Is teetotal tedium?

It’s the eve of my first week of the booze fast. I can’t say I’ve noticed much of a change. I thought it might be a good way to lose weight but nary a kilo has gone.

I’ll not be reporting here my before and after weight – this is not a Bridget Jones-style diary. Suffice it to say my sylph-like days are behind me. Nor am I likely to trouble anyone concerned by 'size zero'. But still, somewhat of a disappointment at the scales this morning. It could be that I’m eating faster – no wine with dinner gives me less reason for pause? I’ve also noticed the emergence of a latent sweet tooth (savoury is usually my downfall). But I’ve joined a gym, watch this space.

Another letter from another S, who also says she enjoys red wine. There are lots of us!
She too gave up drink, for the month of January, where she reports discovering quite how long the weekends can be. That’s two now who suggest that teetotal is tedium.

But like me there are clearly are women out there thinking about the amount they drink. And no wonder. The headlines have been screaming. “Twice as many Scots die from drink than in the rest of the UK” shouts a recent headline from the Scotsman.

And that Official Government advice says 2 to 3 units a day for women and no more than 14 units a week. More, and your Health is at Risk.

To me this seems stringent, but then I would say that - I couldn’t count the weeks I drank over 14 units. Let alone the days over 2 or 3! And days over 14? Wouldn’t doubt it. Bet I felt rough the next day, though.

But aside from the risks to health generally associated with heavy drinking – driving under the influence, falling over, having unprotected sex with someone one might not otherwise, or rape or violence – direct health risks are those more associated with long time chronic alcohol dependency, including hepatitis, cirrhosis of the liver, gastritis or pancreatitis as well as brain damage and vitamin deficiency.

So what’s an alcoholic? According to the Institute of Alcohol Studies, a person is considered to be dependent on alcohol when they have three or more of the following symptoms during a year.
· A strong urge to drink, difficulty controlling how much they drink, or difficulty stopping.
· Physical withdrawal symptoms, such as sweating, shaking, agitation and nausea when they try to reduce drinking.
· A growing tolerance to alcohol - needing larger quantities to get the same effect.
· Gradual neglect of other activities.
· Persistent drinking even though it is obviously causing harm.

I’d check one – “difficulty controlling how much”. But then it’s often a running joke when, after work, someone suggests going out for ‘just one’, and then everyone ends up going home steaming…

The good thing is I was wrong in my first blog entry – 5 units, which I drank on my last night, wasn’t actually a proper binge. In fact, as the British Medical Association points out, www.bma.org.uk/ap.nsf/Content/Hubhotpbingedrinking, outside of the fevered brains of some headline writers, there is little consensus of how much constitutes a binge. For the sake of simplicity, they suggest a binge as being 7 units (half of the weekly limit).

Luckily I’m not yet that bored without booze. Although I looked at the calendar today and five weeks stetches out ahead of me a distant desert horizon.

Made it to the weekend

I'm exhausted, as if I've been wrung out. Yesterday (Friday) I felt distracted, a bit fuzzy, not unlike the feeling you get when withdrawing from caffeine. I also had a few bitches at colleagues (sorry, guys). I've also got some spectacular spots. Is it the (lack of) drink?

I wonder. Mitigating a direct correlation between these symptoms and my booze fast, I'm also premenstrual (sorry squeamish chaps) and it was likely to be a stressful week in the office, which panned out as I'd expected - it was stressful! One of those weeks where, short of staff, you have to fill in, which gets you even more behind schedule. You can't blame anyone except perhaps your bosses at head office, but that is another blog. My husband told me I've been grumpy, but then he often does.

Thursday I also went to my first dinner event sans vin. It was ok, pleasant event and I walked confidently home. It was a relatively sober event at any rate - lots of discussion about an upcoming charitable event to raise money for breast cancer. Mainly posh and/or well to do women there, which is inevitably a type which doesn't, in my experience, drink alcohol in vast quantities - at least not in public.

As my job often calls upon me to 'work the room', I find I use alcohol as method of lubricating my way from social interaction to interaction. One of my husband's favourite jokes about the difference between us - I'm North American and he's British - is that to him a room full of strangers is something to be avoided at all costs, while for me a room full of strangers is a room full of potential friends.

But I do fear sometimes that I might find the chatter dull, vacuous, pointless unless I've got a glass of something in my hand and a good idea how to fill it when it is empty. There is something about it to my mind like a nervous reflex - empty glass bad. My first email about this blog (sent to its dedicated email address 40daysinthewilderness@gmail.com) was from S, a fellow connoisseur of a nice bottle of red, who said she gave up drinking for a time and found herself bored. Thanks for the suggestion, S, I probably will need a hobby. For now, it's this blog! I won't be out all hours drinking - I was home by 10pm on Thursday for example.

Out to meet a girlfriend for lunch, and rather than stay at the pub (it's happened to us a few times) we might even hit a gallery or museum. One point for culture.

Ash Wednesday

So far so good. Lunch at Harvey Nick's Forth Floor Restaurant has the sort of view that almost requires champagne to celebrate, but a gesture towards the wine list by the host was easily dismissed. Interestingly both my dining companions seemed relieved to opt for a bottle of water. And the announcment of my Lenten fast was recieved with a 'good show' sort of
reaction.

In this day and age, the decision to have a drink or not at lunch seems to me to be fraught - for some a glass of wine civilises a nice meal but for others it's a sign of frowned upon indulgence (guess which statementI might agree with). But if one has a drink there's a sense that it's politic all should - or if you opt out you make it clear that others are welcome. There's always hesitation. I've seen it happen loads of times.

After lunch a quick tour around the food floor to buy something to go along with pasta for dinner tonight. They have a terrific wine selection there and am caught up short when I look at the price tag for one bottle - £140! Must be amazing for that price. Then catch myself looking at wines - why should I bother! I buy a stupidly expensive quarter loaf of Poilane instead and some Jerusalem artichokes.

It feels a bit strange writing about drink in this manner, making it seem as if drinking occupies my thoughts often. They don't really, it's just what the blog's about. In fact, I would put it out that quite a lot of drinking alcohol is unthinking - automatic rather than an active choice. I suppose this is what makes it somehow ubiquitous in the UK as a past time -

The Night Before

Fat Tuesday. Mardis gras. Pancake day. I make pancakes for dinner and open a nice bottle of Crozes Hermitage to breathe. It's terrific - a 2002. Then a brandy for a nightcap. Drink down my last swallow before midnight. It's the last drop I'll have until sundown on the 5th of April.

Why am I doing it? I don’t consider myself an alcoholic. I don’t think I need it. But it is a big part of my culture. If drinking half a bottle of Bordeaux of an evening with my husband is binge drinking (which for women is, apparently), then I binge drink at least a few times a week. Then if drinking wine Saturday lunch with the girls at a downtown restaurant, then having a vodka alco-pop at the Rugby match, then three glasses of wine and two shots of sambucca in the bar after is even worse, then that was me just a few weeks ago.

Having completed a few questionnaires on drinking behaviour, I’ve been advised I’m putting my health at risk with the amount I regularly drink. And I’ve been imbibing alcohol like this for years. Many years. If the amount I drink now shocks you, I’ve even reduced the amount I drink over the past few years.