The Cliff edge
The trouble with a lost weekend is that the ripples of loss extend way beyond its apparent temporal bounds. At the time of reckoning, you find it’s a lost week. Mine finished two days ago, but I can still sense it.
And along with mere time, plenty more gets swept out to sea: momentum, fascination, appetite, engagement. Plans and good intentions. There wasn’t a whole lot of rediscovered fitness, but what there was, went. The only thing gained was around 5 pounds of pure lard. The sort that drips from takeaway curries, late-night cheese and biscuits, pizza, ice cream, bacon sandwiches, chocolate, crisps and peanuts, beer and wine.
But you know me, I like to look on the positive side of things. So I’m regarding those four days as part of the experiment. Perhaps the part that proves just how dangerous booze can be. If it’s a lesson learned, I can be happy with it.
Two weeks of healthy living: abstinence from alcohol; good nutritional grub; exercise; pre-midnight bedtimes; and I felt more alive than I have done in months. I rediscovered my appetite for running and writing and reading and living. Crikey, I even cut the grass and dug a few holes in the garden without it having to be ‘suggested’ to me. Then Thursday came.
M had been away at her folks. I hadn’t had a conversation with anyone in two days, and was beginning to get stir crazy. There was a European football semi-final on the telly, and a pub over the road that would be showing it. Hey come on fellas, surely a couple of beers, and an hour or two of inane soccer chat would do more good than harm?
Only three beers — hardly excessive. I had to work the next day, after all. But I just had to chomp on some crisps and peanuts, and after a fortnight of holiness, I emerged into the night sensing a new devilishness in the air. The breach, albeit small, had been made. Next evening was Friday, and a holiday weekend. Aw, why not? Bang! Indian takeaway with all the fat-laden accessories, bottle of wine. Ice cream.
Saturday, I had a call from a mate about meeting up for ‘a couple of pints’. Hmm. Hard to have just a couple of pints of that legendary West Berkshire brew, Good Old Boy, so often recommended in these pages. And Sunday was football day, and a trip to Loftus Road. At a time of low resistance, there was little chance of avoiding the habit carved so deep by so many years. Beer and football, and Chubby’s Famous Giant Cheeseburger. And once I’d got home? Well, with a bank holiday the next day… was it such a sin to crack open a bottle of decent claret to lubricate that wedge of unctuous Dolcelatte, and that half brick of richly flavoured, mature farmhouse Cheddar?
And here, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we have the crime laid out before us, like a patient etherised upon a table. Four days of delicious, filthy pleasure.
Then yesterday, the bill arrived.
I lay in bed for a while, nursing my reinflated midriff and shrunken ego. And I realised that I’m losing my love affair with beer. It’s not that I drink excessively by the standards of a lot of people I know, and have known. But it’s all the baggage that comes with it: the junk food, the apathy, the collapse in morale; the drawing down of the blinds on the world outside. Life becomes an altogether more internalised experience. The last couple of weeks, before the weekend, were a reminder of how fresh and vital the world can be. Inexplicably, I’d kinda forgotten.
A few sentences ago, I wrote: “Four days of delicious, filthy pleasure.” I hesitated as I typed those words, because it struck me then, that perhaps there is no longer that much pleasure in it. Or not usually.
Trouble is, I have an idealised vision of perfect drinking joy. In my imagination, I am visiting an old country pub on a winter’s day, at the end of a walk. The evocative sounds: creaking hand-pumps; the burble of friends in happy conversation; the deep clurruck of pint glass on mahogany bar; the crackle of the wood fire, and the glow it transmits to the nutty-red liquid. Or change the scene: here I am, swooning over the rich, multi-layered scents in a fine red Bordeaux — leather and blackcurrant and farmyard and tobacco — and sharing the joy in the company of good friends and fine food.
But how often do I manage to hit these high notes? Once or twice a year? Admit it. It’s all an apparition. Those ads for Stella Artois that evoke ancient European tradition and brewing perfection? It’s a damn lie. I had a pint of Stella last weekend, while waiting for my takeaway, and was struck by the essential soullessness of the product. It was little more than a big fizzy glass of cold water, with only the metallic bite of alcohol to give its existence the faintest raison d’etre. Why do we tolerate this? Why do we willingly pay £3.40 or so for a pint glass full of this joyless junk drink? What is the point of it?
It’s not the first time I’ve thought this: that most of the time, when I have a drink, I engage not with genuine pleasure but with assumed pleasure. Until now, I’ve driven the idea away, because abstinence seemed an even duller option. But the last couple of weeks have made me reassess that. I found my inner Cliff Richard, and was shocked and embarrassed at how good it felt.
I don’t like the idea of not drinking again, but I want to strip away some of the easy assumptions. As a habit, it’s become tedious. Maybe it’s an age thing. Even though only drinking a couple of evenings a week on average, I’m not sure that my Friday nights in the pub are as much fun as I think them to be; and more important, recovery takes longer than it used to. It would be good to restrict drinking to genuinely worthwhile occasions, instead of spectating as I ooze along the groove of routine.
It’s probably clear, but I’ll spell it out anyway to ensure I feel the full painful weight of the fact: I’ve done no running in the past week. It’s a set-back, but not a defeat. The week hasn’t been wasted; it was invested in some valuable experience, and I’ll use it. I’ve consulted the doctor in me, and he’s written the prescription: no alcohol for at least four weeks. Let’s see where that gets me. Will I be screaming for relief, or with relief?
Stay tuned and find out.
