The deed is done

For the last couple of weeks I've been wrangling over the best way to proceed. It basically boiled down to two choices - either try to learn how to moderate better, or totally pack it in. I haven't wanted to speak about this choice yet because one of the problems I've had so far is that my mind has hardly ever been made up about what the best thing to do is, so when I've said things I later have a change of heart about they end up coming back to bite me and creating their own set of problems I really don't have the time for.

I've no doubt that my opinion will change again and I'll just have to go with the flow on that when it happens; it's really impossible to set anything in stone since I'm going into this virtually blind and with one person to talk to once a week about it. Nonetheless the inescapable conclusion I must draw from the time when I most recently realised I had to do something about all of this, is that for whatever reason I still have times where I lose self-control and so trying to moderate myself isn't very likely to work. I'm always wary of extreme solutions as I think they tend to provoke a rebellious response but as I mentioned earlier today, I've come to see that stopping altogether is a safer method for me to control it than muddling along clinging to a vague self-belief I might be able to manage it.

When I've talked about this in the past, people have usually tried to change my mind and tell me there's no need to be so extreme. I think that's just testament to the decent job I manage of hiding how much it sometimes affects me - how even on nights where I can seem fine, I'm either on the way down into a spiralling mood or I'll be such a wreck the next day I have to put aside days to get over it. I don't intentionally do that to myself - I don't enjoy the after-effects at all. I seem to have been blessed or cursed with a remarkable stamina for self-abuse up to a point, before which I feel on top of the world and after which I'm six feet under. Do you see part of the problem now? - it's that I can't even trust my own body to give me any pointers, so I'm even in a fight against myself. Even while I've been trying to moderate recently, the same thing happens - I feel absolutely fine and dandy until the moment comes when it all catches up with me in an instant. That isn't an easy thing to learn how to live with or work around, hence the decision to take this war nuclear and cut it out altogether.

I am tired of all this, and I know it seems silly - at least I'm not drinking MRSA gel, eh? But it has a big effect on me in its own way, and it's a hard thing to shake once it has its grip on you. If you see me at the bar, do a friend a favour and get me a lemonade, yeah?