Sunday 13th August

8.34am. Took 500mg Disulfiram yesterday. Pranged hard for a beer, the thought of a pub and a beer or a room and a laptop and being drunk and blissful (funny no thought of the 2-3 days in bed sick as fuck, unable to eat that always happens after a mammoth session). Not sure if this was as a result - some kind of drug withdrawal - Renton commin off the skag - kinda moment or unrelated coincident.

In the afternoon got massive bouts of diarrhea - three times. Slept for a couple of hours. At dinner Mum opened a bottle of Merlot - I could smell the berries and tannin from across the room, its aroma sat silky on my nose as I declined verbally and my body wanted to accept so strongly.

This morning, I woke from a sound sleep, and a nice dream, all at once a stunning redhead was there and gave me such a gentle kiss in response to an awkward show of my intent - I'm always so boyishly meek when stood there, near mute, stood in front of the beauty my heart truly seeks. I could taste her lips on my own, slowly swallowing with passion risen in that long moment and as she became distant and vague again - I awoke.

Awake, I felt good for once and wanting to take the tablet again. My rational mind argued that you want to visit Virginia next weekend - so it would be wise to stop taking the tablet: it would be a shite weekend visiting people and the pub without a drink it rationalised - and I almost listened.

I took 250mg of Disulfiram this morning - the 500mg dose may have been too much. I know from experience this will be enough - and will make the tablets last longer, besides after a week the dosage is supposed to be dropped back to between 125 and 250mg maintenance dosage.

As for next weekend, or indeed a possible visit to Portugal - Isabel, whom I met in Vietnam if from Lisbon and mailed yesterday to ask when I was coming, as I had said I would - I have to learn to do the things sober that I usually did drunk. ...and in that re-develop a sense of choice in these situations.

Today I lacquer the paint job on my car...primed and painted fairly successfully over last two days. Then that's the car done, bicycle next...

Friday 11th August

Took 500mg Disulfiram at 8.10am

Yesterday: felt quesy about an hour after taking but that subsided quickly. Became a bit jittery - like too much caffeine - for a time, and slightly flustered, had some panicky and obsessive thoughts about not being able to drink. They passed once the realisation of the situation kicked in - I cannot drink alcohol under this medication for at least 1 week -10 days from taking.

Went to the auto store, Halfords and bought detailing stuff for my car. Washed the car last night with a shampoo and wax stuff. Will do touchup painting, external plastics and internal fabrics today.

***Update***

8.19am

That talking and thinking of alcohol, has me now momentarily pranging for drinking (not a specific drink, just drinking). Found myself in fond thought of being inebriated :(

I felt (both mentally and physically) that profound void that being inebriated - specifically by alcohol fills so well for me. This is the nub of the root of the problem.

As Paddy's brother told him: a blowout is good for you once in a while. (But only once in a while - not every chance you get, as then it is not so much a blowout as just a flat tyre.)

This too shall pass

10th August 2017

Time to try again. Practice makes perfect. Took 500mg of Disulfiram at 10.45am. Have had the tablets for the past month - finally in a mental place where I'm ready to do this:

Goal #one: 1 month off alcohol
#two: 2 months off
#three: 3 months off
#four: 6 months off
#five: 1 year.

Next steps: Exercise & activity

Gym, racketball/badminton & acting class, search meetup

A Letter from the Dark side.

Here’s a spry bit of news, Sofia. I only miss you when I’m drunk, or coming down off the drink. Sober? I get that we have drifted apart, that we are no longer eye to eye, nor heart to heart...If we ever really were? (We truly were, and it was beautiful...when I would let it be)

In another revaluation, again just this morning, I have discovered, genuinely, for the absolute first time (there have been a couple of flashes through my addled brain, in recent days) that I am a reprehensible drunk. I am not the ‘Jim Morrison’, nor am I the ‘James Joyce’ character I believed myself to be...all this wasted time. I am more akin to the piss-soaked red-face, down by the gutter, drinking Gin. My talents are good, better than most...but very good, is the mortal enemy of great. If I do not stop this clownish belief, some-day soon, I will find myself red-faced, smiling up from a gutter. Or dead.

