16 days booze free
I try not to be someone who advertises the achievements I am about to do. I have grown sick of the quantity of people around me who claim they are just about to be at some significant point in their life. Rewarding themselves for things they have planned to happen. Yet you hardly ever hear somebody appreciating the now. And if you have ever received any kind of counselling will probably have been told, it's important to take a break from thinking in the future or the past and appreciate the exact place and time of that point.
So... Right now, here, at this time, I would like to tell you that over the Christmas break I decided to go the whole of January 2010 without consuming a single drop of alcohol. And today I can proudly say I am 16 days through my challenge.
I am doing it as a test of discipline. And although there are obvious financial and health benefits it's really more of a social experiment. I am not going to stop going out, stop hosting events in clubs or stop attending parties at friend's houses. And as Keith quite succinctly put it last night "Surely receiving verbal abuse is all part of the test". He said this as he finally gave up trying to thrust sambuca shots into my hand.
The experiment has kept me thinking a lot and there are too many ideas for one blog post so here are a couple of conclusions so far.
The drunken state of mind is good for following familiar actions.
Any skill that you have perfected while sober or any plans that were laid while sober are more fun to do while relaxed and a bit intoxicated. Playing your favourite guitar riffs, talking about your favourite hobby, drawing familiar and well-practised shapes in artwork. But the drunken state does not allow for new learning, retraining or fresh plans. However, almost in contrast to that, the drunken state is good for letting free abstract ideas flow. Some of my best poetry lines were thought of whilst drunk, but it took a follow-up session of sober writing to hone those little nuggets of free thought into a full poem with clear narrative. So before you get drunk, get a new skill and creativity will follow. Get drunk with the same skills and routine will take hold. Get drunk without a skill and frustration is inevitable.
Drinking eats up so much time that when I stop my weeks feel a lot longer.
I get more done and I do things faster and more efficiently. I retain dates, times, passwords and to-do lists in my head and I am more polite when I meet strangers in the pub. Which brings me onto my next big observation, and that is how boring a drunken conversation is to sober people. I find myself humouring people as they repeat their point for the third time in 5 minutes. Swaying side-to-side and struggling to conceal embarrassment as they admit things they didn't want to or forget details they should remember. I find it funny and don't judge them for it because I know I will be getting myself nicely tipsy again in the future.
But for now I am enjoying being sober. The challenge is more of a reminder to keep focussed on my long-term goals. This year I want to make some big changes and I cannot do that while following a routine. I need that learning ability accessible at the moment and can't afford to revert to routine every week. When I have shifted some big things I will return to occasional boozing with an affirmation of the distinct benefits and disadvantages of the most popular drug in the World.