My Drink Problem

A few words about my endeavours to control my problem with alcohol and turn my life around.

[mydrinkproblem]

Three years into my sobriety

One of the benefits of not drinking or doing drugs is retaining the ability to make rational decisions. It was about 11pm and she was pleading with me to go out and party with her. Had I been intoxicated then I would have definitely gone. But I was able to stand my ground even when she persisted to try to change my mind. 

Sobriety, it must be said, doesn’t mean that I am exempt from making bad decisions. I had just had unprotected sex with her and she wasn’t someone I knew too well. A clear example of the fact that I don’t learn from my lessons. I’m currently awaiting all of my STI test results but the ones that I have had back so far are clear which is good. 

Alcohol is no longer as prominent in my life as it was three years ago when I still drank. I feel less tempted to drink and I am almost a different person now. Taking away alcohol has forced me to realise and confront the fact that my real problem was and still is my mental health. Alcohol and drugs are just the things that I used to try and help me cope. Of course they never really did, “they just make you worse,” as the Verve song goes.

She was more focused on going to the party so she rebuked my invitation to buy some coke. Twice. I’m thankful that she did as that wasn’t a good idea. It's been almost a month and a half since I last did coke and I really do hope that I can abstain for longer. The struggle continues.

If you’re thinking of giving up alcohol and or drugs then aswell as doing that also try to address the reasons for why you use them. That might give you a better chance of getting clean and sober. And hopefully increase your chances of staying clean and sober too. I’ve only really started addressing my mental health within the last year. Yes it’s been a bumpy road and there’ll be many more bumps but doing something about it has been much better than letting it get worse. 

[mydrinkproblem]

Indecision

There's irony in the fact that I had so much trouble deciding what to post last month that I ended not posting anything at all. Yet I’m currently helping a friend with the copy for her website. I suffer greatly from indecision, my need to think things through thoroughly can often end up with me failing to act on any plan that I consider. But the fact that you are reading this means that for this month at least I was able to stop procrastinating and actually get something posted. Wahey!

This next paragraph is wild. I hadn’t drank for years or used any drugs for almost two months until I hooked up with this girl earlier this month. She was eager to meet and even tried to get me to meet her earlier on the day we were meeting. When I arrived she was in the bathroom and she stayed there for over an hour. She only came out when I threatened to go home because she was taking too long and I was getting bored. During the night she tried to get me to drink alcohol but I was able to resist. We drank G and smoked meth together. It affected her more than me and she began to fall asleep during sex. I stopped each time, suggesting that we take a break but she didn’t want to. I offered her water but she didn’t drink much, instead she opted for chocolate. She tried repeatedly tried to snog me while eating it even though I told her that I am lactose intolerant. We carried on but again she began to drift away so I decided to end it. For some reason she thought that we’d have sex all night long and then I’d leave in the morning. She was not happy with me (for leaving at 4am) and said that I should also contribute to the cost of the hotel room because I chose to leave early. I told her that I was leaving because I cared for her, she was way too high and clearly wasn’t interested in moderating her drug use and I didn’t want to be with her in that state. When I got home I saw that she’d messaged me saying, “fuck you about caring.”

My friends had been telling me to get therapy for years and it was only late last year that I began listening to them. I’m now 4 or 5 sessions into my treatment and I kind of wish that I’d been told about the things covered in Fiona Thomas’ Metro article about therapy before. Most notably that there’s a long waiting list. I (perhaps naively) had the impression that the treatment would start soon after speaking to my doctor. In the end I waited 6 months and wasn’t given many updates, even when I contacted the NHS. Feeling abandoned and not knowing when it would start I tried to self medicate, turning to coke. This as you can expect, made things worse. I’m happy to say that I haven't used coke for just over 2 months now. Although that could all change soon. I have a few days off and tentatively planned to do coke again during my time off from work. One of my friends was in my part of London and asked me for my dealer's number. Reluctantly I asked the dealer if it was OK and then shared it with my friend. He’s asked before and I’ve declined but this time he caught me at a week moment. Giving him the phone number deterred me from buying coke last night as it now makes me anxious that my dealer and him could talk about me. I don’t want me friend knowing how much and how often I buy coke. However there is a part of me that wishes that I hadn’t given him the number and bought some last night as I’d be able to do it right now. That wouldn’t be good as I have a therapy session later today, going to that high would be one of the worst things that I could do.

