I started to write a post in December but just before Christmas I came off my bike and broke my arm.

I had the cast taken off last week and I was back out on my bike today. Apart from the occasional sharp pain shooting up my left arm to remind me of the importance of ‘bike maintenance’ everything is getting back to normal and the strength is returning. The body is an amazing thing.

I’m now nearly seven months in to my One Year HSM although I’ve only managed a consistent stretch of 3 months and 1 week without a beer. I slipped up back in September at a work related function resulting in a little HSM siesta.

On reflection this short unplanned break was no bad thing, in fact a lot of good came out of it because I realised that my life was much better before I started drinking again.

I was able to re-assess my reasons for attempting an HSM in the first place and think about why it was that I’d chosen to drink again. This was a big wakeup call and one that lead me to decide to continue to see this through.

Here are 10 truths that I have discovered about myself in these last couple of months:

1. Deciding not to drink alcohol is the easy part, ensuring I don’t change my mind is the difficult bit.

2. I really enjoy having a few drinks but stopping before I’m smashed is my weakness.

3. I have great friends and I don’t feel pressured to drink by them at all. This is as much a testament to them as it is to me.

4. Work related events are the most challenging times when it comes to my HSM.

5. I’m not sure I’m in the right career.

6. I love being sober at the end of a night out and I love waking up in the morning and feeling good.

7. I prefer to socialise with friends over food rather drinks. If they decide to go to a bar or club afterwards sometimes I decide that’s a good time for me to head home.

8. When sober, I have better conversations and I’ m much better at listening to other people.

9. I save about £750GBP ($1200AUD) a month by not drinking alcohol.

10. Alcohol isn’t bad; it’s the misuse of it that causes problems. What quantifies misuse varies from person to person and only the individual has the power to address their relationship with it.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Until next time (as he’s been in the news recently because of his ill health) I thought I’d take this opportunity to share with you with a great quote from a great man:

‘It always seems impossible until it is done.’

Nelson Mandela

This has nothing to do with what I have written but it is Halloween and this is one cool looking pumpkin.

It’s been a while I know but this random British bloke blogging on an Australian website is still alive and kicking.  I’ve been really busy; I moved to a new place in London, started a new Job and soon fell in to a new but all too familiar routine.

How I hate routine.

Alcohol crept back into my life. Gingerly at first, greeting me like an old acquaintance who had behaved inappropriately sometime in the past but was back now and wanted me to see how they’d changed for the better.

But it wasn’t long before I could see that they were just the same person as they had always been and they hadn’t changed at all.

Two weeks in to my new job and a dinner and drinks event held for one of our Clients leads my boss to greet me by saying “Beer or wine” Really? – Now that sentence doesn’t even make sense.  No – I must resist the urge to deconstruct things until I find I can’t understand anything anyone says anymore. No one likes a clever dick. I know it was implied as a question.

My reply, by the way, was Beer. I had two small glasses of Sagres – a Portuguese lager. It’s not a bad brew, it wouldn’t have been my first choice but we were in a Portuguese restaurant and it was all they had.

So I’d managed three months without a drink and in twenty minutes that first drink in three months was drunk and it was over.

The following Friday I met some mates and decided that I may as well have a couple of beers with them. I had four pints of Erdinger, a famously heady German Wheat Beer. I was shitfaced and went home early while they stayed out. I fell asleep with my clothes on and woke up feeling sick and with a very bad headache.

Of course, now I remember; this is what is called a hangover.

If there is one thing quitting drinking for three months does it makes for an incredibly cheap night out when you start again.

So for about the past month I’ve been drinking again. I’m not drinking as much as I used too but I’ve fallen into a routine of working long hours and having a few drinks to wind down in the evening. I found I’m just getting more and more tired. Alcohol does not help me sleep.

I’ve lost some of my energy and clarity of mind that I had a month ago. Now I just cant be bothered.  To quote that band from Oxford; 

‘For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself.’

So I’m going to climb back on to the Wagon and see if I can get that clarity back. I don’t know if I’ll have the time to continue to contribute regularly to this website but I’ll try.

I suppose sudden change can cause us to lose track of things that we do that are important to us and the reasons why we do them. It’s like those times when you walk in to a room only to forget what you went in there for…

Well I’ve just remembered what it was.

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.

(Hunter S Thompson)

I had for a long time believed that alcohol facilitates creativity – just look at the lives of the most influential artists for a recurring theme of over indulgence.

