10 months, 15 days (punishment)

The past couple of days have seen me continue to be the prisoner of my unfeasible mood swings, and so I have to conclude that this has been the negative side effect of the anti-depressants which I was warned about. The doctor told me that in the first few weeks my anxiety might get worse, and so it has. I can think of no other reason why this week I have been more fearful and tearful than I normally am. Despite the almost constant edginess, I have managed to be constructive. I’ve started applying for jobs; for the first time ever, I have thrown myself into the employment search and I have sent an application off each day since Wednesday. The jobs I’m applying for are really good; I was amazed to discover them as I had previously thought that I would only be capable of working in some menial minimum wage dump at this point in my life. As it turns out, there are actually some useful and interesting places where I can work, and I might be able to start off on a good wage. I’m still nervous, but more excited about the future than I was a week ago.

 Despite this I still have that familiar lump in my throat right now, which suggests that everything is not perfect. Nothing is ever perfect in my life – something always has to be wrong, because I’m good at being miserable and I like having reasons to feel this way. I will just be honest now and describe a specific situation which has caused me to feel so angry tonight. I have been invited to a barbeque at my friend Dean’s flat tomorrow evening. Dean is in the fellowship, and there will be a lot of people there tomorrow who, along with Dean, I consider close friends in AA. Earlier on today I sent Dean a text message asking him to confirm his address and also to let me know if I need to bring anything with me; he hasn’t replied yet. I sent the message about ten hours ago, and it’s very unusual for him not to respond within a couple of hours.

 That’s not all. I saw Dean at the meeting in Soho tonight; I tried to say ‘hello’ to him but he walked straight past me to sit on the other side of the room, then afterwards I wanted to speak to him but again he ignored me and walked off, before I could even catch his attention. My instant, and natural, reaction was to think that I had done something to upset him. I was invited to his barbeque weeks ago – maybe since then he’s gone off me for some reason, and wants to let me know that I’m no longer welcome.

 For about half an hour, I silently fumed at the arsehole’s behaviour and resolved never to speak to him again. Even if there was a perfectly innocent explanation for him ignoring me in the meeting, such as he simply didn’t see me, I was determined to punish him by skipping the barbeque altogether and thus drawing everyone’s attention to my hurt feelings. It would be so easy not to turn up tomorrow, I wouldn’t even have to give a reason. All my other friends would be bound to notice my absence, which would lead to questions being asked and eventually the realisation that I’m upset with Dean. It would be so, so easy to do that, because it’s such old behaviour, it’s almost second nature to me.

 I don’t really think Dean meant to hurt my feelings earlier. He probably didn’t see me in the meeting. But I still really want to punish him, and everyone else for that matter, because he’s supposed to be my friend and he should have seen me. He should have come straight up to me and explained why he hadn’t replied to my text message earlier in the day yet! Because he hasn’t behaved absolutely perfectly, I want to get my own back on him now, I want to show him. I want him to be sorry tomorrow and come running to me with apologies and love.

 That is the honest truth of what I want to do. A year ago, I would have just done it without thinking about it. Today, I’m really thinking about it because part of me knows that it’s not healthy behaviour. I’ve been in recovery for ten months, and part of me knows that acting on my hurt feelings can get me into trouble. It has done before. In the distant past I’ve lost many friends through the emotional punishment that I have inflicted upon them. My version of rough justice ultimately led to more pain and more isolation, but for so long I’ve been in complete denial about it because that lonely, abandoned child inside me desperately needs to cling onto behaviours which it thinks will protect it.

 Attempting to distance myself from these behaviours and emotions is very difficult, and very painful. As soon as I contemplate different, more healthy behaviour, my inner child screams out in agony, as if I’ve just taken its sweets away. I know that healthy, normal behaviour would involve me calling Dean up tomorrow, to ask him if I’m still welcome at the barbeque, in a friendly and polite manner. But my inner child doesn’t want me to do that, it wants revenge, it wants me to punish punish punish.

 God, it feels so weird talking about my ‘inner child’ as if it’s a different person! But I know if I am to recover, I have to think of it as a different person now. I can’t be that victim any more, that person who seeks attention by lashing out and relying on other people for my own happiness. I have to rely on myself and my higher power now, and my higher power is urging me to still go to the barbeque tomorrow, because the truth at the heart of all this is that I would really like to go. Deep down, I know it will be a lot of fun.

 When I was first invited, I almost jumped for joy, partly because I’ve not been to visit the home of anyone in the fellowship yet (apart from my sponsor), and to me, visiting people’s homes has always seemed like a fantastic opportunity for bonding. If I can go to this barbeque tomorrow, and spend that time having fun with Dean and all the others, then our friendship will become that much stronger. If I decide to back out and stay at home, I will ultimately be punishing myself. It will be an absolutely miserable night, with me sitting here while everyone else I know laughs it up at the barbecue. How could I do that to myself? All my life, I have made myself suffer through my own behaviour. Yes, I was done wrong by a small group of people in my early life, but for the second half of my life a lot of the wrongs have been done by me and me alone.

 I feel like a good old cry now, but still, I can’t even shed a tear, I can’t even let the emotion out in the privacy of my own home, because that protective mechanism which I learnt to stop my mother from seeing me upset is still strong and in force. If my mother, who I live with, saw me upset then she would be upset too, and it would be horrible. So I keep this pain in for another night.

 I know where I learnt that behaviour from, but where did I learn the punishing behaviour, which has forced me to let go of so many potentially brilliant friends over the years? Where did I learn that I could gain attention by not turning up to certain situations? I can’t even remember where it started, I’ve been doing it for so long.

