Abstinence

Giving up alcohol

Of course the bad side to alcohol is that if you have it, you will drink it. Like Field of dreams “if you build it they will come!” At home I have a small bar fridge, usually stacked with ice cold beer and my wife and I share a relatively large wine cupboard that we keep refilling with the odd case. The danger is that it is so easy coming home after work to naturally crack open a beer or maybe share a bottle of wine over dinner. It almost becomes as common place as drinking water or juice. It’s not that we necessarily over indulge, but reflecting on a hard week one can suddenly realise that one consumed at least the requisite 21 UK units and drank every night of the week. Without really having an excuse for it like a celebration or party of sorts.

So the solutions are (a) total abstinence, (b) unit watching, (c) drink watching or having (d) drink free days.

(a) Total abstinence just seems too hard core. Yes we have friends and family who have given up all alcohol and don’t seem to show any ill effect. Indeed it’s not cool to be the only sober one at the party (unless you are designated driver) and what is so funny to everyone is plain stupid to you. Plus I just love my wine and beer too much. It would be like giving up meat! (Which is another whole lifestyle question). I couldn’t conceive of a barbeque (braai) without a beer, a rugby game without a beer, a good venison dinner without some nice red wine, a roaring fire without a wee dram of whiskey. Whether these are crutches or just accessories – they are just too damn nice and important to abstain from FOREVER. But hats off to those that do and the added benefit is they save a fortune on alcohol costs.

(b) Unit watching is something my wife tried. She got one of those apps on her iPhone and then recorded every drink she had, usually notching up her full quota by Thursday of each week and then borrowing from next week to pay for the Saturday night dinner with 2 bottles of red with friends. It is a good approach in that it is scientific and you can print pretty graphs and point to strange daily and weekly trends that inhabit your world. But ultimately it is a bit of drag having to record everything and the technology becomes a little like an irritating Great Aunt chiding you for that second cup. Plus the temptation is there just to flat out lie and record that humongous glass of Chablis served in practically a carafe of a glass as a small standard 125ml glass in the software program. Does anyone actually know how small 125ml is? It’s pretty small.

(c) So drink watching is a derivation of unit watching but you don’t need to be as scientific. You just record each drink and set a weekly and daily maximum target; the problem comes when you get to your target limit and its only 8.21pm and the party has just begun. Then you have the same pressure to start borrowing from future allocations and suchlike shenanigans.

(d) Abstinence days. Now in the long run this is probably the most sustainable and doesn’t take any technological requirements beyond understanding a calendar and the days of the week. You can both be very Germanic about it and ban particular days e.g. I don’t drink on Mondays and Tuesdays or you can set a target of 4 drinking days a week, but at your option. When you are at Gauchos and the client or work is paying…you can feel free and justified to crack into that expensive bottle of delicious red wine accompanying your perfectly succulent sirloin steak. You will just have to factor in that you won’t be able to drink on Sunday. Now the liver is a very unique organ in that it can regenerate and repair the damage done to itself and apparently even a day or two will help in this process. So go on and give your liver a break.

So my advice to my dear children - this is an area you will need to think about. You will probably drink, you will on occasion get blind drunk and you will do some seriously silly things. Just don’t let the alcohol control or ruin your life. But above all remember a good Afrikaans saying from your heritage that says “Beer op wyn is pain, wyn op beer is pleseir.” Which literally translate to “beer on wine is pain, wine on beer is pleasure”. I believe the English have a similar saying that “Beer before wine makes you feel fine. Wine before beer never have fear”. Whatever happens stay away from Sambuca!

(For additional thoughts on alcohol please check out my other posts:)
https://steemit.com/alcohol/@genxlifelessons/alcohol
https://steemit.com/alcohol/@genxlifelessons/knowing-your-alcohol