This is a story about being trapped...

Believe it or not, I took this photo inside a locked psych ward. Looks like an inviting place, right? Looks like a calm therapeutic setting for sick people, right? This isn't Broadmoor Hospital for the criminally insane - this is a regular psych ward for sick people.

I keep wondering about what went wrong in 2015 that meant I ended up in that psych ward.

I keep seeing worrying similarities with then and now.

I was working on the number one project for a big organisation - same then and now.

I was playing a pivotal role in an important part of the project - same then and now.

I was getting stuff done and playing by my rules, and nobody was stopping me. Indeed I was being encouraged and applauded - same then and now.

I was irritable, impatient and intolerant of fuckwits - same then and now.

I was incredibly annoyed by anybody who got in my way or slowed me down. I had no time for distractions or anything which wasn't going to contribute to the success of the project - same then and now.

To all intents and purposes, it looks frighteningly similar.

But.

I think the straw that broke the camel's back was that I had to move house. I had to lay out about £6,000 in rent, deposit and other fees, and I then had the pressure of earning £500 per week, just to pay my rent. It was stressful - as moving always is - and it was also an incredible amount of pressure to make that kind of money, just to keep a roof over my head.

I'd been living in a hostel and then a hotel - I had been homeless. OK I hadn't been sleeping rough since earlier in the year, but homeless is homeless. I'd had a very rough year. I'd been homeless for 8+ months, before I finally managed to get a place to live that wasn't a sleeping bag in a park, hostel bed in a dorm, or a hotel room. It's rough, being homeless.

I didn't have any financial cushion back then. I don't really have a financial cushion now, but my credit cards aren't maxed out and I don't have tax bills to pay until the end of the year, so I'm in slightly better shape than I was in 2015.

My brain chemistry had been very badly messed up back then. I hadn't had any stability. My life had been chaotic. My mental health had been atrocious. At least this time round I have been working nonstop for the best part of two straight years. The problems I've had recently have been short-lived and not caused any major problems. I can't remember the last time I was too sick to work. My mood is pretty damn unstable, but probably not as extreme as it was back then.

What's going to make me wake up one day and decide that I need to be sectioned and re-admitted to a psych ward? What's going to break me and render me unable to carry on going? What's going to be the straw that broke the camel's back?

Interestingly, I quit drinking back then, like I've quit drinking now. I think being sober was part of the reason why I became unwell - I had nothing to help me self-medicate.

Maybe I've stopped drinking and stabilised soon enough to allow me to be alright this year, but I already see warning signs: I did something really dumb in the office, which has damaged my reputation and made colleagues unwilling to help me out; to support me and to want me to stick around. I'm making a mess of things, now just as much as I did back then.

Does being aware of this repeating pattern of behaviour make me any more able to avoid it? Not really. Things are so hectic and intense, and I'm so tired and stressed and anxious, that I'm surviving using instinct. The stuff that comes out of my mouth, which is the reason why I'm doing so well, because it's useful stuff that's getting a project delivered, has turned into dumb stuff which makes people not like me very much. My engineering expertise is now being peppered with dumb stuff; regrettable and unprofessional. After an enormous amount of effort to get a very difficult project over the line, I'm exhausted and my mask is slipping; I'm making mistakes. I can't help it - my instincts are all I've got left, because I'm spent.

I'm definitely going to keep pushing ahead with this sobriety thing, because my alcohol consumption had gotten out of control really quickly. However, I don't want a re-run of exactly what happened in 2015, because it undid all my hard work; all my valuable contribution was wasted - all anybody could remember was that I got sick. All the hard work that got the project delivered didn't matter in the end. All that mattered was how things finished up. I might as well be yet another plodding idiot, doing a fucking mediocre shit job, and concentrating my effort on not saying anything objectionable, rather than busting my balls to get shit done and deliver something really hard for an impossible deadline. Why did I even bother?

I'm not quite sure how to navigate the tricky waters of the next couple of months. I have enormous challenges, in trying to rescue my reputation and help my colleagues to remember that I made a massive contribution, and not just see the recent screw-up I made when I was exhausted and strung-out. I have an insane amount of pressure to get another contract sorted and keep the money rolling in. I have a huge risk that I'm going to collapse, have a breakdown and be unable to work, which will ruin everything. It's almost intolerable.

The next 5 or 6 weeks are going to make me or break me.

Tags: #bipolar #alcohol #suicide #hospital

This is a story about the beer fear...