 After ten and a half months, it amazes me that I’m still learning these big and scary lessons about myself. It seems I was in the dark about a lot of things when I was drinking – things which continue to haunt me today because I haven’t dealt with them. I will phone Dean tomorrow, and I will go to the barbeque and have fun, so that for the first time, I will have beaten my illness. I’m not going to let the nasty voices in my head win this time. By even contemplating going to the barbeque, I am taking a major step forward in my recovery. It’s so painful, because it means I’m trusting my higher power rather than my own feelings for once. Even after ten months I find it very difficult to trust anyone or anything but myself. That’s not something I’ve been able to admit to in meetings yet – perhaps I will have to, the next time I go to one.

 This idea that my emotions aren’t to be trusted is so hard to swallow, because I’ve literally spent my life living in my emotions. I’ve always been an extremely emotional person. Pretty much the entire narrative of my life story is based on what I’ve felt about things that have happened to me. I used to think I was a rational person, but it seems I’m not even remotely that. Once again, I’m reminded of my recent step 4 work: I am truly self-centred, self-pitying, full of pride, dishonesty and arrogance. That this realisation should hit me yet again, when I thought I’d already accepted and dealt with it, is somewhat embarrassing. My character defects haven’t just gone away. They are still there, powerful as the day I was born with them.

 In the midst of all this pain and embarrassment, I am somehow managing to put one foot in front of the other, going to meetings, sharing, turning up for scary situations like tomorrow’s barbeque even though I really don’t want to. So I’m making progress. I wish I didn’t have to feel so crap all the time. Maybe if tomorrow happens to turn out to be a success, I won’t feel so low any more. Maybe I’ll realise that my emotions and feelings are really insignificant in the great scheme of things, and that my friends and my higher power are much more important.

10 months, 13 days

It hasn’t been the most constructive of days, but it’s been better than yesterday. I have spent most of the evening in the company of friends. Early on I went to meet Mark for coffee in Soho. Mark is about two months into the program. We get on really well; we’re about the same age and always have a lot to talk about. Most of our conversation today was focused on how difficult sex and relationships are when you’re an alcoholic. I think our main conclusion was that we’re better off without relationships in the long run!

 After a couple of hours we went to a nice meeting in Earl’s Court, where I’ve gone regularly for the past few weeks. As a meeting it’s been a good discovery for me – it’s a really nice group. Afterwards some of us went for coffee and I mainly chatted to Gavin, the guy who I used to have a bit of a resentment against. For a very long time we didn’t talk to each other. I don’t know how we became so awkward with each other because in the very beginning, when I first came to the fellowship, we got along quite well.

 For some reason, we stopped getting along very quickly, and for ten whole months I thought I would never be this person’s friend. Nowadays, we’re getting along again and it’s lovely. I’m sure that most of the past awkwardness was down to me. Anyway, it’s nice to discover that awkwardness, whatever its cause, doesn’t last forever. Ten months is a long time not to speak to someone, but in the grand scheme of things it will probably amount to little importance. The important thing is that we’re friends now, and I never had to worry about him hating me.

 My mood has continued to be of some concern today – the emotional hangover of the last few days is still there, although seeing friends and going to a good meeting tonight has really helped. I think that yesterday’s slump in mood was down to my body’s ongoing adjustment to the anti-depressants. I have spoken to people who know about these things, and they’ve all said that the first few weeks can be difficult. My emotions might have to get worse before they can get better. Well, I guess yesterday was as bad as it can get, so I probably have nothing but improvements to look forward to.

 I’m slightly worried about my sponsor again. I’m meeting him tomorrow to continue with step 5. We’ve been working on this step for such a long time now that I just want to finish it. I’m tempted to tell him that I want to have finished it by the end of tomorrow’s session; which would be perfectly possible if he doesn’t insist on discussing every single written resentment in great detail. I’m desperate to move onto step 6 now, I know I’m ready.

 AA old-timers might say that there’s no rush to get through the steps, because I have the rest of my life ahead of me – but to be honest, that’s not really true because I could relapse tomorrow, couldn’t I? I have absolutely no intention of slipping tomorrow – don’t worry! – but the fact of the matter is that I am an alcoholic, and my recovery is dependent on getting the steps done.

 I will say to my sponsor tomorrow that I’d like to finish step 5 as soon as possible. I can’t bear the thought of spending another five months on it – we’re only halfway through my resentments list, and I started reading it out to him back in January. It could take the rest of the year if we carry on doing it like we have been. If he really wants to continue taking it slowly, I might think about changing sponsors. This is too important to ignore now.

 It’s not the only reason why I’m thinking of finding someone else. We don’t see each other very often at all, and we hardly speak on the phone any more, mostly because he’s busy. I see other people treat their sponsors like best friends; Mark was telling me about how he goes round to his sponsor’s flat for dinner every weekend. I think it would be lovely to have that.

 No, I don’t need my sponsor to cook dinner for me, but it would be nice to see him once a week, wouldn’t it? I can’t remember when I last saw him. When we’re together, we get on very well. But for a long time I’ve been unable to shake this feeling that what we have isn’t enough for me. It’s not like I took a long time to consider asking him last year – it was almost spur of the moment when I initially approached him about sponsorship. Maybe I rushed into that decision. I know he’s done everything he can for me. It’s not his fault when work commitments take over his life. I just feel like I need something more now, someone who’s a bit more of a friend.

10 months, 12 days (HALT!)

The famous AA acronym, H.A.L.T. stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. If you’re an alcoholic and you’re feeling down, you should ask yourself if you are feeling any of those things. I’ve been feeling pissed off and depressed again today, and so I’ve been asking myself constantly whether I’m H, A, L or T. For the past couple of hours I think I’ve definitely been A, L and T. Why am I angry, lonely and tired today? The worst thing is, I don’t even know. There’s no reason for me to be depressed about anything today.

 The truth is, there hardly ever is a reason. Life isn’t bad at all. I’ve successfully completed my degree, I’m set for a good mark, and after ten months I’m still sober, so it looks like I’m set for a good life over all. Yet this boring, draining self-pity and self-flagellation continues to weigh on me tonight. Before I went to my home group earlier on I was very angry, very lonely and very tired, more than I had been in weeks. I’m sick of being controlled by my emotions in this way, I’m absolutely sick of feeling miserable when things in my life are going so comparably well. From Psychology I’ve learnt that depression and anxiety are partly physical, partly environmental, and since there’s very little in my environment today to bring me down I must conclude that my latest mood swing is due to physical factors.