Gubby is now dead. Hanley? – brown bread. Tiffo? –a living corpse, his immense brain having died years ago, most likely from an overdose. Me? Sitting in my pants, at 9.05 am furiously drinking....neurotically, rhyming every sentence with the last, and clinging desperately to a belief I once held, alone with the band, at the bitter last dance.

Somebody...Sofia, anybody, fuck me in a bath of icy cold water, push my head down till my arms stop...then release me. So I can be as a normal person for a moment. With no image in my mind, more real than what it is I see by eye, what you would unquestioningly, thoughtlessly, call life. It would be a pleasure indeed...just for a time. Then I would get bored.

There’s shaking in the offing for tomorrow, or even perhaps tonight? There will be inconsolable, unstoppable thoughts at play over and over, there will be a dangerous temperature throughout, and a fear of eating that will fight hard and long with an empty stomach. Liver and kidneys will be audible, but not as loud as my shout. But, fever will subside, and the pain will pass, and in about three days of sobriety, I will be itching to feel that God-like intelligence again, and be above a pointless, plain and obvious world, that to me, lies asleep in a kind of chosen morass.  

Wow. Side effects. Blee.

I woke up this morning from the most vivid dream I can remember having. Although not a nightmare, in the sense that some horror was befalling me. I was in a state of terror that did not subside for the next 30mins after waking. I was in full memory of the dream while drinking my tea. It was as vivid as a real memory, it made me question the notion of reality a little bit.

Thing is, this allowed me to analyse the dream in a Freudian, no better yet Jungian way. I was at an airport and my ex-girlfriend was flying from there back to Ireland. I was giving her things to take back with her for me...as I didn't need them anymore. Then I was around the corner with another ex-girlfriend, who was giving me things to take back to Ireland for her, and at first I said no, but she guilted and basically harangued at me until I agreed to take one or two things for her. She then kept giving me more and more things to take, which  I was then in turn, foisting onto the first girl. And each time I would convince the first girl that that was all I needed her to carry...I would end up back with the other girl who would have more stuff for me to take away back to Ireland. So a new argument would ensue, that I would lose...or capitulate on, for the sake of peace. And back again to the first girl. To ask her to carry the load for me.

Eventually at the third time of asking, I arrive back to the ex-girlfriend who is about to board a flight to Ireland....she is gone. There is a message that she had to go, her flight left in an hour and twenty minutes...and sorry but she would be gone for good.

I woke up heart racing, unsure of the new reality around me. Upon checking the time on my phone, I had an hour and twenty to get where I needed to go this morning. Interesting how the old body-clock incorporated itself into the dream. Another aspect, is that my father is back tonight on a flight from Canada, along with the omni-present cloud of a world he inhabits. A world others must enter when in his company, a world others must instinctively know all the rules to, down to minutiae, a world that berates all that is different to itself...you know: an average middle aged Irishmans view of things.

Leaving this morning aside; and going back to post Saturday night. I had a total of 4 and a half beers, felt drunk and tired at that point and went to bed...approx. 1.30am. I awoke at about 4.30am with stomoch cramps, a thumping headache and feeling both exhausted but unable to sleep. I drank a pint of water, incase this was the issue, ate a bow of cereal as I hadn't eaten much earlier in the day: 3 apples and a ham baguette.  Still no sleep. So I eventually put a movie on the laptop at 6.30am and hoped to nod off to it. It did the trick, but to my surprise I then had a knocked-out kind of sleep, waking with a start at 2.30pm in the day.

For the rest of that Sunday  I had to struggle. I was in a comedown style trance. You know where it is an effort to sit, lying down on the couch hurts, the thought of preparing and then cooking dinner is more painful than lying in a heap - increasingly hungry. God-damn fast food adverts. So no hangover, but the a comedown instead...hmmm?

