This is a story about faith...

I have far too much of a skeptical inquiring mind to foolishly believe that religions are anything other than a terrestrial invention, born in the minds of mortal men who were afraid of death, during unenlightened pre-scientific times. I've had access to far too much knowledge and information to ever believe in fairy tales about omnipotent sky monsters. However, it does mean that my existence is pretty absurd and meaningless. Religion gives a sense of community and belonging - those who have chosen to follow a particular faith are able to identify others who believe the same weird things, because of their weird customs, their weird traditions, their weird buildings and the weird books they read. It must be nice to have that sense of belonging, and to strongly believe that there is order, purpose, meaning and easy-to-grasp comforting explanations for everything that happens in our otherwise hostile and chaotic universe... it's all part of God's plan.

I used to pity those who have religious faith as deluded simpletons. I used to want them to wake up and consider the evidence - or lack thereof - and to have a scientific awakening; to become atheists. However, I think it's those who don't subscribe to any kind of philosophical or theological framework, who should be pitied. What do you believe in if you know - from the overwhelming weight of empirical evidence - that the universe is nothing more that a cosmic accident; the byproduct of the universal laws of physics and nothing more. Why are we here? What meaning and purpose is there? Humanity will be wiped off the face of the Earth and everything that we ever thought was important will be erased; as if it never existed. We're not even a microscopic speck in the unimaginably huge - and ever-expanding - universe.

The author Douglas Adams wrote in one work of fiction, about the worst torture being to be shown the entire universe all at once such that you fully perceive your own insignificance, which would blow your mind and destroy you. So many good novelists are more imaginative than our best scientists, and they foresee the cultural and social problems which the inventors of new technology don't, because the inventors are too in love with their creations. Our thirst for knowledge, and the invention of the biggest and most complicated machine ever built, which connects most of humanity in a world wide web - the internet - has not brought with it any comfort, unlike religion. Having this incredible information vault accessible anytime, anywhere, along with the ability to communicate and connect with anybody, is something which no engineer who built the internet thought might lead to incredibly awful social and cultural problems. Engineers are utopians, but they invent things not ideas, philosophies and belief systems. Engineers created the internet and they left it up to others to decide what to do with it; they've left it to us to make sense of things.

Google and Wikipedia appear to be unopinionated. In theory, you can use Google and Wikipedia to simply discover the information which you're looking for, and consume it. In theory, Google and Wikipedia will not tell you that certain ideas are heretical, or ascribe a sinfulness to the pursuit of certain knowledge. You're free to search "anal fissures" out of pure morbid fascination with the disgusting and depraved, and you won't be judged - it's all just between you and the computer. You can ask Google the questions that you would have asked your priest 100 years ago, and Google will give you the information so that you can make up your own mind. In fact Google is giving you the information that the most people clicked on, and some information which has been growth hacked by people with a commercial objective. Wikipedia presents the prevailing consensus of opinion in academia, with some degree of peer-review process, however it's just the opinion of the handful of people who wrote the particular page you're reading.

None of the stuff you read online is informed by an over-arching unified goal of shepherding the flock towards a state of existence deemed better than pure anarchy. Perhaps certain online news sources have editorial leanings which border on the paternalistic, but the vast majority of what's published online is done so to satisfy the particular individual's personal goals, and not as part of any master plan.

You might think it's the role of the government to think about the future of society and civilisation, and the government will be strongly opinionated about the purpose and meaning of our lives, but in fact governments are simply the victors in a commercial popularity contest, driven by individual egos and the survival needs of the massive party-political organisations. As such, governments simply parrot back whatever the people are demanding.

Progressive policies which have advanced our society have not come about because people demanded that we drag ourselves out of the dark ages, but in fact as a result of opinionated elites pushing through changes in the law which were not at all popular with the public. The death sentence is not something the public wanted to see repealed. The public are barbaric baboons and the idea that true democracy would lead us towards a progressive liberal utopia is completely wrong - instead we'd legalise xenophobia, racism and the persecution of minorities, if we left it up to the masses; mob rule.

It's wrong to assume that we have within us a moral compass; a strong sense of right and wrong and social justice. It's wrong to assume that people are basically good; they're not. People are selfish assholes. People are only interested in them and theirs, at the expense of anybody who's not like them. People are just dirty beasts with fancy clothes.

Yes, I'm pro paternalistic elitism. I'm pro social engineering. I'm pro giving people what's good for them, even though they don't like it and it's not what they want. Any move towards greater democracy is a move towards barbarism and the collapse of civilised society.

In my experience, people want simple fables; they want to believe in goodies and baddies; they want to believe in a black and white world, where everything can be simplified into easy to digest nonsense, which strips away all the complexity of reality and replaces it with comforting falsehoods. In my experience, people want to believe in lies, because lies are easier than hard truths. In short, people want religion.

Nobody much cares about the universal laws of physics and the optical illusion which makes solid objects appear to be solid, when in actual fact they're made of mostly nothing; a scattering of particles with indeterminate positions. People don't want to know about the deeply unsettling subatomic world, where things behave in non-intuitive ways. People want to believe that the world is a magical, mysterious and unknowable place, invented by a sky monster, because it's easier than grasping quantum mechanics.

Nobody much cares about the complex history of humanity and all the inter-breeding that's gone on, such that there are no 'pure blood' races. People just want to separate into "us" and "them". People want to belong to clubs, clans, tribes, nations, parties, teams, dynasties and every other conceivable way of slicing and dicing ourselves, such that we feel part of something. People want to hate. People want war and they want to dominate.

Nobody much cares that there are perfectly viable ways to divide our wealth and peacefully co-exist. Nobody much cares that billions of people could have their standard of living dramatically improved, at the expense of greed and selfishness. People want to live under hierarchies; they want to worship prophets and elevate ordinary mortal men to positions and status which are obscene and unjustifiable. Do you really think that a TV pastor deserves to live in a huge mansion while there are people starving on the streets? That's what people want - they want the haves and the have-nots.

Our terrestrial mortal destiny is in our own hands, and we know - in our heart of hearts - that when we die it's all over. There is no afterlife. There is no promised land. It's all bullshit that was invented to lessen the fear of death and make our lives of suffering appear to have some meaning in an otherwise ludicrously absurd existence. In the end you. just. die.

If our destiny is in our own hands, why aren't we making our existence on Earth into a more pleasant experience? Why aren't we bothered about making the most of the short time we're alive? Why are we content to have so much struggle, pain and suffering? We're quite capable of alleviating that suffering, but there's no will to change. We busy ourselves with absurdities, like getting jobs as bakers so that we can earn money to afford to be able to buy a slice of bread, from one of the loaves which we baked. We've constructed ludicrous inefficient systems which only serve to enslave us and make us desperately unhappy.

