I fell out with somebody very dear to me, a female friend who I'd been involving in my madness, and felt the loss very heavily. I tried to make up but she wouldn't answer. My friends told me I was acting like a lunatic, and no wonder she wanted the hell away from me. I realised how dependent I had become on her approval, yet how unlikely my behaviour made that. I felt desperate knowing I had fallen from her grace and couldn't reach her. I responded by getting drunk. After our argument I cycled to the Gutshot where I had four double G&Ts, then met a friend for dinner at Fabrizio's where I had a bottle and a half of red. I actually managed to throw up whilst cycling home without having to stop. The next day I wondered why my room smelt.

I had a bottle of wine Wednesday afternoon just because I was feeling sad. When I woke up I went to the Gutshot and drank gin and tonic after busting out of the Omaha game. It was the first time I'd played live in a year and I sat down with £200. There were two very aggressive players so it was hard to see a flop. I lost a £25 chip and accused the players next to me of taking it and got the floor to check the cameras. Later I found it in my pocket. I went out on the first decent hand I had, making a silly move against my best Gutshot friend who knew how nervous I was. I had AQJJ and tried to bluff him off a A2T flop with a check-raise, but he called with AKKx. Oh well - upstairs for more gin and tonic.

I have had an active week or so since I haven't been able to bear being on my own. I gorged myself on dim sum in Chinatown with a friend one lunch time. I went for a delightful dinner at the house of my Italian friends in Archway. I joined the tail end of a Critical Mass mass bike ride as I saw it passing through my neighbourhood, and when it came to a halt at a pub I made conversation with several cyclists and vowed to join them next month. I spent an afternoon working in my friend's clothes shop off Brick Lane when I turned up to say hello and he told me he was a staff member down.

Last night I cycled along the canal to Broadway Market and joined a friend for drinks outside the Dove pub. I told her of my intention to go sober. She told me she and many of our friends have the same paralysing feelings of loneliness I have, and that I'm not alone. I have two memories of Broadway Market. Someone I knew used to have a gallery at one end, and at the openings I'd turn up with a couple of bottles of wine and drink myself into oblivion. I've long since fallen out with everybody from that period of my life. Then a couple of years ago when I'd been reduced to penury by gambling I spent a month sleeping in a friend's boarded-up shop midway down the street, which did at least have a bed, toilet and sink, but no bathroom or kitchen.

I remember one evening meeting the girl I'd spent my 20s in love with for a meal at the Dove, and drunkenly walking alongside the canal afterwards, and how far away she seemed from me, how far I'd fallen. I spent my days wandering the streets like a tramp, trying to hustle up money to put online, or alone drinking and watching porn. I was supposed to be re-writing a chapter of my PhD but instead I couldn't get past my addictions. I dropped out of university - the one good thing I had in my life - and moved back to my parents. That was two years ago.

Yesterday I found myself thinking of my AA sponsor, the first person I ever felt I could talk to about everything and be completely honest with and who understood the darkness. He'd been in the same dark places. I used to call him every morning, at his suggestion. How much kindness and goodness he had. We lost touch when I went on holiday and smoked dope and snorted coke and insisted I was still sober. He said he couldn't have any practising addicts in his life, lest it damage his own sobriety. I may still have his number somewhere.

When I gave up drinking in 2003 I was very tearful for the first month, suddenly having to feel emotions again and having no escape. Yet gradually things started getting better. It was the best period of my adult life, and not drinking was no loss at all. When I picked up again, 22 months later, I didn't hurtle straight to the gutter. It didn't work like that. Instead, my life slowly but definitely started getting worse. Now I feel like I'm not in control of my mind and not in control of my life.

Am I going to give up poker? No. Not yet. I am starting with alcohol, which although not my main addiction is certainly in the top five. I've been playing quite a bit this last week but am uncertain of the result. I think I've lost a couple of hundred pounds. The sickest session was on Microgaming, where I won $700 then lost it and the $500 I started with. It was an unclearable bonus which I'd already used to win $1000 on previous sessions, but it was a shame to tilt it all away. But what do the details of my poker sessions matter, to me or to you? I am sick, and I need to get better. After drinking as much as possible in Edinburgh, once back I hope to get myself back on the righteous path. I simply have no choice.

These were my choices of songs which make me cry. I wouldn't recommend listening to them all at once: