Fear and wine

If you are a close follower of clerkmanifesto, and there are but the eight of you who are indeed close followers of clerkmanifesto (but if you suspect you are one, you are!), you will be aware that I suffer from a sensitive back. By this I mean that any of a vast selection of instigators may combine to cause my back to seize up and become full of pain. It can be stress, bad movement mechanics, the wrong food, inadequate physical training, or even a flash of simple bad luck. Mostly my episodes are uncomfortable but manageable, persistent strains and aches that resolve over a few days. Daily I experience twinges and aches. Sometimes there are full blown debilitating episodes that are seriously limiting and force me to take stock and reconsider my approach.

Right now, two and a half weeks before an epic vacation to Rome, I am experiencing a, let us say, 7.5 on the Richter scale, episode. A certain range of movements causes something right up on the edge of excruciating spasms. I have taken a couple days off of work. I've consulted with non professionals. And I've decided not to hold it against myself. I have decided to keep at what I'm doing but more so, regular core exercise but with improved dedication, and a stronger attention to anti-inflammatory diet, and a reconsideration of what causes stress for me. But in the meantime there is the not insignificant hurt, discomfort, and stark raving terror of my back suddenly going into a period of seized up, spasm filled pain. Anti inflammatory drugs end up burning through my stomach and so are too dangerous. And so, for direct medication, I am trying wine. Red wine. 

Thus I am a little drunk. And it is working pretty well. One of the fascinating things about being drunk, and being in pain is this: yes, it may mute the pain and spasms I experience while my back is in a full blown episode, but far more importantly, instead of the serious terror I experience as my back twinges with hints of hard core pain, I still feel it, but I just don't really care. So what that I feel pain? I am the drunken Buddhist. It hurts, it doesn't hurt, it is going to hurt much worse later, what the fuck. Who cares? I don't care. You don't care. I'll have some more wine.

And then everything starts to spin.

But better spinning than terror.