Of course none of this is God's plan. If there is a God - which there isn't - then why would He have us punching made-up numbers into a spreadsheet, at a desk, in an office, in the middle of a concrete jungle? Why would He have us exchanging pieces of paper with each other until the day we die? Why would He have made the money lenders into the richest and most powerful people on the planet, when His son was evidently not a big fan of usury when he drove those money lenders out of Herod's Temple?

Those who are afflicted with the madness that is religious faith might in fact be onto something, because at least their lives have meaning and they're looking forward to something, as opposed to enduring awful suffering until the day they die. We end our lives afraid and in pain and we know we're not going to see our children and grandchildren again. It might be insane to believe in an immortal and everlasting afterlife, but it's a damnsight better than anything on offer in a world run for the sole benefit of the mega-rich, which we have willingly allowed to come into existence.

In a godless universe with no afterlife, what's the meaning and purpose of anything? Nothing has any meaning. You might as well go and commit whatever crimes you want, because we all die anyway. You might as well indulge hedonistic pursuits to the maximum, because none of us are getting out of this alive.

In a world without religion, what fills that void? It can't be the pursuit of wealth, because that's even more insane.

Tags: #religion #philosophy #capitalism

This is a story about rushing...

My life doesn't have a lot of highlights. I'm struggling to get up in the morning. I'm bored at work a lot of the time. I'm trying to eat fewer calories, so I'm skipping breakfast and having a very light lunch. My writing has become a bit of a marathon slog as I attempt to write the final few thousands words to reach my 1-million target. The only thing I've got to look forward to is my evening meal.

Because I try to do my writing before I go to the gastropub to eat, I'm always in a bit of a rush. It's a challenge to write ~2,000 words in between a full day at my desk in the office, and the ideal time to arrive at the pub in order to get a table and eat. I write doubly quickly, because I know that the sooner I've finished my daily blog post, the sooner I can go and choose my meal. With that incentive, I have no difficulty pounding out the words very rapidly on the keyboard, before rushing off to enjoy the highlight of my day - pub grub.

You shouldn't do your supermarket food shopping when you're hungry, because you will strip the shelves of products and buy far more than you could ever hope to eat, before the expiry date of the perishable groceries which you've purchase. My eyes are always far bigger than my belly when I've been hungry for a while. I think that being hungry also affects the speed with which I do everything, and my attention to detail. I'm rushing everything and being sloppy, because I just want to get things done as quickly as possible.

I need to earn money, lose some weight and cut down my drinking, but I expect instant results. My writing target is within spitting distance now, but I'd have never reached this point if I tried to do it too quickly - I've had to pace myself. My finances are improving but I'll never get financial security if I don't keep turning up at the office every day - even though it's torturously boring - for many many more months. I'm really not enjoying my semi-sobriety, but I'm not going to feel the benefit unless I keep it up for a decent length of time.

It's been a month since I started my new job in a new and unfamiliar city. For a whole month I've been living in a hotel midweek and eating in the same pub every night. For a whole month I've been dividing my time between the city where I have my apartment and the city where the office is.

In the last month I've managed to quit the sleeping pills and painkillers I was using to cope with stress and anxiety. In the last month, I've managed to cut down my drinking drastically. In the last month, I've stopped being so antisocial and wasting the whole summer indoors drinking wine. I've earned some more money, which is slowly making a dent in my debts. It's reasonable progress.

I don't feel particularly good.

My working day is a struggle. My living arrangements are a struggle. My life lacks an adequate amount of things to look forward to; moments of joy. I keep losing hope that I'll be able to maintain the stability and keep up the routine, because there are so few moments when I'm happy and content. The struggle to get up in the morning is not just a phase - it's going to be a struggle every morning for months, if not years. The struggle to get through the working day is not just a temporary struggle... it'll be permanent while I remain trapped in a career which I outgrew very quickly when I was young.

There's no obvious reason why I shouldn't be able to keep up the routine. What's so bad about a well-rehearsed sequence of actions which starts with me washing and ironing my clothes for the week ahead, packing my bag, driving to the office, checking into the hotel, eating in the pub, driving home. What's so hard about that? The problem is the lack of all the other 'stuff' which makes a liveable life. Where's my social life? Where are the holidays? Where are the hobbies and interests? Where's any of the 'stuff' which gives my life any meaning?

Work is meaningless because it's the same old crap that I've been doing full-time for 21+ years, which was easy and boring when I was in my late teens, let alone now. Work cannot be the thing which defines me and is all-consuming, because that's unhealthy and I know I'm never going to find fulfilment as a member of a huge team in a gigantic organisation. I feel a lot better about the morality of what I'm doing since I quit investment banking and moved into the public sector, but the waste is pretty sickening. Of course the public sector was never going to be particularly dynamic and fast-paced, but it's not that much slower than most of the big private sector organisations I've worked for. I know that startups are too demanding and too much risk though, and they'll make me sick by using and abusing me.

I need to get to the point where I've served my time and been thoroughly miserable for enough years that I have a substantial sum of money saved up, such that I can dare to dream. Perhaps things will be better when I'm financially secure enough to be able to spend my boring days in the office planning my next holiday. The misery of the unchallenging office job was much more tolerable when I spent my weekends kitesurfing, and I was jetting all over the globe looking for the best kitesurfing locations in all kinds of exotic locations. Perhaps my misery is largely due to the fact that all I do is work work work - I'm on a very tight budget.

There's no rushing my finances, unfortunately. There's no way I could earn money any quicker than I am doing. Money floods in at a fairly obscene rate, but I was very very deep in the hole, so it also costs a lot of money just to stand still. I can't believe how much money I'm earning, but yet it's still taking agonisingly long to get ahead.

Playing the waiting game is awful. I'm clock watching all the time. My alarm clock is the most dreadful intrusion on my day - the worst moment. Sometimes I'm not even tired, but knowing that I have to go and sit at a desk and be bored out of my mind is thoroughly depressing in a way which is soul-destroyingly exhausting. Mid-morning I panic about how slowly the day is dragging. Lunchtime is over in the blink of an eye, especially since I started having a super-light lunch which always leaves me still feeling hungry. The period from 2pm to 3:45pm is the very worst - at 2pm I can't believe how much of the day there still is to go, with nothing to occupy or entertain me. I often think I'm going to have to walk out, because I can't stand it. It doesn't matter how much I'm earning - it's not enough. Finally, it's a respectable time to leave the office - even though I'm frequently late for work - but all I have to look forward to is another long wait until it's a respectable time to eat my dinner. It's 6:23pm right now, which is very early for an adult with no children to eat.

My evenings were also unpleasant, and especially so since I've drastically reduced my alcohol intake. My cravings for booze were pretty incessant and it was hard to read or watch TV when all I could think about was how much I wanted to get a glass of wine. However, I've found some stuff that I'm enjoying watching and I'm starting to find it easier to relax and enjoy my solitary leisure time in my hotel room, without getting drunk.

