So, this is it; May 13, the official end of my Hello Sunday Morning.  I could have had a drink today.  I didn’t.  I’m saving that first drink for when I’m with my best friends.  One thing one of my best mates said to me the other day was that he’d missed having a drink with me.  For whatever reason there is something about having a beer or similar with someone you care about that is just different from having a soft drink or sharing a meal.  I don’t know what it is, but there’s something different about it.  I am looking forward to being able to share a drink with those people and it was nice to know that those people had missed being able to have a drink with me.

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After exactly six months of being completely without it, I thought I’d weigh in with some thoughts about that which sparked this whole Hello Sunday Morning thing: alcohol.

Let’s start with alcohol and me.  First off, when I started HSM, I didn’t have an alcohol problem.  I wasn’t addicted to it, I wasn’t dependant on it.  I drank alcohol to be social.  I drank because everyone does.  I drank because it’s fun sometimes to get drunk.  I drank for the confidence it gave me and for its ability to let me switch off for a little while.  Before I stumbled across www.hellosundaymorning.com.au I hadn’t given any thought whatsoever to the role of alcohol in my life.  It was something that was there and I didn’t have a problem with it.

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When you reach the end of something like Hello Sunday Morning it’s pretty difficult not to ask yourself, was it all worth it?  Did I get out of it what I wanted to?  Was it what I expected?  Being involved in a project for six months is a fairly long time and so obviously I want the answer to be “yes”.  But I don’t want to say “yes” because that’s what I want to hear.  I want to say “yes” because it’s the honest answer.  Let’s get honest!

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One of the biggest things people wonder about Hello Sunday Morning is, “What do you miss out on?”  To be truthful it was one of the biggest thoughts lingering in my mind when I was deciding whether or not to jump in and quit booze for six months.  A lot of people who I’ve spoken to have asked something along the lines of “Are you going to be a hermit for six months?” or in retrospect, “Have you been a hermit for six months?”  I think a common misconception is that by removing booze you remove the ability to go out on Friday and Saturday nights.  I think this stems from a generally accepted posit that when you don’t drink on a night out you’re choosing to do so because: you’re planning to have a quiet one; you have to work really early the next day; you don’t really feel like going out but feel you should because it’s a friend’s party etc etc.  This attitude to drinking and going out is 100% a frame of mind thing.  The solution: a new perspective.

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When chatting to people about Hello Sunday Morning one of the first things a lot of people say is, “Wow, I wouldn’t be able to do that.”  Along the same sort of lines is “Has it been hard not drinking?”  I liken it to getting a tattoo; it’s not as painful as most people think it will be, it can be more annoying than anything else at times, and by the end you hardly really notice the pain at all.

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Now that I’m at the end I started having a think about why I signed up for HSM to begin with and whether any of the stuff I thought about back then is even remotely relevant now that I’ve had the experience.

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In exactly 7 days (or exactly 1 week for those who like to think in weeks) my HSM will be over.  I started on 13 November and I’ll finish on 13 May.  That’s 6 months worth of not drinking any alcohol whatsoever.

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Today I had lunch with a great friend of mine.  Over the course of the meal we chatted about life;  about things that are happening right now, things to reflect on, our thoughts about the future.  All sorts of stuff.  It was great hanging out but it was also really good having a yarn about stuff that doesn’t often get a guernsey in everyday conversation.

One of the things I have enjoyed most about the Hello Sunday Morning blog is reading other people’s thoughts on life.  I’ve enjoyed reading about their personal struggles, their triumphs, things they’ve learned.  All in all it’s adding up to a wealth of insight into existing.  And like I said before, it’s not stuff you necessarily talk about everyday over a drink.

This might be pretty obvious but it made me realise just how much I can learn from the people around me.  I mean I’ve always known that but when I’d previously thought about learning from other people I kind of automatically thought about learning wisdom from my old man or a teacher.  It didn’t instinctively occur to me just how much I can learn from my very closest of friends, and people who are yet to be friends.

Last year I met (or in a couple of instances got to know a lot better) a few people who I’m now really good friends with.  In being more aware of and receptive and connected with them I learned something different about life from each of them.