My heroes are raging alcoholics… it’s not a good start is it.

Jack Kerouac - He pretty much drank himself into an early grave

I came across an article today that might interest anyone who wonders whether to write like Hemmingway you have to drink like him too. Dr Ian Smith a consultant in Addiction Psychiatry at Gartnavel Royal Hospital spoke at a conference in Edinburgh back in June this year on the subject.

The idea that alcohol and drugs can stimulate artists, writers and musicians to create great works of art is a dangerous myth and it can actually stifle creativity… The reason that this myth is so powerful is the allure of the substances, and the fact many artists need drugs to cope with their emotions… Artists are, in general, more emotional people and the use of substances to deal with their emotions is more likely to happen.

He said that many of the writers and artists that he had researched were most productive during times of sobriety.

This seems to me to be pretty obvious as anyone who has ever tried to write when they’re pissed would probably agree but I think it’s kind of reassuring when a scientist does some research to confirm it.

A recent UK Government pledge to crack down on cheap alcohol sales would see the minimum cost of alcohol rise to 50p per unit by allowing Councils to implement  Local Bylaws restricting the sale of cheap alcohol. This would see six cans of the cheapest lager rise to about £6 or bottle of wine to around £5.

Although I agree that cheap alcohol particularly in pubs and clubs with ‘Happy Hours’ and ’2 for 1′ deals does fuel binge drinking culture I’m not sure that raising the price of shop bought alcohol is the right approach.

Unfortunately the people that it will affect the most will be the responsible drinkers who are cash-strapped or long term unemployed. Street drinkers with alcohol dependence will find other ways to get drunk and with major cuts to benefits, the possibility of going hungry or stealing and ending up in prison becomes increasingly likely.

I find this sketch below by comedians Mitchell and Webb illustrates this point. It is funny but it is also rather sad.

I feel that these recent efforts including the ban on drinks promotions and reversal of the 24 hour licensing laws fail to address the huge amount of binge drinking that is done by young proffessionals, who are unlikely to be encouraged to drink more responsibly by a slight increase in cost.

It is common practice in the UK to go out drinking straight after work and often without eating, I should know as I’ve done it myself many times. My best friend’s girlfriend is from Paris and she shudders at the idea of going out drinking on an empty stomach.  If she meets up with us she will always want to take us for food first (which is definitely a good thing). “But eating gets in the way of my drinking” says a mate of mine, “If you eat after a few pints you’ll get ‘food coma’ let’s get a kebab later” says another.

A second clip from the same duo illustrating the absurdity of it all.

Through my abstinence from alcohol (8 weeks and counting) I have become acutely aware of  just how many bars and pubs there are here in the UK and how much alcohol is part of my day to day life. Meeting for a ‘few drinks’ after work is synonymous with getting together to catch up with friends. Unfortunately for me this would often turn into several drinks and a stinking hangover.

I feel that until there is a cultural shift where it becomes socially unacceptable to be drunk, binge drinking and its associated problems will remain.

You can never have too much mint in a Mojito.

I’ve been off the sauce for about six weeks now – well, sort of. I had another ‘incident’ last weekend at a friend’s BBQ…

When I arrived I told my friend Richard that I wasn’t drinking, he seemed surprised but didn’t question my choice. I was introduced to lots of his friends from Uni and that slight feeling of awkwardness that a few drinks masks when striking up conversation with people that I’ve just met was soon forgotten. They were interesting people and I know this because I can remember what we talked about.

I was drinking ginger ale for most of the night, I had ice and a slice of lime in it too so it appeared like a spirit mixer and no one seemed to notice that I wasn’t drinking alcohol. I remember thinking how great it felt to be sober so late into the night. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, woke up the next day feeling great and was even able to help Richard when he phoned to ask me where his keys were.

“They’re in the kitchen on the shelf behind where I was standing making those Mojitos.”

Ah yes… the Mojitos.

Richard had asked me to make some Mojitos (I used to work in a cocktail bar) and of course I obliged. The thing is I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to cocktails so I have to taste them to make sure they’re right. I put a straw into the drink and put my finger over the top and lift a few drops onto my tongue to taste. Well ok, there were no straws so I had to use a spoon.

“Needs more mint, maybe a little more sugar.”

Then I had to taste it again. Mmm… minty.