I had planned to get drunk every single night until I'd regained financial security. Getting drunk was going to be my reward for doing a job I hate in a place where I don't want to be, all alone living in a hotel. I was prepared to put my entire life on hold so I could earn as much cash as possible as quickly as possible, and I'd have virtually unlimited quantities of alcohol to help me white-knuckle my way through to the end. The problem is that my health was being destroyed surprisingly rapidly - I was putting on weight and feeling very unfit and unwell. If I'd kept drinking as much as I was until the end of my contract in just over a year's time, I wouldn't be able to enjoy my hard-won wealth because I'd be fat and quite possibly have some very serious health issues to deal with as a consequence.

Comfort-eating is my only pleasure at the moment, as I'm single, living away from home, trying not to drink, not socialising and generally in a temporary state of suspended animation. I can fulfil the very few demands of my day job with less than 1% of my brain and I'm just waiting for enough paydays to restore my financial security. I've stopped everything except for the few core things which keep the hamster-wheel turning.

It's not particularly as if it's worthwhile making friends and getting a local girlfriend. It's not particularly worth investing in life in a place where I have no intention of staying beyond the maximum I absolutely have to in order to achieve my purely financial objective.

I pound out the words on the keyboard every evening after work, in groundhog day repetitive scenario. I pound out the words because it's a fleeting distraction from the endless waiting. Waiting for the money. Waiting for the end. Wishing my life away.

Some people would imagine that I'm impatient and impulsive, because of my mental health problems and my struggles with addiction. Stimulant abuse is particularly bad for damaging the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which is responsible for executive decision-making, and importantly the ability to curtail stupid impulses. In fact, I spend my whole day suppressing the nearly-overpowering instinct to get up and walk out; to walk away from the torturous bullshit boring job. In fact, I'm one of the most patient people you know. Why do you think I get paid so much? If my job was pleasant and easy, everybody would be doing it.

I spend all working day in front of the keyboard and screen, then I flip open my laptop lid and spend some more time in front of the same type of keyboard and the same type of screen. The clock is in exactly the same position in the top-right hand corner of the screen, which my eyes instinctively flick up to, constantly aware of the slow passage of time.

Since I wrote what time it was, nearly 20 minutes have elapsed. I'm 20 minutes closer to my meal. I'm 20 minutes closer to the day when I've earned enough money to start to dare to dream. I'm 20 minutes closer to the moment I die, when I can finally enjoy some peace from this torture.

I'm off to the pub. I'm tempted to have a drink.

Tags: #food #diet #fat #alcohol #career #boredom #debt

This is a story about resonant frequencies...

Little things can send me into an unexpected tailspin. Little things matter. Molehills get magnified into mountains and there are storms in teacups. My life appears to be quite normal, ordered, sensible and stable, but it's an illusion: everything is really quite fragile under the thin veneer.

Last week I spent several hours trying to get the sound working on my battered Macbook Pro, which had been recently repaired after some water/moisture damage. There had been a small puff of smoke and the smell of electrical burning at the weekend, which had been rather worrisome, but the laptop seemed to soldier on unaffected... I hadn't noticed that it had become mute.

Software is my job, so I threw all of my 21+ years of experience at solving the problem, plus all the other years of my youth which were mis-spent tinkering with computers... I should have been able to fix the problem. Alas, I decided that it must definitely be a hardware problem and therefore it was going to be expensive to fix and well beyond my very amateurish soldering abilities: I'm a software expert, not a hardware expert.

It's rare that a technical problem like that defeats me. Having already spent the best part of £600 having my Macbook repaired, I was pretty disappointed that something had gone bang inside it, leaving me with a partially-broken Macbook.

I knew that I could buy an adapter for my headphones for less than £10 which would be a cheap workaround for the problem, but every single thing that's a bit tatty and old and partially-broken in my life adds up to a bigger feeling of being overwhelmed by life; that everything's falling apart.

It seems like everything that's damaged tells the same story: stuff got messed up when I myself was in a messed up sick state.

I've replaced a lot of things like-for-like and that really helps. Rather than having constant daily reminders that I broke, damaged or lost things of importance, I've spent the money to get things back to how they should be. Fixing those little things has cost me a lot of money, but the benefit is greater than you might imagine. You probably think you could put up with all the annoying little things, and the things which seem to be superficial, but I can't; it upsets me.

I forgot to wash, dry and pack a couple of T-shirts for my working week. At lunch I managed to drop some food onto my nice clean shirt that I was wearing, so I won't be able to wear that again this week. The nice hotel I was staying in near the office had a laundry service, but the one I was forced to book as an alternative doesn't have those facilities. Tomorrow I have to choose between wearing an unironed shirt, an unironed T-shirt or a smelly T-shirt. I already had to spend all afternoon sat at my desk with a stain on my shirt, because I knew there was no point in going to the car to swap my stained shirt for any of those unappealing options.

These little things - the laptop sound, the hotel, the shirt - they sound like nothing, but they have a far bigger impact my my sense of wellbeing than you would expect.

One might imagine that it's only catastrophic events which truly affect us, and everything else can be tolerated, but all the little things add up: it's death by a thousand cuts.

The things that bother me are quite mundane and boring, and some sound quite easy to fix if you don't actually have to do the fixing... for example a couple of bits of damage to the paint and plasterwork in my apartment. Any idiot knows that a bit of filler and a bit of paint will take care of the problem, but of course to repair anything properly is a lot easier said than done. Perhaps nobody notices the little blemishes and the bodge-jobs, but I do and it's me who has to see them morning, noon and night, every day of my miserable life.

It seems so petty to be whining about tiny blemishes, but the only way I can think to describe it with the analogy of a heavy flywheel which is rotating extremely fast. A tiny chip out of the flywheel's metal will cause vibration. The weight of the flywheel creates tremendously high energy from the centripetal force of its rotation, and the vibration puts a lot of stress on the axle. Before long, the whole machine which the flywheel is attached to will shake itself to pieces.

All of the disruption to my routine, my stability, my living, working, travelling, eating and other such arrangements... it's all highly stressful. Chuck in a few seemingly insignificant other things, and I worry that I'm going to fly off the handle unpredictably, or something apparently minor will trigger a major breakdown.

Why make things any harder than they need to be?

Tags: #career #physics

This is a story about a calorie controlled diet...

If there's one thing I like to do other than drink alcohol, it's to eat unhealthy food. In fact, I find the combination of both to be most agreeable.

