• my alcohol tollerance is slipping, but i am nowhere near the “3 drinks black-out” thing that many complain of on this
• i now always take off my socks to go to bed, which is a new thing, and i am doing it involuntarily, or at least without thinking about it.
• every morning I wake up with the worlds driest mouth.
• just because there is starting to be some distance between my anxiety and myself, doesn’t mean im much braver than I was. But I think thats coming. On Friday night, one of my best friends asked me to ask their ex to please leave the club we were at, as we were all watching the same band. Now, this was massively unreasonable, but his presence was making her really distressed, and after umming and ahhing over it for a while, I got the words in my head right, walked over to him and said “S asked me to come over and ask you to leave, and I have because you being here is making her so upset, and I want to end that.” It wasnt as scary as all that. I didn’t really even feel guilty or mean - I guess I had weighed it up - whilst I wish him no ill will, my friends feelings and experience is so much more important than his respect or like for me. So it was easy, once I just stepped up. I really hope I remember that for the future, about less scary and much nicer things.

They say that the side effects are to last for about a fortnight, and then its another fortnight before there are any real benefits… Its not the most horrible thing in the world, but it is certainly physically noticeable that the only effect it is having is on my brain. It kind of feels akin to coming down off pills all the time. A kind of pure morning, even though its afternoon or evening. I fluctuate in confidence all the time, at the moment. Sometimes I am resigned to the fact that I break everything I touch, that I am hopeless, unskilled, useless, full of it. Other times I am ok - social, firing on all cylinders, and making progress. Being busier is helping. And spotify. And the NBA playoffs. 

So, they have prescribed me an S.S.R.I , and im now on like day 2 of the initial side effects. I should feel the goodness in like a week or a month or something. Its certainly not nothing though.

I have hit the one week mark. February has been drink free. 

All the hallmarks of last time round are here, though less intensely. 

If there is something different this time, maybe I just don’t remember it, but my vision, especially at night, is vastly improved. There is much greater depth perception, and a roundness to edges that I quite like, though its slightly off-putting too.

The sobriety is probably helping, though I have had a massive wind get taken out of my sails this week with the probable culmination of my relationship with someone who has actually helped me greatly over the last few years. I had to admit a massive lie our relationship has been built upon, and even though its good that its out there, I actually can’t see, now that the truth is out, that we can continue in any meaningful way. I have blatantly lied to their face to save my own for too many years, far too often, and in the end, I guess its time to actually call it a day. But I will never ever forget the awesome that they have given me, saving my life.

It must be the week for it though. That full moon in late summer. That full moon.

I am having fun with a creative project - two line prose interpretations of my friends “1 beat every day in feb” soundcloud project. I will compile them all at the end, and see if we can make a decent plot out if it. It’s definitely following the monomyth at the moment, although I recently watched two of the later episodes of season two of Boardwalk Empire, and one thing that struck me about that was the wonderful levelling of all of the characters in that show - for me, I spend so much time, engrossed in scene after scene, wondering which character I am most like - all so excellent in their own ways, all massively flawed in others. It’s that interaction between the buried archetypes and the situations they find themselves playing out that means the observer can rarely find one of these bad, corrupt people that isn’t simultaneously a protagonist. Absolutely fascinating, and I know it will influence my writing somewhat this month.

This time around, probably because im expecting it, my internals ache less. The feeling I get after going to the toilet is less intense too - I probably never spoke around that the first time, but wow. It really is amazing just how much the kidneys, bladder, everything inside you feels once you go to the loo - it sucks that the word I want to use is ‘relieved’ but its so appropriate. 

The not drinking is quite easy, once you get a roll on. Just tell everyone, and ward off any peer pressure by just being strong or assertive. I am gaining in confidence again, and thats a good thing.

I am in such a state of flux right now though. I am glad I chose to be sober for this period.

Anyway, the invitation, if you will, that spurred on this latest sobriety challenge was my friend asking me to do FebFast with her again - a charitable thing, where you give up the booze for Feb, and raise money for different charitable organisations across Australia - kind of like a sober version of Movember. Our small team is doing really well, currently coming 5th out of all teams - and thats against a fair few corportate teams! Amazing fundraising by the girls I am doing this with… If you are reading this and want to chuck a fiver in the kitty, head to http://www.febfastfundraising.com.au/alistair_erskine and donate - its easy and fun, and will help buoy our team to a top 5 finish! Any donation greatly appreciated!

The other year, back when I first thought I should challenge myself to limit the amount I drink, I decided to sign up for Febfast - a multi-charity fundraiser that happens in Australia, where they challenge you to give up alcohol for the month of February, all the while getting people - your family, your friends, your colleagues etc - to sponsor you. A bit like the 40 Hour Famine or MS Readathon. Only in Australia, we have the hard thing that this actually seems like a massive deal.

Indeed, I remember going into it, 2 years ago, thinking that it might well be nigh on impossible for me to accurate complete it. Even in that time, i bought the two “Golden Tickets”, a $25 donation that gives you a free pass on two of the days during the month. I used one of them at the Soundwave Festival, as the thought of going to an all day metal show, culminating with a performance by Faith No More, without a beer? REDIC! I can’t remember what I used the other one on, but I can tell you I know I didn’t save it for the time I needed it most. During that February, I moved house, and if anyone knows anything about moving house, its that the single most delicious beer you will ever have, is the one that follows that all day jaunt. It just is. And yet, I waited til March to have that.

So, last year I did 100 days off the booze, as this blog will attest to. I got about 10 or 12 weeks into blogging it, but then gave up - I guess I had enough of naval gazing about what I was doing, and my civic duty to document my experience for others fell away. After that 100 days was up, my therapist suggested I keep going with it. I didn’t. 