I've written about the beer fear before. The beer fear is the spike in anxiety associated with quitting drinking, which peaks after a 2 or 3 days. The beer fear is one of the hard parts, because alcohol is perfect to take the edge off the nerves and restore a sense of wellbeing, when the anxiety is kinda unbearable. The beer fear is a known difficult period which always occurs after quitting heavy drinking.

The anxiety is strange at the moment. It's enough to make me distracted and feel like I'm doing a bad job at work, that I'm screwing up, despite a mountain of evidence that I'm working hard and doing valuable stuff. The anxiety is enough to penetrate my dreams: the past two nights I've had terrible nightmares.

I'm particularly tormented - still - by the screwup I made on Thursday, putting a message in the wrong chat, which was super unprofessional.

As I predicted, I'm feeling a lot worse before I feel better. I got through Friday night, which was difficult as I wanted to reward myself for getting through the working week. I'm quite programmed to "get that Friday feeling" so I had to fight the urge to drink. See step one: I didn't have any alcohol in the house, which made it easier.

As also predicted, I'm hungry all the time. I'm probably comfort eating because I'm tired and anxious, and overcompensating for the sudden lack of alcohol. I'm allowing myself to eat pretty much whatever I want, because I can't do everything all at once, but my diet has vastly improved versus when I was drinking heavily. I won't be losing any weight, yet, because I'm focussed on getting through this difficult period where I feel terrible before I start feeling better. Then, I can think about improving my diet as well as not drinking.

I'm hoping that by Monday, I'll be feeling the benefits of being alcohol-free, a little bit.

Tags: #alcohol

This is a story about losing weight...

The problem with saying to yourself "I'm stressed, depressed, anxious and miserable, so I am going to eat and drink whatever I want" is that you quickly put on weight. The weight I lost in July, in preparation for my birthday holiday, has quickly returned. I am unhappy about my weight again. I knew that bad diet and drinking too much alcohol would lead here, but I didn't care at the time, because the weight gain was relatively slow - it crept up on me.

I'm not overweight by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not happy with the extra pounds I'm carrying. I'm used to my weight being under control. I'm used to being a heathy normal weight. I don't want a minor problem to become a major one.

Alcohol is the obvious source of weight gain.

I get drunk, then I get more drunk than I had originally planned, and I eat too much.

If I drink, I lose all self-control over my calorie consumption, and sensible alcohol limits.

If I drink one bottle of wine and I have another one in the house, I will invariably drink that one too. At weekends, if I drink one bottle of wine and I don't have another one, I will get a Deliveroo rider to bring me another one.

When really drunk, I always get very hungry. I always eat too much, on top of drinking too much. It's a double-whammy.

So.

No more drinking.

There's no alcohol in the house and I'm not going to buy any more.

I feel fine about that.

Earlier, in the supermarket, there was a fairly major impuse to buy a bottle of something alcoholic, but I resisted. I know that unless I start right now, I will keep putting it off and I will keep drinking more than I planned, which invariably means I end up eating more than I planned too. The pattern of behaviour is the same: I always end up abandoning my plans to drink less and eat less, when I'm drunk, and I always regret it more and more, when I look at myself in the mirror in the morning. I know that all those alcoholic drinks and drunken snacks add up to a massive amount of calories.

The stress of work, the stress of money and the stress of relationship problems, gives me all the excuses I need to drink. I've defended eating junk and getting drunk, saying that it's just for a little while: during this very difficult period of my life. But, it's going to be a heck of a long time that I'm suffering unpleasantness, and I don't want to be a big fat alcoholic when I finally pull through - that would give me a whole load of new problems to solve, which wouldn't be quick or easy.

So, the time to act is now.

Need to quit drinking.

Done.

Of course, the hard part is getting through the next few days without alcohol. The hard part is resisting alcohol on a Friday and a Saturday. The hard part is resisting alcohol, when I crave it. In a few days, I will feel substantial benefits from being teetotal. In a few weeks, I will have lost a little weight and will start to be feeling a bit better about my appearance. The hard part is sticking to the plan consistently and reliably; maintaining my determination; being consistent.

Things seem to be going quite well at work and some other things which were stressing me out don't seem to be making me quite as anxious as they were, but I imagine that my perception of things will change as I sober up - I've drunk a crazy amount in the last week, which surely must have meant that I've been pretty anaesthetised against the dreadful crap going on in my life. Having nothing to take the edge off is going to be awful, but if I don't act now I'm going to get really depressed, anxious and stressed about my appearance, which will damage my self-esteem and make me very unhappy.

So, expect further boring updates about me not drinking, and maybe even dieting a little. Can't do everything all at once, but it's time to take a decent break from alcohol, as a first step in the right direction.

Tags: #alcohol

This is a story about demon drink...