Here's what I've eaten (and some of what I've drunk) in the last week:

Sunday

1. Tin of Heinz beans & sausages

Monday

1. Vegetable samosa
2. Chicken, bacon & mayonaise pre-prepared sandwich
3. Large bag of Skips crisps
4. Large bag of beef flavour crisps
5. 3 cheese strings
6. 1 bottle of white wine
7. 1 bottle of red wine
8. Peanut butter eaten straight from the tub

Tuesday

1. Nothing

Wednesday

1. Nothing

Thursday

1. 4x slices of toast with marmite on

Friday

1. 3x chicken drumsticks
2. 2x smoked mackerel fillets
3. 4x cheese strings
4. Tiny amount of Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra ice cream
5. 1 bottle of red wine
6. 1 bottle of white wine

Saturday

1. Nothing

In terms of drinking that I omitted, because it's been a bit more chaotic/unpredictable, and it's also fairly boring information, I have drunk a lot of apple & black-current, orange and lime flavour squash. It's 24 degrees celcius in my apartment and staying cool is a problem. I pre-mix the squash, speed chill it in the freezer and then transfer it to the fridge. In theory, there's always a cold drink I can grab, provided I'm not cornered in some part of my apartment.

Monday is representative of what I ate and drank most days while I was working full-time, although I'd try to keep to one bottle of wine only.

Friday I managed to stock my cupboards from a proper big supermarket on Friday. Not well communicated by this food diary, is the fact that my cupboards and fridge are now brimming with easy-to-make meals, which are far healthier than big bags of crisps, samosas, more crisps and other crap you can buy from a corner shop, along with 2 bottles of wine for just over a tenner.

I have a cornucopia of delicious foods to choose from right now, yet my life is still chaotic.

The vicious cycle goes like this: I start to feel stressed and anxious, which triggers an alcohol craving. I then buy 2 bottles of wine, 'planning' on only drinking one. I drink both bottles and wake up feeling awful, of course. The hangover triggers a stimulant craving, which can be temporarily alleviated with Red Bull, but that then causes me to feel anxious and jittery and crave alcohol. Allegedly, somebody identical to me but not me, tried taking Concerta (an ADHD medication) for a couple of weeks: it's often sold as Concerta, but that's because the previous brand - Ritalin - has negative connotations in patient's minds, like Prozac (tell the patient it's fluoxetine and they'll be much more likely to take it).

I think my health would benefit from:

• Not drinking 1 or 2 bottles of wine every day
• Not binging on unhealthy snacks while getting drunk
• Going to a proper supermarket once a week, so I have food that I want to eat in stock, as opposed to going to the corner shop every day because I'm "hungry" but really it's to buy 1 or 2 bottles of wine too.
• Not relapsing back into being a regular caffeine user
• Finding some kind of Concerta/Adderall slow-release formula type medication that can help me face the next 27+ years of soul destroying office job bullshit, which only keeps me busy & concentrating for 5% of the time and the rest is like torture
• Finding some kind of tolerable antidepressant, to help me through what I anticipate will be at least a year of feeling lifeless, joyless, demotivated and deriving almost no pleasure from the things I used to enjoy.
• Maybe if that pile of pills is making me a bit too enthusiastic and excitable, bordering on the manic, I might have to consider a light mood stabiliser too - perhaps a low dose of Olanzapine, although I'm loathe to suffer the weight gain.

Specifically my mental health would benefit from:

• Detoxing again from the sleeping pills, tranquillisers, sedatives and stimulants, which I've only used sporadically over the last 6 weeks - I have no benzodiazepine dependency, thankfully - but I need to 100% cease that ruinous vicious circle.
• Getting a hair cut and washing my favourite clothes; maybe even buying a couple of new things I like... I seriously only buy new clothes every 3 years
• Getting my apartment in a state where I'm not paranoid that the landlord might see a couple of bits of damaged decoration and freak out.
• Securing a new contract, but with enough time to physically rest & recuperate before starting
• Spending some time with my friends in Ireland, or going to a hostel where I can be around people, and socialise a bit, as well as sleeping lots, getting fresh air and generally having a long-overdue restorative holiday.
• Being realistic about where I'm really going to thrive, or where I'm going to be isolated and lonely. Swindon is a big no, I think. Newport, I have one friend, but he's super busy with his kids. So, it's got to be London really.
• Friends first - get a regular meetup sorted... a guaranteed one day of the week (minimum) where I'll see friend(s). The more friends the better. Concentrate on friends.
• Being more aware of how easily I fall in love and become relaxed and comfortable in domestic life. I'm quite content deciding on dinner, cooking, eating, watching TV or a film, kissing and cuddling, sex, spooning, then a kiss goodbye in the morning with a nice hug... and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. I've been so isolated and lonely for so long that FOMO and jealousy of my partner's social life isn't a problem, and I just spend the time on my own... drinking. It doesn't leave me in a very secure place though, if I don't have my own friends and events.
• Exercise. I put this on just because it's such an obvious suggestion, and one that I get all the time. It's not a bad suggestion. It's an impossible suggestion when all the other stuff listed above is broken. "You won't feel like doing it, but afterwards you'll feel more energised; it'll give you energy" - OK, what you're talking about are chemicals released to ease your muscle pain, which are actually opioids, so you get a literal 'high' after exercise, AND the fact that you're getting fitter. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, so to use energy does not give you energy. You're right, I don't feel like doing it, and I would benefit from being fitter, but as the Millennials are wont to say: "I literally can't even".
• Speaking to friends on the phone or Facetime etc - I live my life in text, through a browser or an app. I'm in contact with sometimes hundreds of people a day (19.5k Twitter followers presently, for example) and some friends are good enough to regularly message me, but it's not the same as a live conversation where you can hear somebody's voice.

Well, and just because I'm making lists, here's the practical stuff I've got to sort urgently:

• Car MOT on Monday morning
• Answer phone/emails from agents RE: contracts
• The world's biggest pile of stinky washing
• Making sure my back bedrooms are at least passable and not likely to cause alarm to uninvited visitors

Less urgent is the redecorating, just because it's going to be a pain to organise.

nAlso, I did an epic job of cleaning the bathroom(s) spotlessly and mopping the floors and otherwise making my apartment pretty presentable, A lot of my TODO list has been tamed.

So, a bit more than just my food diary, but it hints at why for 5 out of 7 days I ate virtually nothing. It also hints at the three ways things could go: 1) no more food diary cos I'm dead, 2) food diary of junk which is making me fat, and alcohol which is making me unwell, 3) food diary that might be a bit more interesting (although it'll probably start with sandwiches and soups and pre-cooked meats).

Also, related content if it's going to be the "no more food diary": The Supercrack Diet

NOTE: I think the muscle damage/breakdown causes weight loss (at the expense of your kidneys) and sweating and dehydration cause further weight loss, but your body goes into shock and you just end up weak and more or less the same weight once you've rehydrated... although my tummy is half the size of what it was 6 weeks ago. Any sport scientist will tell you not to run out of glucose or water when exercising, or else you'll lose muscle mass, while any doctor will tell you that artificially raising your metabolic rate and putting strain on your heart (such as using fat-burners like DNP) is quite likely to kill you or permanently f**k you up.