“In the beginning I was too afraid to drink because I didn’t wanna screw up,” Avicii says. “But then I realised how stiff I was when I wasn’t drinking. So then I found the magical cure of just having a couple of drinks before going on [stage to perform]. But I think to a part that’s what helped me to do all those shows without feeling completely exhausted.” The quote is from Avicii: The Inside Story, a documentary about the artist Avicii (Tim Bergling) who tragically died in 2018. He was a megastar DJ and producer that wrote songs like “Levels”, “Wake Me Up”, “Waiting For Love” and “Hey Brother”. His songs were massive, “Wake Me Up” has almost 2 billion streams on YouTube! He suffered from anxiety and would get nervous before shows. At first he turned to drink to try and calm his nerves but this too took a toll on him and he was hospitalized in 2013 with acute pancreatitis. In 2016 he came across Carl Jung’s theories on personality types and there’s a brilliant part in the documentary where he shares this discovery with a member of his team. “I’ve read alot of different things the last six months, but this was incredible,” he says. It was then that it all made sense to Avicii, he was an introvert. I related to his story because like him I love music, like him I struggled with alcohol, like him I have problems with mental health. I was moved by the documentary so much so that an earlier 500 word draft for last month’s post was focused on it.

Leaving the house is still a problem if it's not for work. Even doing things like food shopping are hard for me. Every Sunday I have to give myself a pep talk so that I can go and buy the food I'll eat for dinner and take into work for lunch. I have only met up with a handful of friends this year, as socialising isn't something that I want to do right now. I feel bad for feeling like that but it's the truth. My therapist has made me see that I don't need to put on a mask around friends, I can instead avoid things like answering questions like, "how are you doing," honestly. I can for example give meaninglessness answers such as, "same old, same old."

[mydrinkproblem]

Better (part 2)

Having waited almost 6 months, I finally got a call last week to tell me that my CBT therapy sessions will start next week. I don’t expect that they’ll cure my depression but I do hope they help me cope with it better than I have been.

Today I reached the one week milestone for being clean. I made the decision to get clean while sat on a night bus on the way home from a night out with friends. I didn’t enjoy having to hide being high or suffering the after affects of taking coke (blocked nose, dilated pupils, coke jaw). It wasn’t an issue for my friends, they even snuck some into the gig we went to and did it there. Even though there were sniffer dogs on the way in and we saw people getting kicked out for being caught taking drugs when we were inside. We even saw people (who we didn’t know) so drunk or high that they could barely stand. Yesterday my dealer sent me the text message above, he was offering a free sample. I didn’t take him up on the offer and don’t feel bad for not doing so which is good.

I’ve either been cancelling or declining invitations when friends suggest meeting up. I don’t feel good and don’t feel comfortable enough to talk to them about my mental health. Even though some of my friends also suffer from depression. I’ve told them things before and some of them have told others. Even though the things that we discussed were personal and things I didn’t want everyone to know. That’s part of the reason that I hide my identity when blogging. Yesterday I met up with a friend that I hadn’t seen for months. It was good getting out of the house and doing something different. It was also good seeing him but I wasn’t comfortable enough to talk about how I was feeling. He mentioned that he’d also been going through a rough patch but I just did what I normally do when with friends and hid my problems. I got the feeling that my friends wanted to go out out later in the night but I was ready to go home and suggested that we leave. I think I do need to be more clear with my friends about where I’m currently at with things, at least that way awkward situations like that can be avoided. I am no longer the party animal that I used to be.

[mydrinkproblem]

Better

It’s been almost 2 months since I last made a blog post. Which is far too long considering that I wanted to try and update the site every month. I’ve been writing but have procrastinated for far too long. 

After speaking to my doctor about feeling depressed and having suicidal thoughts and then being assessed - I felt good. Good that I was finally actually doing something about it. What I didn’t know is that almost five months later I’d still be waiting for my therapy sessions and not have any idea as to when they’d start. As the wait got longer I started taking the antidepressants, I didn’t want to but thought that they’d be the next best thing. Then I kinda gave up in December, being off work and having alot of time to myself really messed things up. I reverted back to doing coke and have found it pretty hard to stop since. I’ve probably spent somewhere in the region of £700 on coke since mid December. Recognising the problem I said to myself, ‘next month (February) I will stay clean,’ thinking that it’s a short month so that was a realistic goal. Wrong. I’ve just carried on, infact I’ll probably only stay clean next week because I don’t have a day off.