I have placed a ludicrous amount of pressure on myself, having decided that I'm going to create a great reputation for myself by being a major player in a massive important project, for a big organisation. I've been attempting to be all things to all men, and be in all places at one time. I have been attempting to be manyfold times more productive than anybody else, in order to demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt that I've been a major contributor and driving force behind the success of the project. I've staked my name and reputation on a successful delivery.

How do I sleep at night?

Vodka.

I bought a bottle of vodka on Monday and now it's all gone. I never drink spirits. Except I have done this week. A whole bottle.

I know this is a bad sign.

This is how alcoholism starts.

Alcohol is a terrible coping mechanism. I was very drunk last night, except somehow I wasn't. I carried on drinking even though I wasn't getting any more drunk. I woke up and I was worryingly OK.

I should have been throwing up.

I wasn't.

It's not the drinking that's so much of the worry, it's the getting used to it. When I can neck a bottle of vodka over the course of 3 evenings, and still turn up to work and be productive, then I'm on a collision-course with disaster. Not the kind of disaster where I turn up for work in a dishevelled intoxicated state - that would never happen - but the kind of disaster where I end up dying of liver failure in my 50s, having been an alcoholic for more than a decade.

I think spirits are a step too far. Spirits spell disaster. The hard stuff is dangerous.

It's been shocking, the effect of strong alcoholic drinks - I've not found a limit where I start to feel unwell, and the hangovers are too unbearable, which is very dangerous. I also have failed to find any point where I think "I've had enough" or "I'm adequately drunk". Strange, that I would never reach a point where intoxication becomes unpleasant; aversive. That's worrying.

So. No more spirits. No more vodka. I need to stop that particular stupid idea immediately.

I do have an enormous amount of stress, which is reaching its peak. The deadline is almost here. The end is nigh.

I'm not sure how my colleagues in other teams are coping. I'm not sure how people who have a lot of responsibility, professional pride and reputation at stake, are coping right now. One colleague who's worked at the same organisations that I have - notably JPMorgan and HSBC - alluded to having a similar hard-drinking predilection. Alcoholism is ubiquitous in the Square Mile. Alcoholism is notorious in banking. I've lost numerous friends and colleagues to alcoholism, from that world. It was practically a rite of passage to end up in The Priory, all paid for by JPMorgan or whoever, in order to dry out and then come back to work.

It's ridiculously demanding work, delivering huge IT projects for gigantic organisations. The alcohol goes hand-in-hand with the project work, because otherwise people's blood pressure would be too high and the stress would be unbearable. Work hard, play hard. It's all good fun, until somebody dies 10 or 15 years later from alcohol-related illness.

I've been patting myself on the back, but nobody's really officially recognised my contribution, as yet. Why should they? So many people are working hard. So many people are involved. So many people are stressed and under pressure. Why should anybody single me out as special, in particular?

I veer between feeling confident and pleased with the project I've been involved in, and feeling that there's something really fundamentally wrong which is going to ruin things. Some nights I go to sleep content, and wake up excited to improve things. Some nights I can hardly sleep with worrying about an unresolved problem, and I wake up with anxiety, not knowing whether I'll resolve the problems satisfactorily.

Taking the edge off every night, self-medicating for my insomnia and anxiety, I have been drinking far too much. I drank bucketloads over the weekend. This week has been ridiculous for alcohol consumption. It's terrible.

This whole period is terrible for my health. The pressure is relentless. The workload is relentless. The demands I place upon myself to perform and excel are huge; I'm so determined to achieve something great, to prove to myself that I'm still a talented and capable engineer, who can deliver huge projects on time with high quality.

I keep telling myself that I need to keep pushing myself, just a little longer. The finish line is in sight. Not long now.

Tags: #work #career #alcohol

This is a story about rôle models...

I was very lost in 2015, without any purpose or identity beyond some things which were destroying me, my self esteem, my legacy, my reputation. I was sinking; doomed. I was trying and failing to regain any control over my chaotic and unmanageable life, and to gather enough dignity to carry on living.

A technologist friend has always helped me to discover things in life which have become integral to my future. He taught me to be a programmer and he got me interested in writing, as well as a heap of other things, like political views, which I now consider to be very much a part of my identity.

My friend has written and published online for countless years, and I have read and I have imitated. He was a prolific blog contributor, touching many lives worldwide. He has lived and breathed social media and embodied his online persona. I have imitated.