 I’ve been on the anti-depressants for nearly two weeks now. Clearly, they’re still not working. I already know that the effects aren’t meant to kick in until after about a month, so I just have to sit here and wait for this depression to go away. I really hope it goes soon. When I was younger, I used to call these episodes ‘attacks of loneliness’. I think the word ‘attack’ sums it up pretty well. It still amazes me that no one in my young life ever spotted that I was going through serious depression. Even when I tried to commit suicide twice at the age of sixteen, no one thought to try and help me. I was seeing a counsellor at the time, but that was for my sexuality issues – nothing to do with the depression, and I never even told my counsellor about the suicide attempts. I just kept it to myself, along with everything else that had ever happened in my life.

 The worst thing about today’s attack, apart from the fact that there’s no rhyme or reason for it, is that it’s exactly like the attacks I experienced regularly in my teenage years. Today was just like one of those long, boring solitary days I used to spend here at home, with nothing interesting to do and nothing to look forward to. I really felt hopeless at one point today. The difference in my life now is that I have AA to go to, and thank God for my home group, because amidst all the horrid, sticky emotions this afternoon I knew I’d be able to go along to West London and share about it this evening.

 When I got to the meeting I may as well have been a newcomer again. I set the literature out swiftly and quietly, before sitting in a chair and crossing my arms and legs, completely closing myself off to the world. I was determined to give off the impression that I was in a bad mood, and that I didn’t want to speak to anyone. I really wasn’t in the mood for being sociable and nicey-nice at that time. When the meeting started I could barely listen to anything that anyone said. I was desperate for it to get to the second half, when it would be the turn of non-newcomers to share. I knew in my heart that I needed to ‘grass myself up’, to talk about how I felt and let it go.

 As soon as the secretary announced that all the newcomers in the room had shared, my hand shot up and I spoke at length about what I was going through. My time went very quickly, and before I knew it the secretary was raising the yellow card to signal that I’d had my three minutes. It didn’t feel like three minutes at all. I almost developed a resentment against him – part of me thought he must want to shut me up because I’m being too negative.

 Feeding into my negative emotions was the fear that I must look really bad in front of all these people. Normally when I go there I can be quite cheerful and sociable with everyone – it’s the meeting I know the best, and I consider a lot of the regulars there friends now. Tonight I thought they would all be angry or scared of me because I’m in an unusually foul mood. And then in the end I realised I was making myself feel worse, so I stopped caring about what other people were thinking about me. I kind of knew that no one would be annoyed – they’d simply be concerned.

 The point is that when I’m feeling that way, I have to share about it. I have to talk about it and let people know. I can’t possibly keep that anger and sadness in any more. Tonight I absolutely did the right thing by sharing, and I did feel better afterwards for it. People were made aware of my state, and they were very comforting and supportive to me. I went for coffee with the gang and spent an hour or so chatting, during which time we established that I was probably suffering from an emotional hangover, due to the fact that I’d just finished University. These people really care about me, and that’s wonderful. My sick head tells me that they don’t really care, they’re just pretending and laughing at me behind my back – but to be honest that nasty sick voice is so small now compared to a few months ago, it didn’t really bother me in the end.

 I didn’t tell anyone about the anti-depressants; I don’t know if it’s relevant or not. I don’t know what I’m going to be like, if and when they start working. The first couple of days of taking them were great, and if it’s anything like that again, then I’ll be relieved. Right now, I’m feeling as bad as I’ve ever felt in my life, probably because my body is struggling to adjust to this new chemical. I’ve not heard anything from the consultant psychologist that my doctor referred me to yet. I’m absolutely 100% positive that I need to go back into therapy. I am still so grateful for the AA program, but for my current problems it’s just not enough. I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow as my mood swings back the other way, but this is such a familiar pattern to me, and it’s not going away. I need to sort my head out properly, once and for all.

10 months, 11 days

I’m not in a good mood today. The weather outside is thoroughly miserable, and I want to go back to bed, but I can’t because I have things to do today. I have a ton of washing to do, I have to get started on my final presentation for University next week, and I have to start looking for a job. In reality none of these things will take a long time, but in my sick mind they all seem like a mammoth task. I just want to curl up under the covers and sleep for the rest of the week; I never found my bed so appealing before. It’s really ironic that I should be feeling this way after last week, when I successfully completed two exams and a big piece of coursework. No week could be more stressful than last week; when it was over I was sure the rest of the year must be a doddle. Today it’s like everything has got back to normal, the break is over and it’s back to work. I hate this anti-climatic feeling of everything going back to normal. It’s like the back to school feeling I used to get on the last Sunday of every school holiday in my childhood. But I’m not going back to school today - all I have to do is a bit of washing, a bit of writing for a presentation and a bit of job-searching. I don’t know what job I’m looking for yet, of course, but that can easily be remedied.

 It’s the illness telling me that everything is doom and gloom today, I know it is. The anti-depressants obviously haven’t started working properly yet. I was told it could be up to a month before I feel the full effects. So that euphoria I experienced on the first day was just a placebo effect, after all. It’s a bit of a relief, to be honest, because it means I haven’t reacted unusually to the pills. I will have to wait a few weeks for the real drug effects like everyone else.

 I should know by now that these dysphoric mood swings don’t have to rule my life. I don’t have to sit in despair, waiting for the Prozac to bring the serotonin levels in my blood up to a normal level. I’ve learnt a lot from Psychology in the past year about the deeper-lying cognitive distortions which are bringing me down today. I could apply the tools that I’ve picked up this year to make myself feel better. There are many tools at my disposal. There’s AA’s step 4 columns; there’s cognitive behaviour therapy’s ABC worksheet, which is markedly similar to a step 4 in all but the terminology used. AA calls the problem ‘character defects’; CBT calls it ‘thinking errors’. Whatever I choose to call it, I know that the problem today isn’t in the outside world, it’s right here in my head.

