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

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.

Phew what a scorcher... Hiding in the pub... A trigger spotted...

Zoinks it's been hot today. Hot and heavy. It's still shining down now at 9.17pm and it's fair whacked me out has all this sun.

I spent a couple of hours in the pub today. I've been popping in occasionally but without intoxication on the menu I don't have the temptation to waste hours there.

I went down to the Community Addictions Unit to take my Antabuse at around 10am and from there walked into town to look at the new central library. It's a nice building - very open and airy despite, or in fact because, of the concrete functional look. But, and excuse me for being old fashioned, it's not exactly rammed with books. This is the way with libraries now, they're more and more becoming computer sheds. Fair enough I suppose and free internet access is now a massive resource for learning, being an active citizen, having a social life and just straight up living, but for a central library in an important city I was sorry to see the shelves so sparse and so sparely populated.

I went to the pub to hide to be honest. We get on OK with our neighbours. Brilliantly on one side. But the other side make me nervous. They've got three little kids and a growing tribe of visitors, they're boisterous and noisy, which is fine, but they've also taken to chucking stuff over the wall. I went to have my last cigarette last night - all ready for bed - and saw a ball in the garden which I knew came from next door so I popped it back and went back to my fag. Then a shower of small coins comes over, which I ignore. Then a second one, which causes me to shout, "Oi, what are you doing!" Feet scurry away and Mrs CD arrives to see what's happening. While she's there another shower comes over. We're about 30p richer by now. I get enormously paranoid about this, distressed even, and have to be calmed down: "They're only doing it to get a reaction," she says. "They're only little and they're playing, they're not targetting us they're trying to piss off whoever's money it is." OK, and I do remain relatively calm. Nonetheless, the neighbours put me on edge a bit; the police were round while I was in hospital and I'm 99% sure the men of the house are involved in something criminal, I've seen enough to know that. To be honest I don't really care as long as I can have a quiet life at the moment and not get involved (which is pretty pathetic really), I still say hello to them and they're friendly enough, in fact when the kids do come to the door to ask for the ball they're really lovely and polite.

But it puts me on edge when they're home all day - screaming and fighting away and being shouted into submission. That's partly why I got so down being in the house and the pub felt such a good place to be. Today, it's fine. I take a book and sit in the garden and C soon turns up and we chat away while I chug through my blackcurrant and sodas and buy him an SA. But my inability to deal with even the slightest conflict - the fear that any disagreement will escalate out of control and into violence and humiliation (I think it's the humiliation that bothers me in some silly way) is paranoia that I need to deal with. Stuffed to the gills with Antabuse, seven anaesthetising pints of cider and the courage they bring is not an option and I didn't get as upset as I would have done in the past. But it's put me off going into the garden, which is a shame. Mrs CD was going to bring a friend home for dinner and I was glad she didn't because I know she would have wanted to eat outside, which I know would have been an agony of worry for me.

So, that's a trigger. Avoid is probably the best plan but I know I'm going to have to find courage at some point - I'm not really comfortable with children to be honest and my conflict avoidance is something I've inherited from my dad. I can't keep running forever.

One thing that I know will make me more comfortable in my skin (apart from my skin completely clearing up of course) is feeling physically stronger. I've toyed with the idea of learning some sort of martial art in a desultory sort of way - the discipline would be good. But, the first step is some sort of exercise. One for the morrow that because I'm pretty shattered now and once I've taken my pills will be off to sleep.

They're are kids outside now, just early teens, mates play fighting: why do my legs turn to jelly at the sound without a gut full of alcohol? I was never really bullied properly at school or anything; but I always felt under threat from it. Mrs CD is wise in such matters, but I'm learning sober that I have a huge amount to unlearn - a lifetime worth of it and sometimes it feels too much.

This seems a very negative post when in fact it's been a pretty good day.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

If I make it to the support group tomorrow I'll try and bring it up, which'll take courage of a sort again.

Some of what happened in the hospital - welcome to the NHS detox...

I had intended to keep notes or a diary while I was in hospital for 16 days - hoping to make it the basis of a saleable article. I managed a day. There was plenty going on inside unruly Mr Brain and it soon became apparent that I was going to feel disloyal to my fellow patients in so doing - I'll still try and write something but it's obviously going to have to be heavily disguised; there's enough material for a damn good TV drama but I feel guilty about the very concept of using others and their troubles as 'material'. Hey ho.

Here's the short of it though and I hope it will be reassuring to those who are preparing for an inpatient detox, because I found the experience rewarding and strengthening. Partly, the enhancement to my confidence came from dealing with my fear of people: an NHS detox ward is a mixed bag and there are moods and tantrums and people who've been in prison and unpredictable behaviour and conflict, all things which set my fear antenna twitching like Herbert Lom in the Pink Panther series.

This was my fourth detox but my first one inside and my first one in Wales. My previous community detoxes have been fairly free and easy affairs - a substance misuse worker pops round and doles out your diminishing daily dose of sedatives, Lithium where I've been.

Inside every thing is more clinical and more serious. A full physical examination to start with, which to my delight led to an immediate referral to the dermatology department and a regular and adequate supply of treatments for my eczema. I've been asking my GP for such a referral for months only to be told, "It's not bad enough." In my semi-full time intoxicated state and with my confidence at rock bottom until pint four I was loath to disrobe to show the full extent of my problem and speaking up for my views was beyond me - I suffered in sullen silence.