You can lose weight by 'fasting' but it's for people with sedentary jobs, and also there's no point if you're going to undo your good work by binging on junk and alcohol on the 'normal' days.

Anyway, there's a little glimpse into my unhealthy lifestyle.

Tags: #food #diet #fat #slimming #mentalhealth #depression #adhd #exercise #friends

This is a story about changing the law...

In 1920 in the UK, heroin and cocaine were made illegal to possess - if you were alive when heroin and cocaine could legally be bought and sold, you're 98 years old, or older. Assuming that becoming a drug addict isn't generally possible until you're old enough to obtain money, score drugs and get high without your parents noticing, let's assume that you'd have to be a 12-year-old heroin addict back in 1920, in order to have been affected by this change in the law, which means that you'd be 110 years old today, assuming you're still alive.

Having tried various antidepressants and mood stabilisers which were prescribed by my doctor, I became frustrated with the fact that most of the medications available to those who are suffering with depression, are slow acting - taking some 6 to 8 weeks to become effective - and they cause weight gain, sexual dysfunction and somnolence. Given that I valued my appearance, my sex life and my job, the side effects of the medications on offer were intolerable.

Through extensive research, I found many medications which are not commonly prescribed, but which had shown considerably better efficacy in clinical trials than the SSRIs and other antidepressants which were on offer through the NHS. These medications were not controlled substances, so I was able to legally purchase them from overseas pharmacies and have them delivered to me in the post.

My self-experimentation led me to a medication called bupropion - marketed as Wellbutrin - which is actually France's most popular antidepressant, but doesn't have a license for use as an antidepressant in the UK. Bupropion was very effective and fast-acting - it alleviated my symptoms of depression, and appeared to have no intolerable side effects. However, at higher doses I suffered insomnia and panic attacks. I discontinued its use.

Growing more desperate to find something as effective as bupropion - which had given me welcome and much needed relief from my depression - I turned to a group of medications for treating Parkinson's disease. These had terrible side effects, including a period where I became narcoleptic. Clearly my self-experimentation had become risky and I even induced in myself pseudo-Parkinson's symptoms briefly, which mercifully went away soon after discontinuing my experiment with L-DOPA, without lasting damage.

You have to understand that it was my desperation to feel better after years of suffering with depression and low mood, which drove me to take these risks and use myself as a human guinea pig. Given how suicidal I had been, there was only upside for me - if I died, that was likely to happen anyway through suicide; if I felt better - even briefly - then I had succeeded.

Through a tabloid newspaper, I became aware of legal highs. The tabloid newspaper's sensationalistic coverage of the legal highs was a great advertisement for something I hadn't known about or tried before. I was ready and willing to experiment with legal highs, given that I had already exhaustively experimented with all the medications I could lay my hands on.

The very first legal high that I obtained was bk-MDMA, also known as methylone. This chemical cousin of MDMA - also known as ecstasy, Molly, Mandy, X etc. - had similar properties but lacked a lot of the telltale giveaway side effects of MDMA, such as jaw-clenching and other involuntary mouth movements known colloquially as "gurning". Its mildly stimulating effects restored the energy and enthusiasm for life that had been stolen from me by depression - it was instantly curative, which is everything I'd ever hoped for.

bk-MDMA was made illegal in the UK in April 2010, but thankfully I was not addicted to it. No plan had been made to help any of the people who had become addicted to the legal highs, which overnight became illegal highs. No detox and rehab places had been made available. No medical support was available. No addiction counselling had been made available. Nobody thought about what would happen to all the people who had become addicted to substances that were completely legal one day and illegal the next. I was one of the lucky ones - I was able to abruptly stop taking bk-MDMA, but of course my depression then returned with a vengeance.

After 2010 followed a period of cat-and-mouse where those people who were addicted, or like me were self-medicating using legally available substances, were then driven out of dependency - not through choice - to then seek an alternative, which global free-market capitalism was only too happy to provide. Out of desperation, I obtained and experimented with every legally available substance I could obtain, in order to treat my medication-resistant depression.

Sadly, during this time I experienced total burnout due to the demands of my business, the collapse of my marriage and subsequent divorce, and other factors which put me at risk of addiction. In this perfect storm, I was careless and ended up experimenting with a substance which all my research had told me was exceptionally risky and should be avoided. Out of desperation I tried a substance I said I never would. It turned out to be fiendishly addictive, even though it was legal.

The cat-and-mouse game of making substances illegal - criminalising the unfortunate addicts caught the trade war - had absolutely nothing to do with health and public safety... I was one of the victims finally caught me in the net and criminalised, through no fault of my own. I had an addiction to a substance that had become illegal overnight, with nothing put in place to help me escape addiction's vice-like grip. No detox, no rehab, no treatment, no legally prescribed substitute, no medical advice, no support, no guidance, no nothing - I just woke up one day, and I was a criminal. I was wilfully and knowingly criminalised by my own government.

My attempts to stay on the right side of the law are documented above. Pictured are legal high packets of substances that could be legally bought until as recently as 2016. These could be bought in shops or via the internet. I attempted to find a legal substitute, so that my addiction did not make me a criminal, but even this route became barred to me. Addictions do not respect the law, just as much as you cannot make a law that says "all people called fred must by law become dogs" and POOF! suddenly all Freds magically turn into a dog - that's wishful magical thinking. One cannot simply legislate to get rid of addiction - addiction is an illness and it needs to be treated.

I'm not pro-legalisation. I don't think that all drugs should be legal. I think that drugs are dangerous. However, it's clearly immoral to criminalise an addict.

If I was committing crime - such as theft - to fund my habit, then I agree that those crimes have been crimes for a very long time. However, what is my crime? What crime did I commit? How did it come to pass that I'd become a criminal, with no opportunity to avoid it given my dependence on the substances in question?

The police, using their discretion, saw fit to caution me on multiple occasions for the same offence - namely possession of a controlled substance. Normally this wouldn't happen and breaking the law for a second time would automatically lead to prosecution, but perhaps the Crown Prosecution Service saw that as a test case, it would have set a disastrous precedent for their new laws.

The New Psychoactive Substances act of 2016 hinges on the central word: psychoactive. In order to obtain a conviction, it must be proven beyond reasonable doubt that the substance deemed illegal is in fact psychoactive. However, as anybody who has read the mighty tomes Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved and Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved by Alexander Shulgin, will know that it's impossible to predict which substances will be psychoactive and which will not, without experimenting on a human test subject. Ethically it is not conscionable to experiment on humans, purely for the purposes of obtaining criminal convictions, but it's the only way that a conviction could viably stand under the government's new law - otherwise the test of beyond reasonable doubt cannot possibly stand because the burden of proof has not been met to prove the psychoactivity of a new and novel substance.

