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I woke up this morning and confronted a stranger in the mirror. With lifeless eyes and sunken cheeks my reflection seemed to look back at me askance, as if not recognizing its flesh replica. A friend once told me how lucky I am, through all the shit, to be alive. Until this morning I hadn’t fully appreciated the significance of her comment.

This can’t go on any longer. Something is close to giving way. Changes are going to have to be made; some people aren’t going to like them and I’m going to lose some genuine friends. The alternative to this course is grim and not that far from where I am today.

On Saturday, while in the thrall of my weekend long bender, I watched a film called Little fish. At one stage in the film the lead character, a recovering junkie, goes out to score some heroin. In a surreal twist she finds herself in front of a children’s choir whose voices, hauntingly beautiful, provoked a single tear to stream down her face.

And they sang:

Kids out driving Saturday afternoon pass me by
I'm just savouring familiar sights
We share some history, this town and I
And I can't stop that long forgotten feeling of her
Try to book a room to stay tonight

Number one is to find some friends to say "You're doing well
After all this time you boys look just the same"
Number two is the happy hour at one of two hotels
Settle in to play "Do you remember so and so?"
Number three is never say her name

Oh the flame trees will blind the weary driver
And there's nothing else could set fire to this town
There's no change, there's no pace
Everything within its place
Just makes it harder to believe that she won't be around

But Ah! Who needs that sentimental bullshit, anyway
Takes more than just a memory to make me cry
I'm happy just to sit here round a table with old friends
And see which one of us can tell the biggest lies

There's a girl falling in love near where the pianola stands
With her young local factory out-of-worker, holding hands
And I'm wondering if he'll go or if he'll stay

Do you remember, nothing stopped us on the field
In our day

Oh the flame trees will blind the weary driver
And there's nothing else could set fire to this town
There's no change, there's no pace
Everything within its place
Just makes it harder to believe that she won't be around