Good blog, nice, positive blog... Plans for simpletons in life... Change...

Well, after those worrying ponders about the blog, and the wisdom thereof, it seems as though the fit of writing yesterday did seem to help my mood; I almost instantly felt better.

So here we go again.

Today has been a pretty good day too, and I really needed it to help lift that recent gloom and that awful feeling that something was going to crash. It showed me, in the head-crashingly simple and straightforward way that seems to work best with old stupid here, that I can do better and I can help improve my mood.

For starters, we - Mrs Cd and I - had a plan. That was the last thing I was given to do by my counsellor before I went into the darkness - an agreed attempt to try and get through one day with some sort of routine and reach the end of it feeling as if I'd achieved what I wanted to. It didn't need to be a lot - the aim was to get three meals, not do anything that would make me hate myself, and go to bed tired but happy.

Today there was a list with an early start - well, 9am, which for me is early. And, I just about made it out of bed and into the desk to 'work' for 9.15. Then, once I'd woken Mrs CD from her much needed slumber, I managed to eat breakfast and we set off to face the big wide world.

And, we managed really well. Got through a couple of tasks, made it home and Mrs CD made a lovely meal and went out while I went back to the computer.

Small steps. But steps in the right direction.

With the rushing in of reality so assiduously ignored, there's an overload in fresh sobriety. And, I'm also willing to admit now that I'm pretty fucked up in many ways - there's lots about me that I don't like, there's lots about me that I want to change, there's lots about my life that I hate and regret, there's just lots of everything.

But, it's down to me now. I force myself into pain and regret because it's safe and it's familiar, I flirt with the idea of drinking because it's safe and familiar, I don't change anything because it's safe and familiar. Safe and familiar and the coward's way out and the easy option.

Now, today, I had a better day and I know why I had a better day. So, and this is a new idea this one, let's try and do it again. And then again. And consolidate this valuable little lesson and stop being such a hidebound, monstrous fool.

Fercrissake I might even take that lower dose of Trazadone tonight and forget the fear of not sleeping and just fucking get on with things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Cardiff Drunk.

Deciding to be happy

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

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

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

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

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

Not any more.

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

They are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

The Cardiff Drunk.

Hello keyboard, whatcha knowing?

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

A rhetorical question that, because I do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So. I'm on it.

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

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

Hey ho. At least it was different.

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

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

Cardiff Drunk.

Psycho education for anxiety. A begginer's guide.

Right, this is what I was taught in one one hour session by a psychologist. It's not going to be comprehensive, but if you are struggling with anxiety too then it struck me as the most sensible and practical advice I've been given on the subject in all my years looking for treatment and you might like to find out more.

The first part of the session focused on explaining what anxiety was, why we need it and why suffering it in the way that I, and maybe you, do is inappropriate.

So, anxiety is necessary to a stone age creature like man to us deal with physical threats. If you experience anxiety, the symptoms are the body preparing for violent attack - ye olde fight or flight reaction. So, sweating to make you slippery (apparently, according to my psychology guy!), increased heart rate to get oxygen to the muscles, breathing more oxygen in, stomach upset as chemicals pour into your system. As the anxiety increases so do these symptoms, into a panic attack in fact, until it escalates and you go into a sort of pre-shock and your body starts to shut down, which might even involve hallucinations and you will almost certainly believe you're about to die.

Now, this is great for dealing with physical attack. However, in our society, although there are threats and dangers, most of our anxiety is centred on things for which this physical preparation is completely inappropriate, but it is the only response our body has.

Anxiety sufferers (who tend to be intelligent, deep thinkers and very concerned with the world around them flattery fans) are wasting their time worrying about fantasies. Almost everything that causes the response above in anxiety sufferers is an irrational fear. If you are afraid of crowds for example you are afraid of a fantasy - if a friend rang you and said they were in town and it was crowded, you would not advise them to flea, would you?

But humans are learning creatures and by being anxious about certain situations your mind will learn to behave this way. Your response is that of something under attack, which tells your brain that the situation - crowds for example - that makes you anxious, is something that is worth being afraid of, because it produces the response that comes with being under attack.

Now, the two ways I was taught to try and deal with anxiety.

The first starts with the preceding information and using your brain rationally and logically.

When you experience anxiety remember what is going on phsyically and why you are starting to feel so bad, it's a fear of fear, a fear of nothing and you CAN overcome it.

The second is not to behave in certain ways and take some actions to deal with the symptoms of what is primarily a physical problem.

So, try and control your breathing. I've had breathing into a paper bag recommended for dealing with panic attacks, or try to breathe slowly through your nostrils for short time - your body is trying to flood your system with oxygen.

