Five months since my last alcoholic drink. It has whizzed by so fast that I am wondering if I have been accidentally drinking much more than usual to the extent where I have forgotten drinking and everything else. I wouldn't even eat liqueur chocolates tonight. That is how strict I am. Although last weekend I did eat a mince pie that had rum in it, though I imagine it had largely evaporated in the cooking process. Even so, just with the suggestion that I had consumed some booze I felt a bit light-headed for a while. I am going to have to choose the moment for my return to drinking carefully. It could get messy. Tonight was not the night to unleash the unpleasantness as we were cooking dinner (I say we - I made the salad... from a packet) for my girlfriend's family. I didn't want to end up punching her brother and kissing her dad. And one glass of wine is all it would take.
I don't think the mince pie breaks my abstinence. There is every chance that someone will put alcohol into food and so I have to make an exception for alcohol in non-liquid form. Which is why it is fine for me to have been eating those wine iced lollies I have been making.
Not really.
I had thought there might be a book or a show in being on the wagon, but I don't think so now. It's not very funny and a little bit boring. I can't tell stories of all the terrible things I have done, because I have not been drinking and have done no terrible things. I lost some weight initially, but have plateaued for the last four months. I don't feel all that amazing - better than I was and mercifully free of hangovers, but it hasn't changed my life. I am not sure I would have got through all I have had to do in the last five months if I had been drinking or at least it would have been more painful. I am glad I have done it and have not really had any serious desire to return to my old ways of having fun. Having got through Edinburgh and Prague I think Christmas will be relatively easy. Only 31 one more days and it's half a year. Will I press onwards then or will I want to have a sunset cocktail or two on holiday at the end of January? Might I just crack and down a bottle of vodka for breakfast tomorrow? Or will we press on for the year? Or the rest of my life? Who knows?
I might very well set a new record - I managed six months and a couple of weeks back in 1993 (I think we can ignore the few years I didn't drink anything at the beginning of my life and suspect my parents put brandy in my cocoa to help me sleep anyway). Though that is nothing compared to the infinity of time that I will not be drinking from my death (or earlier) until infinity.
It's all been quite easy, it's all been quite dull. I don't really know why I am carrying on with it, but then again, I see no need to stop. Perhaps I did vomit up some elemental part of me that morning in July.
You can now see my Karaoke Circus performance in 3D
on Youtube.