 I’ve known this all along, so why am I still experiencing these debilitating mood swings? I know what the problem is and I know what to do about it, yet nothing seems to change. The AA voice in my head tells me to get to a meeting and share about it, but it’s a bank holiday here in the UK today, so none of the meetings I know are on today. I know I’d be more comfortable going to a familiar meeting at the moment. Over the weekend I went to a couple of new meetings, where I had been asked to do the chair by secretaries who’d heard my sharing in other meetings. On Friday I arrived at a new meeting in West London and sat at the front of the room feeling very shaky. I only knew a couple of people there and I wished I hadn’t agreed to chair that evening. A part of me had been unable to turn to the invitation down, because it’s so flattering to be asked, especially by someone who doesn’t know me. Luckily I managed to turn my fear around on Friday night, by talking more honestly about my story than I ever had before. It was a great meeting in the end, with a lot of inspirational sharing, though I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it a regular thing as it’s on the other side of London.

 The same thing should have happened yesterday; again I was asked by someone to chair a meeting which I’d never been to before, based on the power of my sharing. Unfortunately there were even less familiar faces around when I got there, and I didn’t feel comfortable at all. Everyone there was a lot older than me, and I felt like I should try and say something memorable or witty, but no such thing happened. I trotted out the same story that i’ve repeated a million times during the past ten months, about how alcohol took away my social phobia. It might have been interesting for the people in the room who’d never heard me speak before, but after I’d been speaking for five minutes I just couldn’t wait for the thing to be over. At the end I said goodbye to a couple of people before rushing home.

 I didn’t feel like crying or throwing the AA towel in – I knew that it would have been different at a better-known meeting. I think I realised that I don’t always have to say ‘yes’ when someone asks me to do a chair, even though it is very flattering and nice to be asked. The fact is, there’s a certain set of meetings that I know very well now, and I think I’ll always be much more comfortable in those ones.

 The problem of my emotions remains today. I still feel a lump in my throat, because the weather’s dreadful and I have to go out in a minute to do my washing. Oh, there’s so much to do, and I don’t want to do it! Before anyone comes up with the old cliché ‘we all have to do things in life that we don’t want to do,’ yes I know – it’s true. My problem is that my emotions are so painful and down sometimes that they stopss me from doing the things I need to do. It’s hardly normal behaviour, which is why I’ve been so desperate to do something about it for the past ten months. I seriously hope that the anti-depressants are going to work soon, because this is almost unbearable.

10 months, 9 days

The most hectic week of the year is finally over, and I finally have the time to sit down and write something again. My final Psychology exams are done; the last piece of coursework has been handed in; all that remains for me to do is give a powerpoint presentation about my thesis on the 5th June. I’m not worried about that presentation in the slightest. After the tough week I’ve had, I’m sure I can cope with fifteen minutes of talking about a piece of work that I’ve already done.

 The exams went as well as I’d hoped they would. Although most of the revision was left until the very last minute, I was able to answer all the questions with confidence, thanks to great memory skills. The final piece of coursework, due in yesterday, was all about psychotherapy, a subject close to my heart. I had to design a course of therapy for a client with high levels of anxiety, integrating person-centred and cognitive behavioural theories. I could have been designing a course of therapy for myself!

 I’ve done a lot of reading on therapy this term, and so I know all about the techniques that a therapist would use to treat anxiety. I know that graduated exposure to feared situations is the best form of treatment for someone like me, who has spent his whole life avoiding those situations and allowing the fear to persist. I know that my anxiety is the result of a set of cognitive distortions, which have told me all my life that the world is out to get me. To achieve life change, an excessively anxious person needs to confront the fears and change their beliefs.

 Now that I know the ’secret’ of what therapy does, I’m once again left wondering whether a new course of therapy would really work for me. My doctor seems to think it would; she said that people who treat themselves by reading up on the theory tend to skip steps. I suppose it would be nice to try the therapy out in vivo again. I know that I still have changes to make in my life, and if I am to achieve my long term ambition of becoming a therapist, I will have to take a course of personal therapy eventually.

 Now that University is just about over for me, it feels like the end of another era. Four years ago when I finished University the first time, I was heartbroken, because I didn’t want to leave that life behind. Of course, I didn’t leave that life behind in the end because I came back home and continued drinking in the way that I had been drinking for the past three years. A year later I returned to University and it was like starting all over again.

 This time, I know that I really have to leave my student days behind me. I’m ready to move on; I really want and need to start working for a living. If at some point in the future I decide to pursue my dream of therapy, I will have to return to University to train, but at the moment I feel like that’s a very long way off. I need a break from education, if anything. I don’t know what job I’m going to do now. I’ve put off looking so far in order to be able to focus 100% on my studies.

 I didn’t want to start looking until the 5th of June, after my final presentation. Right now I’m thinking it might be a good idea to start looking at options this week. I might as well prepare myself. This is like going back to 2001, back to the position I was in when I was about to leave home for the first time. I knew my life was about to change in the biggest way imagineable. I was scared, and unsure, and excited about the future. Today, I feel that way again, even though the circumstances are slightly different. Seven years ago I was about to leave home and discover the world for the very first time; today I know what the world is like, I’ve lived away from home and I’ve done all the wonderful social things that I’d missed out on prior to turning 18. The change that’s about to take place in my life this time is all about responsibility: that difficult and important thing that I wasn’t ready to acknowledge seven years ago. I’m a bit nervous right now, but somehow I know everything’s going to be all right, because it always is. Maybe this is the Prozac working, I don’t know. I think being sober and feeling all right about myself is a good position to be in as I take this, the biggest step of all.

