All day and all night, there is a large self-destruct button in front of me, with "push me" printed on it.
Round midnight, I send Wendy a drunken lascivious text. As usual, scrabbling apologies in the morning. She doesn't like it, and tells me so, that it's alienating her. Kitty rang, saying, amongst other things, that Wendy doesn't want anything to do with me for at least the time being.
It would help everyone I know, but especially Wendy and Kitty, if I could drink less. To this end -- and I know it's not much of an achievement to most people -- this is my ninth day off the booze, which is the longest I've avoided the pop in over fifteen years.
I divide the day up into two-hour segments, since facing a full day without a drink is an ambition too remote. All I have to do, when I get up, is to make it through till 10am. I have to start it that early, as I've had many a drink before 10am.
The next milestone is midday, and so on. The hardest hurdles are the 4pm and 6pm ones -- that's when the yen comes on the strongest. Once the 8pm one is reached, I know, even with my reflex towards instant gratification, that it would be a shame to throw all the attainments of the day down a pint glass -- for example, by sending unwelcome sexualised texts to a friend.
The following morning, I give myself a silver star and add it to my star chart. I like watching it develop into a constellation. I am being a good boy; my inner teacher is giving me a reward. I earned my first green star yesterday, the badge of a complete week. Green for go.
I told Kitty all this last night. Her justified scepticism about whether this will make any difference in the long run is an incentive. Avoiding behaving like a lecherous man towards someone with whom I'd like to recover our former closeness, is a far greater one.
I go raving with someone I know slightly. Outside the club, we wait to be searched. It's a perfunctory show of "zero" tolerance, but they find something inadequately buried amongst his tobacco. I sail through, my refreshments safe in an area that is rarely touched by anyone other than myself.
He's led off to a table removed from the queues. Unwanted memories of the London rave scene in the early 90s reappear, of people being taken off to closed rooms and strip-searched, before the bouncers intimidate clubbers into buying what they've found; but things seem softer nowadays: the stupefacient is confiscated and he's told to go home. He returns in different clothes and gets in.
As often happens, I am adopted by younger people. A twenty-five-year-old man asks if I can budge up on the sofa and asks me how old I am. "Wow! Well, I hope I'm doing this like you in thirty years' time." At the end of our chat, he gives me a bomb of mdma "just in case you need a lift later." "I'm really sorry," I say, "I haven't got anything to give you in return." "No, no, I wasn't..." I feel awkward, regretting turning his simple generoity into a transaction, but he doesn't seem to mind. "Anyway...you could come and dance with us if you like." I'm willingly led, by the hand, into the thick of it.
Walking home, me and Mike attempt a bit of banter, but it misfires, so he starts telling me about some caves under the city centre that he has explored. He's more comfortable when he's telling me things. I get into bed, sex in my veins.
On the London to Bristol train last week, two women have finished the wine and are now on the G&Ts.
"So I said to Mark, 'you know it's my birthday soon? Well, how about you pay for a boob job?'" "'Alright', he said."
"'How much can I have then?'" "'You can have two grand'." "Well no, because it costs about four." "'Well, you could have one done'."