The title of this post sounds like it's being written by an old soak with an unhealthy obsession with alcohol.
I've never been a drinker. I've never really been committed to any vices, I have led a boring corporate life.
And then I look back and realise that's not true. I WAS a social drinker. I was a corporate expense card drinker, I was a single solo drinker. I did have a problem relationship with alcohol, not dangerous quantities, but a binge drinker given the safe opportunity to be one.
I know this to be a fact because I have my expenses, both corporate and personal for the last 15 years. I can tell you that meals with my ex boss at Red Hat were a £400-500 bar bill. As a matter of normality. Wherever we were in the world.
That on one occasion at an event in Germany funded by HP that the bar bill was ,€280k. Really. For one night. And it was maybe 60 of us. Who drank more than a quarter of a million euros of alcohol.
That night I urinated next to a person of diminutive stature wearing a sombrero and I knocked a German unconscious (briefly arrested by German Police). Promptly then freed when it transpired he had tried to hit me after assaulting someone, and I had simply knocked him out to restore order. Either way I was out of control.
That night I slept half in and half out of the front door of the chalet in the Black Forest I had rented, head propped up on a laptop bag.
I can tell you that as a teenager I drove everywhere so rarely drank. However when there was an opportunity, and living in a tiny village with a pub there was, I would drink to a point, which I now recognise was dangerous to my health. In my twenties I would go to football matches and clubs with friends and get blind drunk. I remember an evening as recent as 2009 where I booked a hotel in Reading and drank seventeen pints of Guinness in a sitting. That's 34 units of alcohol. That's beyond stupid.
In 2018 I got divorced. My ex wife likes a drink (and still boasts at 40 of getting blind drunk, even to our children which is about as big an own goal as you can get as a parent). It is a reflection of who she was at 25-26 when by her own admission she drank too much and had an unhealthy cocaine addiction. A dangerous combination that can lead to paranoid and risky behaviour. As I found out when she broke into my home one morning having driven 16 miles from her hometown and when she would casually stalk my home and message my friends from school she had never met. Or bring people back to my bedroom when I was out. Alcohol and drugs are not good bed fellows. They do not make for healthy life choices. If any of this was untrue and understanding the rules around libel as a journalist I wouldn't type it. Alcohol made for stupid decisions. Since 2018 it's made for even less of a relationship with reality.
With alcohol though, it's not just the financial cost, dependency is a pariah, even if you think you're within safe limits. Everyone is different.
During our marriage, the marital home was always full of alcohol and I liked making occasional whisky cocktails. I had an extensive gin collection. I didn't drink a lot as I was driving for work and we had kids at home, but her drinking 2017-18 ramped up and when we split that continued to rise.
When I served divorce I had two choices, use alcohol as a crutch or parent and build a life sober. I chose the latter.
In 2020 I decided that the infrequent glasses of wine or more frequent cans of cider would go. I never ever drank around my children or when they were in my home. I was also consuming maybe 16-20 units a week. I was, however, living next door to a gin distillery the other side of my children's bedroom wall where we had a still. So gin was free. Literally.
Ethanol would arrive in black metal drums with a big skull and crossbones and then that would be transformed into gin for retailers.
In late 2019 I had a two week fling with a married woman (I thought she was divorcing) which was made better by a lot of wine consumption and a respectably large amount of coitus. So we can't have been inebriated. But the brief relationship was lubricated by alcohol and both being from Sunderland had a lot in common.
In 2021 I went alcohol free for a year during lockdown. It was easier than I ever imagined.
In 2022 a friend in trouble, with an alcohol dependency was hospitalised and also almost killed herself breaking her neck and smashing her skull open. She went dry so I did too. In the autumn when she got out of hospital after 16 weeks we both decided we'd give up vices and have a healthy life.
I am not anti drinkers. If you want to drink, feel free, just know your limits. Also know this, if you don't drink and you stop entirely, you need something else to replace it. A hobby, not a food source.
I might not ever have been a daily committed drinker, but what I was was an adult with a propensity to exceed safe standards. And no adult to say no.
Seven Benefits of an alcohol free life
1) Financial: life is so much cheaper without wasting money on alcohol. A crate of cider is the same price as a basket of vegetables and two sources of protein to make six meals for two. So what do you think it makes more more sense to do ? A good bottle of wine is the same as two extra large family chickens for the dinner table.
2) Energy: you have so much more ability to run and do things you couldn't do before
3) Libido: you get your old you back, sex and lovemaking is better, longer, more intimate and a lot more regular. Trust me I am 50 in February and my sex life is better and more meaningful and regular than when I was 35-45. By far. You take time out for your partner, your contact is more meaningful, the passion and intensity is mind-blowing. You remember and enjoy the afterglow and it's even better if you are both abstaining from alcohol. It could also be that I massively traded up post divorce. I am sure the lack of alcohol helps. It's life enhancing.
4) Kidneys: I had kidney stones very regularly 2007-2021. Since I cut out alcohol I haven't had one. Alcohol dehydrates you, causes massive inflammation and kicks off reactions in complex organs that you must don't need in your life.
5) Hair and Skin: you aren't putting toxins into you so your body is healthier.
6) My children absolutely hate being around alcohol and massively dislike people drinking as they've grown up around functioning alcoholics. They vocally support and laud this being an alcohol free house. In fact they've even helped me pour hideously expensive whisky down the sink and toilet when we cleansed the house. Kids growing up knowing the health dangers of alcohol consumption is a fantastic shift in values. It's a fact that less and less 18-25 year olds now are starting alcoholic journeys of discovery. And that has to be a good thing.
7) and most importantly, toxins create confusion in your body and can increase mouth, throat, stomach and other cancers. If you lose weight stopping drinking that also helps reduce heart problems and cardiovascular issues.
Also people who drink are often crushing bores.
Alcohol IS a toxin, while you can enjoy alcohol, ask yourself....
Do you need to ? Really ?
No.
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