10 months, 5 days

I’ve got exams and revision coming out of my ears at the moment, therefore it has been difficult to find time to do anything else. Yesterday was entirely spent on revision, because as usual I’d left it all to the last minute. I don’t seem to be able to function unless it’s at the very last minute. My first exam was this afternoon, in Abnormal Psychology. I had to write an essay on schizophrenia and an essay on phobias. It was easy to spew out a lot of facts that I’d memorized from my lecture notes. Whether or not I presented coherent arguments worth good marks or not, I will have to wait a couple of months to find out. We have two hours for each exam; over the years this time has increasingly felt too short for us to write good essays. A few years ago I couldn’t wait to get out of the exam hall. Nowadays it’s so much more important, and I tend to think that an extra half hour would be better. I suppose it makes me sound clever when I say that I have enough knowledge stored in my mind to write for two and a half solid hours! Not really, it’s just that there’s so much to psychological theory, it’s impossible to sum up something like schizophrenia perfectly in a few pages.

 I’m continuing to go to meetings during this time as I think it would be good for my recovery to do so. Tonight’s home group was good. I went for coffee afterwards with the usual gang. For the first time they waited for me outside, as I was helping with tidying up at the end of the meeting. To be part of a clique like that still gets me. I’m sure it’s partly down to the prozac that I have not felt the usual jolty nerves in the social situation during the past couple of days. I got to the meeting tonight and I was talking to everybody happily, no inclination to isolate myself. Even after ten months, that urge would still hit me at unexpected times. Overcoming social phobia is a very tough challenge. I’m glad I’m taking the treatment path with it now, even though it kind of goes against the AA message. Funnily enough, a lot of tonight’s sharing in the meeting was pretty down on therapy and anti-depressants. The chair had talked about being a researcher in the field of drug treatments, and people seemed to jump on this theme of proclaiming the evilness of all anti-depressant medication compared to the godliness of the 12 steps.

 As a psychologist in the AA program I do feel a bit torn sometimes. I already knew that psychology as a science viewed the 12 steps with some suspicion; now I’m very aware that the fellowship views psychology, therapy and medication with equal, if not more, suspicion. Someone tonight said that after years of being on anti-depressants they were eventually driven to insanity and marijuana addiction. As if alcoholism wasn’t bad enough! If I was less sober I think I would have been seriously affected by tonight’s sharing. Anyone would think that I had compromised my sobriety by starting on Prozac, because it’s a mood altering drug and it’s not dealing with the problem by trusting the steps.

 What I would say to those arguments is: I’ve made a decision and I’m happy with it. I still don’t believe that I’m compromising my sobriety, because I’m not drunk. I’m correcting a chemical imbalance in my brain and until I’ve learnt other ways to deal with that problem, I’m happy to trust this treatment. It’s always been clear to me that non-AA’s can get very sneery about the 12 steps, almost looking down their noses – but now I think AA’s themselves are not innocent of being judgmental. When it comes to any problem that doesn’t get solved using the steps, there’s this instant gasping reaction of disgust. I won’t let it affect my sobriety because this is too important. I will carry on with the program and the steps as I’m still sure they can help with most, if not all, of my problems.

10 months, 3 days (the traveller)

Boy have I been looking forward to getting home, so I could write this weekend’s blog. It’s not just that a lot has happened; it would be a cliché, as well as an understatement, to say that it’s been an eventful three days. On Friday I went to Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, and so I’ve been on a journey - in several senses of the word. Before I went to Cardiff, I had an appointment with my doctor, at which I hoped to convince them to refer me to a good therapist. It had been a few months since I’d heard anything about my request for therapy - the last time I saw my doctor, he told me to write a letter detailing the reasons why I thought I needed it.

 I assumed he was too busy to deal with it himself at the time and that I’d hear from their resident therapist within a few weeks, but no letters or phonecalls came. For the past couple of months I’ve been debating whether to go back and make another request or not. Sometimes I think I could manage OK without any more personal therapy; the AA program is a kind of therapy itself, and I’ve undoubtedly changed as a person since I started on the 12 steps. People say that AA is the best form of free therapy an alcoholic could ever get, but recently I have started to feel that I need a bit more. The work that I need to do on myself is about more than alcoholism, more than resentment, more even than the past. Lots and lots of people in AA seek ‘outside help’ for lots and lots of reasons, so there isn’t really any point in justifying the decision further.

 Anyway, the doctor that I saw on Thursday was different to my normal one, and immediately I found her to be twice as accomodating, empathic and personable than my own doctor. I’d prepared everything that I wanted to say on the subject of why I think therapy would help me, just in case I needed to be extra assertive. It turned out to be very easy to convince this new doctor that I was in need of some kind of help. She didn’t question me when I said that I suffered from chronic anxiety; she didn’t object when I brought long-term therapy up as an option; she took everything I had to say on board and she was more than willing to reach a shared consensus on the appropriate course of action.

 For the first time in a very long time, I felt listened to by the medical profession! I talked at length about my anxiety concerning paid employment, which I am hopefully about to enter. The doctor’s decision was to refer me to a psychologist to discuss some kind of CBT. I’m not worried about going on a waiting list for such a thing, I just want to know that I’m going to get it eventually. I can’t wait until I’ve finished the 12 steps for this anxiety to subside.

 Another decision that the doctor made on Thursday was to prescribe me a course of anti-depressants. Drugs such as Prozac have long been known to be effective at treating chronic anxiety as well as depression. So, in the time while I’m waiting for psychological therapy, I will be relying on the short-term solution of medication to take care of me. For someone in AA, this is undoubtedly a controversial step to take. I’ve heard people say in AA that any form of mood-altering drug is a compromise on sobriety, whether it’s prescribed or not. On the other hand, I know people in AA who are themselves on anti-depressants. It is by no means a one-sided debate.

