Just said no, just said no...

I don't say no. Not usually. This is not only a function of my drunkenness : "Want another?" etc, etc, etc... But also of a desperation to be wanted and loved - yes, yes, yes I say. Often to my own detriment and just for acceptance.

However, that's a diversion for another day. Today I said no to Diazepam, which really surprised me.

I went to see the doctor today, and was delighted to see the same GP as my last appointment. That's the first time that's happened at this practice and it felt nice to have a bit of continuity - I might even go as far as asking to see him again next time.

He was very good about everything. Asking how I was going, how work was suiting me, what my drinking was like and so on. He advised I try AA and used the dread word alcoholic about me.

I'm still denying this, but the denial is weakening - knowing that even while I am successfully making it through a few days without the booze as soon as I do surrender to the bender (thanks for that Pop Will Eat Itself) it really is a surrender and it really is a bender.

So, the prescriptions have come thick and fast again. The dose of Trazodone has gone up and I'm on Acamprosate, or Campral again, or at least I will be once I get to the chemists. I've had all my skin treatments renewed, in the nick of time as it happens, the tubes and tubs were bare and sad to relate but a visible skin condition is not the best medicine for happiness, oh no. Thiamine and multivitamins too have been replenished - I'd stopped taking them over Christmas but I must start rattling again.

Campral is supposed to reduce cravings for alcohol and also to repair brain damage caused by long-term alcohol abuse, which is a good trick if you can manage it I guess. I've taken it before and... Well, I can't honestly say what effect it had; I relapsed in the end after all, but I shall imagine it is doing some good and in the imagining there shall be some good. Or so it is hoped.

I feel very much better today. I charged onto Brighteye yesterday, posting in the SOS forum and got the usual good advice. (Who wants to hear good advice though).

Really, the gist is, come on you've got a problem and you continue to kid yourself about it. You really need a good long period of sobriety before you even think about drinking again.

Mrs Cardiff Drunk is home which is great news for me. I really am a child. If there is no-one telling what to do and what not to do then I do, well, very little apart from, wake...drink...sleep...wake...drink...sleep.

That's something that needs addressing. There's a gap to be filled which hopefully will become easier with time. All those good ideas, that correspondence course, those books I want to read, that music I'd love to write. Well... well, I've said it all before haven't I, but, got to keep trying.

Gosh, that's a long old post and there's things not to be done. Prevarication doesn't just prevaricate itself you know!

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

CD.

Hey there big-eyed world.

Monday now, and sober again.

But I lost it a bit over the weekend.

I won't go into the usual long account of my doings and imbibings and the concomitant loathing that do follow them. Oh no. Suffice to say, I went a bit mad - probably nine or ten on each of Saturday or Sunday. Weaker than I would normally have drunk immediately before I detoxed myself.

Still. I haven't drunk today. Made it to and through work with out any problems. Gosh, oh lordy I want a drink now, but I know I won't, not today, not tomorrow and not till who knows when.

We shall see.

I've just watched The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford with Mrs Cardiff Drunk. For me to make it through a film sober is quite an achievement but it was a rivetingly sombre movie and all the better for it.

My favourite version of the famous song is by the Pogues: "And history will record it was Bob and Charlie Ford who laid Jesse James in his grave."

Brad Pitt in not bad acting shock too.

Hey ho. Hope yer all fine and dandy.

Nos da.

Looking for lost loves and losing the one true love.

I wasn't always like this with alcohol my one true love, and, in all honestly my only interest, my only pleasure, the only reason I've had to even get out of bed in the morning, or early afternoon.

I used to be quite a happy little boy. There were problems in my childhood - which I'm no doubt going to come back to in forensic, tedious and self-indulgent detail.

I've relapsed before - three detoxes, three relapses. And, I'm convinced one of the reasons that happened is I never put anything in place to replace that which needed replacing.

I had interests and enthusiasms that predate my drinking, or at least predate my drinking becoming the all-encompassing be-all-and-end-all. Sadly, drink took over many of these interests.

I love music. I learned violin, piano, cornet and recorder as a kiddy. But, classical music just wasn't very cool at school and for complicated reasons I needed to be cool. My love of music switched to a love of pop and rock; initially The Beatles (the only such music my parents would contemplate allowing in the house) then indie, then heavier and more alternative sounds and finally electronica.

But, drink took that interest and made it its own. An excuse to get out of the house and tell my parents I was going to a club or a gig, in reality it was a way to indulge in almighty drinking and drugging sessions, an escape from my unhappy overactive brain and my over controlled home life.

Sport I used to love too. But, it all too quickly became another excuse. "I'm going to football practice, and we'll probably go for a drink after." It was never a drink. I can honestly say that the phrase 'Going for a Drink' is one I have NEVER used truthfully. Maybe there was a time when I said "Fancy a pint?" and had a pint and left. I can't recall it and I don't believe it.

I remember a Billy Connolly joke on the subject. Well, vaguely remember. I think, in his tale, he had a foreign girlfriend not familiar with imperial measurements who on hearing his constant refrain: "I'm going out for a pint," came to believe a pint was a seven foot high container. (Apologies to those who know the joke properly, but you get the gist I'm sure.)

Watching football was another excuse. I can drink quickly and a game on Mr Murdoch's magic Sky box in the pub is quite enough time for me to get through at least six pints - and, there's a game on nearly every day in the season, and if there's not football, there's rugby and in the summer there's cricket.

Other interests - making music, reading, writing - simply fell by the way side because nothing was as consuming as my passion for getting drunk.

Now, I have to try and fill that void.

I'm on day two without alcohol today. With a little help from my friend Diazepam. Mrs Cardiff Drunk and I went for a short walk this afternoon. Passing the local I could feel its pull almost physically. It's warm in there, it's safe in there, people will smile and nod, I can sit and read quietly (without my brain rushing off on its tangents and turning every memory and overheard word into a spiralling never-ending riff).

So, I have to try.

I'm finding writing this a great help. And, the amount of time I spend at the Brighteye forums is an enormous filler of time.

But, I hope to start reading sober. I want to try and write something imaginative. I want to try my hand at freelance writing again. I want to find an exercise I can manage - I'm not in very good physical shape at the moment.

But, my one true love is gone, and good lord I miss it, every minute of every day. I am in mourning, I am alone.