My parents chose to intoxicate themselves with drugs and alcohol, and were only concerned with their own selfishness, which mainly revolved around social isolation, lest their neglectful lazy shameful behaviour be publicly exposed. Luckily, I had excellent friends and their parents were inspirational people. I saw in other people's families, the way that things should be and I saw in my peers some ideas about what I could be. Friends have shaped who I am and given me the inspiration to pursue my profession in technology, and my passion for online communities, combined with my love of writing.

To say that I love writing is perhaps wrong. I've written a couple of novels, one of which I'm quite proud with, but I don't write fiction as regularly as I'd like. Perhaps if I was a more natural writer I would always be writing little short stories, or exploring my imagination in other ways, but instead I write these "non-story" stories, every single day if I can.

I cringe a little to think of my friend's judgement regarding the wrong-headed thinking, or mistakes of the past. If ever there's somebody I would be ashamed of disappointing, it would be my old friend. If there are certain standards of behaviour I hold myself to, it's not because of any standards from my parents - alcoholic druggies - but instead it's because of a worldview developed in the company of my friends and their families, whose opinions I seem to have taken to heart.

When I think about, for example, my friend's parents' view on hitting children, then I am upset that my parents were such barbaric ignoramuses, when their peer group was able to comport themselves the right way. If my friends' parents were able to be productive members of society, sociable and not drunk drug addicts; able to raise children without hitting them; able to raise children with kindness and generosity, indulging their children's talents and encouraging them to reach their full potential... then why not mine? I do not know, but I do know that my parents were abysmal failures, while many of my friends' parents are awesome role models, and some of their children too.

"They did the best they knew" is absolute horse sh1t when you have your peers to connect with; you can hold yourself to the standard of those around you, as a minimum. If you're the only antisocial drunk druggie losers who don't have a job, then you sort yourself out and start behaving responsibly, you don't force your child to leave school again and again, and drag them away from their friends, isolating them. That's f**king barbaric awful inexcusably sh1t behaviour.

I meant to write yesterday and I'm sad that I didn't. I meant write merely to thank my friend for inspiring me to write, but also to acknowledge my friend's role in giving me a career, and in inspiring me to think about many things. I meant to write only to speak of the positive, but I seem to have strayed into the territory of the negative.

My friend never writes vicious tirades like this, and I know that my ingratitude I show towards my parents could be particularly improper at the particular time, given a traumatic family situation in his life, which is nobody's fault but rotten bad luck.

I wish I could be more positive, but this blog serves as a kind of safety pressure-release valve, which has functioned extremely effectively in enabling me to regain some self esteem, control, dignity and other important things - such as a sense of purpose - when my life has otherwise crumbled around me.

Tags: #friends #parents #writing #socialmedia

This is a story about caring for living things...

My beloved castor oil plant is not doing very well. Really, I should re-pot my houseplants. I need to purchase some plant food and feed my houseplants. Two of my plants have been attacked by my kitten, leaving them pretty much destroyed, and one of them was knocked off a shelf by my kitten, and perished soon afterwards due to having no pot anymore.

My kitten is not eating her food. She had a different brand of cat food while I was on holiday and now she doesn't want to go back to eating the cheap supermarket own-brand stuff. I'm not trying to save money - I kept her on the same food that the breeder was feeding the cats, and the breeder was trying to save money. It's a bad idea to change your pet's food, because it can upset their stomach. I guess I will have to go and get some premium brand stuff now my kitten is used to the fancy stuff.

I'm not doing great in terms of diet, exercise and alcohol. I thought I would feel rejuvenated enough after my holiday that I would start taking better care of myself, but I've needed a bit of booze to take the edge off the shock to the system of going back to work. Work is stressful.

Things look better regarding the major things that were stressing me out. My contract is likely to be extended by a couple of months and the organisation I work for is chasing my security clearance, which is good. I feel happier about things.

I'm not going to write much today because I'm about to go out for dinner and to the cinema. Also, I'm trying to write less - little and often, instead of gigantic brain-dumps which are far too much for anybody to enjoy reading.

I drank far more than I intended to this week, which makes me feel bad about possible weight gain and the general health implications of drinking too much, but I must admit that it's helped ease me back into the daily grind. However, I could easily end up being overly dependent on alcohol and drinking far too regularly, so I'd like to get things under control before they get out of hand.

My kitten has been very sweet and playful at times and I'm really pleased to have a companion animal - a pet - to keep me company when I'm home alone. I was worried that she was too wild and destructive, and that I wasn't able to cope with such an intelligent cat, but I seem to have found strategies for her behaviour to stop her peeing on everything and destroying stuff. Not an ordinary domestic cat at all, but she's got bags of personality and she's great entertainment.