Then there's a contract to sign. Extensive and admonishing. Don't form relationships with other patients; you are advised not to exchange phone numbers; inappropriate behaviour will lead to expulsion; you must not enter other patients' rooms; you must stay on the ward for three full days before you are allowed out; if you go out you must tell staff where you are going and when you will be back and you must be back then (one patient failed this clause and the police were informed; more in concern for his safety than anything else I like to think).

My bags were logged and searched and toiletries and medication removed to the staff office to be doled out when applied for. It didn't help my nerves that I was earnestly told to keep my mobile phone and cash on me at all times for fear of thievery.

The withdrawal medication here was Valium (diazepam to its mother) and it was available only on completion of a questionnaire of symptoms; score enough you get a swig of strawberry swoozy juice. Antabuse tablets are dissolved too to stop patients stashing tablets under their tongues. The upshot is instead of a five day swoon I'm off the stuff in two. Another patient advised licking of hands to simulate the sweats that get one point and other symptoms are are easy enough to lay claim to - headache, sensitivity to light and noise, anxiousness.

There are also six super vitamin jabs, administered with varying degrees of sensitivity to the buttocks during the first three days.

The days are routine and easy. Breakfast at 8am; medication at 9am; lunch at noon followed by more meds (we all soon fall into the jargon); dinner at 5pm followed by, guess what, more tablets; sandwiches come at around 8pm and the final doses at 10pm. Telly off and in your rooms by midnight during the week and 1am on Friday and Saturday.

There's a TV ban during the day to encourage patients to go to the Therapeutic Day Programme (TDP) which is the main purpose of the stay in the eyes of our hosts. But there's a pool table, a small library of books, visitors from 2-5pm and 6-8pm and a permanently filled smoking room. This little privilege has it's own rules, designed to render it as unattractive as possible - windows open at all times, air con on at all times, no chairs (a patient told me these had to be removed after two patients recently used one to bar the door while they fought inside, but the rule was in place when I attended the TDP as an outpatients), no cups. The kitchen is open to us and there's always something to eat - bread, salads and leftovers in the fridge and endless, endless cups of tea and coffee made all the easier with the super hot water tank that means you don't even have to boil a kettle.

The rooms are small but comfortable: a sink, a wardrobe, a three drawer desk unit, a reclining medical bed.

It's a closed and consequently gossipy world. Some patients (close to a majority I think) were returnees and know each other from previous stays or from the small South Waleian world and villagey Cardiff. There's bitching and moaning about the staff and the treatment - principally about the non-administration of more diazepam or codeine painkillers. We all get on pretty well though, people with only one thing in common really, addiction, but there's only the odd contretemps.

Once you're well enough, the TDP beckons. I've attended before as an outpatient but didn't take much from it, this time it's a far more beneficial programme - I know the others so don't fear them or want to make a particular impression and although I was still among the quietest in the group I chipped in when I could.

During my stay, we lose three patients before their official discharges. The first is the most upsetting. A patient who has a history with the ward and is often unhappy with his treatment - complaining of being messed around in unspecified ways - walks off one morning. There's gossip about them while they're away with rumours of violence when drunk. Hours later they return unnoticed by the staff and drunk as hell. I meet them in the smoking room, unprepared, and am given an overly enthusiastic handshake and bearhug. I'm not sure why, but a no-grassing rule seems to have a hold and he's not simply reported to the staff. I retreat to my room, shaken by the invasion of a loud drunk man and hear him laughing and shouting up and down the corridors. I'm later told their behaviour got worse, bordering on the threatening and cracking cans of Stella in front of the rest of the patients in the TV room. Finally the staff spot the incursion and I'm told they leave quietly enough.

The second leaves just a day early. They fall asleep in the TV room after dinner, snoring loudly and simply cannot be woken by staff, who grown concerned and the suggestion is made that they may be 'over medicated', knowing what I know this is far from unlikely. The staff search the patient's room and find nothing; though I'm told later by another patient that this is because they aren't looking in the right place. Outraged, the patient orders a taxi home, a doctor arrives to formalise the discharge and they're away, happy enough I think.

The final patient to leave is another involuntary discharge and it happens while I am an outpatient on the TDP after leaving the ward. They were on the programme with me and I'd known them inside. Not an alcoholic (most of us are, I only encounter three drug users; two methadone and one amphetamine) but a meth addict. I'd got on very well with them but God they loved to speak, and I know they'd got a few people's backs up in a minor sort of way. One day I come in for the programme and am told something kicked off the night before - a row over noise or talking or something that comes close enough to a fight for the methadone addict - who I'd seen going through terrible physical withdrawals and maintaining a really positive attitude to their new drug-free life - to be asked to leave in the morning.

I've written about the TDP before. I can't remember the full programme but I learned a hell of a lot more this time. They call it a relapse prevention programme and it's really a short sharp self help course - anger management, conflict resolution, spotting psychological traps and dangerous situations, relaxation techniques' a support group including former patients. Art therapy too, which accounts for my lovely collection of tiles with marks on them and a not-too-bad Easter Island head sort of thing.

I also get a referral to the gym and get a real boost out of my short iron pump. I'm told I can meet a physiotherapist on the outside but am yet to hear anything. If nothing comes through soon I'll use the GP referral scheme - that's the plan at least.

I could go on for hours but that's a potted version.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.