Each time I sit down to write I have negative thoughts in my head that I’m a very terrible, boring writer and no one wants to read what I write. I have started three blog posts and given up on them. But I like writing, so I am going to carry on, and ignore the voices in my head.
This week I was very anxious at work, and I could not figure out what had changed. I was also irritable one day, and thought I might be heading into a mixed state. In a mixed state you have symptoms of both mania and depression. You may have the energy of a mania, but it is not the happy kind, it is the irritable, anxious type. And you may feel sad, which I do somewhat, but mine is that bottomless never ending numbness that stagnates within me. I usually feel it most strongly at the end of the work day, so it does not stay with me all the time, for that I am thankful.
I have been flip-flopping a lot lately, but I have finally made a decision that will not change. I am not going to take the naltrexone that my psychiatrist has prescribed for me. It is prescribed for opioid users and alcoholics who want to quit. In my very last blog post I said that my concerns had melted away, and I was ready to take it, but I was just lying to myself, and lying to you. I wasn’t ready. I don’t like the side effects, and I don’t like the idea of introducing a new medication into the cocktail I have that is working so well. My concerns are more emotional than rational, as I haven’t even tried it to know if it would give me the common side effects.
I can feel and hear the irritation in my voice as I write, and a real stubbornness and anger. I have been sober for six days. It should be ten days, but I slipped up because my environment is seeped in alcohol, I cannot get away from it right now. I keep hammering away at this fence that I am building up around myself and the alcohol, and someone keeps putting in a gate for me to open. It’s such a small thing, like “hold my beer,” or “do you want to go see if they have your Dirty Monkey peanut butter and banana whiskey?” And it’s not his fault, it’s all my fault because I present to him like I do not want to stop and I don’t have a problem, and I present to others that I have a problem and I want to stop. I am stuck between these two worlds that I have created and as long as I live in both of them I will not stay sober. So for now I am practicing HARM reduction because that is the most practical option for the situation I am in. I am not ready to quit, I guess that is the bottom line. But at the same time, I can tell you that I am ten days sober, and I feel good about that. It’s the lack of commitment that taunts me, that tells me there is a gate. “You have a gate, open it.” And my answer is “shut up.” And I try to make it last as long as it can, and that’s the most I can promise myself now. So far when I did drink, I just had three glasses of wine. Or two shots of whiskey. So I haven’t gone over a predetermined number of drinks. At least there’s that because sheesh, what a mess.
Moody Paper 
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