 At the moment, I am on the side which says that anti-depressants do not compromise my sobriety one bit, because they are carefully controlled, carefully administered and highly specific to certain types of mental ailment. Just like one would take beta-blockers for high blood pressure, I am treating my excessive anxiety with Prozac because it was getting to the stage where it was unbearable and debilitating. Actually, that’s wrong – it was always unbearable, it’s just that I had no idea I could do anything about it until very recently.

 The effects of the drug were almost immediate when I started taking it on Thursday. For the first time in my life, my mood was stable for a whole day. I felt normal, OK, secure. I still experienced emotions, but they didn’t hurt so much. It’s not at all like getting drunk to suppress emotional pain. I wasn’t subdued or numbed in any way on Thursday. I believe that by taking Prozac, I had taken control of my mood for the very first time in my life. Of course, there are side effects to a sudden increase in serotonin circulating around the brain: I had a slight headache for the first couple of days, as well as marked drowsiness. I don’t believe that’s a high price to pay for having the constant nerves and wild emotions taken away.

 The strange thing is, none of that was supposed to happen straight away. Anti-depressants aren’t supposed to start working for a few weeks. The only explanation I can think of for Thursday’s events is the placebo effect. Of course, I should know all about the placebo effect – I had to learn about it for that Psychology exam which I was forced to take twice last year due to failing the first time. Even though I’d been told that the drugs wouldn’t begin to take effect for three or four weeks, my body still expected to feel better straight away on some deeper, subconscious level. If the placebo effect can be that strong, I’m looking forward to discovering what the real effects of the medication will be.

 Earlier I said that Prozac is a short-term solution: it really is, because it doesn’t cure the true psychological malady behind the out of control emotions. I would only be on the drug for a year at most, by which time I will hopefully be in therapy dealing with the root causes of my illness. I don’t consider myself an expert on anti-depressants, but I’d say I know a bit more than the lay person on the topic. I know the basics of what the drug does in the brain; I also know that I can’t spend the rest of my life depending on it. All it’s doing at the moment is helping me to deal with the stressful transition that I’m going through.

 As soon as I’d taken the first pill on Thursday, I called my sponsor to talk about it because I don’t want to keep secrets from him, and I could tell that he didn’t approve. He talked at length about the reasons why he’s never chosen to go down the Prozac route to deal with his problems. At the end of the day, I respect his opinions, and he respects mine, and I’m still going down this route.

 On Friday I travelled to Cardiff for the weekend break that I’d been looking forward to. With the placebo effect of the drugs still working, I wasn’t nervous or overly excited as I got onto the bus bound for South Wales. I’m quite sure that I would have been pretty anxious about going to a strange city on my own in any other circumstances. The reason I had decided to go to Cardiff on my own is two-fold: I needed a break from London, and I didn’t know anyone who would be able to go with me this weekend.

 The coach journey was long and fairly cramped. By the time we reached Cardiff I had quite a headache, and I just wanted to spend the evening in my hotel room, but I knew I had to get to an AA meeting. I might not get the chance on Saturday, my designated sightseeing day. I found a Big Book Study group in the centre of town, where just ten of us sat in a circle and talked about the passage entitled ‘To Employers’ for an hour. At first glance, it’s not the most enthralling of Big Book passages. It might have been better if we were discussing the section about Step 4, or the bit about ’spiritual experiences’. As always, by the end of the meeting I’d found my reason for being there.

 The passage talks about the general lack of understanding about alcoholism in the workplace, and so this was the main thrust of the round robin discussion. Because it was round robin we all got the chance to share, and I spoke for a few minutes about my trials and tribulations with paid employment, the general fear that I have about going back to work after graduation and the old belief that I’m unemployable. After the meeting a couple of nice women told me they’d liked my share because it was ‘heartfelt’. I was touched to be told such a thing, by people who I’m never likely to meet again.

 It was really clear how much I’d moved on from January’s experience up in Edinburgh, the first time I went to a meeting out of London on my own. Back then I was shaking and terrified, with hardly a clue what to talk about. To be fair, it was New Year, in a city where everyone apart from me was drinking, and the meeting itself was very busy. This one on Friday was like the back of beyond in comparison. I felt a lot better for having attended.

 Yesterday, Saturday, was a great day. I walked all the way around Cardiff, taking in the major sights, snapping monuments and nice views with my digital camera, half wishing that somebody was with me. I can’t deny that there were times over the weekend when I regretted going there alone. Given that the first dose of Prozac had afforded me a day without negative emotion, a naive part of me must have thought that I would stop feeling all loneliness and sadness about my life. That hasn’t been the case. I always feel a bit sad when I go away on holiday, even when it’s me who’s chosen to go away, me who’s in control of everything that I do. The sadness is partly, I think, to do with seeing all those happy families doing all those family things that I never got to do as a child. This will probably sound strange, but London doesn’t really seem like a family place, and so I never notice them here; when I go on holiday, I do.

 Despite that, yesterday remained nice. I dealt with the sadness by taking lots and lots of pictures. The fact that I was able to go to all those places was in itself comforting. A few years ago, I rarely got to go anywhere. Having choice in the matter now is so important – this is why I like going away as often as I do. Financial concerns dictate that I can’t really go abroad often, but there are plenty of great holiday destinations in the UK, if you know where to look. After this weekend, I’d highly recommend Cardiff to anyone!

 Having the choice to go isn’t the only reason why it was such a good weekend for me. The idea of walking around a strange town, taking pictures and eating in restaurants on my own would have scared me a few years ago. I don’t remember ever learning that it was all right to do things by myself. I simply had to start going out there and testing the principle a year or so ago. I still don’t know if one is allowed to book a ‘table for one’ in a good restaurant, which is why I always eat unhealthily when I go away alone. It’s always either McDonalds or Subway for me on holiday!

 After a long day of sightseeing I was surprisingly untired, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do except try out Cardiff’s gay scene. I’d been told by friends in and outside the fellowship that it had quite a good little scene. I’d been recommended various bars and clubs to try out, if I was in the mood. Unfortunately, in sobriety I had made it a personal rule never to go into bars or clubs alone, so if I was to have a Saturday night out, I was going to have to break my own rule. I had spoken to my sponsor and friends about this, and the general impression I’d got from them is that I ought to do what I was comfortable with.