Those first few times drinking again were stupid - insane - i could easily measure the effect any and all alcohol had on me, and for the most part it did something that commonly is thought to occur the other way - the more the alcohol filled my bloodstream, and altered my mind, the more my self confidence got sapped away. It was jarring, and even though I noted this widely, I ignored it. In September, my living situation fell apart, and I had to move house : ultimately ending up with me making the decision to move back in with my parents at the ripe old age of 31 (now 32).

In that time, I have slipped into old habits - drinking to excess most times I dj, or host trivia, or meet with friends. An old friend of mine, P - a young father, with another on the way -  suggested that in 2012 we both take a year off the booze, and I agreed. Now, I haven’t spoken to him about this, but the first 7 days of 2012 have been, for want of a better term, completely off the rails for me.

It started on New Years Eve, where I had already consumed 6 beers before 4pm, on a relatively empty stomach. Drinking more, and taking ecstacy, I found myself DJing badly to a club I knew very few people at. I drank all my drink tokens (so another 6) and stumbled to another party, where playing wine sweeper I drank til well past sunrise.

On New Years Day, coming down, at 5pm we had sunset beers and mexican in Surry Hills.

On Monday the Second - my friend D, over from the UK, and I met up for a pub dinner, 12 schooners and a gig.

On the Tuesday, I stayed in

On the Wednesday, I had 8 beers at the Jean Grae gig down at Goodgod with my friend L, and then met up with M&E, also visiting from the UK, for beers between 1 and 3am.

On the Thursday, on top of a pill of ecstacy and tab of acid, we drank heaps. I woke up in a strange bed, and couldn’t speak properly.

On Friday night I had a date with S, and made sure it was nice and chill. We got pizza, and sat by the harbour and ate it with longnecks. I probably had the equivalent of 8 beers that night.

On Saturday, none of my friends were picking up their phones. I bemoaned their terribleness - we had organised to meet for sunset mexican and beers before the show at the Metro that evening - a gig with Pharoahe Monch and Jean Grae and GZA from the Wu Tang Clan… And just knew that all of them were mad hungover from big nights before. Sure enough, P&A didn’t awake til 5pm, B&N til 9ish. I was pretty miffed - B is my best friend, and in all this going off the rails, I have really been needing a friend in the down times, and I have only seen her once, briefly, on that monday the second.

ANYWAY, as the paranoid, delusional alcohol fueled, or alcohol withdrawing throughts swirled around my brain in my downtimes last week, I thought often as to how I had said to P I thought taking a whole year off the grog might be a good idea.

G asked if I wanted to do FebFast again, and I signed up for it - nothing motivates you to take a month off quite like the middle of a massive bender you know isnt stopping any time soon without a smidge of restraint…

So here we are. I haven’t had a drink since 2am on Sunday morning. I noticed yesterday some of the things I noticed at the beginning of my 100 days last year - touch is slightly different, waking up far easier, thirst for hydration goes through the roof, and my internal organs will start to ache. Today, they are starting to. I figure I should ride this out. I figure we should make a serious effort to be sober for a long while. 

Yesterday when I was in Newtown, patting myself on the back for not having drunk anything by Tuesday afternoon, I had a meeting, and then by virtue of being in Newtown, was about to get on twitter and ask if anyone in the ‘hood wanted to meet for a beer. I forced myself on a bus instead. And as I drove away, I thought - I have no self discipline. But putting an arbitrary number on when I will drink next really helps. So there we are. Sat 3rd of March is my friend Tim’s Bucks Party, and I think thats my next beer. Lets see how we go.

Its not the insomnia keeping me awake right now, it is my will. I am having a quiet weekend, and as such, was due for some spring cleaning. My room is getting slowly divided into piles, most of which have to be on my bed. Given that there is barely any room for anything except my bed. In this tiny, cosy little cave I inhabit, 5 minutes from Central Station, a million miles from anywhere. 

I have a love/hate affair with this bunker, but I have decided this weekend to allow myself to try and love it more, improve it, make it more loveable. Less of a representation of a man disorganised, lost and lazy. More of it being an interactive, usable space. “Kempt”, if you will. Or I will, as the case may be.

I have uncovered a pile of cds I have never listened to - radio promos and collected works from a period of my life I know I tried to order them, remember them, but never got around to it. A few of them are from bands I diddn’t know of then, and now really like.

I have watched heaps of television. An Angel marathon was on, I watched a game of basketball yesterday, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, some Tim and Eric, and all the new South Parks, as well as a game of AFL today.

And I have now been sober for the best part of 70 days. 

Tonight, in my stupidity of cleaning, I scrounged up $20 in change off the floor and walked down to 7 11 for a packet of cigarettes and some junk food. On the way back, a girl who was massively drunk was being a dead weight on her friends shoulders - they couldn’t move her. No taxis were stopping. They were young, and she was just incapable of moving, of thinking of her own survival past the need for her body to recuperate via unconsciousness. 

I love that my unconscious repair time, when I get it, is only fixing my heath and mental state, not dealing with killing the poisons in my blood stream, ingested at great expense.

This break has been so good for me. This is the start of something wonderful, I think.

And this time next year, I hope I can sleep at normal times, and not spend a weekend cleaning the room that 10 years of booze got messy. 

tarts:

You have to hustle. That means getting up and working, usually all alone in a room, and being rejected and told that what you wrote wasn’t right, and having to do it again and again and again. And again and again and again. And then when you’re being told that you’re really good and special you…

I wish I had listened to this advice a decade ago. Hopefully I will listen to it now.

Anonymous asked: Your writing is very articulated. It makes reading the blog an actual pleasure to read. I wish you best luck in everything.
Sincerely, Joe.

Thanks Joe! That’s very kind.

2/3 of the way through!