Today I felt for a moment like things were going OK. My income is slightly more secure, I'm good at my job, I'm in a good relationship, I like my house and my cat, my car is OK, my finances are OK, my health is OK... things are alright. I don't see too many ways in which everything's going to fall apart at the moment. If everything goes ahead as it should, then I don't have any horrible unpleasantness to face for a couple of months, which is good. Some challenges on the horizon for the autumn, including the usual horrible situation where I'll be needing a holiday but my income won't be secure - it really spoils a holiday having uncertainty about employment and money.

Lots of work to do at the moment, which is what I want because I like to keep my mind occupied, but I do want to keep myself on a sustainable and healthy footing. I don't want to burn myself out, or indeed make myself redundant. I often blaze through all my work and am left with nothing to do, feeling horribly bored and dreading having to look busy.

So, I have the opportunity to work and to live, but I need to look after myself.

I'm off to do leisure activities now, which is very nice.

Tags: #kitten #gardening #house #alcohol #drinking #diet

This is a story about keeping people updated...

It's been nearly 2 weeks since I wrote last. I know I've had gaps but this feels like a really long one. Gaps are usually a very bad sign. It's worth worrying about me if I'm not writing. Things are probably going badly if I'm not writing.

I was coping by using a combination of alcohol, sleeping pills, tranquillisers/sedatives and a heck of a lot of comfort eating. I've been teetotal and medication-free for a while now. I'm dieting too. I'm slimmer but I feel awful. Stopping taking all the pills has been brutal. Not having anything to 'take the edge off' has been horrible. The anxiety has been unbearable.

Some concerned friends have sent me messages, but I've felt too swamped to reply. Work is exhausting and there has been the looming holiday, which has caused added stress rather than being something to look forward to: How am I going to afford the loss of earnings as well as the expense of the holiday? My work situation is looking very uncertain for when I get back from holiday, which is a horrible situation to be in, worrying about money instead of enjoying some well-earned time off.

My relationship is good but it's caused some sleepless nights. I'm desperately trying to avoid worsening my exhaustion and sleep deficit, but it's almost impossible to catch up. Stopping the sleeping pills has caused my sleep quality to deteriorate. It's a miracle that I'm still reasonably productive and functional.

The last thing I want to think about is the travel and logistics of going abroad. Buying holiday clothes sounds like fun, but it's another item on a todo list which makes me very stressed out. I'm struggling to figure out when I can fit in all the things I need to do between now and my departure date from the UK. I suppose as long as I've got my passport and a buttload of cash then I can figure things out, but it's not pleasant to be so ill-prepared for a trip.

I'll be 40 years old in exactly one week. I decided to have a barbecue at my house when I was feeling somewhat more buoyant about the way my life was going. Now I feel like cancelling the gathering, because I'm stressed about the extra unnecessary hassle. Having guests over to my house reminds me that I've still barely moved in - I don't have much furniture and the place is a bit of a mess. I don't feel well placed to make my guests comfortable. I have a lot of anxiety about it being a really awkward occasion, with a handful of my long-suffering friends having made the long journey to the provinces, in order to make smalltalk with strangers... a real chore for them.

I'm working as hard as I can in order to feel proud about my contribution to the project I'm working on. I'm desperate that my contribution be remembered as something valuable and that my colleagues recognise the effort I've ploughed in. Work's become a bit of an unhealthy obsession and I'm significantly over-invested, emotionally. I can picture myself getting very depressed when I'm forced to leave the project because of contractual shenanigans, and through no fault of my own.

My life is deeply unbalanced; unhealthy. I'm not drinking alcohol and I'm dieting, so I've lost weight, and I've managed to get a bit of sun, so I look quite healthy, but inside I'm very sick. The stress of the past years seems to have ratcheted up as my life has become more 'normal' and 'stable' recently - things were easier when I was living out of a suitcase, in some ways, although I appreciate that I was very miserable and living much more unhealthily.

Readers who've followed me for any significant length of time will probably have a better idea than me as to whether I'm in a better place today than I was a few months ago, a year ago, several years ago. Things feel terrible but they probably aren't.

The stresses seem to be the same as ever, particularly concerning my security vetting. A colleague contacted me to say they were reading my blog. They seemed enthusiastic about the prospect of working with me, despite what they'd read, and the feedback seemed generally positive. It's the first time that a colleague has been brave enough to tell me that they've been reading my blog. Of course, the security vetting people have been reading too. I wonder if the security vetting people are as sympathetic to my stresses, and look favourably upon my ability to maintain an impeccably high standard of professionalism in the office, whilst undergoing some horrendous chaos in my personal life; struggling so much with my mental health. I wonder if all the talk about being sympathetic towards mental health issues is just hot air.