 In the end I felt comfortable with sipping on a couple of cokes in one of the more well-known gay bars in the centre of town. I should point out here that I don’t recommend spending time alone in bars to anyone, especially to a newcomer in AA. I did it because I was on my own in a new city, and I would have been in my hotel room all evening otherwise. The thing about gay bars is that there’s slightly more of a community in them, so there’s always the slight chance of not ending up alone. If you’re new to AA, bars are not good places at all. I’m ten months in now and because this is my recovery, I’m in a position to make choices about it now.

 Last night I was unexpectedly chatted to by a couple of Cardiff natives, who both seemed very interested in the fact that I’d come all the way from London just for this. Of course, I didn’t go to Cardiff just to see the gay bars, but they didn’t seem to realise that. It was a funny old conversation. I seemed to get to know my new friends very quickly, even though we can only have been together for half an hour. They were drinking, which I didn’t mind. There was a distinct honesty and genuineness to both of them which you rarely find anywhere on the scene. One of them, Ewan, told me he would have asked me out were he not in a steady relationship. Until very recently, I would probably either have been upset or offended by this comment. I would have thought: ‘why’s he telling me this if he’s already with someone? How dare he tease me in such a shocking way!’

 Because I wasn’t drinking, I was able to keep a calm head on, realising that I didn’t need to get off with Ewan to be his friend or have a good time with him. When I was drinking, I could never get to know anyone on the gay scene in a purely innocent and friendly way. Sex always had to be involved, somehow. After six years I’d just come to accept that that’s the way it was. And then last night happened: I found two people who weren’t interested in anything but passing the time with me. OK, so Ewan did admit that he found me attractive, but he made it clear that he had no untoward intentions of cheating on his boyfriend, and I believed him.

 After half an hour they’d had enough to drink and went home. Ten minutes later, I returned to the hotel to sleep. I’d have to be up early today to check out and return home. To be able to go back at such a relatively early time without feeling miserable is still like an achievement to me. I’d say that the events of last night, as well as the weekend over all, sum up quite well the place that my journey has taken me to. There were a few sad moments, like when I was taking pictures of Cardiff Bay on my own yesterday, and when a father had to say goodbye to his daughter before getting on the bus to London this afternoon. It wasn’t a sad weekend at all, though.

 It could have been a hell of a lot worse – I got everything that I wanted out of it. I got my break from London, so that I’d be able to come home and enjoy seeing these familiar streets again. Coming back to London is always nice, probably because it’s human to crave familiarity after a while. Now that I am back home, the stresses of everyday life are with me once more. Every time I return from a holiday I seem to have a letter from the bank waiting for me. This time they’re telling me I owe £50 on my credit card bill. On top of that, I have two exams this week to worry about – my final exams!

 I don’t feel that sense of impending doom that I normally would on Sunday night when a stressful week is about to begin. Perhaps the placebo effect of the drug is still working on me – or perhaps this is the real effect of Prozac, kicking in three weeks before it’s supposed to. Either way, I’m grateful for it, because it’s going to make this week easier for me. If I wasn’t sober, I’m very sure that I wouldn’t have had the confidence to even go to my doctor and ask for help in the first place.

 So, I’ve travelled a long way in the last few days. I almost want to say that I’m a different person tonight to the one I was last Sunday, but saying that would make me sad, because I don’t want to keep changing any more. What I’d love in recovery is to find who I am and stay that person for the rest of my life. I want to put down roots and find security. If I keep changing as a person all the time then I can’t stop anywhere to make those roots. Unfortunately, with events unfolding as they are, my life appears to be in a state of flux once again.

 It was the same when I first went to University seven years ago. Every time this happens, it feels like I’m being thrown up in the air, which causes me to break into pieces; coming back down to the ground I have to hope that my pieces all fall back together. They usually do, but always in a different arrangement to the one before. The arrangement gets better each time, but knowing that it’s going to keep changing again and again means that I can never rest.

10 months sober

I’m very, very tired right now and I really don’t want to write a long one tonight. I want to get to bed as soon as possible, but I’m going away for the weekend so I need to write something, as I probably won’t get to write anything more til next week. I’ll just say that it’s wonderful to be 10 months sober, in double figures at last. I’ve had a great day and I’m looking forward to a great weekend, out of London. I’m sure I’ll have tons to share when I get back on Sunday.

9 months, 29 days

The slightly awkward feeling of something not being right continued yesterday, as once again I managed not to do everything in the day that I had intended to do. I finally made a start on revision for Psychology exams next week, but by the end of the day I’d only read half a textbook chapter on mood disorders, when the original plan was to read the whole chapter and start on another one. I think this is what worried me most yesterday – the exam in Abnormal Psychology is next Tuesday, and although I know I learnt the subject matter pretty well when we were given the lectures, I can’t ignore this nagging doubt that I haven’t learnt enough.

 Up til yesterday I wasn’t worried about exams at all, which is surprising given that I’ve come close to panic attacks in the weeks leading up to every exam during the past year. Anyway, the nerves started yesterday and I’m sure they won’t subside until this round of exams is over. By next Thursday, I will have completed my last ever Psychology exam. Following that there will be one essay and one presentation to do, then I’ll no longer be a student. Even though the end is very much in sight, I still can’t quite accept that I’m not going to be a student any more. I still don’t know what I’m going to do when I’ve finished, because I haven’t looked at the options yet. I can’t quite bring myself to start looking.

 Other than feeling nervous about exams yesterday, I was also slightly concerned about relations with a couple of fellow members of AA at my home group. For the first time in weeks I bumped into Dave last night, that guy who I went on a date with last year. He showed up at the meeting last night for the first time in about a month, and I was naturally nervous about seeing him because the last time I spoke to him, I made a bit of a faux pas, referring to a condition that he’s got when I shouldn’t have.