My annual tradition seems to be to start off the year with an STI. I thought that this year was the same as I could feel what I thought were warts and so I booked a test. That feeling of dread, knowing that I should have used protection the last time that I had sex and not knowing what you may have caught is awful. I now know that I was one of several partners the girl that I slept with last had the night that I was with her. So much so that her flat mate was shocked at her behavior. I had a runny nose when I was with her, which really was down it being so cold outside but she didn’t believe me and kept asking me for coke. She did other drugs and when I was leaving I saw her going into her room with some tin foil which filled me with dread. All of my tests came back negative - which is great. Having to go to the clinic was good though, they asked me whether I take any drugs during sex and I explained which ones. They asked me whether I have any problems with drugs at the moment, I said, “yes - coke,” they said that they’d get in touch with me regarding the support that they can offer me. I’d spoken to someone before but they just told me that I didn’t have a problem so hopefully it goes better this time.

A friend of mine was congratulating me for staying sober for so long. I sheepishly took his compliment but he seemed bemused that I didn’t seem to acknowledge the significance of what I’d achieved. My other friends that were there stayed silent, they knew that I’d swapped booze for other drugs. I didn’t tell him but he repeated it later on in the night. I look forward to the day when I can accept such compliments guilt free. Furthermore, there have been times in recent weeks when I’ve considered swapping the coke for alcohol. ‘At least that way it’d be cheaper,’ I thought. The embarrassment of going back into the off licence that I used to visit every evening after work, buying the cans that I used to drink every evening and having to explain where I’d been the last two and something years to the shopkeeper put me off it though. So did the fact that I’d have to write about it and tell you. Those are things that I don’t want to do.

Another friend of mine has been supporting me, encouraging me to go out even when I’ve been set on spending the whole day indoors. Bless her but she doesn’t also know that I’ve been battling to stay clean, I dare not tell her because she can’t keep things to herself and the last thing that I want is the rest of my friends knowing. Even so, whenever I do meet friends with aim of talking to them about stuff, our conversation is dominated by them talking about their problems and it doesn’t seem that they have even noticed that I may have things that I want to talk about too.

I recently went on a date and it was quite the experience. She was an hour late, she didn’t give me any updates and she turned up just when I was about to leave. Luckily my booking was for an hour after I had told her otherwise things would have been even worse. We played mini golf and had drinks after but I couldn’t hear here because the bar was too loud so we went to look for somewhere quieter. People stared at her because she was trans and I thought that was so rude, you could see that it made her feel uncomfortable and she lacked a bit of confidence because of it. As we wandered around I suggested, “a pub or bar,” to which she sarcastically replied, “another loud place?.” In the end we ended up at Nando’s, I paid again. She claimed to have been Nando’s before but she didn’t have a clue what to order, in the end I had to help her decide. She didn’t want to leave after we’d finished our meals and she didn’t want the night to end but I knew that she had work in the morning so I walked her to the tube station. She kissed me before she left and we stayed in contact after that but it was always due to me starting the conversation. Things have since fizzled out because I made a mess of Valentine’s Day. To the point where I can no longer see her Whatsapp profile picture because she has probably deleted me from her saved contacts. But as a testament to the kind of hot mess that she is, I can still see her Whatsapp story - stupid right? I spent £100 on that date and can’t really say that it was worth it. I was open with her far more than I have been with other girls and after this experience it will be hard for me to do it again. Perhaps my next first date can be in a coffee shop, that way it’ll be cheap if I’m paying for everything. It’s 2019, should guys still be paying for everything on the first date?

[mydrinkproblem]

Stupid

Stupid because I'm looking for love and affection from cam girls. Stupid because I believe their lies. Stupid because kind and sweet are used as euphemisms for me being gullible. Stupid because even as I write this I am waiting for a certain girl to come online and start streaming again so that we can catch up.

Stupid because I am doing coke again. Stupid because I spent £200 on it last week. Stupid because the last time that I picked up the baggies were underweight and still I'm going back to the same dealer. Stupid because by the time New Year's Day will have come I will have spent the whole of my Christmas bonus on coke. Stupid because I use it as a release, to make me feel better. Stupid me.

[mydrinkproblem]

Finally seeking help

Alcohol was always problematic. I would often throw up, black out or sometimes do both. I'd hate it when I woke up, still wearing my clothes from the night before, having lost something (usually my keys, wallet or phone) and not having any recollection of how the night ended or I got home. It just took me a long time to realise how problematic alcohol was for me.