I wanted to write a short update, because I know people are worried about my uncharacteristic quietness. I've kinda failed. I'm doing OK, but I'm also really struggling too. Plenty of reasons to be concerned, but things are not completely ruined and on collision course with disaster... in fact I might even weather this storm and emerge in a reasonably good situation.

I'll try to write a little more regularly, but I don't want to be a stuck record, endlessly moaning about how unpleasant the effect of stopping medication is. I don't want to wallow in misery.

It's summer. I have money. I have employment for a little while longer. I have an awesome holiday booked. I have a very nice girlfriend. I have a cute kitten. I have a big house. Things are not terrible.

I'm not taking any medication, not drinking, dieting. I'm losing weight and my brain is getting back to a stable state without any alien chemicals. It's good to be free from the shackles of chemical dependency.

If I can push through this tricky period and keep the wheels turning, then I think my forties are going to be a much better period of life than parts of my thirties. It does feel good to be turning a corner as I reach an age when I should be growing old less disgracefully.

I've written more than I wanted to but I hope you'll forgive me. You're all up to date now.

Tags: #anxiety #alcohol #depression #medication #bipolar #career #holiday

This is a story about going on a diet...

571 days ago I decided that I was allowed to drink heavily and eat whatever I wanted. I had at least a bottle of wine every day and ate mostly fast food. I decided that this was my reward for working virtually non-stop: to guzzle gallons of alcohol and devour mountains of fatty food. My evenings were spent in McDonalds, KFC, curry houses and pizza places. My evenings were spent drinking glass after glass of red wine.

Unsurprisingly, I put on weight.

I was living in a hotel for a while, which was next door to a gastropub. I lived on calorific food, like lasagne & chips, washed down with large glasses of red wine. When I got back to my hotel room, I would continue drinking large glasses of wine. I decided that it was my reward for the miserable life of living in a hotel, to eat and drink with gay abandon.

I put on more weight.

Then, I noticed that I was putting on weight. I noticed that I had a tummy. I got out of the shower one day and I saw my own reflection in the mirror, and I realised that I had gained a belly. I've never really had any problems with my weight, so I was kinda shocked, although by this point I had been gaining weight steadily for roughly 9 months.

I didn't change my behaviour.

I did stop living in the hotel. However, I lived on takeaways and beer. I had a takeaway almost every night of the week, and I washed all that fatty food down with vast quantities of beer. I was going to the supermarket on an almost daily basis to re-stock the fridge with beer.

Then I stopped drinking.

My alcoholic friend killed himself. He drank himself to death. His alcoholism had raged out of control for a long time and hadn't claimed his life, but health complications quickly began to create a compounding problem and he knew that he was going to die; his quality of life was rapidly deteriorating. This event, coupled with my unhappiness about being a little overweight, was enough of a catalyst for me to quit drinking.

I was teetotal for nearly 5 months.

Then, I started drinking heavily, eating restaurant food and having takeaways on a regular basis. I drank loads of white wine and ate lots of very rich gourmet food. I had lost some weight by simply being teetotal. I had reached a point where my weight was under control and I felt better about my appearance, but then I quickly undid that by drinking and eating so much.

Now, I'm trying to lose weight again.

I'm not trying very hard to lose weight. All I've done is cut my daily calorie intake. I've stopped drinking - mostly - and I've stopped having takeaways and restaurant food - mostly - and I've stopped having large lunches. I've stopped eating breakfast. I've stopped snacking. On average, my weekly calorie intake has been cut pretty drastically.

I still don't do any exercise.

I joined a gym at one point, but I never actually went. The circumstances of my job changed and I found myself living in the hotel. It was hard to motivate myself to go to the gym when I had the miserable existence of living in a hotel. The highlight of my evening was my gastropub meal and red wine, so I can't imagine that there'd have been much point going to the gym.

I should do some exercise.

I'm making some very big changes to my medication at the moment. I'm tapering off high doses of tranquilisers and sleeping pills, in order to be medication-free by the time I go away on holiday, the day before my 40th birthday. I have less than a month to rid myself of physically addictive benzodiazepines and highly psychologically addictive sleeping pills. I have a horrible month ahead of me, filled with rebound anxiety and rebound insomnia. It's not easy to stop taking medication and it's extremely unpleasant to rapidly stop. Going cold turkey is not even an option - I could have seizures.

I'm making good progress.