 Ever since we went on the date back in December, things have been a bit uneasy between us, to be honest. At times I’ve found myself getting close to him again, but then I seem to do or say something silly, and he gets annoyed or uncomfortable, and another three weeks of cold silence begin. Last night he mentioned my recent faux pas, apparently willing to let it go, and I didn’t know what to say about it. I realise now that I should have made some kind of apology, but I didn’t say anything, I was just so embarrassed to be reminded of it. We had a bit of a chat, but I wouldn’t exactly call it jovial, and I don’t think we’ll ever be bosom buddies now. It’s a shame because I did really like him last year.

 Adam, who I asked out on a date last week, didn’t show up at the meeting last night, which is unusual. I couldn’t help thinking that I’d scared him off. Although we appeared to sort things out on Friday, I guess our friendship can never be the same now. He always goes to that meeting on Tuesday – it’s too much of a coincidence that he was absent last night. I’ve sent him a text message today asking him how he is, to show that I’m not feeling awkward with him any more, but he hasn’t replied. I feel awful for causing things to be this way, but there’s nothing I can do about it now, except be as pleasant as possible. If he chooses to start avoiding the Tuesday meeting it’s entirely up to him.

 On top of the problem with Dave, this new problem brought my mood down quite significantly last night, and for most of the meeting I was unable to feel positive about anything. I resented my job as literature secretary once again, and I resented everyone there for appearing to be confident and happy, like I used to in my early days last year. I realised that my social phobia was playing up big time – this fear of being judged negatively by others always causes me to be resentful and isolatory. I was sure that Dave and Adam had begun to dislike me, so I resented myself and the meeting as punishment.

 In the second half of the meeting I knew I had to share – it’s become second nature for me to put my hand up there every week. I talked about the social phobia some more, and it seemed to help me a little. What I’ve probably discovered from all of this is that I should never mix romance with the fellowship. Both of the people who I’ve encountered difficulties with recently, Adam and Dave, are people who I’ve developed feelings for and subsequently become co-dependent with. If I make it a rule never to date anyone in the fellowship, it might make that side of things slightly easier for me. Does that mean I will turn down anyone in AA who asks me out, regardless of how sober they are? Both Adam and Dave are under a year sober, like me, which may have contributed to our problems. But I can’t help getting the feeling that dating anybody in AA would just create awkwardness in meetings, because my co-dependency will never go away. Mixing sex with the fellowship seems like a recipe for disaster now. The thought of turning down a potential boyfriend just because they’re in the fellowship hurts me a bit right now, but I know that that hurt feeling is the reason why I should probably make this a new rule.

 After the meeting last night a group of us went for coffee in nearby Paddington, and I had a good laugh with my friends in the café. Once again I’d beaten the resentment and the fear. One of the people in the café, Gavin, is one of those people who I became awkward with last year over something silly. We didn’t talk for a long time; I can’t even remember how it became that bad now. Last night we were talking properly, for the first time in months, as if nothing had happened. So, I have proof that with lots of patience, one can overcome any awkwardness and embarrassment. I thought Gavin would never speak to me again at one point!

9 months, 28 days

Yesterday it sort of felt like things were getting back to normal, as I returned to my tea commitment in central London which I’ve not done for two weeks. Last week was a bank holiday, therefore there was no meeting on Monday. I can’t deny that I was a bit apprehensive about returning to service yesterday, as I always feel nervous about things when I haven’t done them for a while. Unfortunately because of a few things going round my mind yesterday, the nerves were made worse. I’d managed to get up really late, and spent most of the day surfing the internet as if I had no cares in the world, rather than making a start on exam revision like I had planned to do. My final exams are next week and I only made a very tentative start on revision last week. So I was beating myself up over that last night, and I was also being hard on myself about that fact that I’d spent rather a lot of money on a nice-looking pair of sandals which were causing my feet intense pain. Because I like to walk everywhere, I’d been walking in these sandals a lot, and by last night the blisters were so painful, I wanted to scream. I felt like I’d wasted yet more money on a needless thing. I chose those sandals specifically because they looked trendy, and now I was having to pay the real price, and I couldn’t bear the thought of going back to wearing my old trainers because that would mean I really had wasted the money.

 The chair in last night’s meeting was one of the most painfully honest chairs I’ve ever heard, and it was just what I needed to hear. It was focused on step 3 this week, and he talked about a number of stressful situations in his life which have made him want to beat himself up recently. They sounded pretty similar to the stressful situations in my life. At the end he said that step 3 has enabled him to let go of this crushing desire to be perfect, because he knows his life will never be perfect, he will never be the perfect person. God still loves him whatever mistakes he happens to make. This really clicked with me as I realised that the current imperfectness of my life does not matter in the great scheme of things. It doesn’t matter that I missed one day of revision due to getting up late; it doesn’t matter that I spent a lot of money on some trendy but deeply uncomfortable footwear. I didn’t have a drink yesterday, and that’s all that matters. I was able to share about all that in the meeting, and I instantly felt better about things, more so than I normally would after a share. Unfortunately my mood went down again a bit later on when I came home to find my mother watching a program that I don’t like on television. I was annoyed about this for half an hour, until I came to bed and wrote my daily diary, in which I was easily able to identify my character defects concerning that annoyance.

 It was arrogant and dishonest of me to be annoyed with my mum for watching a program I don’t like on TV. It was greedy and impatient of me to buy a trendy pair of sandals which ended up causing me physical pain. It was slothful of me to get up late and miss a day’s revision. Having identified those character defects, I know I’ve done a step 10 long before I’ve technically reached that stage in the program, but it does help doing these things at the end of every day. It clears my head, and enables me to go to sleep more easily. Before I would have gone to sleep with the resentments rushing around my head, confusing and impossible to ignore. Now, by talking and writing about them, I am exposing them to the world and taking their power away. I generally sleep a lot better these days.