“You could try and numb the pain, but it'll never go away” - Kid Cudi on Swim in The Light

It came as a surprise to me that going sober wouldn't solve all of my problems. sobriety was just the first step to a happier and healthier me, what I needed to do was to address the reasons why I drank. After almost 2 decades of not talking to anyone and hiding my feelings I recently spoke to my doctor and asked for some help regarding my mental health. I had tried before but my doctor didn't seem like he had enough time. This time I was seeing a stand in doctor and she was alot more accommodating which made me comfortable enough to bring it up with her. It was hard because I wasn't feeling particularly down when I told her but I tried to recall the emotions that I feel when down or suicidal the best that I could so that she could understand what I was going through. She prescribed me some antidepressants and I asked what the side effects where. "There's none," she replied before adding, "you may feel a bit drowsy but that's it." Some of my friends had previously warned me about taking medication for depression and so I did a bit of research when I got home from the pharmacy. An “increased risk of suicidal thinking and behaviour,” was listed amongst the long side effects! That scared me and made me wonder why a qualified doctor would prescribe such a thing to someone who is vulnerable to the dangerous side effects.

I've just looked the side affects up and they include: increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior can cause a life-threatening condition can cause mania ... Yikes. My friend is saying that I shouldn't take them and should push my doctor yo get referred to counselling

— My Drink Problem (@mydrinkproblem)

October 4, 2018

Luckily though she had also booked me for counselling, this would start with an assessment or screening as they called it. I booked the day off work because the phone call would be a long one and finding somewhere private would be hard when at work. Lucky that I did because they ended up calling me back to give me a further assessment. The call went well which was surprising because I had been so apprehensive about seeking help for many years. I felt better after the first call and was even more open in the follow up call. That initial call made me see things from a different point of view. I am now unable to listen to the many depressing playlists that I have saved on Spotify. I don’t want to feel sorry for myself or focus on bad energy any more. Instead, I want to address and change all the things that I hate about life rather than dwell and moan to myself about them. Never would I have t hi that that would be possible.

This is the tenth draft that I have made for this month’s blog post because I didn’t feel that the other versions were sincere or honest enough. In addition, my two year sobriety anniversary was this month and so I also wanted to write something positive. I felt conscious because I never do and that I might be coming across as a moaner. Despite the time it took to get here I am happy with the result and in a better state of mind than I have been for a very long time. 

[mydrinkproblem]

The ugly truth

As much as they pretend to be happy for me, most people that claim to be friends don't like that I've given up drinking alcohol. If they really were happy for me they wouldn't try to get me to drink again constantly. Not all of my friends know how out of control things got for me when I drank. But those that do know should at least want to encourage my prosperity rather than trying to prevent it. And those that don't know but actively try to get me to drink again are selfish. I shouldn't need to explain the reasons why I stopped for them to understand or stop pestering me to start doing it again.

The majority of my free time is spent on adult sites, watching porn or trying to find someone to hook up with. As soon as I get home from work I'm straight on my phone to see who's near, whether they're hot and whether they'd like to meet. It's the first thing that I do on weekends when I wake and one of the last things that I do before I sleep. Infact some nights I fall asleep while checking and searching. It’s only on a Sunday that I’m able to curtail my usage because my hookups tend to be at or end very late and going to work after having next to no sleep is a killer. Although strangely, that isn’t enough of a deterrent during the rest of the week.

My battle to not use poppers restarted again recently. I was doing fine and haven't used them for just over 4 months but interacting with people that use drugs is tempting me again. I was going to buy them the other night but my fear of being seen walking out of a sex shop by someone that I know stopped me. What I really want to do is get really fucking high, being on crystal meth feels so good and I yearn for it but it’s expensive (from what I know - I’ve never paid for it before) and I don’t know any dealers. I need real planning before I meetup with the people that I know that have and can get it because my time with them always ends up being crazy - surprise, surprise. And it being a Sunday, it’s too late for me to do that as I won’t be able to have a day to recover and look normal again before going back into work.

I don't enjoy life. I haven't done for a very long time. The natural reaction to something that you don't like that you're engaged in, is to stop. Right? I've been thinking about killing myself for almost 2 decades now. For a long time I tried my best to hide it, in fact alcohol is one of the things that helped me mask it. However when I was on my own again, the feelings would return. Now that I don't drink anymore I've been forced to try and address my mental health. I have a few friends that suffer from anxiety and or depression and they've recommended that I seek medical help. I've considered it and almost spoke to my doctor about it but the last time I planned to, he seemed in a rush. Like he was trying to get onto the next appointment as soon as possible so I just left.

[mydrinkproblem]

Regaining Control

Messing up is something that I've done alot of lately. I’ve basically been going from one bad decision to another and the time has finally come to put an end to this shit. The final straw was me smoking meth on an all night bender with a prostitute and then going into work the next day, still high and red eyed. It was painful.

Stop worrying about the problem and start focusing on the solution

— Le Mabdulle (@Randomexe)

April 22, 2018

Rather than beating myself up about the mistakes I am now trying to look forward and stay clean and sober until the end of the year. Of course I want to stay clean and sober for far longer than that but working towards and achieving this milestone will, I hope, help me to continue and work towards my next milestone after that.

