Greetings, friends. My apologies for my extended silence. I'm still fighting the good fight, I just haven't had much to say as of late. I'm now approaching the closure of my sixth month clean, and I'm beginning to have more good days than bad days. I've also piled geographic distance on top of my temporal longinquity from the poisons of my past. I've left Cali behind me, and have relocated to, of all places, Las Vegas. While seemingly not the most fortuitous of locations for a recovering addict, I have been here for a month and a half, and have yet to be tempted to make what would likely be the world's shortest scavenger hunt for any of the many varied temptations for the masses available in Sin City.

Oh, on that subject, the extent of this city's amoral atavistic nature became quite humorously clear this past week. While out shopping with my fiancee, I left the store for a cigarette, (I am still experiencing a debilitating level of social anxiety, and the teeming, squealing mass of humanity can often drill into my skull quite painfully) and in the miniscule amount of time I was alone, another cockroach homed in on my scent of recovering junkie, and promptly rushed over from his post in the parking lot to offer me crack. Aside from the fact that it wasn't my poison of choice, as well as my personal precaution of never allowing myself access to more money than is needed for a payphone and a bus ticket for emergencies, the absurdity of this scene struck me harder than any lingering desire to banish sobriety, and I just started laughing hysterically. Feeling that he was the butt of a joke he didn't qute "get," he wandered off cursing, and I finished my smoke and went back in the store, still laughing.

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of life right now is coping with the rather insistant and unpredictable nature of the psychological disorder I was originally self-medicating to cover up. Having a rather violent manic-depressive cycle is very much like a head-trip in and of itself. From the surreal daydream of a manic phase complete with auditory hallucinations and visual distortions on the worst of days, to the disquieting experience of living weeks in an insomniatic zombie-walk without feeling a single day pass during the down-spins, well, it's an adventure. Having a rather detailed road-map of these cycles, as well as a hard-fought separation of my emotional self from my neurological instabilities helps, but lacking the crutch of a pharmacological equalizer is difficult after so long.

I've always approached my physical and mental health with a rather self-destructive attitude of, "you're GOING to do what I tell you, no matter what I have to do to get you to stop your bleating!" College consisted of half a semester of partying punctuated by weeks of coursework completed in one week-long session flavored heavily with ritalin, adderall, percocet, or whatever else I could find until the job was done, after which I would wake up and check the calendar instead of the alarm clock to see how long I had been out. Work followed a very similar pattern, with ever-escalating dosages of opiates to cover the mounting pains of a neglected body until it was finally the weekend… and THAT was before things got bad. (which I don't think I'll be talking about today)

By contrast, now I feel much like Superman wearing a kryptonite jock-strap. I KNOW I should be capable of much more than I can endure now, and when slammed with evidence to the contrary, I can only stare at this invisible barrier with the dazed confusion of a bird that just concussed itself during a failed attempt at defenestration. (that's right, I'm making you open a dictionary… deal with it.)

Well, I had more to say, but my mind has wandered away from me again. If it shows up before I get back, tell it to wait right here for me. Until then, stay strong friends. I'll try to come back more frequently, but I never know who I'm going to be from day to day, so we'll see.

-Childe of Therion

Countdown to the six month marker: 9 days