First day of my #655321 attempt at sobriety. I feel sick already because I know that I will not be having a drink today. I feel sick knowing that my dad, brother, brother’s missus and lots of friends are at the pub across the road, sipping nectar in the sunshine, and I am stuck here, anxious and sweating and shaking.

I am trying to keep busy to distract myself – tidying up, doing laundry, sorting out my meagre possessions so it’ll be easier to leave when the time comes. There’s an AA meeting on at 8pm so I have to survive ’til then. I’m going to the Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty exhibition at the V&A tomorrow evening which I’m excited about, but it will be super-hard not to drink.

To distract myself I’ve been reading Les Fleurs du mal. I really like Causerie (Conversation), this line in particular:

Ne cherchez plus mon coeur; les bêtes l’ont mangé.

I translate this as, “Do not look for my heart anymore; the beasts have eaten it.”

A combination of the beasts of alcohol and drug abuse, mental and physical abuse, and general heartbreak and melancholy have eaten my heart, chewed it, ravaged it and torn it apart. But they’ve got bored now and spat it out. I’m collecting the pieces and trying to fit them back together, building some bits from scratch and hope to fix it so that you can search for it again and maybe even find it.