Apart from last night, where I got extremely drunk and ate a gigantic burger and chips, Friday night where I drank two bottles of white wine, and Monday evening when I had a takeaway, I've not been drinking, eating takeaways or eating in restaurants. I've also managed to reduce my sleeping pills by 33% and my tranquilisers by 50%. I'm changing a lot of things all at once. It's very difficult to change so many things all at once, especially while I'm going through a very stressful high-pressure period at work, with some very demanding tight deadlines.

It'd be wonderful if I was superhuman and I could work full-time, have very little sleep, write every day, look after my kitten, keep my house clean, quit drinking, go on a diet, stop taking addictive medication AND do some exercise, but I'm afraid that it's too much to ask - the exercise will have to wait until life gets a little easier.

I know that I'll get more enjoyment out of my holiday if I'm fitter and in better shape, but the holiday is the respite I desperately need; the rest and recuperation; the reward for 571 days of almost continuous work, with the exception of a week-long jaunt to Turkey and two weeks in Mexico. My last holiday was nearly 7 months ago, and I've been through a house move and a breakup, as well as working exceptionally hard.

The beach body will have to wait, although my small lifestyle adjustments will help. The weight isn't just going to magically disappear, but I shall have to content myself with stopping the rot - I simply haven't got the bandwidth to be able to exercise on top of everything else on my plate.

Tags: #weight #diet #exercise #gym #food #holiday #career #alcohol #medication

This is a story about brain training...

I spent a week living in a Warsaw hotel, making sandwiches in my room, using a shoe-horn to spread mayonnaise and mustard on the long-life bread bought from a nearby convenience store which mainly sold alcohol and snacks. This would hardly be a great example of ingenuity - a sign of a brilliant mind at work - but it certainly addresses the first part of this short essay: hunger.

Hunger is not just about food, so I thought I would get the food part out of the way at the beginning.

We can be hungry for sex, love, companionship, social contact. We can be hungry for thrills; adrenalin. We can be hungry for substances of abuse, including alcohol, tobacco and caffeine. There are all kinds of hunger, not all of which can be satiated with food, although we can often try to use food to fill the gaping void inside ourselves. Comfort eating is something I find myself doing when tired, bored or otherwise hungry for something other than food.

I wanted to write about intellectual hunger.

There are some questions which don't require much brain-power to answer, such as: how am I going to feed myself cheaply for a week in a hotel that's nowhere near anything except a couple of shops which mainly sell alcohol? The answer to this question is not one requiring intellect, but instead the answer simply requires lowered standards and the willingness to suffer a little.

Another question might be: how am I going to increase my standard of living as much as possible, as quickly as possible?

Again, this second question is quite easy to answer and requires very little thought or effort of the mind. The answer to the question simply requires more lowering of standards and willingness to suffer. Ultimately, one can always sell a kidney or make bodily orifices available for sexual gratification of paying punters. Problems of this nature are not taxing or interesting, in an intellectual way.

With too much of life occupied answering trivial questions and doing the unpleasant obvious things - prostituting yourself and living in vile conditions - we arrive at a far more interesting question: why bother?

4 years ago it was obvious to me that I knew exactly what I needed to do, how I was going to do it and how long it was going to take, in order to restore myself to health, wealth and prosperity. The prospect of repeating tasks which had become so repulsively boring and easy to me, although somewhat stressful too, was doubly abhorrent because of the lack of novelty combined with the lack of intellectual challenge.

I think in many ways it would have been much easier to accept a fate imposed upon me by circumstances, and abandon the pursuit of an outcome which was almost too far out of reach; almost too unbearable to suffer while en-route.

When I say "easier" I mean intellectually nourishing.

What right do I have to spend my days talking to interesting intelligent people? What right do I have to spend my days reading interesting books? What right do I have to explore ideas, have discussions and write down my thoughts? What right do I have to publish what I write? What right do I have to be allowed readers? Why should I be entitled to have any of those things?

I suppose I accepted that a more interesting course through life was not available to the likes of me. Those who are fortunate enough to ask themselves "what kinds of things do I find interesting?" or "what would my perfect job be?" and to then use these answers to formulate a life which is compatible with capitalist society, are not in the same socioeconomic boat as me. This is not to say that I'm deprived and disadvantaged, but merely that I'm incredibly pragmatic and quite unwilling to risk a decline in my living standards, back to a time when I was sleeping rough and the most pressing question of each day was: where shall I sleep to stay dry and keep me safe from violence and robbery?

So, my 4-year writing project began. I scratched my itch as best as I could with the facilities at my disposal. I have written and published as if I am one of those entitled brats who gets to spend their time choosing from an almost unlimited menu of very pleasant options, because their socioeconomic circumstances protect them from the peril of destitution.

