Reasons to be Cheerful

Today was a better day. I know that it doesn't mean anything more than that, just that today was better; no telling what tomorrow will be like. I do think though, that knowing I can come here and write about things, how I feel, what I hope for and my goals, is not just therapeutic [ie helpful] but also positive [empowering]. I don't feel the need to write today, so I won't. I know that other days my need to write will be there, so no need to rush things. I have to remember I am no longer ruled by deadlines and other peoples expectations... so, that is another good thing to think about. Think this blogging is giving me room to think about myself a bit more. That is pretty cool :-) .

Reasons to be Fearful [part 1]

16:00 is not a good time either for me. The wine bottle is growling. So, yep here I am, doing some blog therapy. It is boredom that has made me drink more than is good for me. I mention on my profile that I worked in advertising [for 20 years] and am currently unemployed. Well yes, and I have been unemployed for around 8 years now. I was made redundant in 2001 and at the time it was pretty devastating, but also liberating, if you follow me. In the first few years of unemployment, I was full of ideas on how to start my own business. But for one reason or another nothing ever came about [topic to be explored in another therapy session]. So I drifted into playing games on my pc and got really hooked on Baldur's Gate and Morrowind and just about any RPG that was on the market at the time. This must have been around 2005/6 so you can see that I had been unemployed for 4/5 years by then. I knew at the time that those games were in some way saving my sanity. I even subscribed to a gamers website, Gamebanshee, and was on there every day writing posts on the forums and chatting to fellow games addicts [enthusiasts I should say, lol]. I suppose I am trying to pinpoint the time in my recent history when I started to drink during the daytime. Maybe this will become clearer in later 'therapy sessions'.

If you are wondering why I keep going on about 'therapy sessions', well it is simply this. I woke up this morning feeling none too healthy and was thinking about my recent failed attempts to moderate my drinking. And so, today's brainwave on that front was the idea that I would create a blog site where I could go and write to stop myself from walking to the fridge and pouring a drink. [So far, so good].

Moderate.... yes that is what I want to do, I want to be a moderate drinker. Stopping drinking is not my objective because quite honestly to stop drinking would be far too complicated. How to exaplain to my friends and my family that I no longer drink would raise all sorts of questions and require all sorts of answers that quite honestly I dont want to face up to. Yes, I want to hide this problem.

In At The Deep End

This is my bad time of day [13:00]. When my thoughts are focusing more firmly on the bottle of wine in the fridge. Usually by now, I have allowed my feeble defences to crumble and have found myself, glass of wine in hand, sighing and muttering, "tomorrow I will do better..."

But this morning, standing in the bathroom feeling a little worse for wear [a sure sign I have gone over the one bottle of wine consumption limit. Sure enough when I looked in the fridge, most of the bottle of white had gone and I had also had 3 glasses of red] I came up with a plan. When the alcohol addiction starts to nag and whine and demand feeding I will blog instead. Really, I have no idea if this is going to work for me, but I have to try, because I am just not doing it on my own. So, this blog is going to be my therapy. My Alcoholics Annonymous. My rehab clinic.

First Day on the Blog

This is a bit like arriving at a new job. You don't know what to expect and you don't know anyone. So, just dipping my toe in the water to see who/what is out there. So, doing all the important stuff first. Making my desk look nice and finding out where the water cooler is ^^.