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.
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