Thing is, it also included several bouts of nausea. Which might just be the aversion therapy a fellow requires? Coupled with this, I find that I cannot smoke a cigarette without turning green around the gills for a good half-hour. And this is lasting too! It is now 4pm Monday, I am sweaty-palmed for the want of a smoke, but devilishly wary of the ould tobacco-weed: I had a cigarette two hours ago and am still queasy. Oh, and I still have a cloudy head which aches.

Did I mention the cherry on top? Bloating. Bloatedness. Bloatsploitation.

I look heavily pregnant, like a classic how-a-ya Dub with a 14 pint a night Guinness belly. Add to this a puffy face and baggy eyes, vis-a-vis, a skanger youngfella, on the comedown off the skag.

On the plus side, I have no desire to have, for instance: a couple of nice gentle pints tonight. For, given my subdued mood, I could more lament this sorry world: in faux Shakespeare mode:

Nice? I know not nice!,
Nor gentle neither,
...Nor gentle neither. (exeunt stage right)

 

A New Chapter

A new experiment...last one didn't quite happen, and actually because of the underlying reason to this trial.

I have an issue with alcohol. Hopefully if I manage to write regularly on this blog from here on out, it will be explained. Over time...its complicated. But probably very simple when the twigs are described back to their branches, back to boughs...and so on.

Tonight I am trialing a prescription drug not available in Ireland called Naltrexone. Or at least, not willingly supplied by any doctor I have discussed it with thus far. It is an opiad-inhibitor (more on that another time), that is supposed to curb an alcoholics cravings for the demon. Another way to take it is called the "Finland Method" - if memory serves, I read about it some time ago. The idea here being, that you only take the tablet before you drink, and it will curb the effects of the alcohol...so you drink less...and bit by bit, you cut down.

So on this Saturday night, I am alone and halfway through a second beer (real English ale as it happens...delicious by the way), I took the tablet an hour before drinking. First off mentioning, is intention. I was supposed to go to a friends birthday bash tonight, but deliberately chose to give it a miss. The reason being; it would have been a very boozy affair, moreover, there would have been more than one type of powder freely available to the nose of those who would indulge...that would have been everyone present. Actually, that is everyone present right now at this shindig, till the wee hours and beyond. This is why I said 'No'.

The drugs would have been a boon to my soul for a night...I have never had much real difficulty with taking them - a one in a blue moon kinda fella. The issue with me, is always the aftermath...I don't know when to quit the party. Infact, drinking the day after is almost the best part. This is where I do damage to myself, I can end up in 48-96 hour sessions....after the fact. Often, I'm finally accepting the party has come to pass, around the time the other attendees are finishing their working week and discussing the impending weekends' possibilities.

Now, back to this evening. The drug is effective. I am still in the middle third of my second beer, and I started drinking about two hours ago. In my usual form, I would be at least on my fifth pint. So the drug is effective.

To describe its effect: I feel momentarily quite drunk, sort of stoned after each sip - and thus content, and contented for some time after. I am guessing this is how normal people are effected by alcohol. I don't need or want any more of my beer, than the mouthful I had...I am satisfied by it. This is a peculiar feeling for me. It  plays into the theory I heard about alcoholism and especially dipsomania - that those who become dependent / loose control of their intake once imbibing (dipsomania) are actually so intolerant to alcohol, that they become instantly 'high' from a very small amount, and thus they need to consume quickly and often (if they are not indeed the same thing) in order to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

Sounds a bit silly to a person from a 'drinking' society - the very notion of withdrawal symptoms after a single beer?. But, I believe this could be quite true. In my drinking life and history, if I'm honest - I have always needed to pass-out to bring festivities to an end. While I'm conscious - the need for 'one more' would always be with me. 'One more'...to keep the buzz going. To keep the game alive. When you think about it: how different is this problem, from that of a crack-heads' main burden?

A Thought...

A man, in a tent, on a roof; praises the Budda. Or maybe he is only washing his clothes? The movement of this figure, seated in a brighter background that he, at an elevated distance is only suggestive. Either way, he is certainly attempting to wash something.