Day 46: When will you silence your hounds?

We were given a talk on nutrition yesterday and I enjoyed it so much. It was refreshing to be looking at something practical rather than the relentless questioning about feelings: it pleased me to be learning stuff. It came at the right time too, because after six weeks of running on Coca Cola and cigarettes, I had just decided to cut down and get a bit of balance in my diet. The dietitian, however, told me not to stop the Coke immediately as I might go a bit bonkers - so I'm going to try to stick to just one or two small bottles a day rather than, er, two or three litres.

Obviously giving up booze/drugs is the best thing any of us in treatment could do for our health, and in the beginning that is really enough. But as I aim to be star rehab pupil* I want to go further. For years, I have claimed to have a ~mature palette~ in that I didn't have much of a sweet tooth. Only recently I realised that I had been getting all my sugar and more from the Skrumpy Jack (etc etc) - and this is partly what the Coca Cola is replacing.

She told us about neurotransmitters: how they are out of whack in addicts; how the sugar stimulates serotonin, and caffeine and cigarettes temporarily boost dopamine (feelings of energy and concentration - hence me puffing while typing this); that there are other ways to feel ok that are healthier than booze and marly lights... Just basic life stuff I know.

Another reason I liked the workshop is that it seemed more like science than all the 12-step/AA/therapy stuff that often sits difficultly with me. My education and career placed huge importance on facts and critical thinking: the opposite of the trust and intellectual/ego submission the 'programme' seems to require. A bit in Infinite Jest called it 'checking your head in at the door' or something, which I find incredibly hard to do. I mean, the other weekend I went to a lecture about propaganda in the mainstream media, encouraging us to practice skeptism when reading the broadsheets, let alone when attending vaguely cult-like spiritual fellowships. But I am desperate, and there is evidence in the people that I meet that somehow it seems to work...

* I am amused by the oxymoron of being a well-behaved, swotty addict/criminal - handing my written work in on time with no corrections needed. Like when I went to a three-day course for convicted drink drivers and was proud to finish, in half the time of the others, the exercise calculating how long it would take for xx units of alcohol to be metabolised by the body. Smoking on my bike, reading the Guardian in MacDonalds - I enjoy such contrasts.



INFINITE JEST: Pages 504-520. I keep underlining surprising, effective pairs of words: "whistly fricatives", "sexually credible", "godawful lurch", "fussy ennui", "howling fantods".