Here are some of the things I’ve observed and learnt:

1.      Drinking problem?

Booze plays a big role in the lives of many people that I interact with who share a similar age and background to me (31 year old Aussie male NASA astronaut and part-time dolphin trainer).  It’s everywhere.  Although the consumed quantities are less here in New York vis-à-vis London and Melbourne, it is still the main medium of catching up with people, socializing, and entertaining at work. It wasn’t until I challenged myself to give it up completely for an extended period did I realize that I, and probably lots of other people I know, actually rely on it far more than privately or publicly acknowledged.

I kind of suspected/knew this already, but the forced act of extended sobriety really hammered the point home.  When I first started HSM I would admittedly get a bit anxious at social occasions where other people were drinking and I wasn’t.  I felt I “needed” a drink or two to have a good time or best deal with the environment I was in.  I also felt I was being rude to others if I refused to have a drink with them.  I would guess that medical and/or other people who determine these things would label this a “drinking problem”.  Although I don’t think of myself as having a drinking problem, perhaps this feeling of anxiety shows that I sort of did?  Not sure…but it certainly shows that booze played a material part in my life if it had that sort of effect.

The feeling didn’t go away quickly, but after a handful of these repeated experiences (quite a number of them with the job I am in and the fact that I’ve just moved to New York) I found the anxiety ebbing away.  Now I can confidently say I don’t feel anxious about any social occasion where I won’t be drinking and others will.  Sometimes I actually feel like being the sober one, other times I wish I could have a drink with them.  But I don’t get anxious anymore if I am sober and others are drinking.  The good news is that you quickly get used to it. But I do think it takes more than a month of giving it up.  I think you probably need to do a minimum three-month HSM process to truly test yourself.

2.     More booze gears than you realize

As a drinker I used to think there were really only a few “stages” of inebriation.  The first was that “mellow” stage after one or two drinks; a little more energy and feeling good about the world.  The second was the “tipsy” stage when you’ve had cheeky degree more than a few.  The third was the “I am drunk” stage.  No need to explain this one.  In my mind, the stages would meld into each other, but they were conceptually distinct.

As a sober observer, I’ve concluded that there are more than three stages.  Booze gears I call them.  I reckon there are about six or seven.  I don’t have explanations for each, suffice to say that behavior changes very noticeably and quickly as people drink.  It changes in ways that they aren’t even aware of.  Even after a couple of drinks people take longer to make their points, arguments aren’t sharp, but convictions are stronger.

As a seasoned and experienced drinker, I used to think my judgment was only truly impaired in the tipsy stage.  However, I now think this is misguided. I’m going to be more aware going forward.  This is important to me.

Tied up in all of this is also the feeling that I really don’t want to binge drink anymore.  I do still think that drinking too much now and again isn’t the end of the world and can be a lot of wonderful fun….but binge drinking for the sake of getting drunk as quickly as possible isn’t something I plan to do.  It’s not worth it.  And angry hangovers suck.

3.     HSM is important

For the reasons above, and for many other reasons which I don’t think I need to list, it’s clear that Chris is onto something important with HSM.  I wasn’t really sure about it when he first explained the idea to me, but having now done it and read the blogs of others, it is clear to me that this is a unique and powerful way to get people to better understand what relationship they have with alcohol.  I’ve leant a lot.  Thanks Chris.

Cheers!

Wow. How did they get like that? How did lots of other cultural groups in Europe also develop a similarly moderated relationship with the booze? I have no idea. Maybe Julius Caesar ran an expansive Hello Sunday Morning programme across the Roman Empire (but accidentally left out the British)! Oratory instead of blogs. Gladiatoring instead of hangovers.

However it developed, I like it. I really don’t like the term “civilized”, but that’s somewhat close to how it feels (with respect to dinking anyway). It’s definitely a better way to simply appreciate alcohol (and there is a lot to appreciate about it) without having to get heavily drunk each Friday night. I won’t deny that drinking a too much now and again can be a lot of fun, but HSM has confirmed that doing it in an appreciably excessive way and ritualistically is a cultural practice we’d be better off without. What’s the point?