I'm still surprisingly far from ever being able to ask myself "what would I like to study?" or "what is my dream job?" but the vast majority of us will never be fortunate enough to be able to do anything other than suffer the coercion of capitalism, and to do unpleasant things in order to survive.

It seems churlish to complain, given that I have certainly been able to feather the nest recently, and I do my complaining in far more pleasant surroundings than a bush in a park, sleeping rough.

Although I'm time poor and nowhere near being financially comfortable enough to feel confident in risking any major alterations in my chosen life course, I am lucky enough to be emerging from an incredibly lengthy period of suffering, in order to shore up life's practical considerations: housing etc.

Theoretically, it's now a matter of months until some very real and tangible results arrive as a result of a very sustained campaign, which has been excruciatingly boring and predictable, with very little freedom of choice.

In conclusion, I appreciate that my situation is fast becoming an enviable one, and soon I will have the freedom to make choices which offer more intellectual nourishment, which has been so lacking during the 4 year period where I simply had to do whatever it took - to suffer - in order to preserve all future opportunities, and avoid any catastrophic life-changing disasters which would force me down another path.

Tags: #homeless #career

This is a story about vomit, excrement, snot, urine, blood and suchlike...

As a 39-year-old non-parent, I've had to suffer interminable anecdotes about the vile stuff that comes out of children, for over two decades, while working full-time in an office full of people who were incessantly breeding. I've heard everything that should never be uttered in a professional environment, where those who have decided not to completely dedicate their entire lives to their bestial destiny as preordained by their genes - those who have risen above the reproductive drive of a simple-minded animal - should not be subjected to interminable near-identical stories about babies and children.

However.

Now it's time for me to get my revenge.

My kitten likes to take a dump in the woodchips and she likes to urinate in the gravel. My kitten is extremely fussy about where she evacuates her bowel and bladder. Her absolute favourite thing to do is to urinate on my bed and defecate on my coat, but I banned her from both rooms where she was doing that.

In my presence, my kitten must have urinated on the duvet on my bed at least 10 times now. I know that my washing machine has been very busy indeed. I know that many parents can relate to having their washing machines full of items which have been covered in pooh, sick, urine, snot and other horrible substances. My own parents decided not to use proper nappies so that they'd have more money to spend on drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, so I definitely know that they can relate to having to put stuff covered in bodily waste into the washing machine.

Essentially, what I'm doing is potty training.

When I see my kitten about to take a wee on my duvet, I pick her up and move her to her litter tray. I have 4 litter trays - two downstairs in the kitchen, and two upstairs in my bedroom, so that she can be quickly manoevered into the one she seems to prefer for urination.

So far, I have managed to save my duvet from being soaked in kitten pee at least three times.

The first time I managed to move my kitten into the litter tray and saved my duvet, I felt like such a proud parent. I was so pleased to see her going to the toilet in the place that she's supposed to.

Another time, she went for a wee in her litter tray all on her own.

She's a kitten who's been raised in a good environment, and she has a very nice home where she's stimulated and not stressed; she has a nice balance between lots of fuss and attention, and quiet cosy places for her to retreat to as well. She's simply quite different from a regular domestic cat: she's 5 generations from an Asian leopard cat, which means that she's pretty wild. She deliberately saves up her pee as a scent marker, which is what many domestic tom cats do. She is also incredibly smart, so she pees to show her displeasure at any lack of fuss and attention from her humans. She expects things to be the way she wants them to be, or else she does a dirty protest.

Mercifully, she doesn't pee or poop anywhere she shouldn't except the duvet... and only when she wants to get a reaction out of her cat parents. She has [almost] complete freedom in a very large house, and aside from some houseplants which have taken a beating, she's been very well behaved.

She is a fusspot. It's taking a lot of effort to make sure her litter trays are in perfect and pristine conditions until she's fully settled and 'potty trained'. Of course - like all pet cats - she came from the breeder knowing how to take a poop in a litter tray, as well as knowing where to pee, but it was distressing for her to be adopted and taken away from her mother, brother and sisters, as well as all the other people and pets she knew in that house. I can be fully forgiving of the occasional dirty protest when she's not got things just the way she wants them.

So, hard work, but I'm still overjoyed to see her furry face, even if I just nip out to the shops for an hour and am pleasantly reminded that I have a beautiful kitten as a pet. She's inseperabale from me. She's sitting on my lap as I type this. She can't bear to be in a different room from her humans.

Probably pretty boring and gross stuff, but there we go - revenge for every story you ever told about dirty nappies and other childrearing anecdotes.

Tags: #kitten #cat #children #bengal