Days without alcohol - 23.
It's all chugging along nicely, and I have not yet got to the point where I am even missing alcohol. The only down side continues to be that sobriety is really affecting my ability to sleep. I never usually have a problem with this, but for the last couple of nights I've been really tired, yet unable to stop my mind whirring round with yet more brilliant comedy ideas. It's fucking annoying. I liked the old days when I was unable to remember getting home, let alone going to bed and would pass out the minute I collapsed on to my bed. Yeah, sure, I would wake up at about 5am then, feeling terrible, full of fear and unable to engage with anything except "Big Cook, Little Cook", but at least I wasn't awake at 3am being productive and furthering my career. I don't know why anyone would volunteer to be teetotal. It's for losers.
You'd think the dreams of the sober would be calm and lovely, full of flowers and sunshine and rowboats on rivers, but starved of Jesus Juice my brain is coming up with all kinds of vivid and horrific nastiness, perhaps aware that if it doesn't get booze soon it will change for always and never again get the release from responsibility that it has had up til now. So like the caretaker in a Scooby Doo show, it is creating nightmarish ghouls to try and frighten me off this new course and back to easy street.
But the less I sleep, the later I get up, the longer it takes for things to get into focus, which means I don't start working til mid-afternoon and am still up working after midnight, which means I find it harder to get to sleep, which makes the whole thing worse. I think it's been particularly bad for the last two mornings because I have been gigging the nights before and usually ease my way off the adrenalin rush with a few glasses of wine. But without that the buzz remains and it takes twice as long to settle down.
Still it could be worse. And I am of course, seriously delighted to find that I am having lots of ideas and getting things done. And I am nearly five kilos (12 pounds) lighter than I was 23 days ago and I am enjoying staying in when I do and enjoying going out when I do. Up until today I hadn't really seriously thought that I might push this on past the two month mark - but you know what? I might.
It's important I keep on working. I had to write a cheque for the thieving tax man today and I have to tell you it hurt. Why should I have to pay for schools and hospitals? And pavements and street-lighting - I don't need that stuff. And policemen and fire engines are an unnecessary luxury.
The sooner that my correct scale of payment comes in and comedians get the 50 pence an hour that they actually deserve, the better. How I will laugh as I write my cheque for tax then!
But for the moment it's not fair that they give you the money, and then six months later decide that it's not yours after all.
Smash the state!
