Goodbye Sunday Morning… (by Pete Furst)

It’s my sad duty to let you all  know that I fell off the wagon. I  wasn’t sure if I should admit it or  not, but I figure my conscience  will last with me much longer  than your disappointment. Who  knew that going from drinking  everyday to not drinking at all  would be so hard? I expected a  challenge but it goes beyond that.  You need to develop whole new  ways of socialising, relieving  stress, enjoying meals,  everything. My advice to anyone  about to start HSM would be to  go a couple of weeks just drinking once a week to prepare yourself for the three month marathon. I’m now going to start again at the beginning, and I know it’s going to be tough again.

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.

HOW DID I GET HERE? (By Sean Tomalin)

I mentioned in my last blog that I have had many reason to drink in the last few years, and I was recently prompted to elaborate by a close friend, asking if I was going to expand on this in my blog. So, I am… briefly:

In the last five years, I have had 4 major events in my life, after which, I have hit the pub for a (dozen or so) beer(s).

• My parents divorced

• I was told by my ‘dad’ that I am the biggest mistake of his life (twice)

• My ‘dad’ attempted suicide (I’ve lost count of how many times now)

• I was engaged. We broke up, then got back together, then broke up again

Like I said, after all of these events, I chose getting pissed and escaping the reality of the situation rather than dealing with it head on. What was the result? I currently have no drivers licence after losing it for drunk driving. I have no fiancé or wife. I still don’t have a relationship with my father; I don’t think he even knows who I am anymore. I have virtually no savings. What’s my point? Nothing good has come from drinking.

This is the line in the sand.

I have decided to do HSM as a way of starting a new life, taking a step back and re-booting my system, dealing with the situations as they need to be dealt with, in an adult manner. On February 18, 2011 I will be finished this experience and hope that I will be able to say “I learnt something”, “I have grown from this” and “I am happy with who I am”.

I am not dwelling on the things that have happened anymore; they are done, I can’t change them. I did not write this for sympathy, instead to get it off my chest, so that I don’t have to explain it 50 times individually.

…………

SO, one week down, how is it going? I started on a Thursday, thinking I would have a few quiet drinks on Wednesday night rather than having a huge night on the weekend. Murphy’s Law kicked in right away. Last Thursday I had more invites to go out on the piss on a week night that I have had in the past 3 months. I had also committed to doing the 40 hour famine that weekend. I think I might need to work on my planning a bit better, as I also had a friend’s birthday drinks at Irish Race Day on Saturday…

So there I was for 5 hours of afternoon drinks and horse racing and I couldn’t eat or drink. I couldn’t even have a smoke as I had quit 2 weeks earlier. That morning, I couldn’t stop asking myself why I had gotten into this; How am I going to spend the day with smokers, while they drink and eat hot chips etc.? I was almost ready to say ‘fuck it, I will start next weekend and the 40 hour famine is for kids anyway’. I am glad I didn’t. It was a very real sense of pride walking home from the pub that night, completely sober and with my stomach growling so loudly, people were staring at me from across the road. I did it, my first big event with no smokes and no booze. And to top it off, I earned some money for World Vision at the same time.

This is going to be just fine.

DON’T THINK OF A PINK ELEPHANT… (By Lee Crockford)

And so rounds out the first week of self imposed prohibition…

I’ve surprisingly wanted to drink a lot more than I thought I would. What I don’t know is how much can be credited to an incredibly manic week at work, simply feeling like a beer or how much can be attributed to the fact that I want something that I can’t have.

We all know that old psych exercise “Don’t think of a pink elephant”. What are you thinking of? Most likely a pink elephant. This theory doesn’t seem to be confined to obstusely coloured, large, land dwelling mammals – oh no – it also very much applies to beer. This week there’s been a mate’s birthday and several networking functions, all of which a few bevvies would usually be standard practice. However, instead of sipping on the cool amber liquid in the warm, afternoon glow of new farm park, I was relegated to soda and lime..