[mydrinkproblem]

Enough is enough

I am tired of having to explain why I am not drinking. I am tired of explaining that I (hope that I) will never drink ever again to the same people again and again. As a non drinker, I am tired of the awkwardness that comes with buying rounds. I am tired of having to reiterate that regardless of the occasion, regardless of how drunk or high we got last time I will not be drinking alcohol or doing any drugs when the same occasion occurs again. I am tired of people thinking that I have to justify not drinking alcohol to them yet they don't need to justify their reasons for drinking to me.

I am bored of pubs. In fact I hate pubs. I don't have anytime for overpriced drinks in bars and clubs. I am tired of my friends only proposing to meetup for drinks. I am tired of going to pubs.

I don't want to go clubbing ever again and need to find a way to tell my friends, up until now I've been pretending that I am still the old me - just sober. That I will still come to nights out but now I will stay sober. Wrong. I no longer want to go clubbing ever again.

Being sober has allowed me to see how alcohol can make people change. They become louder, ruder, more obnoxious, more carefree, less respectful, more clumsy, more playful, more forgetful and less reliable. I am grateful for being able to witness the change because it is hard to see when you yourself are drinking too. I no longer enjoy being around drunk people. So I need to stop it and everything else that I’ve mentioned in this post. Wish me luck. Feel free to give me any tips on twitter or Instagram @mydrinkproblem.

[mydrinkproblem]

Leaving the pub is not easy

Leaving the pub is not easy, even as a sober person (you might wonder what I’m doing there as a non drinker but it seems to be the only place where my friends socialise). People aren’t very understanding when they’ve had a drink. Something like, “I’m gonna head home,” to them sounds like convince me to stay as opposed to I’m going home now.

As a drinker, I used to be one of those people that would stay til the end and I’d try my best to my make friends stay if they tried to leave early. As I sit here reflecting, I am truly sorry for making my friends uncomfortable. Recently when I told my friends that I was going to head home one of my friends tried to convince me to stay. When I insisted that I’d be going home because of problems on my trains (it’s been snowing in the UK and that has caused havoc on our public transport) he then suggested that I get an Uber and stay out. When I declined he then changed tact by trying to make me feel guilty as he doesn’t get many weekends off. I remained strong and headed home but it wasn’t easy. A few years ago I’d have given in.

As well as being constantly asked: “why aren’t you not drinking?”, “how long has it been since you last drank?”, “why don’t you just have one alcoholic drink tonight?” and “would you be angry with me if I slipped a shot into your [insert non alcoholic drink]?.” People will also make it hard for you to leave the party. It’s something that you’ll have to get used to as a non drinker. The earlier that you start to say your goodbyes the better as you’ll have to account for the delaying tactics that some people will try to use. 

The way that I determine a good night is no longer based upon how drunk or high I got. I am no longer desperate to stay out with my friends to prolong the night in fear that when I get home I’ll be sad and depressed. I am happy to go straight to bed when I get home rather than only sleeping when I feel that I can’t drink anymore. I am comfortable not ordering an alcoholic drink. I love waking up the next day without a hangover. Here’s to more good nights.

[mydrinkproblem]

I’ll keep doing whatever works

“How long has it been since you last had a drink?,” my friends and colleagues often ask. When I tell them, some say that I’ve cracked it but I am not so positive. Podcasts are one of the things that have helped me stay sober. And one of the things that I’ve heard that has resonated with me is that staying sober is an ongoing war. It is not something that you can master just by being sober for one day, one month or even one year. I’ve heard numerous tales of people being sober for years, then deciding to have a drink and then their life goes off the rails again because they started drinking like they did before or even worse.

When I mentioned that to a friend he said, “yeah but that’s alcoholics. Alcoholics wake up and the first thing that they do is have a drink. You weren’t like that.” Sure, I didn’t wake up and have a drink of alcohol to start my day but I definitely had a problem controlling my consumption of alcohol. That problem was seriously affecting other areas of my life and when I finally saw how much damage it was causing I tried to get sober. Now that I am sober I don’t want to go back and thanks to things like Annie Grace’s book ‘This Naked Mind’ I now don’t have an interest in having a drink, even ‘just one’ that people often try to get me to have. So although my friends may not see me as an alcoholic, and I don’t really care if I am or not, my main concern is not having a drink again and so I will take and apply any advice that may help me do that. Anything that works.

[mydrinkproblem]

Mask Off

In person I am smiley and upbeat so much so that when giving me more work to do a colleague looked at me surprisingly and said, “he’s still smiling!.” Her colleague then said, “[my real name] is always happy. I think he just smiles through the pain sometimes.” The last part was said in jest but she couldn’t be further from the truth.