From one I learned that you should never let yourself become a victim of circumstance.  It doesn’t matter what has happened in your life, if you’re not happy you can do something about it.  For example moving to a completely different city where you know no one, don’t have a job or a place to live and making a go of getting happy again.

From another I learned about throwing yourself open to loving someone, despite how scary and full of unknowns that can be.

And from another I learned that confidence (as opposed to arrogance) has nothing to do with not being frightened of things.  Instead it’s about shelving those fears and having respect for yourself and what you believe in.

These people didn’t one day just come out and tell me this stuff.  Instead they told me about their lives and I watched and listened.  Basically, they just told me part of their story.

One of the things I said I wanted to do when I started Hello Sunday Morning was to meet new people and remember their names and who they are.  I’m going to add to that.  I want to hear their story and I want to learn from it.

It’s 1:30am.  I just got home from a night out.  I went to see some bands.  As I was leaving The Troubadour in The Valley it was raining pretty heavily.  There were massive cab lines everywhere.  At that point I realised something strikingly obvious: one of the biggest benefits of not drinking is that you can drive home; no waiting in cab lines, no $30 cab fares, no fucking around.  It was at that point also that I realised the other benefits of being able to drive whenever you want.  It means you can go to 3 parties in a night if you want to.  It means you can give people lifts out.  It means you can give people lifts home.  It means you can get up and drive at 10am and not worry about blowing over .05.

So here I am thinking about all the stuff that’s cool about driving all the time and then something strange occurred to me.  When I decided to do this HSM thing you would naturally think that I was preventing myself from doing things, namely drinking.  You would think that by putting a ban on booze I would be limiting myself; limiting what I could do and all that.  What I’ve realised is that removing alcohol has done quite the opposite.  In fact, straight off the bat, I’m free to not drink.  Which sounds a little weird because of course we’re always free to not drink.  But are we really?  All the social pressure… I’d say we’re not really.  So now that I’m free to not drink I’m also free to do a whole lot of other things.  I’m free to drive out, to drive home, to drive between parties.  I’m free to get up in the morning at 6am after going out the night and not feel like dog shit.  I’m liberated from being doomed to spend $100 on a night out.  I’m able to have a conversation with someone at 2am and remember every word.  I’m able to write a blog post at 1.45am and have it make sense.  I’d never thought of it like this before, but by not drinking I’ve afforded myself all sorts of liberties that hadn’t even crossed my mind.

On that point I was talking to my band mates today about how I wasn’t finding it awkward anymore to not have a drink in my hand when I’m out.  One of them said that it must be kind of like quitting smoking when you finally get used to not having to do the hand to mouth action.  I’d never thought of getting off alcohol like quitting smoking.  I’m no alcoholic and most people aren’t.  But I’d say quite confidently that most of us have a dependence of sorts on alcohol.  A dependence to socialise, to celebrate, to mourn, to go a little wild.

Here’s a little thought: maybe Hello Sunday Morning is a bit like quitting alcohol.  Not for good, but quitting the dependence we have on it.  And you know what, after getting through three months and the initial withdrawal symptoms, I can tell you it’s not even that hard!!

I might go and raise a glass of water and toast to new found liberty!

It’s past midnight.  I just got home from a gig we played tonight.  Actually “home” just got new meaning because I moved house.  We were playing as the support band at The Troubadour.  The Troubadour’s great by the way.  Anyway, we’ve been working on a whole bunch of new songs recently and so we decided to make the set completely out of new songs.  We hadn’t played them live before, we’d barely rehearsed them, and for me anyway, 3 out of the 4 I was lead singing on, I hadn’t finished writing the lyrics.  And that’s a little bit scary you know.  I’m actually a little bit proud of ourselves for doing it.  No safety net, just jumping in and playing from the heart.  Being spontaneous and genuine.  It was incredibly fun, exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time.  Making up lyrics on the spot and trying to get them to rhyme.  Playing guitar parts I’d only practiced three times.  And the best bit, people said it was one of the best shows we’ve ever played.

I think that music has taught me a great deal about living.  Great music, great performances, are when it’s genuine, honest.  Excitement is there when it’s spontaneous.  I think the same can be said for life.