23-07-19 - Wednesday I - Pub In The Park @ Preston Park, Brighton, Sunday 16th July 2023

Ah, Pub in The Park. That was a fun day, until I sprained my ankle literally falling out of a pub...

We saw Craig Charles DJ - again - and Dodgy, who actually made sense in the Sunday sunshine, and Gabrielle, who rounded the day off quite nicely. It's been quite notable over the last few days that whenever you mention Gabrielle, the reaction of almost everyone is to put a hand up over one eye in a very similar gesture. She has ptosis in her left eye, apparently, which we didn't notice since she was wearing sunglasses. 

We had a few cocktails, which was a bit unlike me, and then we had a few more, and then once the day ended in the park, we went to the pub. Once I'd had enough, I headed for the door, and I missed the step and sprained my ankle. I didn't feel it at first, but once I had slept it off sufficiently it really hurt, to the extent that I was concerned it was broken and I went to A&E to have it checked out. Luckily it didn't take very long to get seen (I guess that is the benefit of going at 05:30) and they told me it was a sprain. I've taken a few ibuprofen, and that seems to be managing it for me. 

All told, though, I really enjoyed Pub In The Park. The weather was great, the music was good and the beers & cocktails were very enjoyable. It's a shame though that I won't be able to go running for a couple of weeks... 

TTFN. 

2022-01-02 - Sunday I - Slowly Does It

Yesterday we visited Level 1 and had a few drinks there and at the Rose and Crown. It was a nice afternoon and evening, but I should have stopped drinking earlier than I did and I am suffering now. I don't regret it, but I do wonder if it was worth it. I won't have a drink now for a while - that'll help to build up a nice run of yellow tea symbols on my Try Dry app. 

It's nice to drink for a change, but I don't want to go back to drinking as much as I used to - that was pointless. It's a way of relaxing that I haven't quite managed to replicate without drinking. A friend once said that a drinking session was like setting a mental "out of office" message, or absolving yourself of responsibility for a few hours, and I think he was right. If there was a way to achieve the same thing without drinking, I'd seriously consider whatever that was... Anyway, that's it for this morning. 

TTFN. 

21-01-03 Sunday Covid-19 Day 295 I - A Dry 2020

Looking back at 2020, maybe it wasn't the best year to not drink any alcohol. There were certainly some days when I could have done with sinking four beers or a bottle of wine, or relaxing into a nice whisky, and forgetting what was going out in the real world.

But on the whole I managed to abstain. I certainly drank enough Heineken Zero and other non-alcoholic beers to sink a battleship or two, and I found one or two I actually liked. Moretti non-alcoholic lager, for one, and Brooklyn "Special Effects" for another. I would add Leffe as a new one, but I'm still undecided on it. And one I'm looking forward to trying is the non-alcoholic Guinness.

I did have an alcoholic drink on three occasions in the year. Once was in March, in Amsterdam - I had a "radler", which I later realised was a shandy. It was a can or bottle, 330ml, the same quantity as you'd get in a can of coke, and it was about 2.5% alcohol by volume. I didn't particularly enjoy it, but I did try some non-alcoholic beers I've not seen in the UK and a few of them were quite tasty.

Then in August, on a Sunday, I had two glasses of prosecco. I did enjoy them. We had visitors, and they brought some bottles, and it was nice weather, etc. The surprising thing was that I didn't have a drink the preceding day, when we had walked ten miles from Littlehampton into Worthing, and then sat in a few pubs in Worthing for the rest of the day. To be honest, I was thinking about having a beer for most of that walk, but then once I smelt the lagers which my walking companions had ordered, I wasn't that keen. Up until that day I had kind of dismissed Nanny State by Brewdog as too stouty / malty, but on that Saturday I really enjoyed it. I did have to leave and get home when everyone else got more drunk than was comfortable, but come the Sunday I was happy with that decision. The last time I had an alcoholic drink, it was a glass of prosecco to celebrate a friend qualifying as an electrician. I would have liked a second, but TW got there first and there wasn't any left for me. No biggie though.

We did discuss me having a drink on New Year's Eve, but we didn't stay up until midnight and by the time we did go to bed, the prosecco had all gone anyway, so there wasn't the opportunity.

I have found it difficult from time to time to stay sober; it's quite an enticing idea, to sink a couple and let go. It's something that comes in waves; I can be quite fine for weeks on end, but then I have a few days where I really fancy a pint. But that feeling normally fades away, and then things are fine again. My trouble is that I enjoy it too much for it to be "a pint" or "just a couple of drinks", and I end up out of control and then massively hungover the next day. Towards the end, in the summer of 2019, being drunk wasn't as much fun as it used to be.

That's the bit I miss though; the chance to let go and be "off duty". If I can find a way to replicate that without getting drunk, I'll have properly nailed it I reckon. Then I won't even want a unit or two of alcohol every hundred days or so. It might be worth looking into that more deeply in 2021. Currently I'm on a 59 day dry streak on the Try Dry app, and I'm looking forward to getting that up to 90 by early Feb. 

TTFN.