Pretending to be ok even though I feel the opposite of ok seemed like the best solution because I feared being judged. Hiding my pain and sadness was my coping tactic to help me not get further setbacks because I think that mental health has a stigma attached to it.

“It would be like somebody having a broken leg and going to work and saying, “I cannot limp, I have got to walk smoothly.” And imagine a 12 hour day of trying to walk smoothly with a cast, terrified that your world would crumble if somebody finds out”” - 1:04:54  Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast

One of the main reasons that I drank was because I realised that it made me feel better while drinking so I began drinking it everyday. Not sleeping until I had finished all the bottles of wine or cans of beer that I had bought that evening. But that began to negatively impact my life and after many years I realised that when I woke up after an all night drinking session my problems were still there, so alcohol wasn’t the best solution. After giving up alcohol I dabbled with drugs (here and here) after being introduced to them by ‘friends’. It’s been a month and a half since I last used any type of drug and I successfully declined to use any when I was last out with the friends that always use drugs on nights out.

“Smiling when you’re depressed is like bench pressing 500lbs” - 1:04:10  Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast

Now after almost two decades, it is becoming increasingly harder to pretend that everything is ok. And so I’m going to try and be more honest. Not by moaning to friends everyday that life isn’t going my way. Not by constantly posting about how miserable I feel on social media but by stopping exaggerating my happiness. Of course I’ll turn it on like we all do in situations like job interviews but in my normal day to day life I’m not going to be a clown, I’m not going to wear the mask anymore. Mask off.

[mydrinkproblem]

The full picture isn’t pretty

I have managed not to buy or do any coke since my last baggie ran out at the end of September, which is especially good because of the trouble that I’ve had with it this year. I've cut the 'friend' that gave the me the dealer that I had been buying from's number out of my life. I blocked him on Whatsapp and then received a text from him a few weeks later so I blocked his number too. My life has been free of his negativity for a while now and the only thing that I regret is not doing it sooner.

Flushing the poppers that I had down the toilet has helped me to stop using them. My original plan was to go on a walk and pour them out somewhere away from people's homes or any offices as they are toxic but was convinced that I could just flush them down the loo by someone on twitter. When I did their aroma immediately began to fill the air so I used some toilet spray to mask it. I was nervous when someone else went into the toilet but they didn't ask me about any weird smell so I think that I got away with it.

Threw my poppers away. But now it looks like I might be hooking up with someone tonight I'm thinking of ways I can get some for tonight. pic.twitter.com/flVzF6Zsd7

— My Drink Problem (@mydrinkproblem)

November 17, 2017

However, a few nights after I got rid of them I had urges to use poppers. I know that they are harmful but they make sex so much more pleasurable so sex without them just isn't as enjoyable. Sex is hard to enjoy like I did before I used them because I now know there’s another level which can be reached which cannot be attained without the use of drugs. I am going to have to practice sober sex and try to get used to sex without poppers which will be hard - no pun intended.

Two weeks ago I used MDMA. The looks that I got from strangers later on when the affects started kicking in were enough to discourage me from doing it again anytime soon. We went clubbing that same night and my mates got kicked out for using drugs in the club. It's the first time that I've ever seen it happen, worse still it happened to my friends. The searches when entering the club were the most comprehensive that I've seen, they did the normal patting down but also looked in wallets, tissue packets, patted our socks and shoes down too, so it was pretty remarkable that my friend managed to sneak them in in the first place. Had it been me, I would have been caught as I've tended to hide them in my trainers or socks. Lesson learned.

Really pisses me off when 'friends' gossip to each other about what you've been up to. I won't tell them anything now.

— My Drink Problem (@mydrinkproblem) November 10, 2017

One thing that I hate about sharing things about your life with people is that they will not respect your privacy. I have done some pretty wild things and sometimes my friends forget that I am a human and that I have feelings when they tell others about things that I’ve done in my private life. I hate that and not doing drugs will help in not give those inconsiderate friends who can’t stop talking about my personal life things to talk about.

I recently had a sobriety anniversary and since then I have not been keeping much of a count on the length of time that it’s been since I last drank alcohol. While out for a drink my friends asked me how long I’d been sober for and I struggled to recall. It was a strange feeling - genuinely not knowing exactly how long I had not been drinking for. Considering that I had tried so long to stop drinking. Maybe I have reached another stage in my battle with alcohol that it has even less of a hold on my life now. Who knows.

