This year will be my second Xmas since I kicked the booze – and I seem to remember last year wasn’t entirely without struggle. I didn’t cave in and drink, but I had a few near-misses due to being at a family wedding between Xmas and New Year. I was still relatively fresh off the beertrain (toot toot), and my brother was getting married on a huge old posh estate in North Yorkshire. This was an awesome event not only because I got to witness my bro marrying the love of his life – but also because it was my first time seeing my family since I moved down south(ish) a few months prior. Also, there were family members and friends there that I’d not seen in YEARS. It was time for celebrating, partying, and catching-up with old acquaintances. This kind of socialising comes naturally to me after a few beers – but there I was talking to loud, brash, confident uncles – trying to stutter my way through the reasons that I only wanted a diet coke, please. Continue reading
Tag: alcoholics anonymous
Booze Makes You Fat
It’s true. It’s one thing about drinking that is never disputed. Alcohol contains calories, and if you stop drinking then you will probably lose weight – unless you replace the booze with cakes and soft drinks. Continue reading
Go Hard Or Go Home
Today’s blog is more of a pondering, based on recent thoughts about the type of person that may be predisposed to ‘enthusiastic drinking’.
After I stopped drinking, I quickly learned that I have a 2 very distinct traits:
- I’m impatient. If I decide I want or need something, then I want it NOW. I’m not good at waiting for things. This manifests itself massively when it comes to my car. If I sense something is off – for example the steering is pulling to one side – then I’ll hunt down the garage with the nearest availability to fix it, and I won’t drive that fucker in the meantime unless completely necessary. e.g. to get to work.
- If I do something then I’ll do it properly and with gusto, otherwise what’s the point? If I’m going to make music then it has to be the LOUDEST, if I’m going to watch a violent movie then it has to be the MOST VIOLENT MOVIE, and if I’m going to order a steak it’s going to be a GODDAMN MASSIVE FILLET STEAK.
Sorry For The Radio Silence
It’s been a ridiculous few weeks for me at work, and outside of that I’ve been working on a new album which is due to be released in the next couple of weeks (check out my rubbish band PETROL BASTARD). I’ve also been wedding planning, gigging, visiting the fam up north, and I managed to nail my first experience of proper outdoor climbing. Holy shit I never realised it would involve having to choose between ramming my hands into wet crevices and spider webs, or taking painful falls to certain (not actual) death. Continue reading
Life In The Middle Lane
In my drinking days life was a series of massive highs and massive lows. The highs were my turbo-mental weekends – the parties, nights out, ace music, dancing like a twat, camaraderie, laughing till the early hours – all held together by the booze. The lows were the working week, made much worse, excruciatingly so, by the hangovers, paranoia, and lack of sleep. Continue reading
Tipping Point
By ‘tipping point’ I mean ‘lightbulb moment’ – the point at which you decide that enough is enough, and it’s time to knock drinking on the head for good.
In fact i’m going to call it ‘shitebulb moment’, because usually a decision to quit drinking is preceded by a bad thing happening. Punching your stepmother for example. Continue reading
7 Tips To Quit The Booze
Here’s the stuff that worked for me, in no particular order:
1. “Play the tape to the end”
For me, this is the most powerful weapon in your arsenal, and the idea is really simple. Before you open that first drink you need to visualise the way you will feel waking up tomorrow – hungover, nasty headache, skint, paranoid, shaky, eaten lots of shitty food, said inappropriate things, got naked and tried to fight a bus driver, etc.. – all of the things that are likely to happen if you neck that beer. Anyone reading this probably knows that it NEVER stops at one drink (unless you’re on the wrong website. maybe you were looking for Sexypunks or Soberpimps or something?). Being realistic about the outcome is the best motivation for not starting. I’ve used this method countless times over the last 12 months.
SoberPunks 