BORDERS UP! (By Jason Rohloff)

Just a quick post today, my contribution to the HSM Book Club.  A journalist by the name of Vitali Vitaliev wrote a book about ten years ago called “Borders Up!: Eastern Europe Through the Bottom of a Glass”.  In his book Vitaliev drinks his way through Eastern Europe, recounting stories from his youth and the drinking culture he grew up in during communist rule.  It’s a desperate tale, at one point he tells of a friend who drank nail polish remover in an effort to get drunk.  The postscript is that he actually gives up alcohol at the end of his trip.

If you’re interested in glimpsing an excessive drinking culture beyond our own this is well worth a read, his comments about Australians at Octoberfest are particularly amusing, as is his optimism about there always being another eighteen drops in the bottom of an empty vodka bottle.

THE DICE MAN (by Jason Rohloff)

I’m four months into my HSM and I feel I’ve progressed well toward achieving the goals I set myself in the beginning.  I am a nicer person to be around now and there’s definitely more money in my account each week (no spending on alcohol and less on takeaway and taxis) although my fitness has not picked up having only run once since I started my HSM (oh the shame).  Having made a lot of progress it has become harder and harder to motivate myself to stick with my HSM, how am I going to do another eight months of this?

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IS TAX THE ANSWER? (by Jason Rohloff)

A good friend of mine learnt how to make home brew in his late teens, he got very good at it very quickly and actually won a few awards from the local beer appreciation society.  Why did he make his own beer?  Because he enjoyed the creative process and it was a very economical way to drink (essential when you’re a student).  It made perfect sense, so why did no one else I knew make their own beer?  Why pay so much more for shop bought beer?

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THE MEMBERS LOUNGE (by Jason Rohloff)

My apologies if anyone is getting a sense of Deja Vu as I posted this on Sunday morning just before the site went down and lost it.  But for anyone who hasn’t read this one…

A couple of weekends ago I went to the SFS with a mate for the first round of the festival of football.  It was a beautiful but cold day in Sydney and we were treated to some great football, eight goals scored in the Sydney v Athens match followed up by a close match between Glasgow and Blackburn.

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DO I HAVE A PROBLEM? (by Jason Rohloff)

Since I started my HSM 3 1/2 months ago a lot of people have asked me why I am doing it.  When they find out I am doing it for 12 months something seems to click inside their heads “woops, this guy must be an alcoholic, better not say anything more” and they stop asking questions.  Some of my friends will be bold enough to come right out with it and ask me if I have a drinking problem, I really appreciate them being upfront with me and I happily discuss with them in great detail my reasons for doing HSM.

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MR INVINCIBLE (by Jason Rohloff)

Hands up who has done something stupid when they’ve been completely wasted?  Whether it’s dropping  five hundred bucks in a poker machine or making a fool of yourself at a work function, many confess to waking up the following morning (or afternoon) and thinking “oh no, what have I done?”.  When we drink our confidence levels rise, enough to approach someone we really like and make a move.  Drink a little more and we start doing stupid things that can damage our reputation.  Drink too much, we feel invincible and that can end up putting us in danger.

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WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU? (By Jason Rohloff)

I have a 2 1/2 year old son and most weekends we hang out together, whether it’s kicking the football, playing with Thomas trains or digging tunnels in the sandpit at the playground, it’s loads of fun.  I am mindful that everything I say and do is contributing to how he perceives the world so I try not to impose myself on him too much, I try to create an open environment where he can learn and develop at his own pace and form his own opinion about things.

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WHO WANTS A DRINK? (By Jason Rohloff)

When I was in my early twenties my daily evening routine consisted of coming home from work, sitting on a bean bag in front of the tele, drinking half a dozen beers, smoking half a pouch of tobacco and passing out.  I woke up one day and decided it wasn’t a healthy way to live and I wasn’t getting any enjoyment out of it.  I decided to stop smoking (though I kept on drinking) and I haven’t had a cigarette since.

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GETTING BACK A SENSE OF TASTE (by Jason Rohloff)

It’s been almost 2 ½ months since I last drank alcohol and would you believe it, I can taste food again.  I remember a few years ago when I stopped drinking beer for a month and at the end of the month, my first beer just appeared so full of flavour.  That’s what this last 2 ½ months has been like only with everything!

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TELL ME AGAIN WHY WE’RE HERE? (by Jason Rohloff)

I went out with a mate to an inner city bar on Friday night, one of those modern bars underneath an office building lacking in soul but oozing in popularity that Sydney does so well.  My mate grabbed a beer, I grabbed a tonic and we sat down for a long overdue catchup.

Despite the fact that we were sitting just across the table from each other, I couldn’t hear a word he was saying.  The music (painfully bad pop from the eighties) was so loud that we could not have a conversation, I shouted so hard to be heard that I strained my voice.

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