Wasn't all bad

Arctic Monkeys lyric from back in the day:

"Anticipation has a habit to set you up for disappointment in evening entertainment but tonight there'll be some love. tonight there'll be a rawkas yeah, regardless of whats gone before"

There is something in that I think. The anticipation building inside before a big night out, but like a rubber band, the greater the energy of the anticipation the more violent the returning force becomes. It's kind of how I feel about going out now. If I am really excited for it I want to drink. If I drink there is a good chance of the night leading to disappointment and depression.

Reflecting that I might have gone off course a little with the last couple of posts I thought this time I might try to stay on point. So where was I? Ah yes, attempting to drastically reduce my alcohol consumption, hoping that it might stop me feeling like I want to throw myself into carlingford bay.
       Last friday, hungover and on a massive downer, I stood there in Belfast considering whether or not I really do want to live. Like with most of my problems I am aware that the alcohol is a major factor in bringing out these thoughts but just knowing that ain't ever going to be enough to stop them.
       So now, a week later, somewhat refreshed and thinking with more clarity you might think I am certain to never drink again when I know the effects it can have on me. How could I ever want to feel that way again? I don't. Of course I don't. But that's not the reason I drink. When I think of drinking now it is only the good things that come to mind. Intoxication, laughs, confidence. Pure fun. The excitement rising to a crescendo as I enter the nightclub. Legs, breasts and ass. Fake tan and bleached blondes. Shots and cigarettes. Jesus, I'm getting pulling pants on just thinking about it.
       How could anyone not want to feel like that? I could go on feeling like that forever. I just can't continue to withstand the downers and depression and thoughts that I might just end it one day. I've had to grow up a bit I guess. Realise that if I was serious about getting help that I was going to have to put in the work myself. Can't keep doing what you've been doing Ciaran. Well you can but it is not going to be getting any better.
       I'm not angry with myself for drinking last week in the way that I was the next day. If anything it has helped me see once again that I can't keep overdoing it. Look on the bright side. So far I have had three nights out since starting this and I stayed sober twice. Nice one.
       Can't imagine myself ever not wanting to drink. Too many good memories to ignore. A personal favourite of mine was a friday evening pub crawl in Galway  with some of my best friends. I don't know how, but we found ourselves in the backroom of one of the pubs playing a very drunken game of djenga. I'd never played before but on this day that game was the most important thing in the world and it was epic! Following that diversion,Cooney(me), found my way over to a strip club with the help of my friend Barry. Yes, a strip club in Galway, Ireland. Needless to say with a lapdance costing over 100 euros neither of us had enough cash on us for anything like that. That is when the devil climbed up onto my shoulder to remind me of the debit card resting in my pocket. No stopping me now.
       Waking up to find a receipt from a gentlemans club with 120 euro on your bank card isn't as unpleasant as it sounds. Quite funny really. The others had a good chuckle anyways. So did I when I found the jeans I had been wearing the night before were as good as ruined because now they were covered in...fake tan. #WINNING

I think what I am saying is that I wouldn't change any of the stupid drunken things I have done in the past. Most of them were fun. Some are why I am friends with people. Now it's up to me to make some new stories in a different way if I can. Just won't ever forget what went before.

It's only a face after all's said and done

At first a face is just a face. Sometimes perhaps even less than that. In this case it certainly was just a face. Not the thunderbolt it would become. Not my waking vision then. I'm sorry to say it is now.     
       Cute. It is a cute face. Even if i didn't see it right away. You know you've got it bad when the imperfections are the features you look forward to seeing. But then all the electrons are firing inside my brain to tell me they all collaborate to make perfection.
     
 Man if I have fallen for a single piece of skin it's that smooth crevice where the nose gently blends into the rest of the face. I could sleep right there. its my happy place when I am pissed drunk and it's all I can do to find my way to a bed.

        I don't know why I like girls in ponytails the way I do. I heard someone once say it reminds them of blowjobs. Maybe that's it. This hair, slipping slightly across the forehead, makes me restless. I could rattle out a million words on what it does to me and still never get close. The only thing I can say is that i am addicted in the way a heroin addict is. I can understand that it is not good for me at all but I can't stop myself when my body craves it.

Eyes that don't look back at me the way I look at them. They'll be enough to break my heart alone.

I'm stealing a quote from somewhere I don't even remember:

"The beginning and end of my life's happiness had been revealed to me"

Was this girls face like that for me? I would like to say yes but probably not. And I would like this face to be the only image left in the retina of my eye. I'm an addict           


 it's only a face after all's said and done. but maybe this was the best i ever seen...

A faller at the first

I knew all along I was lying to myself. I thought maybe if I told enough people with a religious conviction that I was going to do it that somehow that might guilt me into sticking to my promise. I'm sure some of them were even convinced this time. I was so convincing. But I knew. I knew I could never resist getting wasted on my final day of exams. I start telling myself it isn't fair that everyone else can have fun when I have to look after myself. I'm weak. I buy beer. I drink it...I wake up

