I�ve become neater since I quit drinking. I mean, tidier. For example, I�ve historically been a scruffy dresser. Lately, though, I find myself unbuttoning the bottom button of my coat before I sit down on the train, so my coat won�t wrinkle. I rebutton it when I get off the train. Then I repeat the whole process on the bus. What is that?

I�m neat at home too. I can�t stand it when the cleaning lady moves things around. I have to put everything back in its place as soon as I walk in the door, even before I take my coat off.

At first I thought maybe I was reverting to an original, pre-drinking level of neatness, but I was not particularly neat as a child or adolescent. Rather, I think it�s a manifestation of something I call the 'pendulum effect.' The pendulum of my behavior, stuck for so long in the squalor of heavy drinking, is swinging back in the other direction, before hopefully coming to rest at some state of normality. I�m currently at the other extreme -- one of high activity and productivity, but also increased anxiety and, like, analness. I�m doing a lot. I�m involved with volunteering. I�m training for a marathon. I�m writing a Web site, for God�s sake. I cook all kinds of shit from scratch! Sometimes I feel like I can�t sustain the pace, and that someday, after I�ve normalized, I�ll look back at this period of my life in amazement. Not that I think it�s abnormal to exercise and volunteer. I plan to do these things for the rest of my life. But I hope to do other things as well.

Ideally, when the pendulum comes to rest, I�ll be doing things I want to do, rather than things I kind of make myself do. I�ll be doing stuff like hanging out with friends or a boyfriend. Right now it feels good to be busy and to get things done. Eventually, though, I want to chill.

For one thing, I�ve noticed that other people don�t like to hear about the stuff I�m doing, like volunteering and running. In fact, I think I repulse people a little bit. They feel guilty about not doing that kind of stuff themselves. They don�t realize that all the stuff I�m doing still doesn�t fill the huge hole left by all the stuff I�m not doing.

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