HBH 315

The gloomiest week,

Time when everybody leaves,

Loneliness envelops.

I think airfares typically ramp up for a week or so after the mid-point of December, so this - the second week of the month - is traditionally when most expats quit Beijing for their Christmas break. It is miserable to be one of the few left behind. I think I'm going to treat myself to a holiday this year too; but maybe not until the flights get cheaper again on Christmas Day.

HBH 314

Now that winter's come,

The impulse to drink returns -

Proof against the cold.

Well, I say the cold - the idea we often call 'the beer coat', alcohol reducing your sensitivity to  cold. (Doctors, of course, always insist that in fact alcohol increases your susceptibility to hypothermia; but one of the cooks on the Titanic famously survived for hours in the icy water despite - or perhaps because of - having got himself blind drunk in the last minutes before the ship went down, which seems to argue against that theory.)

In fact, I think it's the dark that gets to me more. Having the daylight disappear at 4.30 in the afternoon stokes my depression, and it's solace or distraction from that that I seek.

HBH 313

Songs from long ago

Music unleashes memory

Memory opens wounds

Strange how powerful music is in opening up long closed pathways in the brain. Strange, and terrifying.

HBH 312

Cleanliness provokes,

Inviting desecration:

Pristine hotel sheets.

Yes, there is something about the artificiality of the hotel environment, the exaggerated orderliness and cosseting isolation of the hired room, that incites mischief and debauchery.

Me, I've been eating crackers in bed.

HBH 311

The distant city teems

Cool night breeze ruffles the sea

Lights on the harbour

Ah, back in Hong Kong - for the first time in 16 years.

I had one of the most exquisite evenings of my life here, back in the early '90s, sitting on the terrace of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, watching night fall, looking out across the bay at the lights of Kowloon - and enjoying the company of an utterly enchanting woman... who, unfortunately, was married.

We shared a taxi afterwards, and she invited me back to her place, "for a coffee" - oh, the cliché! I declined. It seemed her marriage was quite a loose arrangement, the husband working in Japan and rarely seeing her. But I have a rather stern ethical hang-up about adultery. Or I had back then. I have been tormented by curiosity and regret about this incident ever since (and I don't normally do regret). She was one of the handful of great infatuations of my life.

What was a low-life like me doing entertaining a glamorous merchant banker in the swank environs of the Yacht Club, you might well ask. Well, as it happens, I was (am?) a member. Well, a sort of affiliate member. My best friend's girlfriend at the time was the membership secretary of a rather exclusive yacht club in England, and - as a going-away present when I set out on my round-the-world backpacking year - she did an elementary bit of computer hacking to insinuate me on to their membership roll, so that I could enjoy visiting guest member rights at a string of affiliated clubs worldwide.

Though I was grateful for the goodwill demonstrated in this gift, I felt a bit guilty about its mild criminality. And I didn't think that I was ever likely to take advantage of it. But I did find it very useful in Hong Kong....

The Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, with its prime harbourfront location, is one of the most desirable yet frustratingly unattainable venues on the island. It is strictly 'members only', and not many people can get to be members. Members can take in guests, but only members can pay for anything. And even members can't pay in cash (or by cheque or card); you have to use your member's tab for everything, and settle up at the end of each month by credit card.

I was staying with an old university friend who was working for a merchant bank, and I discovered that he and his friends and colleagues were all mad keen to have a chance to get inside the Yacht Club for once. Since he was putting me up for free and treating me rather generously throughout the two weeks I was there, a night out at the Yacht Club seemed to be an ideal way to thank him for his hospitality. Oddly enough, despite its high-tone vibe, it was one of the cheapest places to drink on the island (something I was much relieved to discover!).

Of course, as soon as I'd done it once, I was hooked on the experience, and went back two or three more times -  most notably for this marvellous 'date' with one of my friend's colleagues who I'd found myself falling into a dangerously flirtatious friendship with.

The guilty knowledge that I was an imposter there never quite left me, even though I was becoming something of a 'regular'; but the only moment of real alarm I experienced was on my preliminary visit, when I dropped in during the daytime to make sure that I would be able to set up a visiting guest member account with them. "Where are you moored?" they asked me. Oops - busted! My panic was fleeting. I calmly explained that I was on a business trip, and had flown in this time. Everything was fine. Until my heart got broken. I suppose that's karma, of a sort.

HBH 310

The old urges fade:

Food, drink, women - less tempting!

Losing appetite.

The health kick I've been on for the last few months has been ruining my social life. I've lost 20lbs, but I'm also in danger of losing most of my friends.

As I've noted before, vices provide motivation. Without them, life is rather flat.

HBH 309

Virtue is outflanked;

Work forces you to the bar.

Fate weaves her mischief.

