Monday 12 August 2013

#DrinkingSeason: Ben's Booze Banter

Bonjour cunts, as many of you may know from personal experiences with me I’m quite an avid borderline alcoholic.

If you can’t ever remember seeing me so drunk I made a complete twat of myself and all those around me, you need to seek medical advice because clearly you’re suffering from major blackouts or memory loss.

Anyway, recently I’ve been slightly worried about my colossal intake of alcohol. I don’t know if I’m simply being a bit of a hypochondriac or if in fact this is an actual, legitimate, reasoning from my subconscious.

You see, I drink A LOT. That’s not some kind of braggadocios claim, like; “I drink more than you” [although I do], it’s a stone cold fact [I could also out drink Steve Austin, stone cold fact #2]. For as long as I can remember I’ve drank almost everyday [of the week, not the entire 24 hours]. I like to think it started when I came* to University, but delving into my corrupted memory bank of before I departed to Derby, I still used to spend most nights drinking with friends in my hometown. Back then it was all there was to do in our small shitty town, but now I’m a proper grown up, paying council tax and whole lot, surely I should have moved on from this ‘habit’ by now?

So why do I drink? I don’t have a definitive answer, I think it’s a combination of factors, the first being habit.

You see I like routine, I’m a simple, yet boring individual and I like to know where I stand day to day. I like being in my comfort zone; at home with alcohol… and sometimes friends. Anything away from that and elements are out of my control and I don’t like having to give up complete dominance of my surroundings, it makes me feel weak. Yet, if everyday passes with no massive alterations between one and the next, I feel content in life. Just writing this makes me pity my own existence, especially when you take into account how fleeting life is. Maybe I’ve lost my drive, ambition and self-belief that I’m capable of doing anything else with my life. That moves us swiftly on to my second reason of why I drink…

Escapism. Alcohol like many other wonderful drugs, helps ease off reality. And let’s face it; reality, much like reality TV, is fucking awful. If you think reality is anything but awful you’re either; an optimist that’s yet to have life crush that hope out of you or you’re a botched lobotomy patient. On the rare occasions I don’t drink [due to the fact I can’t afford to] and I go to bed sober, my inner voice begins to role off that long list of problems in my life; debt, health, future, bills, rent, the disgusting human being I’ve become. That begins the never ending spiral of self-hate which culminates in me sitting up until the early hours of the morning, unable to sleep, making empty promises to myself about how I’m going to change. Those promises never happen. Then the next time this happens the intensity of my self-loathing escalates to astronomical levels. Alcohol amends this, with enough in my system that little inner voice has nothing to chime in about, it blocks out that nagging talk in the back of head and helps me relax and be happy, without the constant fears of how my life is mapping out.

Boredom. I get bored extremely quickly. I get bored with people, bored with tasks, bored with entertainment, right now as I write this I’m itching to get out my seat and do something else, because quite frankly I’m bored of writing at this precise minute [but you can tell that from the lack of jokes]. Yet, the only reason I’m writing is because I’m bored of everything else there is to do in my flat… fucking explain that one! Alcohol doesn’t totally cure boredom. It’s not like I sit in a dark room, swigging SoCo from the bottle congratulating myself on how so not-bored I am. Alcohol just makes things less boring; episodes of QI on Dave I’ve seen a million times before, the latest shit comedy film Hollywood has churned out, listening to my friend’s relationship problems… You get the picture, all the mundane shit that we come across daily. You see, while I like to think of myself as a boring individual [I have two topics of conversation], I detest being bored, my mind thrives on constant information. Alcohol subsides that need of stimulating entertainment.

So, am I an alcoholic?

I’m not capable of self-diagnosing, really. The government suggests having at least two dry days a week and if you’re able to do this you’re probably not addicted to alcohol, I tried my hand at it and was successful [for one week, this is only the second]. But the pure fact that they suggest only two dry days was slightly shocking to me, which made me think on the grander scale that I’m probably not alone in how much I actually drink.

Yet I do think I have an addictive personality; smoking, TV, tea, chicken wings, I’ve done more than my fair share of recreational drugs in the past and my personal opinion is I ‘liked’ one a little too much, but when the down out-weighted the high, my perspective changed. Maybe this will happen with alcohol; maybe I’m just one massive hangover away from calling it time gentleman, please, on my drinking… although with my current drinking form I average less than ten impactful hangovers a year, so for one to make me want to quit drinking altogether may put me on my deathbed before I take note.

I think my biggest problem isn’t alcohol, it’s what I’ve mentioned; routine, escapism and boredom. These are all problems with me personally, I need routine, but routine makes me bored and I need to escape it. Maybe if I just get off my arse and make alterations to my daily actions I not need to drink so much. Maybe if I stopped spending all my money on drink, I could pay off those debts. Maybe if I spent less time being drunk I could regain some self-belief and drive to actually achieve something in life instead of moaning about it in a drunken stupor. 



*Proof reading this, I noticed this; “came to University”, it obviously should be; “went to University”, clearly I still think of myself as living that Uni life style. 

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