I'm home for a few hrs to try to sort things out. It's looking pretty bad outside. There were things that needed draining and or disconnecting before I went into hospital. I know one manifold has broken and one is OK. I the battery has run flat and even though there is some protection I'm not sure it will have withstood nearly a fortnight in that state. Without the battery power, I can't assess what other damage there may be - I might have to wait till spring to find out. The worts case would be getting on towards £600 of damage. I've tried, got back at first oppertunity of feeling well enough and able to get permission to come home for a few hours. That's all I could do...

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McGrath, detoxes do work in the physical sense and I have used to methods. The first and most common for me is a self reduction detox. With that I reduce by 4 units (eg 2 x 500ml 4%abc cans) every other day. The usual reason for that failing on me has been I've starting vomiting too badly to keep alcohol inside me and just stopping in my case will cause a seizure - some would get really bad dts - it's very dangerous to "just stop". The alternative detox I've had uses librium to counter the withdrawal symptoms (knocks my balance right out by the way at the start I can't walk without assistance). Librium itself is addictive so they start you off on a high dosage and wean you off that - this time round we started with 3 tablets 3 times a day then 2 x3 times, 1 x3 times a day , 1x2 times, 1x1 time then off completely.

One thing a detox can not prevent is a relapse though and one thing I fine is that I am very vulnerable after one. I really need a couple of months without strife to be in with a chance - something I have not been able to get in say the past 18 months... It also can not change my reaction to strife.

I think everyone with alcohol problems is different and I find mine impossible to explain to doctors. Some of my most stable times have involved social drinking and some of my worst have involved attempted abstinence... It's more a matter of how life treats me and how I react to that and nothing can take away my knowledge that even though I know it's the worst thing I can do I can sort of switch my self off with a litre of brandy... I've cracked some other things with drink but not this one.

This time round medicines answer to an idiot hacking my web site and father irrationally taking his problems out on me (and of course me eventually snapping and doing my "self destructive anger drinking") is to detox me in a psychiatric unit and asses me for mental health problems - maybe I have... but I can't help but feel that hacker and my father are more in need of that assessment than me ;-)

Anyway this time they are following up with a 6 week course I am dreading, largely because it involves a lot of group work. Group work can be the best thing in the world for some but others like me can find it a complete nightmare. Still I'm nothing else to try and I can't simply return home to watch the next round happen.

Maybe if I survive the course it will teach me some new coping strategy that actually works but I am sceptical. In my experience if I'm in one of these battles if I survive on thing, it only leads to the next, then the next until the straw finally breaks the camel's back...

What I really need is for life to give me a longer and more even break but that is something science tends not to recognise and in any case can do nothing about.