Here's the context. I have taken a break from alcohol because I, like many young men, drink too much when I go out at weekends, and am trying to reign it in. All this purely for the purposes of good health, and perhaps to find a more interesting, maybe even fulfilling way to spend my time over the next few months. And, because I have worded this admission of guilt so delicately, I can feel your hearty pats on the back at my newfound wisdom. However, had I omitted the disclaimer reminding you that binge drinking is not uncommon amongst youths (and never has been), and that my braincell holocaust was limited to two and a half days of each seven. you probably would have deduced that I had a 'problem' of some description.
That's not an accusation. The AA culture that we have been passively bullied into accepting tells us that any admission of 'excessive drinking', or attempts to limit drinking for any reason other than religion or running a marathon suggests that you are a 'problem drinker'. An expression that I loathe. Although it is great fun, it's not as if drinking causes anything but problems, nor as if anyone expects it too. You don't neck a bottle of wine and get to work solving the worlds injustices, the solutions suddenly unveiled, at least not with any hope of success. Drinking is about problems, the roulette wheel spinning from the hilarious to the disastrous, the two outcomes often in reverse for your companions. And, come that tell-tale revelation of some lucid nightmare halfway through a torture rack hangover, the damage limitation. Despite alcohol being the only recreational drug I can name that does not expand your mind in any way, the slightly idiotic state (is being an idiot like being drunk all the time?) that it puts you in forces you to react to scenarios that you are unfamiliar with. In this way it makes us evolve, in the way that primary school teaches your brain to react to the unfamiliar, regardless of the fact that few of us will ever practically use Latin or RE.
I stray. If you have been reliant on drinking to socialise at parties and whatnot, I have discovered, it is extremely difficult to explain to the victims of your atmospheric deflation why you aren't laughing at nothing, annoying people, and/or passing out. In my case I often find that no explanation is required, but to banish the imaginary awkwardness, I give a shorthand version of the first paragraph to anyone that will listen. After that I no longer have to imagine the awkwardness, as images of the vest-wearing, cigar-smoking, wife-beating junkie version of me that must have existed for me to make such a monumental decision, flash through the minds of my audience. They adopt the nursing home persona, nodding enthusiastically, agreeing that its good to be responsible, but clearly not understanding what it means. At this point I stare longingly at the Church group, who have never encountered this burden, but I know already that a conversion at this point will do me no good. The euphoria that the faithfully abstinent Muslim, Christian and Jew see in everyday wonders is something that, once contaminated, we sauced-up infidels can never hope to achieve.
The internet is also astonishingly unhelpful. When I, feeling abandoned by everyone at the pub, googled 'how to have fun without alcohol', I was bombarded with do's and donts' for recovering alcoholics who have dubiously stumbled across a pub or party. I was told steps to avoid drinking, and the various health benefits, and various personal tragedies. But, in a culture that preaches moderation, I was unable to find much of anything for my niche market of trying to actually have fun without being smashed. The closest I came was people telling me to set long term goals and to grow things in my garden for a sense of fulfilment as if I was suffering from shell shock.
I don't know what my underlying point is. I suppose it is widely accepted that drinking is a huge part of our culture, but the tightrope of moderation and abstinence is just tha-a tightrope. What is viewed as a laid back mind numbing device is actually a labyrinth of norms and etiquette. Drinkers emit the air of benign and amiable spectators, but are in fact, snobs of the highest calibre. For example, a student who goes out drinking every night is a good bloke, but someone who has a pint before midday is regarded with caution and cynicism. A senior can't order a VK, just as a teenager can't order a scotch and soda. You probably think of this as common sense, but the absurdity of the image shows how little power we really hold over our own inebriation. If I am speaking to any underage scamps with dreams of a drunken adolescence, take heed. It will define the world you inhabit more than you know.
The internet is also astonishingly unhelpful. When I, feeling abandoned by everyone at the pub, googled 'how to have fun without alcohol', I was bombarded with do's and donts' for recovering alcoholics who have dubiously stumbled across a pub or party. I was told steps to avoid drinking, and the various health benefits, and various personal tragedies. But, in a culture that preaches moderation, I was unable to find much of anything for my niche market of trying to actually have fun without being smashed. The closest I came was people telling me to set long term goals and to grow things in my garden for a sense of fulfilment as if I was suffering from shell shock.
I don't know what my underlying point is. I suppose it is widely accepted that drinking is a huge part of our culture, but the tightrope of moderation and abstinence is just tha-a tightrope. What is viewed as a laid back mind numbing device is actually a labyrinth of norms and etiquette. Drinkers emit the air of benign and amiable spectators, but are in fact, snobs of the highest calibre. For example, a student who goes out drinking every night is a good bloke, but someone who has a pint before midday is regarded with caution and cynicism. A senior can't order a VK, just as a teenager can't order a scotch and soda. You probably think of this as common sense, but the absurdity of the image shows how little power we really hold over our own inebriation. If I am speaking to any underage scamps with dreams of a drunken adolescence, take heed. It will define the world you inhabit more than you know.