I was really trying hard not to drink last night. But then I lost my Internet access at home, just when I had a ton of work on for the first time in ages. So I had to, had to go to a bar, just for the wi-fi. And one drink led to another.....

These days, the road to Hell is paved with faulty Internet connections....

HBH 308

Drink makes you feel young;

Alas, it makes you look old.

Oh, cruel paradox!

No, I still haven't recovered from the goddamned birthday last weekend. I haven't in fact reached any 'significant' round-number landmark (a few people speculated that I was turning 50, or even 55 - cheeky buggers!). It's just that I am, for the first time in my life, really starting to feel my age - and I DO NOT LIKE IT.

This, no doubt, is where the phenomenon of The Mid-Life Crisis comes from: a desperate urge to recover the illusion of youth, when youth itself is far beyond recovery.

I hope I don't fall into that pattern; it's always seemed rather sad and foolish to me.

Then again, there are those who say I've been having a mid-life crisis for my whole life....

HBH 307

Days in the desert

Sharpen the pleasures denied:

First drink is sweetest.

I completed a full month of abstinence from beer on Wednesday. Naturally, I immediately began drinking beer again. My first sup was a Saranac - and boy, did it taste good!

HBH 306

Sea breeze, moorland walks;

Whisky's taste plays a slideshow

Of childhood memories.

I realised the other day - perhaps for the first time - that whisky's (good Scotch single malt's) powerful hold over me may have much to do with the nostalgic resonances conjured by its rich flavours, and even more especially by its complex aromas. Islay whiskies, in particular, with their savour of peat and brine, can take me back to holidays of 35 or 40 years ago.

[Yes, I was allowing myself one of my exceptions.]

HBH 305

An old hunger rises:

Desire for oblivion, 

Escape from endless thought.

I think I have now almost completely - no, completely - suppressed the urge to drink, the habituation to think of drinking as a natural or necessary accompaniment to certain activities (like being awake [no, I jest!]). But this does not preclude the occasional resurgence of the urge to be drunk. There's only a circumstantial connection between the two. There are times when I think that if there were a pill I could (safely) take to get off my face, I'd gratefully swallow one. And I had that feeling very strongly last night, when a sudden and deep depression flooded over me.

I have long recognised that my one potential 'problem' with drinking (not an actual problem, I don't think, because I'm well aware of it, and very much on top of it) is its relationship to my depressions. 

I have been ragingly bi-polar since my early teens (if not before: we're less aware of, and so remember less keenly, mood-swings and tantrums when we're very young). And since my late teens or early twenties, I have developed the habit of using alcohol to manage the experience. 

The thing is, I realised quite early on that I don't entirely dislike my depressions. They are a central part of my experience of the world, they feel comfortable and familiar to me; I actually miss them when I haven't had one for a while. Not only does the rest of life seem rosier by comparison (a great consolation to try to focus on if negative feelings at the bottom of the depressive trough start to seem too overwhelming), but sensations and emotions are somehow more vivid, more intense during a depressive episode, and that is something I find stimulating, even pleasurable (although one's thoughts and feelings tend to be directed into very dark corners of the soul when depressed, so it's an unconventional - perhaps perverse - sort of pleasure, inextricably mingled with a profound distress).

For me, what's bad about depression is not the simple fact of it happening at all, but its occasional propensity to stick around for an extended period: I hate the sense of being trapped at the bottom of the trough, unsure of when or how I'm going to get out. I once took a course of SSRIs (not for depression, for a physical ailment; but I knew they were supposed to have a psychotropic impact as well, so I was curious to see how they would affect my depression, which I had been suffering from particularly badly of late), and I absolutely hated what they did to me: they almost completely flattened out my variations in mood, so that I felt stuck in exactly the same state all the time. I suppose people who 'suffer' from depression, without any of the ameliorating thrill of enhanced awareness that I experience, will be grateful to escape from its pit like this, and will interpret their new stable mood state as 'happy', or at least as an acceptable average level of contentment. And perhaps it works better for people who don't run to the bi-polar extremes, who don't balance out their depressions with corresponding spells of exhilaration and euphoria - people who are only gauging the new 'steady state' against the worst sensations they have known, not the best. For me, it was horrendous: I experienced the 'steady state' as being slightly, but significantly, below a reasonable median level; I felt mildly depressed - permanently. But without the heightened sensitivity that usually made depression tolerable for me; and, crucially, without any sense of when I might ever escape from this feeling, without any sense of control over whether I might be able to escape. I missed the emotional rollercoaster. And I missed the sense I usually have that the rollercoaster is not entirely outside of my control, that I can influence how fast I progress through its various stages.

