thank you all for your kind welcomes, thoughts, advice and encouragement. muchly needed, muchly appreciated.

it's funny w/ the booze and my neurologist. when i go see him, he always asks if i've been drinking. if i say yes, he mutters something like, okay, alcoholic cidp. if i say no, he'll mutters something like, okay, idiopathic cidp.

doesn't really matter at this point. i know for a fact that the alcohol has damaged me severely and continues to. right now i'm mostly drinking to forget this girl i was more addicted to than in love with. i once smoked 2+ packs of cigarettes a day and quitting that, even though it took ten years of trying, was much less painful and gnawing and brain frying than trying to get myself freed from this particular person. but the booze helps, but i hope to stop again once i move from the west coast to the east coast in two or so weeks.

i said in my first post that i hoped to stop today. that's not going to happen. sigh.

my next job is to read round 1 of this great thread and see if i can derive some inspiration and motivation from it.

thanks again all for your thoughts.