where I am and where I want to be. Welcome to Drunk in Cardiff.

DON'T worry, it's not my life story, just a first post to say a little about the point and purpose of this blog.

I am 37 years old and I have a drink problem. I've had one for a long time.

I was first treated for it in the late 1990s. I'd gone to my GP complaining of depression and anxiety and also a stomach complaint. He took some blood tests and discovered I showed symptoms of heavy drinking.

I successfully completed an outpatient detox, but three months of sobriety later, I relapsed. Soon my drinking was out of control again and my relationship and job went down the pan.

I managed to get some sort of a life back together, with a good job and a lovely girlfriend. I continued to drink, but as I was living at home with my parents, it was controlled.

I moved out and my drinking increased massively. In 2006 I again went for treatment.

I again completed a successful outpatient detox. Six months later, I relapsed and my life collapsed - I lost my job.

I put myself straight back into the hands of the local drugs and alcohol service and detoxed again. I think I lasted about three months again.

I'd been seeing a counsellor as part of my treatment and getting help with the depression that is a toxic chicken dancing around the stinking egg of my drinking.

The counselling was going well - I'd tried before but never really engaged with it or made any progress.

I decided I was better. Or at least well enough in my thinking to start to drink socially and sensibly (as I have done occasionally in my life). I went to a function at my girlfriend's work and had a couple of glasses of wine.

At the moment I drink at least six pints a day.

I need to stop.

I can't stop.

I'm on the waiting list for another detox - it will mean going into hospital this time. I'm also seeing a counsellor through the local drugs and alcohol team. I take antidepressants called Trazodone.

I think I can do it.

I know I must do it.

I'm writing this partly as therapy for myself - counsellors have encouraged it. Partly in the hope that others who have addiction problems will find it useful and that it may help them find the help they need. Partly, because I was a professional journalist for six happy years - I love to write, and I've had articles on my treatment published in the national press. So, I hope this is good professional practice and may even help me find work.