Sugarfree Me

Dawson's Creek. Remember that? Bad haircuts, hyper sensitive and uber analytical teenagers (played by 20 somethings) with bad haircuts and odd style, melodrama up to your eyeballs, all set to the most emotional popular music of the time. Ringing any bells? If that doesn't, then the opening theme song by Paula Cole  certainly should. Anyway, it should not come as a shock to any of you that I fucking loved Dawson's Creek when I was a kid. Running for six seasons, the main story arc that ran through the entire thing was who would lead female Joey end up with - Dawson or Pacey? (What type of name is PACEY incidentally?). I had enough female friends at the time & since who watched the show and to a woman they all sided with Pacey, and sure enough, Joey picked him in the end. I was always pulling for Dawson. He was the emotional centre of the show for me. Sensitive, sweet and ultimately kind of a loser, I could relate to him in my teens. His circumstances mirrored mine - his...

May 24th 2009 - Most days come and go without incident and as such aren't committed to memory. But this day, I remember like yesterday. I had not tasted alcohol since January 2007 - exactly 860 days earlier. 18 months in AA had got me clean and sober, a year with a therapist who specialised in these areas had led me to believe alcohol was, perhaps, a symptom of my malaise as opposed to a cause. I was tired of having my life defined by alcohol - for 5+ years I drank every day and for 2+ thereafter I spent my life in fear of it. I wanted to be able to take it or leave it. I didn't know if I could or not. My AA buddies were sure I couldn't. Truthfully I wasn't sure but I was filled with doubt when I poured myself my first Kopparberg the night before in Howl at the Moon. That one drink had passed without incident and I felt sufficiently confident to have more than one the following day, celebrating my 25th birthday. More than one, however, turned into six, and a drunken sn...

Mood: 7/10 - Happy out. Energy: 7/10 - Ready to rock. Withdrawals? Nope. Ate/Drank: Breakfast - Nakd bar Lunch - Sweet potato fries & venison burgers Dinner - Chicken, broccoli and rice (!) Drank - Water, diet coke and tea For some reason when I sat down to write a blog on day one all over again, I was reminded of the stupid Wrestlemania 20 tagline - "Where it all begins again". But that's honestly how today feels. A whole new world, hence the blog name. The past couple days, with MT's birthday, have involved sampling much of what had been removed in the past month, to varying degrees of success. The weirdest sensation was drinking coke for the first time, which just tasted so horrendously artificial. Given that most drinks are fruit based in flavour, it was quite strange to taste this flavour which has its basis in a lab. It felt so fake. Now, mind you, by the end of the drink my taste buds had mostly acclimated. Sweets on the...