THE RESULTS

After much delay, the results for last year's drink count are in.  It was a battle to keep the records as accurate as possible, living by a strict method of recording each drink into my mobile phone as I went, transferring the results to a spreadsheet later on.  How does one keep track of drinks when so pissed that you don't remember some of the drinks the day after? It's actually easy. Habit. Persistence. The rest takes care of itself.

1135 - $3104.70

A point to note here before we get too far into the numbers - a drink in this count is not a standard drink.  It's more like a 'serve' so 1 schooner is a drink, 1 pint is a drink, 1 Long Island Ice Tea is a drink, etc, I think you get the point.  Consider that when you glance over these results and  also while you consider the recommended standard drink intake for a person in a night. Consider binge drinking, consider alcoholism, but more importantly, consider not making this a competition and certainly, above all, consider your health.


THE BEER


The big winners of beer are indicated by 93 (Coopers Pale Ale) and 41 (Corona - a suprising second).   South Australian icon, Coopers Pale is really no suprise winner in the count, and not suprising that it cost the most.  Corona on the other hand I never would have picked and is only up so high because of all the free ones I drank at work - I don't think I would have had more than 2 away from the workplace.  Other mentions go to Coopers Lager (23), Tooheys Extra Dry and Becks (19 each), Grolsh (16) and my own effort Hosenbrau (15), which helped run me into the ground at our inaugural Oktoberfest party.


THE SPIRIT


Clearly looking like the leader in the most tallied and most expensive of the drink types, spirits drove my health crazy in 2007.  Sure, the 4am drunken Jungry Hacks didn't help much either, but I'm pretty sure that without all the vodka I drank last year (with raspberry-76, with lime and soda-75, with orange juice-74, and lemonade-45, to name a few combinations) my liver, kidneys, and digestive system might not feel so shot now.  The fact that drinking only a handful of vodka drinks these days puts my insides into a poisoned, sickening shock for days is indeed quite worrying.  The other stand outs of spirits are gin (55 collectively) and suprisingly, bourbons, whiskeys, scotch, etc (not generally a big brown spirits drinker, those ones snuck up all sneaky-like). I think I have my brown-spirit drinking friends to thank for those.


THE PREMIX


Not much to tell here - 51 Stoli' Black Russians (most free from work), 32 Smirnoff Black Ice (a good way to really kick an evening to overdrive), a handful of Cruisers (thanks again work), a few UDL's and a couple of cups of punch (Simone's Oktoberfest Punch!).  With 107 drinks only equalling $249, that's not much more than $2 a drink - bargain!


THE SHOTS


Ah, the shot - it could take you one way into a good night or it could take you in completely the opposite direction, a really good night.  For some, it's the devil, the thing that you'll regret, the thing that'll fuck you over, but for me, it's the challenge, the explosion, the not knowing what it's going to taste like until it's too late.  Unfortunately, it's also an expensive exercise costing me $428, thanks largely to tequila (22 @ $112), followed not far behind by the Cowboy Cocksucker (13 - thankfully all free from Bar 76!) and the Jager Bomb (10).  Being one to try many a different drink, as with beer and any other type of drink, many shots scored 1, 2, and 3 but all add up to the 124 total.


THE WINE


I think it's fairly obvious here I'm not much of a wine drinker (at least in 2007 - 2008 has so far seen me drink more wine due to the illness caused by drinking spirits - a real side effect of 2007's effort).  Here in 2007, white wine gets the most hits, followed by the sparkling white, red, and funnily enough (or not) Passion Pop in it's own little group at 4.


THE COCKTAIL


Interesting to note that the biggest hit cocktail at 15 (Margarita) was completely free - thanks again work and Social Club for putting on a successful Mexican-themed night - also a night I recall being pretty messy when followed by numerous beers, shots, and spirits, which eventually had me passing out in a stairwell. Second and third goes to Sparkling Pear and the Long Island Ice Tea.



THE TOTALS


For those playing at home, 1135 drinks over 365 days is 3.2 drinks per day, every day.  Some will argue that they would drink more than this (I wish them all the luck with their health) but where it means more in my count is that I don't drink every day.  Hell, I don't even drink every weekend, which means this: when I do drink, I drink a lot and definitely too much.  As seen above, some months are a lot bigger than others.  In January and February, for example, I didn't drink at all for 34 days.  April also scored fairly low meaning I must have made some pretty good ground on the heavier months.

Lets say I drank two out of three weekends in the year - that's about  34 drinks a weekend on average.   That's a lot of drinking in a weekend, especially where some weekend drinking sessions are done in one night with 25-30 drinks.  Here's a good time to re-establish that 1 drink here is not necessarily a standard drink.  That's a really sobering thought.

The best thing, I think, about these totals is the cost.  OK, on the downside, I spent  $3104 on alcohol, but on the upside, it could have been a lot, lot more, when you consider a large number of drinks were free.   This total cost could have easily climbed into the 6k figures so lets be thankful for that.  And I am thankful - thankful to those who shouted the drinks, and those who supply their employees with an amazing amount of drinks - I wonder if they've ever given it this much thought.



THE TRENDS


.....A fairly telling story of my preferred drink type - spirits followed by beer.  The thing about this chart though is that it doesn't really show how the trends changed throughout the year.  Which leads me to the next two graphs.




Spirits hit pretty high the whole way through 2007 only passed by beer a few times, not suprisingly, in the Summer months.  Ah yes, the Summer - the outdoors, the sun, the weather,  the beer.  It's the warm weather that does it.

In the Winter, spirits have kept me the warmest.  Beer just doesn't seem as inviting when it's not sunny and above 25 degrees.  Also to note is the rise of the premix drinks (Black Russians and Black Ice) in Winter.

Finally, it's no suprise that the later half of the year boasts some of the highest points in the graph above.  Where would we be without the festive season!


 
I've thrown in the above costings graph to highlight the change in expenditure over the year.  I suspect a few factors lead to these.  For example, in March I flew to Melbourne to see Helmet and had one of the most expensive drinking nights of the year (Hi Cam!).  As the year progressed, so too did the hole in my wallet.  In September, something quite important happened, which most definitely played a huge part in buying drinks - Cody moved to Adelaide.



IN CLOSING

When I got to July last year and tallied the results at 434, I felt inspired to crack the 1000.  In the end it wasn't that hard at all.  In fact, there were a few times later in the year where I took a few short breaks from drinking.  I even stopped at 999 for a week or so just to make the 1000th drink all that more exciting.  It wasn't really.  In the end it was just another notch in the drinking stick.

So what did I learn here?  Well, as stated earlier, I drink too much.  Or at least, I did.  We're now over half way through 2008 (yes, it's worrying how behind I actually am with this blogging now) and I'm fairly confident I haven't drank anywhere near the number I did this same time last year.  I hear you ask, "are you counting this year?"  Yes, I am, because what would be the point of counting last year if I didn't measure it up to anything.  Having now seen how much can be drunk in a year and how much alcohol that equates to each day, and thinking about what kind of effects that type of poisoning has on the system, I need to challenge myself to bring that number way down.  Can I drink under half of what I did last year?  Let's wait and see.

And remember, this isn't a game.  It's not a competition.  This is my body and my health.  Take care of yours.