I don’t always drink huge amounts, but I really, really  like the taste of beer and that’s what I’m missing most. Not getting “pissed”, but simply having a beer.

As far as my HSM goals are concerned, I seem to have lost two kilos in the last week. I have changed my diet and have started exercising since I started HSM, though, so I doubt it’s just from not drinking.

I’ll leave with a quote fom W.C. Fields who sums up how I’m starting to feel: ”Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.”

1/3 of the way. (Amy Jane)

“What would you like?”

“Coke please!”

“Ha, are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“No, seriously what do you want?”

“Coca-cola please.”

…. Bartender walks off with out serving me. Rude

That was the conversation I had with the bartender a few friday nights ago. It amused me more than angered me. They are a jolly rude bunch to the non drinkers. That didn’t deter me from having one of my best and memorable nights out ever! You have to love a night of great tunes being spun and dancing until you get kicked out because they are closing. Always a fun night for the sober and the drunk at Miss Libertine’s!

I looked a little deeper and found some relevance to my HSM journey

The other day I was watching the ABC mini series “Marking Time” (a 99 cent buy from Savers! Score!)  Marking Time is about an Australian guy, Hal, that has just finished school and is taking the year off to find a bit of direction, he is not in with the best crowd around the little country town of Brackley but things change when he meets Randa, a Afghan refugee that is living in the there. Cultures collide. One part of the series really made me think about Hello Sunday Morning. It is after Hal takes Randa out to meet his friends at a party for the first time. The scene shows loud obnoxious people swearing, being racist toward the “boat people” that are living in their town and girls throwing up from drinking too much. Randa is not used to this behaviour and wants to leave. In the car while Hal drives her home, it shows them driving down the main street showing drunk people screaming, yelling, fighting, crying etc. Randa questions the action of drinking and why people do it until they are sick? She is extremely confused as to why people would and why they desire to act the way they do while under the influence of Alcohol. It made cringe slightly at the thought of how I have acted drunk, about how recently my friends have acted drunk and how I see people act when I am out. We must be a rude shock to other cultures.

I am 1/3 way through my HSM stint. It is a brilliant talking point when I am out, and yes my friends are coming to terms and swinging around to being a little more supportive about the whole thing.

Ciao for now.

Heroes Like These… (By Nick A)

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.

WHO AM I AGAIN?… PASS ME THAT BEER (by Ebony Frost)

Thought-provoking, hilarious and downright genius at times, the modern beer ad seems to be in a class of it’s own.

From the Woman Whisperer to The Big Ad and the original I could do with an Emu, how ’bout you?, beer ads have captured the imaginations (and wallets) of ‘blokes and sheilas’ across the country.

So how has this happened?

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Let the fun begin… (By Elise Rowland)

My vision for the 1st of November 2010: Looking and feeling healthier, with loads energy, with new experiences and with a pile of savings.

It’s official…as of 12:00am Monday morning the 9^th of August 2010 I will not have a drip of alcohol for 3 months.

I remember first reading the email regarding Hello Sunday Morning…

I thought it was such clever idea. Earlier this year I had watch a program about binge drinking in Australia and my friend and I sat there wondering…but what can you do?…what’s a “cool” way to get people to realise that you don’t have to get drunk to have fun?…and I guess I saw this as an answer.

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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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Have the good changes in my life started?

“A cloudy day is no match for a sunny disposition.”

Just two weeks into HSM and a lot of thoughts have driven through my mind… I  have commenced semester two of university not long ago, and I already find myself trying to puzzle together a strategy that will help me get through the semester. How much work will I put in? What do I want to get out of my degree? Do I have too much free time, and is that free time being put to good use? Having chosen to only take 3 subjects this semester,  a busy week consists of 9 hours class,  a quiet one just 4. This leaves me with an INCREDIBLE 159 hours to do the things I love.

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