The last couple of days I’ve had to face my toughest challenge to date...The Weekend.
It all started with an impromptu invite from a close friend. I don’t know what part of ‘’I’m going for a few drinks after work tonight for a colleagues birthday if you’d like to come” (loosely translated to “come and sit with randoms you will have no common ground with and make small talk all the while watching them down pints as you sip on your soda water”) sounded like a great way to spend my Friday night but for some unknown reason I took up my friends offer and thought it would be a good opportunity to dip my toe into the Bacardi filled pool that is socialising sober so went along to toast good old Dave on his 38th Birthday.
My arse hadn’t hit the chair before the realisation set in that I’d made a severe error in judgement, everyone was already half cut, double my age and laughing at their ‘in’ jokes while I sat on the side lines feeling as irrelevant to the group as Anthony Costa was to Blue. It's not as if i have no social skills, I can chat shit with the best of them pissed or sober, however I also happen to have the shortest attention span and little patience for those I find uninteresting or unbeneficial in any way. In fact it was the very traits that I’ve inherited from my father that could threaten the challenge he set for me. After 37 listless minutes I’d decided that for my first foray into this unknown territory I’d made a gallant effort so turned it in for the night and had all but written off the prospect of leaving the house for the entirety of February.
Saturday however was a different story, for a kick off I didn’t realise how productive a weekend could be, I assumed the majority of Britain was in a booze fuelled slumber like me untill at least 12pm but as it happens the shops are open, the birds are singing, and there is actually a lot you can achieve before those bloody smug T4 presenters sign off for the day. I was bouncing round the streets and markets of London like a scene from Mary Poppins, if ever there was a time for Dick Van Dyke to pop up with a show tune this was it.
Getting ready to go out for the night and Instead of my standard bottle of Sainsburys £2.68 table wine (I swear it's right up there with Blossom Hill) and 3 Strongbows, I settled for a green tea, pro plus and longing glance at the bottle of Vodkat carelessly thrown on my bedroom floor. then the housemate (whose back on the wagon) and I headed out to Camden to meet some friends. I thought this would be a particularly challenging evening, mainly because anyone whose experienced Camden will know that even pissed out your mind you feel as if your one state of euphoria behind the rest, and I wont lie it got off to a shaky start.
I'd lost confidence in my ability to maintain a conversation relating to anything other than the reason I wasn't drinking, I'd happily of talked about that all night but I got the impression that with the constant texts begging for support, facebook updates about my progress and pained expressions when I heard so much as a cube of ice hit a glass I'd pretty much exhausted this topic of conversation.
However against all the odds and all my predictions it actually turned into a bloody good night. For once I can actually remember quite clearly how it transpired. I didn't wake up with that knot of regret in my stomach about what inappropriate remark I'd made or have to sing to myself just to concentrate on anything other than the memory of those dance moves I swore were cutting edge the night before. No pieces of jewellery left in precarious places, no treck across London to reclaim jewelery (in the highly unlikely event I remember where precarious place was), no miscellaneous calls or texts at stupid O'clock, No shady character to kick out of your living room (or worse), no banging headache, no bin full of vomit and about £40 better off to boot!!
I honestly think I could get used to a sober existence.....
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