Monday, May. 24, 2004 | 10:53 AM

I quit drinking yesterday and I quit pills. I don�t know how long I am quitting them for but it�s a long time. Maybe forever. Probably forever.

I quit drinking because I don�t want to die. And drinking is my death wish. A compulsive desire for self-obliteration, one that I only became conscious of Saturday night as I willfully chased destruction.

I think at one point I said aloud,

I am choosing to fuck things up.

I drank from three o� clock on�with Angus of course. Angus who is on his own hunt for mortality. And then later in the evening, I kissed Angus.

I�m just going to say this. Angus is death and Matt is life. Angus is darkness and Matt is light. I love Angus very much and I always will, but he is not good for me in many ways. Kissing him was jumping into the abyss, choosing the poisoned apple.

There had been tension with Matt over the past few days. Tension because he sees my inner chaos, sees my self-destruction. Truly sees who I am in my soul and what I could be. Sees that I was killing myself.

And there was this war within me. Truth versus the convenient lie of drugs and alcohol. Life versus death. Love versus isolation.

I realized that I could not be with him and drink and do speed at the same time. He turns on the light in all the rooms in my psyche. I cannot be inauthentic with him. And drinking is hiding. There was a choice I needed to make.

I am choosing life. I am choosing love. I am choosing Matt.

I think with great sadness on how much of my own life I have missed�how so many moments have become vague impressions, smudged chalk drawings rather than crisp snapshots. I have relied on the false absolution of liquor to get me through tense and painful moments. I haven�t done the real emotional work to connect to the world without the softening effects of booze.

If there is a central problem it is alcohol. Alcohol is the damn holding back the oceans of emotion in which I must learn to swim.

I talked to Matt on the phone for three hours yesterday. Figuring us out. Figuring out myself. Laughing and crying and loving him. And being loved by him. His love is real. What we have is real. And I won�t let anything ruin that.

I want to grow up. I want to live.