Life is something that I do not enjoy. That is why I don’t take part in celebrations like birthdays. Doing so would contradict my stance on life. This has been another year that I’ve had a number of friends get married. They are not friends that I speak to and stay in touch with on a regular basis but they are people that I care about. Because I’m not in regular contact with them I wasn’t able to be as detailed or open as I have been with some of my other friends when they got married as to why I won’t attend. I still haven’t contacted the most recent couple to get married and I feel bad for it. On one hand I don’t want to take any part in the celebration but on the other hand I know that it will be appreciated if I did send them some kind of message. Another friend had reminded me to send them a message of congratulations while he was on the way to their wedding and I said that I would but two months later I haven’t sent them anything. There’s a 75% chance that sending the message will result in something awkward, (1) them ignoring it, 2) them being polite and courteous or 3) questioning why I haven’t sent it sooner), which is really high and why I’ve been putting it off.

I'm forced to support my friends even when my mental state isn't the best. Even when I've told them about it. Soon I'll have to tell them outright that I'm not fit to support them like they need.

— My Drink Problem (@mydrinkproblem)

November 16, 2017

One of my friends lost his father last year and is currently unemployed. He is having a hard time dealing with the situation that he’s in and confides in me about it. I find these conversations really difficult because life is something that I do not enjoy and I so I am going through many of the emotions that he is too. I’ve told him about my depression but I don’t think that he recalls those conversations. At least I hope he doesn't otherwise speaking to me about his situation would be rather insensitive because I do not have the answers. And he speaks to me in a way that my role in the conversation is to provide guidance and positivity even though I feel the complete opposite. I never feel good after getting off the phone to him after one of those conversations because they require me to lie. I have moments where I feel positive and yes I try to shine a light on positivity but ultimately I am not happy and so advising someone on how they can find happiness is not something that I should be doing.

[mydrinkproblem]

Once you pop, you can’t stop

I almost got through last week by being clean the whole week and then I stumbled. It didn’t happen when I met up with my friend which was surprising as that is what I had . He was fairly understanding that I am not drinking and didn’t bat an eyelid when I told him that I wouldn’t be doing any drugs. Normally he’d try and convince me to do some but that night he was understanding and accepting of what I had said which was nice. He drank as normal and must have been on something that night because by the end of the night he was swaying and had trouble walking in a straight line. The stumbling point came later in the week at home, I am my own worst enemy I guess. The urge of using poppers to increase sexual pleasure was too much to resist, so much so that I used them several times on the weekend. ‘At least I haven’t used any coke,’ I thought to myself stupidly.

Last week I had planned to dispose of the poppers. They include dangerous ingredients and are highly flammable so flushing them down the loo or throwing them in the bin might not be the best thing to do. I had planned of tipping them out in a secluded area of my local park late at night some time (so nobody would see me) but never got around to doing it. I wish I had, then I wouldn’t have reverted back to using them this weekend. While using them and enjoying their effects I even began considering buying more as the ones that I have are running out.

I wouldn’t say that I’m addicted to poppers but I had definitely got into the habit of using them regularly during sex. That was up until I felt one of their side affects: they can “kill an erection,” as I learned recently where I was with a stunner but couldn’t get hard because of the poppers. That’s helped reduce my usage but obviously not stop me using them all together.

While unpacking my bag after returning from the supermarket I saw something at the bottom of my bag. It was a small baggie, with coke in it. This is the bag that I have been taking to work - imagine the baggie fell out at work! I would be fucked. I had tried to look for the coke a few weeks ago and couldn’t find it. At the time I wasn’t sure whether one of the people that I had slept with in that time had stolen it from my bag or not as they were all pretty keen on it and not really people I knew well.

I’ve put the baggie in the draw under my bed but I should have thrown it away. I didn’t because, ‘that would be a waste,’ I told myself. The lure of experiencing another high is slightly appealing too. I thought about doing it today but didn’t fancy going to work with a blocked nose again. I don’t wake up wanting coke and I don’t have any intention on buying anymore. So I don’t think that I’m addicted. But I can’t bring myself to throwing away the leftovers that I have. There’s a problem there, how bad I don’t know. I am an idiot, that’s all that I’m sure of. I really hope that it doesn’t take something stupid and bad to make me truly see the faults in may ways.