Your system is also heating up as lots of chemical reactions go off and making you sweat too. Try and drink some cold water, take off clothes if you can.

Try to walk steadily. It's calming, familiar and stabilising - it is NOT running. But, it's not a good idea to isolate yourself, sitting still and alone: this is like hiding and will only increase the anxiety.

Try and do some muscle relaxation if you can.

DON'T give yourself more energy - definitely avoid caffeine (and, if you suffer from anxiety than you should probably look at what your caffeine intake is as too much can, on its own, trigger a panic attack. The psychologist I spoke too described it as speed, it works in exactly the same way, he said.)

The same with foods or drinks that are full of sugar - you're feeding more energy into your system, which is not what you want to do - try water if you can.

Cigarettes are not a good idea. The relaxation of smoking is just the satisfying of cravings, and nicotine is a stimulant - at another relaxation related thing, the leader said one of the reasons smoking can relax people is because you tend to breathe more slowly; this chap was skeptical but did say that you're certainly breathing in less oxygen when you're smoking because you're filling your lungs with carbon monoxide.

Try and keep your metabolism steady - avoid getting hungry and eat three good meals a day and as healthily as you can. There you go. Now that's only what I remember from one session but it might be something you'd like to try or try to find out more about.

The psychologist I spoke to added that the worse thing you can do is expect to do this instantly and then consider yourself a failure if it doesn't work. You'll need to learn and it may well happen bit by bit, but even if you're only trying to do something or using the logical thinking stuff at the moment you are on the right track.

If you spent it, thank you for your time. CD.

Love the skin you're in - busy days - fear of despair and the crash

I haven't written for a while - and I'm hugely grateful to those readers who took the trouble to ask, "What's up Cardiff Drunk - normally you're a noisy bastard so why now you are so quiet?"

Things are a little tough in the world of Cardiff Drunk at the moment.

It started simply with doing more. I started on the day therapy programme (DTP) through the Community Addictions Unit (CAU) (we live in a world of acronyms and initials in recovery-land (RL)).

The programme was fine - and its contents confidential - but I managed to get there every day, I managed to speak a little in a group environment, which I find tough. But the chief fly in my ointment is the condition for which I've been prescribed many an ointment.

I don't know what this is any more but I know I want it to go away because it's destroying any improvements in my mood achieved through lower levels of drinking and having a routine of work and therapy. I stopped taking the Trazodone to try and see if that might be the trigger for the rashes and dryness and itchiness and pain. My hands improved slightly and I thought it was getting better, but I've gone back to it over the last two days just to get some undisturbed sleep.

Things got really bad. The eczema on my face - if eczema it is - became infected, redness became scab and self-consciousness spiralled into fear and self-loathing. I went to the doctor as an emergency and the infection has now pretty much cleared up. But the underlying malaise remains and remains a threat to my equanimity.

I'm back at the doctors' tomorrow morning when I'm going to make a fairly desperate plea for a solution. The dryness gets worse by the day and it seems to be spreading, today my thighs flared up with what looked like veins coming through the skin, the skin on my hands is thick and the blood seems to vanish from their surfaces. I can see some of this as an allergic reaction to washing powder - though I didn't change it around the time when the problem started - so today I've got a new brand: I'm terrified of the consequences this change might have. And, why is it on my face and on my hands if this is the case?

Perhaps I'm over-treating the problem and I'm taking a bath a day which is probably just drying things out even more - I'll have to try and get back to showering. I'm washing with aqueous cream and I'm worried this is clogging up my pores and making the redness worse, but I'm terrified of using shower gel or soap.

I'm close to despair to be honest. I've missed two days of work and when I've been there I've been so distracted that I'm not taking much in and I'm terrified I won't be able to cope when I go live on the call centre - it all feels too much. (Do you get the point that I'm terrified yet?) I'm going in today but dreading what I've missed and that I'll have to catch up, possibly at the expense of not completing the two week TDP.

The drinking has gone up too. Nearly disastrously this week with no work or TDP to fill my time. I've found myself drinking for five days solid to yesterday, and drinking too much - I'm determined now to have today, tomorrow and hopefully a couple of more days off it but I know now it'll be a physical struggle and suicide has come into my thoughts again.

Sorry to be so down - things probably aren't as bad as I imagine, I'm not in the disaster zone yet and I'm doing better at helping myself than I have done in the past.

I hope you're OK.

If you spent it, thank you for your time.

CD.

Me and you and the search for my courage

I'm trying to waste less time - time is precious for us earth crawlers it is finite and ever-dwindling. Yet, I tend to spew it out on my shoes or strew it in my footsteps, unloved and unused.

