Everything is so out of control. I don't know what happened yesterday. A little over a year ago, I wrote about a drunken mistake I made with a friend's mother - I kissed her - as if I had really crossed a line. And I had. I don't know if it's the lack of consequences for my actions that has led me to this point, but I am out of control.

I slept with a hooker last night in a parking lot, I think, and lost another one of my precious notebooks. Since I've basically renounced every art I've ever done in my life, besides writing, of late, this is distressing to say the least. This also means that, after nearly a decade of writing in notebooks, I've lost three in the last eight months. Again, no consequences.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I mean, I get that I am a drunk. But how and when did I become this way? Not that long ago, I changed my life because I kissed someone! I was so good, even when bad. This, this new thing, is horrific. I have to change. In fact, I've probably picked up some sort of disease and now I'm dying.

For most of this year, I have blamed this behavior on Arabella. She left me, and I went a little crazy. But this is too far, it's too far gone, for me to keep claiming that heartbreak has led me to drink. Before her, I was a good man. I hadn't slept with anyone in years. Despite desire, I did not allow myself to stoop to the same level as my peers. But I opened myself to her, and it changed me. It altered me irrevocably. On the road to New Orleans, I made the first mistake in this line - it's clear that this pattern began there. I got wildly drunk and messed around with an old girlfriend of my band's. I felt terrible. But I kept my chin up, decided that wasn't the worst thing that could happen. Then in New Orleans, things got really crazy. I couldn't keep myself in good graces once I started drinking, at all. Then I quit drinking for a spell, spent an uncomfortable holiday in Texas with family, and decided to fly home to California. I got my job back and my house.

But I was still out of control. I immediately started drinking too much, and after being hung over for three of the seven days I had been back, Arabella broke up with me at a bar. I was absolutely crushed. Halved. Shattered. Couldn't see for the splinters. So I went on a rampage.

I drank like never before, and it affected me like never before. The hangovers were worse, and longer. The detrimental effects more poignant. I was more aware of how keenly the damage touched me. Its remnants were obvious. I maintained a terrible attitude at the job that I loved, and after eight months, managed to get them to fire me. Again, I saw this as someone else's problem.

I have had more sex in the last eight months than I've had in my whole life, and almost none of it has been good. I wasn't missing out. I was only allowing myself to flower for the ones that I loved. It seems so innocent now, but that was hardly very long ago. Every time I get drunk now, I try to sleep with whomever's nearest, and it's usually not a very good decision. Then I wake up, feeling horrid, and cool it - for a day. The instant I feel back to normal, it's back to drinking, and the same thing happens. It's a terrible, terrible cycle, and the worst part is that I know that Arabella would never approve of the man I've become. She was right to leave me, and this knowledge depresses me beyond measure.

I don't know what's happened to me, or if it's reversible. I'm trying not to entertain notions of suicide, but I honestly am at a complete loss as to how to fix all of this. Times have never been worse for me, the future never so bleak, the present never so dire. I don't know if what I need is help or escape.