I had a few drinks this evening, and I am now feeling regrets. Not because I’ve drunk too much or are smashed off my face or anything, but because it just felt like a big waste of time, and it’s a whole lot of “bad stuff” that probably won’t help the weight loss.
I’ve been feeling a curious… absence of anything any time I’ve tried drinking in the last few years. The most I feel is getting a bit hot and flushed after a couple of whatevers, but I can’t remember the last time I felt genuinely merry, tipsy or drunk.
On balance, this is probably a good thing, because being drunk tends to lead to doing and/or saying stupid things, but it’s also a bit of a shame that drinking appears to have become an activity that I derive no joy from whatsoever, whereas back in my student days it was inevitably a central part of social occasions, and I have plenty of stories involving drunken nights out.
I attribute this to a few things. Firstly, I’m not getting any younger, though I know age doesn’t necessarily preclude anyone from enjoying a drink or two to the degree that they feel they’re affecting them. Secondly, I haven’t been really fucking drunk for… probably at least ten years at this point, possibly more. I would have thought that would make my tolerance drop to rock bottom, but as noted above, I just feel… nothing, really.
Probably the most significant reason that I derive no joy from drinking is because I’ve seen what overreliance on alcohol can do to a person and the people around them, on more than one occasion. Thankfully all the people I have known with such a problem are all comfortably recovering now, but I still can’t help but be reminded of the things I saw and heard when things were really bad.
In fact, I’d probably go so far as to say that I’m probably traumatised by such things. I hasten to add that nothing irreversibly bad happened to or was done to me by or as a result of the person who had the problem, but I will say that you should never assume the person directly suffering with alcohol-related issues is the only one who needs support. I went through some rather dark times of my own, and I suspect residual feelings towards those dark times have resulted in me drawing no joy from alcohol today.
As I say, it’s a bit of a shame, because I always used to enjoy a boozy night out with friends, and indeed there are almost certainly entries in the depths of this blog’s archives that outline exactly how and why I enjoyed such occasions. But for any and/or all of the reasons outlined above — plus the fact I rarely see “friends” in general at all these days, particularly post-COVID — that’s just not something that is anywhere even vaguely near the top of my priority list these days.
Every time I’ve had a drink or two in the last few years, I’ve felt something like this. So I think it might just be time to say that enough is enough, I don’t need or want alcohol in my life, and leave it at that. I guess that part of my life is passed.
Which, as I say, is probably a good thing, on balance.
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