Unfortunately the Mojito’s were popular so I ended up making lots and all those ‘teaspoon tasters’ added up to a ‘little ladle’. I didn’t feel any effect but it is still ‘a drink’… Isn’t it?

So I’ve been asking myself; am I avoiding alcohol completely or is it the concept of ‘having a drink’ that I’m abstaining from? What about taking a small sip of a friend’s fruit punch that they have just made or tasting the red wine that’s being shared around the table with dinner? What about alcohol in food? – It’s a myth that it all evaporates during cooking and then there are the desserts like Rum Baba and Tiramisu which are soaked in the stuff.

You see – I want to experience my life sober, to go out and have fun without wasting days suffering from hangovers. For me this means being able to have a few drinks and then stop; but is abstaining from alcohol completely for a whole year the best approach to achieving this? Should I be committed to ‘staying sober’ instead?  Which raises the question; what does it mean to be sober?

Questions, questions, questions – That’s where I am with this at the moment. For now though I’m still sticking with the original plan and staying off the booze completely… or at least trying to.

The barman hesitated. I could sense his confusion so I told him that I was driving (which I wasn’t). He nodded to himself as if to say that it was acceptable to drink shandy when driving and continued to pour it for me. I didn’t really want it but I felt it was too late to change my mind. I knew it didn’t count as a soft drink not least because it would have been around 2% in alcohol content but also because of the reason why I ordered it.

I saw it as a compromise because it looks like a beer but tastes like a soft drink and as it was just me and my mate it wouldn’t look like he was the only one drinking. From personal experience I have found that if I’m the only one drinking I become self conscious. This was on my mind at the time and I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable.

I knew I’d made a mistake once I’d started drinking it and I felt like I’d cheated myself. I’d assumed that I knew how he might feel if he was the only one drinking. This was entirely my own perception based on how I would feel in his situation and I let my own fear of making someone else feel uncomfortable influence my decision. Once we’d got chatting I began to doubt whether it would bother him anyway.

This experience has got me thinking about how many times I had gone out, got to the bar and ordered a pint of beer even though I didn’t really want one. It’s often just that it’s the first thing that comes into my head and I know that it’s what my mates will be having. I reckon I have got drunk many times before when I went out to meet friends and didn’t really want to drink in the first place. This conditioned response to the question; ‘What would you like to drink?’ is restricting my ability to make a choice based on what I really want and I look forward to shaking it off. I look forward to the time when I can just order the drink that I actually want whatever that drink happens to be.

The next drink I ordered was an orange and soda.

Monday 21st June was Britain’s summer solstice; the longest day of the year was also the beginning ofmy Hello Sunday Morning…

My name is Nick and I grew up in a small fishing town on the south coast of England. The town lies between the slopes of two cliffs, one of which is crowned by the ruins of an old stone castle. Below it crooked cottages line cobbled streets and tall thin tar covered timber net houses sit on the beach next to old tangled fishing nets, bright orange buoys and bits of old driftwood. Seagulls circle and cry from above, little market stalls sell the mornings catch and the smell of salt and fish meanders through the narrow streets clinging to the onshore breeze.

The alleys, stairways and the caves that puncture the sandstone cliffs were ideal for a bunch of delinquent kids to hang around, light fires, smoke cigarettes and drink beer without being disturbed. There was little else to do. I remember the first time I got drunk, I was twelve years old.

1. Fill an empty plastic bottle with a mixture of whisky, vodka, rum, wine, stout and cider.

2. Sit in a circle with friends and take turns in drinking foul mixture.

3. Try not to vomit.

Today I live and work in London and although nearly twenty years has passed since my first drink I can see the effect of those early experiences in my drinking habits today. Once I start drinking I find it very hard to stop, this can lead to whole weekends spent out boozing and consequentially I suffer from hellish hangovers that can last for days where I have no energy or motivation.

I have often wondered whether my life would be more productive if I didn’t drink. Could I find something more interesting and inspiring to do to fill my spare time? Would choosing not to drink affect my social life; would it be better, worse or perhaps just different? How would being sober for an extended period of time influence the way I think about my past, present and future? Well there’s only one way to find out.

I’ve quit drinking for a month several times before but apart from the rest to my liver and the pennies that I saved I didn’t see any significant change. This time I’m going to abstain for a year in the hope of finding some answers to my questions. The worst that can happen is that I improve my health, give my liver a well earned rest and save lots of money… It’s a no-brainer really.

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