Today I'm clean and substance-free, but I have police cautions which will remain on record for life, and will not be 'filtered' until 6 years have elapsed, which prevents me from working in jobs which require an enhanced level of background checks. I cannot, for example, use my outdoor pursuits instructor qualifications to teach children to rock climb, abseil, sail dinghies or walk in the mountains. I leave it to the reader to decide whether my punishment is commensurate with my crimes, and what danger I pose to the general public.

I take a huge risk writing about this so publicly, but I feel that it's more important to publish this information than it is to maintain my privacy and anonymity. I feel sorry for those who, like me, have been criminalised by a government that doesn't give a damn who's victimised by their legislation, and whose lives are consequently ruined. I'm very lucky that I don't have a criminal record. Others have not been so lucky, because they are not so well educated and informed as me - they're vulnerable.

Drug addicts will always be a convenient scapegoat, because they're weak and vulnerable. I hope that in telling my story, you can see that addicts aren't evil, immoral and lacking in willpower. Our circumstances dictate the outcome - we don't make our choices freely.

Tags: #addiction #drugs #legalhighs

This is a story about getting fat...

In December I started a lovely little self-contained project. I flew to Warsaw to gather the requirements from the client and then I flew back to London. I was living in AirBnBs and travelling home to Wales every weekend. I was living out of a suitcase, but it was OK because I was busy getting on with my project.

Then I finished the project.

The project was only supposed to take 6 weeks, but I finished it in 3. I spent another 3 weeks polishing the finished result and adding every bell and whistle I possibly could to create a completely spectacular Rolls-Royce solution, but then the project was well and truly finished and there was nothing left to do.

The team I was working with were based in Warsaw, and I was based in London. I had nobody to even chat to in the office, to while away the hours. I was bored out of my mind. The client was quite happy for me to sit around doing nothing, and he even wanted to extend my contract for a further 6 months beyond the original 3 months, but I was losing my mind with the boredom.

To cope with the boredom, I started to drink. I was drinking heavily. At one point I was drinking 2 bottles of wine a night, every night.

At the start of last September I had a benzo habit that had gotten out of control. I was taking several Valium and Xanax every day, and then a couple of zopiclone and zolpidem at night, plus a whole load of pregabalin. All those medications are GABA agonists, which is to say that they're hypnotic-sedative/tranquilliser type drugs that all act in the same way... very similarly to alcohol. I was physically addicted to those medications and if I stopped taking them then I would have a seizure that might kill me.

By the time I started that project back in December, I had managed to quit the Valium, Xanax and zolpidem. However, I had stopped but then started taking the pregabalin again because I was so stressed out by the travelling and the new job, and the fact I was homeless and rapidly running out of money. The pregabalin soothed my jangled nerves during the day, and the zopiclone helped me to sleep at night. With the combination of those two medications, I was able to limp through that 3-month contract in London.

I drank a lot when I was in London because I was bored and I was withdrawing from the benzos, and I hated the job because I was so isolated and lonely, and I hated the travel and the AirBnBs. I was suicidal A LOT of the time.

Along with the drinking, I got into bad eating habits. I would have fried chicken from KFC and burgers from McDonalds. I would have greasy curries and fatty kebabs. I lived on fast food and vast quantities of wine. I really let myself go, because I hated my life so much and it was so unbearable.

In January I decided that I needed an incentive to quit the London life and base myself in Wales full-time, so I started dating. I met a lovely girl who enjoys eating out, getting takeaways and drinking wine. We've had a great time, eating, drinking and being merry.

Now I'm feeling fat.

My girlfriend and I have stuffed our faces with fine food and wine for the last 3 months, and I'm feeling fat and unfit. I've had a brilliant time, but I've really let myself go. I've stuffed my face without a single ounce of restraint.

There's a canteen at my new workplace, and I stuff my face with chips, burgers, pizza, burritos, pies and numerous other incredibly unhealthy foods, every single lunchtime. Gone are the days of my relatively healthy lunches that I used to have in London. My lunches in Wales are nothing but carbs, carbs and more carbs.

All the money I've earned has so far been spent on living expenses. I'm running out of money, although I should get a much needed cash injection early next week, which can't come soon enough, because it's been really expensive getting myself back on my feet - renting an apartment and buying a car so I can get to work. It's been really stressful, having the threat of bankruptcy hanging over me for so long. It's been so stressful being so short of cash.

Because of the unbearable stress, and the dreadful withdrawal that I've been through from stopping all those highly addictive tranquillisers and sleeping pills, I've been compensating with comfort eating and alcohol. I've been drinking bucketloads and eating far too much. I've put on weight, and I'm depressed about that - it affects my self-esteem.

Hopefully, money will come flooding in next week, and I'm booking a holiday for mid-June, which can't come soon enough, because it's been a ridiculous 21-month slog without a holiday to get to this point, and I still have a month and a half more to go before I finally get a nice break.

I'm using alcohol and food as a crutch, because I'm not taking any medication and I'm not taking any time off work. I'm stressed and exhausted, and the thing that's suffering is my health; my weight; my appearance. It depresses me that I've let myself go, but I've been dealing with more than I can handle. Frankly, it's a miracle that I've made it this far.

So, as if I haven't worked hard enough, I'll need to cut down my drinking, exercise more and eat less. That sucks. At least there's a holiday and summertime on the not-too-distant horizon.

Tags: #medication #weight #eating #food #health #mentalhealth #addiction

This is a story about re-living a nightmare...

Setting aside the when, how, who, what, why and any presumption of blame, guilt, morality, karma... I've been through a load of awful shit in the last few years. For longer than I care to remember, I've regularly had some very harrowing stuff happen to me. I don't care to recite the details because there are so many things - these things pop into my head randomly and they stab me like a knife in the guts. These flashbacks make me gasp aloud because the memories are so difficult to handle.

Periods of time that I've written about - like the Finsbury Park Fun Run - contain multiple distressing and traumatic events. For far too long, my life was a series of similar stressful and awful calamitous episodes, which contained everything from the mildly shameful, embarrassing and a bit surreal and ridiculous, to experiences that could pretty much destroy a person.

Of course, mental health problems and drug addiction have featured heavily, but my memory has functioned perfectly well and I've been fully conscious almost the whole time, experiencing the awful events and being affected by the trauma of it all.

Some of my experiences I've managed to integrate and cope with by telling the story, like I did with Finsbury Park Fun Run, and other experiences are bundled up into a great big ball of trauma, which I can sometimes laugh about, sometimes forget about, but memories are constantly surfacing and causing me to wince with pain, as if I was being physically stabbed with a sharp object. I screw up my face and I make an involuntary exclamation. I exhale and I mutter stuff under my breath to make it go away, which it usually does.

