pinch and a punch, dry 1st of the month
“How can you tell if someone gave up the demon drink for January? Don’t worry you won’t need to, they’ll telling you soon enough!” Boom, boom. Yep, I’m sad to confess that this is indeed the case and I’ve found myself confessing to anyone and everyone about my first Dry January. Having just completed it, I thought it might be of interest to describe how it was for me, a fully-paid-up member of the dipsomaniac discotheque, and what impact it may potentially have on my relationship to alcohol thereafter. Worry not, this isn’t aiming to be a booze-shaming ‘my life is so much richer than yours’ post about how wise I’ve become from a whole thirty-one days of temperance, however, the experience has been…er, a sobering one.
Going into the month, Adrian Chiles had a lot to answer for. If you missed his overly-honest and soul-bearing BBC documentary ‘Drinkers Like Me’ then treat yourself on iPlayer. In it, he painfully explored how, over recent decades, he (un)steadily upped his alcoholic intake to the tune of 100+ units/week (against a government advisory of fourteen!) but was seldom, if ever, ‘under the influence’; the booze had merely become the norm in all his social situations. The infamous ‘Baggy’ wasn’t reaching for the White Lightening in the morning, or cuddling the QC in the bus-stop during the late afternoon, he was just knocking back a couple of pints before the match, enjoying a chilled Chardonnay with his producer in a debriefing meeting, slaking a post-work thirst with a quick livener or relaxing with a lovely red over his pasta supper. Sound familiar?
Even though I’ve pretty much been on the sauce since my teenage years I too wasn’t bored of boozing and certainly didn’t feel the need to ‘can’ it because of dicey situations where I couldn’t remember what I’d done, or who I’d done it with. Thankfully, it wasn’t about the money and I also didn’t need to improve my health or lose any weight as I’m already fit enough. However, I’d also comfortably crept up to sixty units, or seventy, or… No, the only reason I wanted to do Dry January was to prove to myself that I could. Pure and simple. Oh, and anything a West Bromwich Albion fan could do.
I’d resigned myself to start a little earlier than most and, with the almost imperceptible exception of a glass of champagne and one lovely pint of Windsor Ale’s Guardsman on New Year’s Eve, my enforced abstinence kicked-off on Christmas Day, but not without a little trepidation. There’s a rueful episode of The Simpsons where Homer forsakes his beloved Duff beer for a month, and by the end of it, his hand is shaking wildly as he marks off the final days on a calendar. Mercifully, it wasn’t anything like that. Probably.
From the onset, I knew I wasn’t going to overly-indulge in non-alcoholic beers or wine. What exactly is the point of those as nothing mimics the alcoholic effect so why bother? Non-alcoholic cocktails, or ‘mocktails’, I fully get and they sound lovely but I’m a mid-fifty northerner who doesn’t feel particularly comfortable in ordering a ‘half’ let alone an extravagantly garnished pomegranate mojito. In the pub, I settled on either a ‘lime & soda’ or a Diet Coke with plenty of ice, a slice and no straw. Or umbrella. Also, it’s sensible to have your non-drinking excuses teed up in advance – ‘giving-up for the month’ usually suffices though “I’m just bl**dy well not drinking, deal with it will you, ferchristsakes!” kinda gives the impression that doing so was more than a little overdue!
Thankfully, I’m both a tedious bore and a bit of a hermit. With my clubbing and partying days long gone, I’m now more than gracious in declining situations I don’t want to be involved in and I’ve always known when to call it a day and head for home. Notwithstanding, my biggest fear was that I wouldn’t be able to relax, converse and interact without a bellyful of beer – did I have the confidence to rely on my own, influence-free personality to get me through social encounters? And you know what? I did OK. The thing you have to remember is, that while you might not be giddily tipsy, other people probably are, so what’s the point worrying about being embarrassed or overly self-conscious? Chances are, no-one will either notice, remember or care. Having said that, I did categorically feel far less fun to be with, less of a laugh and even I didn’t relish my own company at times!
So, what exactly did I learn from Dry January? Mostly the blindingly obvious. I did feel delightfully fresh and annoyingly bright and breezy in the mornings and the clear-headed nature is ace. Furthermore, if I had a relatively ‘late one’ I may be tired the next day, but it’s a much more pleasant form of tiredness than if I’d’ve had a skin-full the night before. Truthfully, I kinda felt better all the time, though that may have been the copious amounts of caffeine I’d substituted the alcohol for. Yes, I saved some money, probably as much as a couple of hundred quid, as you do spend less by not constantly stumping-up for a round. Who’d a thunked it. Though still waking-up before 5.00am, I definitely slept a little better and didn’t find myself staggering around at early o’clock needing to neck a gallon of water. However, whilst I felt I potentially had a little more get-up-and-go it didn’t, in reality, translate to any noticeable improvements in athletic performance as I definitely cycled more slowly, swam less distance easily and lost more squash matches than I care to recall. It may be a co-incidence but let’s not forget booze was one of the earliest forms of sports doping.
By the end of the month, I’d gone the longest period of abstinence in over forty years and laying-off wasn’t half as difficult or traumatic as I had feared. Many of you will have heard me facetiously jest ‘everything in moderation…including moderation’ but I no longer believe this should be used as such. I feel like my relationship with booze had shifted and, as it ticks over into February, I honestly have no great desire or urgency to hit-the-bottle in quite the same manner as I have done in the past. It turns out there are many drinkers like me, quietly putting it away without noticeably doing any great harm, when we could potentially do ourselves some good by downing a little less. I’m certainly aiming to do this and moderating, as opposed to abstaining, is my way forwards, even with a few self-imposed rules such as not drinking on my jack-jones, two or three days off the sauce every week and never before it gets dark. Or perhaps before it gets light.
Cards on the table, I proved to myself I can still do things I put my mind to, even if I was a bit uninspiring and uninteresting and I’ll raise a glass to that: Cheers, Adrian!
