My first boss said the definition of an alcoholic was someone with DTs so bad they had to rig up a pulley from their necktie in order to get their first drink of the day to their mouth. I interviewed an American addiction guru once, who said that an alcoholic was somebody who, when they went out for an evening, didn’t know how many drinks they’d have had by the end. Definitions of this tragic disorder range pretty wide (“That’s not alcoholism, that’s a Thursday”). But my favourite definition is that an alcoholic is anyone who makes rules for themselves. No spirits in the house. No drinking on a Sunday night. That’s when you have a problem.
So I never have rules. I have a yardarm – otherwise what’s the point of going on holiday? – but no rules: so I drink more or less every night. A few years ago, I resolved to spend more of the week sober than not, and as the untenanted hours yawned before me, I wrote a book. I have no great yearning to be teetotal, but I will take a month off every couple of years, for the novelty of feeling 25 again.
In the old days, it was January; now we Go Sober for October (or, in Australia, do Octsober). The month thing is not really about giving up drinking, it’s about making a promise that you’ll start again. Obviously, we are not far advanced into October, and I’m damp rather than dry (I break purdah for parties). But in the plus column, not only have I done this many times before, but this time I’ve been reading a self-help book, Quit Alcohol (For A Month), by Helen Foster. She lists 50 tips, then has lists-within-lists: 20 acceptable soft-drinks, five types of boredom, five ways to handle social anxiety, four types of drunk, seven excuses for not drinking.
To summarise, broadly: think of situations that make you want to drink (parties, pubs, dates, raves, dinner parties, karaoke), avoid them and do something else (evening classes, Netflix, spin), or think of something soft to drink. Best self-hacks: you make healthier choices in a brightly lit environment; it’s easier to convince yourself if you shake your head as you say “no”. Best social anxiety tip: stand with your back to something solid (it’s a feng shui thing); I don’t know if this works – I had crippling social anxiety when I was 14, and in the intervening 30 years of being drunk, I might just have grown out of it. Most unthinkable idea: get your friends to send you motivating texts. I can’t believe that anyone who would do this has ever been drunk.
You could take every supplement, every mindfulness workshop, and it wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans next to giving up drinking. Giving up sugar might put a fillip in your afternoon slump; giving up booze makes you feel like the Hulk. But it is like taking a sabbatical in a quieter, more reserved personality. I am the Introverted Hulk.
This week I learned
In the UK, £1 in every £10 spent in the supermarket goes on alcohol. Last January, that briefly went down to 46p.