When I get an invasive thought, which is a memory of a traumatic moment that I'm struggling to cope with, I write down a little 1-line summary of what it is. If the thoughts keep popping up, then I write about them: I use my notes as a writing prompt, so that I can work through whatever trauma is bothering me the most. I'm writing as fast as I can, trying to stay on top of these negative memories that could easily drive me insane, or cause me to collapse under the sheer weight of them. I could easily kill myself, trying to escape the torment of these invasive awful flashbacks.

If you imagine a heroin addict who's having to resort to a life of crime to fund their drug habit, they'll be forced to commit a lot of acquisitive crime: thefts, robberies, burglaries, muggings, stealing off friends and family. That addict will have their morals completely corrupted by the need to avoid getting junk-sick, which means they'll probably have a lot of stains on their conscience. Shoplifting could be seen as a relatively victimless crime, because shops have insurance against theft, but burglaries have a lasting impact on the victim, because of the violation of their home. It's not that the heroin addict doesn't care, because they're evil and immoral, it's that the need for their fix is a primal urge that's far greater than hunger, fear, pain, or anything else you've ever experienced in your sheltered little life.

I've never been a heroin addict.

I've never committed any crime to get money for drugs.

I haven't even particularly had my morality corrupted by addiction, but I came close. I understand what it's like when you're in the grips of addiction. I can see that morality is relative, not absolute.

My own traumatic experiences come from being desperately sick and vulnerable. When you're sick and vulnerable, broke and sleeping rough, trapped into a life of addiction and health problems... you're constantly traumatised. My life had so many episodes of trauma, because I was trapped into such a destructive cycle.

You'd think that if things were really bad, you'd do something about it - surely the trauma I was experiencing was there to bump me back onto the right track; to get me back on the straight and narrow. Well, no not really. When you're trapped and vulnerable, you're pretty fucked. It's very hard to escape from such a vicious cycle.

Getting yourself off the drugs and off the streets is only the tiniest part of any meaningful change. What about the pre-existing mental health problems? What about the trauma?

The longer I spend in a safe and stable environment, the more trauma seems to bubble up to the surface. When I was in the vicious horrible cycle, there was no time to stop and think about all the awful things that had happened. When I was right in the thick of things, and barely surviving, I was far too busy staying alive to be bothered by the traumatic flashbacks.

Which came first? The trauma or the unhealthy coping mechanisms?

Definitely the trauma came first.

But the unhealthy coping mechanisms led to more trauma.

I got out of the frying pan, but I ended up in the fire. I got out of a horrible abusive relationship, but the destruction to my life - at a time when I was already really vulnerable and traumatised - was too much to handle. Things got a lot worse before they started to improve.

Today, my life looks much improved. Today, my life looks sorted and peachy. Today, you might be mistaken for thinking that I'm hunky-dory and A-OK, but it's not true... I'm not out of the woods yet.

I have no idea how I'm going to deal with everything and come to terms with what I've been through, but my healthy coping mechanism is to write. I write down the particularly traumatic things that I keep getting flashbacks about, and then I write down these little stories, which attempt to explore my feelings. I'm attempting to deal with all the horrible traumatic stuff in a way that lays it to bed; gets rid of it out of my brain and down onto paper.

I feel like I should tell you about some of the stuff that I'm dealing with, so you can see that I really have been through some horribly traumatic experiences that would cause anybody significant psychological damage. I feel like I want to list off a whole load of experiences that were off-the-charts in terms of how awful they were. However, I only want to do that because I feel unworthy somehow. There are people out there who've been through unimaginable trauma - is it a competition? Should I shut up, because there's one person out there who's had it worse than every other human being on the entire planet?

I'm not even going to tell you what it is, because this process can't be rushed. I've written about plenty of traumatic stuff, and it doesn't fix it or make it all ok suddenly. Even stuff I've written about still bothers me, but every time I write I feel like I'm making some progress towards a time when I feel I can cope; a time when these PTSD flashbacks won't be so aggressively invasive and hit me so hard.

If you think I'm being hyperbolic and complaining about nothing, you probably haven't spent any time in relaxed company with me. These flashbacks regularly assault me. At work, I can barely conceal the fact that I'm hit with these awful memories, which cause me to gasp, groan and wince. At home, I can't conceal it... my close friends and girlfriend hear me yell like I'm in physical pain, and worriedly ask "what's wrong?".

The brain is a plastic organ and it will heal itself. It takes time though.

Tags: #ptsd

This is a story about feeling hard-done-by....

Poor me. Poor me. Pour me another drink. I look back upon things I've written and I cringe because I'm so self-pitying. In the context of my improving situation, it looks rather churlish to complain about my lot in life, however I'm wont to moan because I've spent most of the last 5 years battling to get back on my feet after a messy divorce. I'm repeating myself. Jeeps I'm repeating myself and it's only the first paragraph.

I don't really understand the whole "count your blessings" and "other people have it harder" mindset. Shitty times are shitty times. Unbearable crap is unbearable crap. I don't really care that there's one super unfortunate person who's having the most awful time in the whole entire world. I don't really care that there's only ever one human being on the entire planet, who supposedly has the moral right to complain, because nobody has it any harder than them. This isn't a lack of perspective, or being a spoiled brat - it's human life. Next time you stub your toe, you should try not being in pain by remembering that other people are in far more pain than you... see how that works out for you.

I don't generally think of myself as very hard-done-by.

I get up in the morning pretty early, but not the earliest. I have to commute to work, but not the furthest. I have to do a job that's pretty boring most of the time, but it's not the worst. I don't have housing security or financial security, but I'm not starving and homeless. I'm pretty lonely and isolated, but I'm not raped, tortured and murdered every single day. On balance, my life's pretty good. Perhaps you think that means I should only ever write about how awesome everything is. Perhaps you think I should leap out of bed in the morning with a smile from ear-to-ear.

My depression has definitely lifted a little now that I got through a ridiculously stressful and unpleasant ordeal where I pretty much lost everything and very nearly ended up with black marks against my name that would have made me unemployable and unable to rent a place to live. I very nearly ended up homeless again. I got down to a bank balance of £23 available credit, making bankruptcy imminent. I got through that, but it's taken its toll.

I'm drinking loads. Perhaps that's because I was using alcohol as an unhealthy coping mechanism - a crutch - when I was battling to beat my addiction to two prescription medications that I had been taking for a year. I was battling to earn money and stave off bankruptcy. I was battling to save up enough money to buy a car, rent an apartment and be able to switch to a job that was closer to home. Alcohol soothed my nerves; calmed my anxiety. Alcohol lulled me off to sleep.

I whine a lot. I drink at lot of wine and I whine.

I release the pressure build-up here on this blog. I come here and I write every day. Writing is my healthy coping mechanism. Whining is healthy. Drinking wine is not healthy. I drink too much wine.

