Why I'm
writing this.

I became addicted to alcohol, and after something changed in my head, I started writing things down.

I analyse everything. Thoughts, questions, memories, things I suddenly realised I had been doing for years. Writing them down helped. That is really the only reason I kept doing it.

The little demon

Somewhere along the way the part of me making the argument for alcohol acquired a name: Gollum. G for short. Then I started calling myself Sméagol. S.

G and S are both me. I am not hearing voices. There are not two separate personalities living in my head. It is simply a shorthand for an argument I have had with myself far too many times.

If you want to see what that argument sounds like, I've collected some of it in What G Says.

Writing while it happens

I don't know how this ends. I'm writing from inside the experience, with all the questions and contradictions that come with that.

I might remember something later that changes how I understand an earlier note. I might decide something I was absolutely convinced about was complete pish. I don't want to go back and make myself cleverer afterwards.

A small part of a much bigger pile of notes

By fifteen or sixteen days without alcohol, I had already written much more than is on this website. The entries here are the tip of the iceberg.

I'm planning to keep writing for at least a year. Some days there's a lot. Some days there's nothing at all. I haven't decided what any of this has to become. For now, I want to write it down.

I choose what to share. There is more in my notes than belongs on a public website, and the people in my life didn't sign up to be in it, so some names are left out.

How the writing actually gets made, including the AI, is on How this is written.