Hi, I'm Dave.  I'm 23 and I play in a band called Montpelier. Up until recently I hadn't thought too much about alcohol.  Just like pretty much every person I know, I drink alcohol, I drink it a fair bit, and quite often I'll drink a lot of it.  I'm not addicted to it, and I enjoy drinking it, especially with good friends.  I've had great times when on the booze.  I've also had some not so great times.  Pretty standard affair really. It occurred to me though that I have never had an illness that has made me as sick as when I've had a massive night out on the drink.  During the week I'll think twice about spending $3.50 on a coffee in an attempt to save money, and yet I can easily slash through well over $100 when drinking on the weekend.  There is no other activity in my life where, time after time, I will wake up of a morning and swear to myself that I will never do it again, only to be back at it that same night. So why is it that I continue to want to drink when it's something that makes me sick, makes me poor, and is something that I often regret? Answering this question is one of the reasons I'm here as part of Hello Sunday Morning.  But what I do know is that when I drink, I'm more relaxed, more confident, more likely to do stupid, funny things; I won't really care what other people think about me; I'll switch my brain off and not worry about things that usually make me worry; I'll dance, I'll talk to strangers, and I'll generally just do stuff that my self-conscious sober self wouldn't contemplate doing.  And let's face it, nearly everyone drinks and that's a reason all in itself. Hello Sunday Morning. As strange as it might sound, for me, this project is not about not drinking.  Rather, it's about learning to do all the things that I would usually rely on alcohol to do for me. Over the next six months, or however longer I might need, these are some of the things I want to do: I want to meet new people and remember their names and who they are; I want to see more sunrises; I want to open myself to love, hurt and everything that makes me human; I want to be a better performer; I want to save more money and give some of it to people who need it more than me; I want to be more honest about what I think and what I feel; I want to write better songs about life; I want to not worry about failing; I want to be in uncomfortable situations and not have the excuse, "I'm just going to get another drink"; I want to not care what other people think about me; I want to take more chances; I want to enjoy the journey and not worry about the outcome; This is not an exhaustive list. At the end of this I have no idea whether I'll want to drink again or not.  If I do, I hope that it will be because I want to and because I choose to, not because I need to drink in order to reach a certain frame of mind. My Hello Sunday Morning is about discovery.  It's about learning to be better. If you'd like to, follow me on Twitter or say hey on Facebook.