If anybody tells you not to whine so much, they're a toxic person who shouldn't be anywhere near you. Whining is what people do when their lives are shitty and they're going through hell. Whining is a way of coping with some truly awful stuff. Whining is a safe way of venting. If somebody tells you to be positive and pretend like everything's OK, they're toxic and they don't care about what you're going through.

I wish I whined less, but my whining is driven by my circumstances. As my circumstances improve, I'll whine less. When my life becomes sustainable and pleasant, I'll stop whining. The whining is getting me through the long slog. Wine is also helping me get through the long slog.

I'm comfort eating and abusing alcohol, and it's having a negative effect on my body - I'm putting on weight, my liver is having to work hard and alcohol is generally not very healthy. It'd be nice if I could live healthily immediately, but wine and whining are helping me to limp along at the moment - they're the crutches that I need.

I need a holiday. I need to lie on a beach in a hot country for a week. Yes, sure, lots of us need a holiday. I've got to get through another 3 weeks before I get paid, and then I can maybe have a relaxing break, where I won't be worrying about money or losing my job. I hope that the next few weeks are just going to be solid whining, because I even bore myself sometimes, but it's hard going at the moment... moan moan moan.

I have other stuff that I want to write about that's probably more interesting, but I thought I'd rattle off a little essay about whining and about wine, of course.

Tags: #alcohol

This is a story about nodding off...

I was expecting my alcohol-free week to pay dividends, but it's not [yet]. I've had three awful nights of sleep and I've been struggling to keep my eyes open at work during the afternoons. My body clock is all screwed up - I'm struggling to get out of bed in the mornings and I'm struggling to get to sleep at night. The only variable is the alcohol, so I know that my sobriety is to blame.

I'm strict with my bedtime and mealtimes. I dim the lights and avoid using my laptop and smartphone in the evenings. I'm doing all the right things but I'm tired and I'm getting more tired by the day, because I'm not sleeping very well at night.

I've noticed an improvement in terms of weight gain already - my trousers had been feeling a little tight. Alcohol piles on the pounds because it's so calorific. I think it's worth having a break from booze for the benefit of my liver and waistline.

I think I'm having bouts of depression and anxiety as a result of abruptly cutting my alcohol consumption to zero. I keep thinking that I'm bored at work and that I should walk out and go home, because I can't stand sitting around twiddling my thumbs. I keep feeling depressed about the fact that I'm months away from financial security. I feel like I can't yet afford to take a holiday - I need to earn every penny I can to dig myself out of the hole and get myself into a strong situation.

My situation is pretty damn good really. I'm managing to get up and get to work nice and early. I'm making it through the working week without too much struggle. My finances are improving. The weather is improving. I have a lovely home. I'm sure I'll feel a lot better after a restful laid-back weekend watching TV while I lie on the sofa. It'll be great to have some weeks without any stress or disruption, to really get into a good routine.

I took a big gamble in making a big change, by stopping drinking so abruptly. I was sensible when I made all the other big changes, like tapering slowly off various medications, but it was really hard. By stopping drinking suddenly I've risked nasty side effects, which I'm very much experiencing right now. I'm sure my body and brain will be very grateful for having a break from booze, but right now I'm exhausted... I'm not feeling the benefit yet.

I guess things always get worse before they get better.

Tags: #alcohol

This is a story about self-medicating for anxiety with wine...

I keep my empty wine bottles behind the kitchen dustbin. The collection of bottles waiting to be recycled has grown very quickly, given that I've been polishing off at least a bottle of wine every day for months. Wine has been my unhealthy coping mechanism. Wine has helped me to get through 4 solid months of work, living out of a suitcase, dating, courting, buying a car, renting an apartment, moving home, two different jobs, three different countries, 12 AirBnBs and countless other anxiety-creating things.

It should be noted that during the last 4 months, I also quit a neuropathic painkiller called pregabalin, and a sleeping pill called zopiclone. The net result of quitting those medications was a vicious rise in my anxiety levels, as a result of the rebound from stopping taking them: withdrawal syndrome. It's hard enough to get off pregabalin and zopiclone under normal circumstances, let alone when you have huge upheaval and stress in your life.

A little over 6 months ago, I quit diazepam and alprazolam, which are both anxiety medications. They're better known as Valium and Xanax. They're highly addictive, and stopping them can cause a discontinuation (withdrawal) syndrome that can last for months and create unbearable anxiety levels.

So, the circumstances have created a hell of a lot of anxiety... a ridiculous amount of anxiety.

Alcohol has helped me to wean off the addictive medications and become medication-free. Alcohol has helped me to cope during incredibly stressful times. Alcohol has been my anxiety medication, during a time when my stress and anxiety levels would be unbearable for even the toughest person.

The ubiquity of alcohol is about the only good thing that can be said of it. Alcohol's effects are short-lived. Alcohol is a poor sleep aid. Alcohol is very unhealthy. However, it's not desirable to take benzodiazepines, Z-drugs and painkillers on a long-term basis, because they all quickly build tolerance and require a bigger and bigger dose to be effective. Valium also has a very long half-life, so you are affected by it 24 hours a day once it reaches a steady concentration in your bloodstream. At least with alcohol, you sober up pretty fast when you stop drinking.

The body's ability to eliminate alcohol is very impressive. Tonight is my third night without a drink and I've suffered no ill effects from abruptly stopping my daily boozing. It would be expected that I might get the shakes or something, given my chronic self-administration of large quantities of alcohol over a long period, but that's simply not the case - I just stopped and I'm fine.

My sleep was a little disturbed last night. My body and brain are re-adjusting to life without copious amounts of wine being tipped down my throat. I'm not feeling the benefits, and if anything I'm feeling a little worse than I was when I was drinking every day. That's to be expected: my body's repairing itself. The booze has been very hard on my body.

I've gained weight and I just feel unhealthy from a winter of misery, where I drank vast quantities of wine. I really need a mini-detox. I thought about having a sober April, but I don't see the point. Drinking in moderation is what I'm aiming to do, so I'll have a little break and then I'll try to drink less.

Having a break from drinking is important, because I need to get into better drinking habits now that the shitstorm of stress has passed. There was no way that I was going to be able to do anything healthy while I was still heavily dependent on alcohol as a crutch, during a really horrible period of my life, but now things are improving and my life is a lot more manageable.

Perhaps I'm one of the lucky ones who can take it or leave it. Perhaps I'm just normal - I'll use whatever's available and my behaviour is dictated by my environment. During stressful times of course I'm going to hit the bottle. During happier times, of course I'm able to make healthier lifestyle choices. Seems obvious, doesn't it?

So, alcohol's not great, but it's not all bad either. It helped me get to where I've got to today.

Tags: #alcohol #anxiety