THE WAKE UP

First of all, let me start by saying, "FUCK!"

In an ironic twist to this tale of drinking, I got extremely off my guts last Saturday night, disappeared at 4am, waking up sitting on a bench on the side of Pulteney Street at 8am, realising I've lost my phone (or it was stolen from me as I sat passed out?) and along with it 6 months worth of Drink Count records. All that effort recording it all gone because this year, in 2009, I'm not counting anymore, which apparently means I get blind drunk and make dumb decisions resulting in lost propety, more bruises, cuts and scratches of unknown origin, and a very near possibility of having myself mugged, abused, beaten and seriously hurt.

In dealing with this recent stupid behaviour, I am again on a little red wagon of sobriety and responsibility, to be more responsible for myself and those around me, and more specifically, the one closest to me, Simone, who has worried herself sick on more than one occasion when I haven't arrived home, haven't made contact, and even a few times when I have said and done some pretty harsh words and actions against her. For all of these things I say sorry, both to her and others, and to myself.



THE COUNT

Going back 2 years..... in 2007 I decided to play a little counting game. The result that year was 1135 - not standard drinks, just drinks. One shot of Bacardi 151 = 1 drink, a schooner of beer, a pint of beer, a Long Island Ice Tea, all 1 drink each, you get the idea. In that year, I drank about 3.11 drinks a day, which doesn't seem like that much at first but when you consider that I'm generally a weekend only drinker who takes quite a "few weeks off", it starts looking bad for the health.

In 2008 the goal was different - not to "see how much I can drink", but to "see if I can responsibly drink a lot less" - more specifically, under 500.  Seemed kinda doable at first but as I started the year in a fairly big way (close to 100 just in January) the challenge looked possible, but not probable.

I guess I'll never know for sure now just how I went - referring back to my first paragraph of 6 months worth of records lost in a drunken stuper of time I will never get back, like so many times before. It was only a few weeks ago I started moving the records from my trusty record keeping phone into a spreadsheet.  With the phone now long long gone, so is the drink count July to December and the closure of a two-year-long campaign (not to mention all the 10 years worth of phone numbers, information, song recordings, etc I had stored on there).

It is with this fact that I can only speculate where I ended up at the conclusion of 2008. So with all this in mind, I present to you the numbers that were (and the numbers that could have been). Would I have drunk under 500? I don't think so but I guess I'll never know just how close I came to proving something to myself, and to making something better of my health.





Saving a bit of time here.... rather than give you the count of every different drink I had between January and June, I've put together a small handful of drinks to compare.  Going from the bottom up you see that I have again opted to drop a few Pale Ales in favour for alternatives. I can say that Pure Blonde would have been the most drank beer for the entire year. Although the bar graph shows I drank more Beez Neez, this is only due to the fact that I drank more of these in the first few months of the year when in reality I probably drank over double the amount of Pure Blondes than Beez Neez by a long, long way.  Vodka has again rated quite highly although as above, in the later part of the year I dropped a few spirit drinks for beers, in particular Pure Blondes. And am I a wine man..... definitely not.





In 2007 spirits was the big winner, taking out 42% of the tally with 467 drinks out of 1135, beer at a lower 30%. In the graph above for the first half of 2008, spirits took a dive to 33% while beer jumped ahead to 41%. Mind you, overall the numbers are much lower.... but low enough?

In order to crack the lower-than-500 mark, I'm going to have to have drunk on average 41 drinks a month. With an average of about 100 a month last year, is this even imaginable?!





So did I nail my goal of under 500? As I said before, I guess I'll never know with July to December results lost forever. The green bars above are the actualy results for the first half of the year while the red the estimated numbers. I'm able to estimate in this way by going through my photos directory and working out all the nights I drank and whether they were big nights or not, putting this together with the averages from the early part of the year and the month-by-month trends from last year. Presto!

January - Clearly had no memory here of even setting myself the challenge, racking up close to 100 in the first month!
February - Hello?! You say I have to drink on average 41 drinks a month? Shit, better ease up!
March - February and March are generally pretty busy times of year with the Fringe and various other festivals and events happening around town.
April - Again, out of control! I think by this point you can safely say I'm heading for disappointment in my goal.
May - No change, looney!
June - Hello! What have we here? Ruby! Simone and I become proud parents of a pup and the urge to stay in with her is too great! Not to mention there is that whole parental responsibility thing.
July - No, wait, spoke to soon! Me? Drink responsibly?
August - This is where it starts getting interesting. No drinks?! After a big night in July I quit drinking for a while in preparation for and following sinus surgery I had at the beginning of August. Didn't start drikning again until a night in September.
September - Looks like I might be in with a chance?
October - Hmmm, maybe not. Our annual Oktoberfest doesn't help things much either.
November - Second biggest month of the year after January's tally looks to be the final nail in my Drink Count coffin.
December - Suprisingly not as big as Novemeber seeing as though we enter the "silly season". Even my New Years count wouldn't have been as high as the previous year.

Although I had a couple of high counts in the end of the year, one thing I did find is that after my surgery I wasn't drinking as much each time I went out. I couldn't. I got drunk quicker and and felt more sick afterwards if I tried to reach last years efforts. Was it all just "going to my head"?



THE VERDICT

Actual results for January - June : 359.5

Estimated results for 2008 : 643.5

Looks like a fail for the 500 goal but as far as I'm concerned, it's still a win compared to the previous year. But have I learnt anything? Yes, I can choose whether I drink or not, it's just I normally choose to drink. And I have a problem.



I'll leave you on that note and with a random collection of photos from last year, highlighting my drinking tendencies. Did I have a good time? You bet I did. Do I regret any of it? Sure, but 2008 only happens once in your life. Will I change my ways? I'll let you know.