[mydrinkproblem]

343 days sober, 8 days clean

Breaking habits is hard. Not doing the harmful thing that you’ve become used to doing to enjoy yourself or relieve your stress is stressful itself. But it shouldn’t be, there was a time before you discovered the poison, when you used to do things differently. And now that you’ve found out what you thought was a solution is actually a problem, it’s time to change your ways. The will is there but so is the temptation. The memories of how good the poison felt can be hard to resist. ‘One more time and then from next week I’ll stop doing it’ - you might tell yourself. And then when next week comes you tell yourself the same thing and buy and do it again. And so it continues. You might even be able to rack up a few days of not having having the poison but that will soon be forgotten when you meet your ‘friends’. You might tell them that you’re trying to abstain from having the poison but they won’t listen. You might tell them that you’ve quit but they’ll just laugh you out of the building. They’ll ask why and will continue to ask you whether you’re still giving up each and every time they see you. They don’t have time for the new you - the party must go on you see. Regardless of how much harm it’s doing to you. It’s their enjoyment that’s most important to them, not your health. So they’ll do their best to convince you to have the poison tonight. But these are your friends, they should be helping you not hindering you. Right? Trying to rationalise with someone who’s on a mission to get shitfaced that night is something that’s not really worth doing. You’d have better luck boiling water using a chocolate kettle.

Life is just a series of choices. In this situation you must ignore the perceived positivity associated with the poison and recall why it is that you’re giving the poison up. Think of the benefits that you’ll enjoy as a result of staying away from the poison. Recall how bad you felt after the last time that you indulged in the poison and think, ‘at least I won’t be feeling like that tomorrow.’

This week I'll go through every scenario above and hopefully I will make the right choice and end the week clean and sober. Wish me luck, I’ll need it.

[mydrinkproblem]

336 days sober, 1 day clean

Partying should be a reward as opposed to what it’s been for me - the standard thing to do whenever I get the chance. It starts to lose its magic when you’re doing it just so you can get fucked. I had a crazy night recently which wasn’t fun, it was filled with excess, me doing things that I wouldn't normally do and things I regret. 

This all began to dawn on me when when I was making my way home at 6am on Saturday morning, having left my house around 9pm on Friday night. I felt like shit. I was absolutely shattered. Someone who has been a massive help during my road to recovery told me, “don't hang around in wet places if you wanna stay dry.” And she is right. The people who I was with on that night were using various drugs such as hash, poppers and alcohol. If I am to stop using drugs and continue to maintain my abstinence from alcohol then I should be careful who I spend my time with. Being around the things that I am trying not to use is dangerous and likely to result in me using them.

So I’ve decided to stop the party, throw away any remaining narcotics that I have (poppers and coke) and bring forward my drug use abstinence. I had planned to stop doing coke for Stoptober but I haven’t done it for about a week and don’t plan on doing it ever again. So there’s no time like the present to start working on kicking it out of my life.

Onwards and upwards I say. Time to learn from my mistake and turn this negative into a positive. And on that note I’m going to return to including music in my posts. My life has been quite dark in the last two months and so I wasn’t really in the mood to find music to include in my posts but i’m feeling a little bit more positive having regained some control over the roller coaster that is m life. Hope you enjoy my selection.

[mydrinkproblem]

321 days sober, 1 day clean

Many of my friends have made the comment, “I don’t know how you did that without drinking,” when talking about me going to the pub, a gig, a football match or clubbing and not drinking. But if you need to be drunk or high to enjoy something then you should question whether you really enjoy that activity in question. Right?

That led me to think about sex. I’d say that I’ve been under the influence of some type of drug in 95% of the times that I’ve had sex over the last three years. Before that I relied on alcohol to get me in the mood. Earlier this year a girl that I was fucking cut short our fun when she realised that she had run out of drugs. She could have bought more but the only dealer that was available was charging her what she thought was an extortionate price which she wasn’t prepared to pay. Such was her reliance on drugs that she thought that she couldn’t enjoy sex without taking drugs. The funny thing is that she was already high. We’d done some lines and smoked some meth together before we started fucking earlier that night but I don’t think that she could remember that far back!

Stoptober 2016 I gave up alcohol. Stoptober 2017 I will give up drugs/chems. And see how long I can last. Yikes!

— My Drink Problem (@mydrinkproblem) 20 August 2017

Cocaine is the drug that has taken my fancy. The consequence though is that my ability to maintain an erection seriously decreases the more coke that I sniff. That is a problem as I have got into the habit of doing a few lines while scouring my favourite hook up app and hook up site in search of a companion for the night. I think that the only periods of sustained abstinence that I’ve had from drugs this year has been both times that I had an STI to help my body recover and flush the narcotics out. That’s bad and the habit is becoming ever more expensive as my usage increases. So with Stoptober approaching, a month long initiative in October to help encourage people to give up unhealthy habits such as drinking and smoking cigarettes,I’ve taken the decision to give up doing coke. As with last year, this month won’t be easy but I’ll be all the better for being able to successfully complete it clean and sober.