Viognier, Whispering Angel, Aperol Spritz, Champagne, Negroni, Espresso Martini....
These have been some of my favourite tipples over the years but not now. Now, you'll find me experimenting with mocktails, trying to find drinks that are not so sweet that you could only tolerate one in an evening. The key is Everleaf Marine and I think you'll only know this if you've tried to go alcohol-free in the capital where this seems to be the go-to mocktail ingredient of the moment.
I am only 17 days into my sober odyssey but that is seventeen days that have included two lunches with friends, one fortieth birthday celebration and two weekends away (I know, my life!). Seventeen days would appear to be the point of evangelical enthusiasm for the crusade but keep reading, all the same. I am an aficionado of Dry January but my strategy during that dark month is to hibernate and turn down all social engagements. A sort of penance where life is put on hold for four weeks by way of a sort of new year detox. This time has been different because the calendar was full in a post-lockdown frenzy of social engagements. Life was going to continue and I was going to say the words, calmly and assertively, "No thank you, I'm not drinking." "No, really. That's very kind but I'm not drinking at the moment." "Really, you go ahead, I'm fine with my eighth Virgin Mojito!"
Except, when I was first required to assert myself, at my sister's 40th, the peer pressure was not forthcoming. In fact, I found myself in a group where half of us was driving and the other half was not bothered one way or the other. This was not what I was expecting and in fact, was in some ways, worse. I tried to encourage the non-drivers to drink. I was close to ordering their drinks for them because otherwise I was going to find myself seated in a restaurant with other sober people who weren't drinking wine with their meal. Was I part of a boring crowd? (horror face emoji) People might think we were Americans (horror face emoji) And here's the thing, as all these new-found prejudices came flooding out of me, it felt quite good. It was a feeling, an honest part of a social anxiety that perhaps most of us have and certainly a lot of us choose to disguise by knocking back our first two drinks pretty quickly so that we are the dazzling company we believe others want us to be. And if we could only stay two drinks up the whole night. How we chase the two-drinks-up point of alcohol zenith that is so fleeting, the pursuit of which leads to unsteadiness, over-sharing and, once you sail past midnight, quite often, tears.
But that is nothing when compared to the after-effects. We call it a hangover which is a paltry name for an experience which is akin to being taken to the gates of death, with flashbacks, not of our life to date but just of the previous night. We replay with an incessant paranoia the conversations that we think we might've had, all whilst asking ourselves, "Did I really say that. Please, God, don't let me have said THAT!" Perhaps you'll vomit, perhaps your head will explode, your hands might shake for at least 48 hours afterwards, you might go blind and lose the power of coherent speech and be left with nothing but wailing as a means of communication. And if you've really misbehaved then you will get all those horrors together and eventually you will ask yourself the question, "Did I have fun?"
Inevitably, when you see your puffy and rapidly aging face in the bathroom mirror you will have to face your own existential defeat and admit that no, you had no fun. You drank to numb the boredom and the anxiety but you did not have fun. You do not even know what fun is anymore. Because sure, it used to be dancing on tables but it's certainly not that anymore. And once you start down that cerebral route of discovery, how the open road seems to twist and turn before you, offering more opportunities not fewer. You can actually turn down the boring engagements. You do not have to say yes to everything. If you cannot face going to a particular party sober then, my friend, you probably do not want to be going to the party at all. In short, you will have to find a new definition of fun and what with all those parties you're turning down, you'll have plenty of time for it.
What genuinely counts as fun at the moment is the smugness I feel when I don't drink. After eating a delicious and bountiful meal at the Wolseley and, I must confess, nearly succumbing in a moment of weakness, I came out into the London dusk to find drunken revellers tumbling out of The Ritz, rowdy men swaying and shouting as they crossed the road looking for taxis or stumbling onto their next bar. And how I breathed in that city air and thought about the uncomplicated night's sleep I was about to enjoy and the run I would go for when I woke up. That was a high like no other. That was, ladies and gentlemen, self-care. No, I shall go further, that was SELF-LOVE and it felt really good.
I think, as we get older, we can feel desensitised to so much that happens around us. A creeping cyniscism is an understandable part of ageing. We feel it but we don't welcome it. What is a midlife crisis if not a final fling with sentiment; a sometimes desperate desire to feel something before we lose that capacity altogether. So it is that I am not so frightened of the social anxiety. I do not want to numb that part of myself anymore. I would like to see where it takes me. I am ready to feel the uncomfortable emotions because I've an appetite for feeling that is mostly a curiosity about myself, long overdue. Drinking is the age old way of fitting in. It takes such a huge effort to try and be what we think others want of us. Alcohol conspires by whispering that we can be whoever we choose with a few drinks inside us and I've had a good run. I've drunk with the best of them, had some of the funniest nights of my life under the influence but now I choose to be me.