 Now I'm standing on the fourth floor balcony of a Belfast apartment block staring down at the road below. I've come out to smoke a cigarette because yesterday I started smoking when a funny story I was telling my friends about contemplating suicide came back to hurt me because everyone was laughing so hard I felt like crying. But that is just a pointless digression. As I stood there leaning against the railings, the thoughts of jumping start to trickle through me. I'm not suicidal at this point but thinking about that thing, almost imagining it is a scary moment. I'm there running the scenario. Feeling the sensations of my body accelerating towards the pavement as the force of gravity thrusts me at the earths core.
        Then something strikes me. I consider the reason why I don't go ahead and do it. And it is not what I thought it would be. What stops me or at least what I seem to fear most is the prospect of the excruciating pain I would feel in that micro-second between hitting the ground and oblivion. That is the frightening thing. That I'm not stopping myself because I really want to live. Not because of all the things I would miss, all the people I would hurt, all the possibilities the future holds or even watching my beloved nephews and neice grow up. Almost like the only reason I have for not wanting to die is the pain of death.
        Horrible things to be thinking, but there it is. was. A fleeting train of thought on a mildly hungover Friday afternoon in the city. Not the first, not the last. Probably not even the worst. But I couldn't keep my promise so I guess I get what I deserve

remember what it was like before

The Interesting thing about depression for me is the inability to empathise with anything other than your current state of mind. It works both ways. When I am in the depths of a severe depression I can only feel like that's all there ever was. My whole life has been pain and suffering interrupted by brief moments of calm that were really just a delusion. Rationally I can see that there were happier times when I was enjoying being alive but I can't feel it. At this point it is impossible for me to take joy from happy memories. Quite the opposite in fact.
        As I have said this inability to empathise has the same effect on me during the good days. This is when I'm convinced I have never had depression at all. I'm certain I've been faking it for the attention and it won't happen again. Of course the problem with this, and it took me longer than it should have to realise, is that it leads to that flush the prozac attitude of, 'I'm cured, not that there was anything wrong with me.'




The rest is a Backdated text message to remind me of where I was,

"Happily die right now. People think its a horrible selfish thing to say. Its easy to judge without knowing. The way I feel right now I should never have been here. Too much of me hates being alive even though theres some of me that absolutely loves it. And im crying my eyes out not because im thinking negatively about something specific but just because the depression squeezes me until I can't breathe. Theres a killing paradox in me. The more I want something the more im drawn into wrecking it. The weaker it makes me. I don't want to feel like this. I don't want to think id be better off dead. Sometimes I think im terminally ill with depression. You tell me people care about me and I know its true. I understand it rationally but I dont feel it. Im missing something. I don't want to have to die."

First test

Okay, so the first big big test is about to arrive and last night I could really feel my resolve begin to weaken. On Thursday I will have my last exam if my first year of college. Of course I had planned for this well in advance with a mega-rip that night in belfast. Only now I've made a deal with someone that I would make a real honest stab at staying sober.
        All I could think about last night was how much I want to be drunk on Thursday. I mean come on, I have earned it, haven't I? See, I know I'll have a great night if I drink but if I don't start here then where? when?
        Anyway I am still not convinced when I hear people say there is pleasure in abstinence. I want to indulge. No, I want to over indulge. I was going to say where's the harm in that, unfortunately though, I know exactly where the harm lies.

It's not unheard of for people to have fun sober, right?

I'l start now

I'd start at the start if I knew exactly where the start was. So i will start here. When I was 10 years old I remember sitting in my bedroom crying because I was that frightened of growing any older.
       Sixteen years later I'm sat in the waiting room of a mental health facility wondering if it is getting on towards full-time for me. Not sure what happened in the years in between to bring me to this but here's to hoping it's the beginning of something that might just save my life.

Hello, my name is Ciaran. I would love it if this can help one other person. But first me.

I am on here writing this stuff down because I've come to a big decision in my life. To quit drinking, especially the destructive binge drinking. Basically there are two reasons for this. Firstly, I have spent my entire adult life leaning on alcohol to guide me through social interactions. Secondly, I suffer from severe cyclical depressions. The kind that gives me highs and extreme lows but makes the lows more and more unbearable to the point where I've begun to realise that some day i might just go too far and never be able to find my way back.
        It's not that it has taken me all this time to realise how much I need to stop drinking the way I have been. But when you consider that as a young man I saw alcohol as my most direct root to confidence, friends, sex relationships and love, then perhaps you can understand why it is so difficult for people like me to stop. Even when it is being paid for by such emotional and physical pain. Socialising for people in Ireland is drinking. Drinking a lot. And man do I love being drunk. It is such a high. If I'm honest a high percentage of the most fun and fondly remembered times in my life have been when i was drunk. So, I suppose this is an appropriate time to insert the first of many examples of the good things alcohol has supported.
        Had the holiday of a lifetime last summer and yes drinking was a big part of it. Almost all of it even. Hot summer days in Poland, watching football, hanging out with best friends and creating memories. I had so much fun. Watched my friends have so much fun and I would say we even came back as better friends. It might be a bit of a lie to say that all of this was down to the Polish beer but it would be equally unfair to deny that the alcohol played a very significant part. Like I said before I really do love drinking but those are the good days. 
         The reason for including the above paragraph is simply to express how much I love to drink. To try to convey the warm feelings I have for it and the happy memories I attribute to it. Just so you know this is going to be hard work for me. Trying to leave behind someone I love. I imagine it as being like trying to walk away from a toxic, destructive relationship because you know it's better for you both but finding memories of the initial excitement dragging you back. Not that I would really know anything about that of course.
        To be honest quite a bit of this blog could turn out to be a memorial of all the good times I had when drinking as well as the excruciating pain it has inflicted. I don't think I will ever not want to drink but day on day I am hoping the feeling grows that there are other ways to find the fun, the sex and the relationships. Not just that, but also finding things to do that are completely different to what I have been doing up until now(including this blog) without having to accept the decline that always followed the drinking.

outline done. content explained. unsure of my writing. another draft? more to come. daily diary. updates. progress. wanted funny. get it next time. first go. read it. post comments. please. hope.