the agonizing combination of anxiety and boredom

Conversation with a friend this afternoon:

Me: I just want to go to sleep and wake up and find my thesis finished…
Z: Why don’t you just drug yourself? [he’s doing his residency in psychiatry, go figure]
Me: How would I be able to get any work done while drugged?
Z: Well you could take alcohol in small doses, you know, just enough to give you a slight buzz, but at the same time make you mellow enough to get the stress off your mind.
Me: Would that really work? Have you tried this?
Z: [Smugly] I’ve done it a few times, good bottle of wine usually does the trick…