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This is what I listened to to day: Rage Against The Machine, Bullet in the Head, and Killing in the Name Of, then a bit of Big Black Kerosene, then The Enemy, We'll live and Die in These Towns, and a whole lot of Wonder Stuff. A whole big gooey pie of nostalgia, anger and disappointment. Strangely, it was Rage Against The Machine that made me cry, a video of them performing over some riot footage, I was glad that the tears came - good God, I felt something!
I'm back. Back as a Cardiff Drunk after a brief four days as a London Drunk. Still not a drinking drunk but a drunk nonetheless, that seems to be the way of things.
I spent today in bed. All of it until about 5pm. I had two baths. I ate a plate of beans on toast then I went out and played football. Then I came home had two spliffs, made a cup of tea and came and sat here.
I'm still in the drumpers. Surviving in a world of grey. Hating the day and wanting only to sleep. No interest in anything, no pleasure in anything, only dread.
I have to try and have a better day tomorrow. Going to London was a mixed blessing. It involves being around successful people like my brother and my former best friend from school.
My main concern at the moment is that I feel no emotion whatsoever. I feel completely blank, that's the perfect way to describe my state at the moment, just blank.
I'm going to see the doctor tomorrow. The plan is to complete my move from Trazadone to Fluoxetine. I've never really put much store in antidepressants. I take them and have taken them for years, but because I can't actually feel any drug-like high from them I don't imagine them to be doing much. Well, perhaps they are. Perhaps that's why I'm like this at the moment, because of the reduced Trazadone dose.
I felt a little lighter last week because my mornings were free of the Trazadone hangover. I wonder what the doctor will say? I had a good appointment with her last time and felt I was taken seriously, treated like someone with an illness rather than someone who should stop drinking, or just cheer up.
I'm going to try and tell her how seriously low I feel and tell her that unless I can find something that will help lighten the conversation I'm permanently having with myself, I'm very likely to start drinking again, because I know that shuts it up completely.
Arse.
If you spent it thank you for your time.
Love you all, as ever,
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.
"Isn't it great to wake up in the morning and be free!"
That's what a lad said to me outside the Community Addiction Unit the other day. I think he was called Joe, and I really should remember because our conversation felt important at the time.
I gave him some tobacco because he'd left his at home, and he told me a bit about himself. His heroin addiction, losing his mother, alcoholism, homelessness. I feel a fake and a fraud when I hear what other people have gone through to land in addiction - my very comfortable life and my self-inflicted problems feel, well, lightweight.
It makes me angry at myself: I've had every opportunity you can imagine and I've pissed it all away, to this.
I think I've a long way to go to be free as well. A long way.
If you spent it, thank you for your time.
The Cardiff Drunk.
Yesterday's good stuff did leech into today. The full schedule, the physical exercise, the social contact and the reduced dose of Trazadone made my start to the day as bright as it has been for a long time.
The sun shone too and I was up fairly early, not long after 9am. I made it out too, and there was where the feeling of well-being really hit me: I was much less nervous of my surroundings than I usually am. Mornings are the best time around here anything, the people who are likely to cause me anxiety - young people, dodgy looking people, are either asleep or in school.
My mood does go up and down through the day and generally follows this pattern. Lets say this is a good day - there are days when there is no variation at all, it's just down - one where I manage to get out of bed properly and get about my business.
I start the day feeling pretty bright and this will continue until I have a low around 3 or 4pm. This coincides with kids coming home from school and I think I've learned to be anxious and fearful around this time. It's just struck me that another learned pattern may be contributing, and that is a drinking pattern. Around 4pm I'd have to start thinking about leaving the pub and returning home to make dinner for Mrs CD. I generally get a bit of an up in the evening too at around 8pm when I get a feeling that there's not going to be any need to leave the house again and that I am safe. Sadly, the day usually ends on a low after staring too long at a computer and knowing that going to bed at 11.30pm means at least an hour of listening to the SSFIs next door.
I'm still pretty bright, but, of course, I've done my best to sabotage it by having a spliff (something that was notable for its absence from yesterday's busy programme). Learn from this Cardiff Drunk, learn from it.
"You can't expect to well every day, you just have to try and do well more days than not."
That's what Mrs CD just said to me. She's a wise old fish isn't she? I envy her sense of perspective. I'm quite tired now, and I haven't even taken my tablets yet, I don't know why I'm even sitting and starring at this stupid screen. I've got nothing to say, except I hate the SSFIs next door, and that I don't need another spliff but I'm about to have one.
Nighty night sweethearts.
If you spent it, thank you for your time.
Cardiff Drunk.
Well, I took my two little 100mg purple and green capsules last night, cutting down my dose of Trazadone to 200mg.
So far, and I know it's early days - day even, nothing but good stuff. I slept well, which is a relief, Trazadone's warm and drowsy embrace are what I love it for. And, there was a notable improvement in my liveliness this morning.
That's partly chemical, and partly me. I'd made a list you see - things to do. A counselling appointment always helps and whenever possible I make these as early in the morning as can be arranged, 10:30 today, because I know counselling is the one thing I absolutely won't ditch on.
So out I popped and on with the list. Some shopping, then home and it's lunchtime - and I ate lunch! Cooked something and sat down and ate the thing. And, then I washed up afterwards! Another note for the file: perfectly normal things everyone over 12 can do but Cardiff Drunk never learned.
So far so fanfare for me - oh, and a drumroll for putting the washing out too.
God, this is a dull old post isn't it. I was going to write about my counselling in another post because once I get going I've got a million things to say and I've been gazing with envy at other bloggers who can write concisely.
So, that's about it really. All I have to do now on my list is make a meal for me and Mrs CD, go and play football, come home and do some writing and then I'll have done EVERYTHING. Amazing, unprecedented, sod your Copenhagen summit the big news is in Cardiff people.
Let's see if I can keep it going - the much cherished, often spoken of but seldom believed in ROUTINE, has made it's first steps into the light.
Laters people.
If you spent it, thank you for your time,
Cardiff Drunk - who really, really loves you all.
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