To seek solace in a bottle and possibly a friend. Occasionally my iPod goes through phase where the random songs it chooses has a theme or mood to fit mine. Yesterday it was a very new folk scene kind of a mood and I spent most of the day listening to the Indigo Girls. How fantastically underrated are they? Why aren't they superstars (besides their unfashionable activism, enthusiasm for life, introspection?) I remember the first time I heard Closer to Fine. I was in college and highly susceptible to the how to find your way through the world message. And I've been an avid fan ever since.

But then, I've been victim to a lot of soul-searching lately. Why the drinking? Why the loneliness? Why the feeling that somehow I'm letting the darkness creep in because it's better than feeling nothing. I told someone I shop as an emotional substitute, but in reality I drink. It's an escape. It doesn't feel out of hand, I'm not missing work or drinking all the time, but I've started to realise I'm not drinking because it's fun, I'm drinking because the rest of it isn't.

I was meant to be a smash here. I was meant to have a whirling social circle of friends, a man to share my life with, an exotic European career. It was meant to have been worthwhile to give up my life, my family, my friends.

Instead my address book is full of clients and co-workers, some people I'm losing touch with, some others who've shunned me for whatever unspoken reasons, and still more whose lives are understandably too rich and people-filled to understand what it's like. Maybe that's why I drink to get drunk, or rather, drink to be able to escape into that fantasy where I'm surrounded by a circle of friends, where I have a special person, where I can feel confident and vibrant and worthwhile. Which I know makes that less and less likely to happen. It's a bit vicious, and I'm feeling the sting.