OK. Here we go. Today I'd like to talk about the deep, dark murk of alcohol.

I was already depressed when I thought alcohol was my answer to lifting me out of the dungeon. It was neatly dressed as a sunny, summer garden, and danced into my 6pm winter-dark kitchen, disguising its real self... another dungeon.

I had moved house twice in the same year, was two weeks into the second house move, just before Christmas, juggling a toddler and two new babies. I was on my knees with tiredness and I felt so lonely with my other half travelling almost permanently. I was living on adrenalin for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In answer to my desperation, my other half said "have a gin & tonic" and that was that. It may as well have been a punch in the face.

From that moment, and over the next decade, I went from someone who almost never drank to someone who once groggily roused, face down on the kitchen floor at 2am surrounded by a kitchen full of tea-time dishes and half made soup, tear-stuck tissues in my hands and music attacking my ears. Luckily, my cheer-me-up parties would wait until bedtime stories were complete and foreheads had been kissed. Luckily, that face down event was the result of a relatively small amount of alcohol compared with the sufferer who drinks from dawn. But the intention was the same. Block it all out, numb yourself, run, hide, put your fingers in your ears and sing 'lalalalala'.

I can now trust myself with alcohol again, but in a very, very controlled way. I worked at it very slowly over an eighteen month period. I changed my routine and all my life habits to ones which were clean. I am still extremely careful about where I will go and who I will be with, or not with. I recognise that getting to the heart of me is like peeling an onion. My layers come off with many tears and it can nip like hell, but if I don't then who am I?

I'm not here to admit all my sins. I haven't admitted them all to myself yet. But I am here to highlight that alcohol and depression are often inextricably linked. Chicken and egg. If you recognise yourself in here somewhere, accept that you will never conquer one without addressing the other.

Who are you?

Who do you want to be?

You are change.

Much love from

The room above the garage.

A Moodscope member.