On 1 January 2010 I signed up to a 3 month HSM stint off the booze.  My motivation to do so came from various places, but initially it was to show support for Chris in growing the HSM programme.  I think it is a fascinating and useful social experiment, and I’m very proud of Chris. Secondly, it was to embrace the opportunity to try something quite challenging and unique…an extended period of absolutely no alcohol.  Childhood and adolescence aside, I’ve never done this before. Whilst I wouldn’t consider myself as having a big drinking problem of any sort, I do confess that I’ve drunk too much too many times.  And I’ve certainly relied on alcohol more than a few times to lubricate social situations, work lunches or functions.  The jury is still out for me on whether moderated drinking in such situations is a bad thing at all, as in many ways I don’t think it is.  Drinking can be wonderful, and why is a conscious decision to use it to relax, or to deal with a situation, with all the prior informed personal consent you give to this, such a bad thing?  Perhaps it is or perhaps it isn’t…but more on that in later posts.

So at six weeks in I guess this means I am now at the half-way mark.  The experience has been very interesting.  Maybe it’s nothing groundbreaking for the more-seasoned bloggers that are on this site, but from my end there have been some stand-out revelations and thoughts…

First – I’ve found the drinking culture in New York to be noticeably and refreshingly different to that in London.   In London it was my experience that heavy drinking was almost an ‘expectation’ in the social circles I moved in.  Getting drunk on a Friday night, and sometimes a Saturday night as well, and then maybe even a cheeky few on Sunday wasn’t anything that would be alarming.  We all worked very hard and used the weekend to “unwind”.  Rounds and rounds of beers at the pub, and rocking up to dinner parties with more than one bottle of good wine was just how it went.  I firmly embraced it, but it got tiring, expensive, and unhealthy. Angry hangovers were depressingly familiar.  New York, by contrast, appears more “western European” in people’s approach to drinking.  People will sit on one or two drinks in a bar, dinner party etc.  There are, of course, exuberant exceptions to this, but on the whole the people I’ve met drink far less than those I met in London.  I like it a lot.

Second – communicating my moratorium on alcohol to people gets different reactions, both externally and internally. Old drinking partners are sceptical and confused.  Others are very supportive.  The internal reaction  is more complicated.  If I go to a dinner party at somebody’s house, especially a new friend who is inviting my girlfriend and I into their social circle, and kick things off by declining a glass of their lovely wine, I feel quite anxious.  Am I being rude?  Am I making them feel uncomfortable?  Sober reflection on this would conclude that I am not being rude at all and people generally don’t even care.  But I confess I do feel a bit “ripped off” sometimes in these situations… yes I know that binge drinking is of course bad, but I sometimes think that one or two is harmless.  I get over it by reminding myself that I’ve committed to 3 months and I need to stick to it.  Complete abstinence gives you a more informed view of the role alcohol plays in all social situations, no matter how much people are drinking.

Third – it’s getting a lot easier.  I confess that in the first few weeks I would very much miss the glass of wine or a beer at home after a particularly long or stressful day at work.  Now I don’t mind so much.  A glass of diet ginger ale in a wine glass can do the trick…sort of.  And if I am perfectly honest, I found being in social situations where other people were drinking and I wasn’t, initially quite difficult. I felt I was “missing out” and making others feel awkward. I would sometimes propose to meet a friend in a cafe instead of a bar, or I wouldn’t throw a dinner party on the fear that it would feel all wrong for me and the guests if I couldn’t drink.  I even momentarily thought I could quit HSM on the rationale that in New York the people I am around don’t binge drink and so what was the point.  But I’m glad I have stuck with it.  It does get a lot easier.  I am forcing myself to accept all invitations to places where there will be booze (and they have all been fine) and as an experiment I’ll host a dinner party in the next month or so

Fourth – it is wonderful knowing with complete certainty that I won’t have a hangover for 3 months.  This allows me to commit to all sorts of great stuff, like early runs on Sundays or trips out of the city.  This is pretty powerful.  Although, in New York, as in London, I don’t have a car and I can normally run through a hangover.  So I don’t feel materially different after 6 weeks of drinking.  But I guess it is still great not to have drinking side-effects.  Actually, on the subject I would strongly recommend to any reader an impressive piece of prose by Kingsley Amis in his book, ‘Everyday Drinking’.  He has a whole chapter on physical and metaphysical hangovers.  Excellent writing.

That’s it for now.  I  have promised Chris I will be a more diligent blogger over the next six weeks.

Andy