Inching closer to a drug-free life

Am now down to 1.45ml. It's feeling quite bumpy now, as though the metaphorical tyres of life have deflated and I can really feel every imperfection in the road. I find that spending time in the garden helps (killing these things http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0206/rosemarybeetle.asp), as does cooking, reading lots of Sherlock Holmes, avoiding big social situations with people I don't know and trying to keep everything in perspective. I've not reduced as much as I'd hoped since the beginning of May because I've been on my own with Mr 5ml (or should that be Mr 1.45ml?) away and I had another bad spell of insomnia last week. That was where Sherlock Holmes came in. I find him a reassuring presence.

What I haven't been doing much is exercising, apart from my usual trips to the shops to buy provisions. I was ill for a week, recovering for another, then busy/lazy last week. Must try harder.

The great thing is that physically, I've not had that many symptoms - the seroxat headache has gone, my stomach feels okay (aided by industrial quantities of Actimel), occasional dizziness but not too bad, no real weight loss but no further weight gain. It's funny that it was the physical aspects of withdrawal that I feared the most - in fact, I do still fear them kicking in when I quit altogether. I think I had forgotten what it felt like to be depressed - or rather what it didn't feel like, because I didn't feel anything except a low, dull ache of loss of something I couldn't ever identify. I do feel aspects of that now, but more because of missed opportunities and stupid mistakes I've made, but I am trying not to dwell on them. I started reading 'The Interpretation of Murder' yesterday. On the first page, there's a passage about how to be happy, you have to live in the present, whereas to find meaning, you have to look into the past and the future. It made sense to me, as did the happy pig and the unhappy Socrates when I was studying Mill at college. I think the way to square the circle is to operate on different levels at different times and to be able to switch off your brain. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive in a single person. I like Hegel. But I like Viz too. I always wanted to be able to reconcile opposing ideas, find a middle way, to have it all at the same time. You probably can't have everything, but you can have more than you think you can.