So, how does one waste less time? (I'm open to suggestions here).

A lot of the time I waste is wasted here in the wooden chair in front of the yellow door Mrs CD rescued to make into a desk - she wastes far less time than I.

Some bits of the time are not as badly wasted as others. This, for example, I don't consider to be completely wasted - I think of this as work in a way; at least I'm doing what I'd like to do for a living, writing. This time I blithely classify as practice.

However, bits of the time land unused on the chronological crap heap having served no purpose whatsoever.

These bits of time have been spent thinking, brooding and fearing.

"What are you doing Cardiff Drunk?" You might ask if you was an asking sort of person.

"I'm thinking," I might reply (I'm an answering sort of person).

Really though I'm probably brooding or fearing.

"What do you brood upon Cardiff Drunk?" We've established now that the character 'you' - a faceless internet reader - is indeed an asking sort of person, curious even.

"Fecking everything," I would reply, with a sigh.

Sadly that's true, and I'd love to stop it - again, 'you', the faceless internet reader is invited to supply suggestions at this point, I, Cardiff Drunk believing that a question-asking sort of person might, in their curiosity, have uncovered things we like to call 'answers' and 'solutions'.

Principally I brood over perceived wrongs, slurs, slights and betrayals. Over and over in ever recycling circles of thought in terrible technicolour perfect recall. I make myself do it. We have control over our thoughts to a degree do we not? (An idea that's well put in the self-help book, Stop Thinking Start Living - a book I started to read, got on well with and stopped reading to get on with some more important thinking, brooding and fearing.)

The fearing is less based in the time paste of the past and more in the big blank of the future. It encompasses everything - my parents will die and I will not be able to cope, people will mock me in the streets and I will not be able to cope, I will die of a heart attack and I will not be able to cope, the heating is on so surely the boiler will explode AND! I! WILL! NOT! BE! ABLE! TO! COPE!.

It's great stuff isn't it? (Do you need a question mark after a rhetorical question? That one gets one because it's not rhetorical; the character of you, now playing something of a Greek chorus role is being called upon again.) Some of it's even quite imaginative.

Still, I'd like to do less of both. This, as that book suggests, means more 'doing'.

For me, beyond the household chores and making sure I get through the basics of personal hygiene and care of appearance and not doing bad things that will make me hate myself, doing ought to mean writing properly and contacting publications and writing for free sites in order to build a published portfolio of some kind.

But one of the key fears is, I Am No Good At Anything And If I Try I Will Fail and I Will Not Be Able To Cope. In fact that's the founding father of the fears.

Let's call this fear one that should, as Stop Thinking Start Living suggests, be dismissed. It may be true (and here the character of you - now suspended well above the stage to take a much more metaphorical role as a divine presence or all-seeing-eye of some type - is being cravenly invited too offer up: "No, CD, you're ace, don't dislike yourself so!")

But even if it is true it shouldn't matter really should it, people can only say no to your submissions and, despite your fears, they probably will do so quite pleasantly and without the recourse to mocking, laughter and character assassination you have conjured and with which you believe YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO COPE.

Back to the time and its wasting. Some of it is spent quite harmlessly and pleasantly but not particularly usefully. Reading the blogs you might see on the sidebar and stuff. I try and leave comments too and consider that in some way useful as I gather that's the way to build a following on the internet, but, there are plenty of other things I should be doing.

What are you getting at here? (It's you again! Now dressed in a purple velveteen smoking jacket and affecting a louche and slouching air - you're mocking me aren't you, I warn you I WON'T BE ABLE TO COPE.)

Well, I'm just trying to explore drink and depression as usual.

Because there is one sure-fire cure for thinking, brooding and fearing, and it starts with d, continues with rinking and ends in disaster.

I always find courage in a cup, sometimes things even get done in a galumphing and clumsy sort of way that does me or the things no justice.

Now, I need to start finding it somewhere else. I've looked everywhere, I've looked in bottles and glasses and in little paper wraps full of powder and inside rolled up cigarette papers and I've looked in books about meditation and yoga (but rarely to the point of going beyond looking and actually doing, for reasons that have been explored in tedious detail above) and the like and I've looked in education and reading and work. I've even looked in my memory because I must have had some courage once, surely.

(I have just stopped myself from writing But I've Never Been To Me.)

And now I'm letting myself type it because that's where I know where I should be looking, but, it's a long search and I'm not sure which tools to use, CBT, will power (such as it is, which is as that of a moth in a lighthouse), what?

Well, the search continues, any suggestions on the location of courage and ways of finding it are very gratefully accepted and I've got no-one to ask but you.

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.