That's where the booze comes in. I use it to ride the rollercoaster. There are other stimuli I can use as well to speed up the ride: cannabis (very occasionally), music (almost invariably - Pink Floyd and The Pogues have probably accompanied me on the ride even more often than whisky has), poetry, certain films, or just reflecting on particularly unhappy experiences in my life. But mostly I've relied on getting myself blind drunk. If I just leave a depression to run its course, it can linger for two or three days, sometimes even a week or more. If I blitz myself with alcohol, it accelerates the whole process; I can be fairly confident that it's going to shoot me out the other side very quickly, and that I'll at least be on the up-slope, if not approaching another euphoric peak, within 24 hours or so. Unfortunately.... the depth of the pit, and the speed of plummeting into it, may also be exaggerated. It seems a price worth paying in order to not be stuck at the bottom too long.

I know many people might see that as a rationalisation of addiction. But I sincerely believe I am not an addictive personality - rather the reverse, if such a thing is possible! If I do have an addiction, it is to depression itself; or to the - I know, possibly unduly romanticized - conception I have of it as a beneficial workout for the psyche, emotionally cathartic and liberating to the imagination. But I'm absolutely confident I don't have any kind of addiction to alcohol.

I have tried both ways of dealing with my depressions, making use of drink and abstaining from it. I prefer using drink, and haven't encountered any negative side-effects from so doing (such as tendency to relapse into depression more quickly, or irritability or loss of concentration... or anything). But, just to be on the safe side, I don't allow it to become my invariable policy; I make a point of enduring some of my depressions without alcohol.

Last night, though? Well, I think I'll keep that to myself, thank you. 

At least I'm feeling rather better today.

HBH 304

The years all conspire,

Memories crouch like muggers.

Nostalgia's cudgel.

Is it having been here so long? Is it the decision to leave? Is it the not drinking? I don't know, but lately, as the reel of the last ten years plays endlessly in my head, I have often found myself getting quite moist-eyed.

Maybe it's regret and resentment and a sense of waste....

HBH 303

It's not the booze we miss,

But the bar's casual friendships,

The cosy glow of home.

This week I have been mostly not drinking. Well, I have been abstaining from beer, at least. I will allow myself spirits, if you force me. But mostly I have been too ill to go out. And I'm missing it already: not the drink, but the society.

HBH 302

Wrecked night, brief morning.

No shooters after midnight -

A rule not to break!

And yet we so often do. Particularly on a birthday. Dangerous things, birthdays.

HBH 301

Addiction is easy

To break; but habits are hard -

The core of our lives.

I don't think I've ever felt a compulsion to drink, nor have I suffered any physiological or psychological dependence on alcohol. In fact, at the moment, the desire to not drink is very strong in me, far stronger than any 'inner urge' in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, I just don't really have anything else to do with my life.

HBH 300

When will is strongest,

Fate rises to the challenge,

Gives reasons to drink.

I really am full of good intentions at the moment, trying to accomplish a lot of good things - get healthy, get fit, get back in marathon training... give up booze, or at any rate beer.

But Life is crapping all over me. I have just had a fortnight-from-hell, and it shows no sign of letting up. Drowning the sorrows is starting to seem irresistible, inevitable, compulsory.

HBH 299

Crossing continents

Sense of time and place confused

Changing night for day

After such a long journey, I will be in a disordered state of consciousness and wretchedly weary. But, arriving in the middle of the day, in strong sunshine, I must fight the impulse to go to bed for as long as possible - preferably till well after midnight!

I may not have much idea where I am, or what hour of the day it is; but I can take comfort in the fact that... the sun is always below the yard-arm somewhere in the world.

HBH 298

Crazier sober?

The sailor staggers on land,

Imagining the sea.

I have gone a week without alcohol. Well, four days (and two days without food). I am seriously considering giving up for good. Health concerns and money concerns both counsel it.

But then I remember that perhaps the main reason I've overindulged so much all these many years is to sedate my overactive brain. Things get a bit freaky in here when we turn the dial up to '11'. The world isn't ready for that. I'm not ready for it.

HBH 297

A different sunlight

Senses grown unfamiliar

Afternoon drinking

I don't do it often, but it is a very pleasant buzz you just don't get from a regular evening session - perhaps mainly because there's still stuff to see when you go outside again.

HBH 296

Forgotten pleasure,

Tradition almost vanished:

Beer that tastes like beer.

I got a pint of Old Speckled Hen on draught last weekend, and it brought on the swoons. Such a pleasant change after weeks of suffering the 'craft beer' affectation of the Americans, which has got way out of hand in the last few years. It seems that every bar there now has 20 or 30 different brands on offer, almost none of which you've ever heard of, and almost none of which taste much like beer. I came across one that bore the name 'Blueberry'. I was assuming that this was just a quaint name the brewery had adopted for itself, but the barmaid assured me that it actually tasted of blueberries. Blueberries - all kinds of berries, all kinds of fruit - have their place; but that place is in muffins, pies, and cheescakes, NOT in beer.