AD15- Wordpress,Symptoms and Mindfulness.

HELLO

Had a little break from posting to have a wrestle with the interweb and other technologies. I intend to move to my own web address and hosting and am in the process of building a WordPress site to feature this blog and a couple of other ideas I have up my sleeve. The blogger platform I use at the moment is fine but just not customisable enough. If you are a WordPress wizard with the odd half hour to spare for some serious brain picking, then please let me know.

15 Days dry now. Still getting some odd symptoms, shakes, dizziness and clumsiness, struggling with words and sentences and terrible forgetfulness. Those of you who know me personally may well think this is nothing out of the ordinary, but these are more pronounced than “normal” Had a visit with my GP this morning and we`ve ordered blood tests for liver function, diabetes and thyroid.
Also it was group day today so I brought these symptoms up and discovered they can be a sign of Thiamine deficiency, a common side effect of alcoholism that can lead to “Wernicke’s encephalopathy”. It has been suggested I may need to be treated with Pabrinex as the Thiamine tablets I take at the moment may not be acting quickly enough.

Very interesting group today, talked of meditation and mindfulness and how they can be used of part of your coping strategy. I still get very strong urges to drink, when they hit me they tend to last 5-10 minutes and can be incredibly intense and challenging, so looking at strategies to deal with them. Mindfulness is a great tool that has been incredibly useful in my battle with anxiety. See no.2 below.

I intend to waffle on about mindfulness at a later date as I investigate it further.

Another thing I have mentioned previously is the possibility of doing some voluntary work as a peer mentor for others on the same journey as myself. It may involve sitting in on groups like the one I now attend, or helping on individual cases where my first-hand knowledge and experience can be invaluable, as can my ability to talk the hind leg off a donkey and listen at the same time. We have set the ball in motion so will keep you informed as and when, it would be great to be able to give something back and also get some useful training too.

Finally, for this episode, in my previous entry (if you missed it you can read it here) you will remember I intend to turn all this into a book of sorts. I have a near complete first chapter and a good outline of the timeline and what I hope to achieve so I am getting close to submitting to Unbound. My target for submission is late this week or early next depending on my variable attention span. The working title is “A Life Without..” and it will of course be a Man Booker prize contender.