Euphoria by Night

I've been meaning to write this post for a while now - well over a year actually - but it only ever seems to pop into my head just after I've done my blogging for the week, stays there until the weekend and then I forget about it by Monday. It's actually a little strange that it ever slips my mind because it's something that I do think about quite a lot and it also fascinates me as well - the memory moves in mysterious ways. Picture the scene: you go around to a friends house armed with a 4 pack of beer with the intention of slowly sipping through them. You don't of course because when you are talking and having a good time you're drinking arm often slips into over time and before you know it you've got 4 empty cans and a slight gassy feeling. This has happened to me on a fair few occasions (although, let's be honest, I don't often only take 4 poxy beers to someone's house) but there have been a couple of times in my life when it's turned out to be a good thing and it is those times that today's post is based around.

Alcohol is a depressant. When you drink alcohol it slows down your brain function and relaxes you - the complete opposite of a stimulant such as coffee. Everyone knows about 'uppers' and 'downers' and alcohol certainly falls into the latter category. Even after those aforementioned 4 beers you can start to feel the affects but the thing is when you've fired through them in an hour and spend the rest of the night drinking soft drinks, your mood tends to lift. On two occasions that I can remember vividly this is what happened and it induced something that I can only describe as euphoria. This feeling didn't come straight away when I was still in the company of people but instead it was when I was walking home at the end of the night that it hit - and what a feeling it was as well. It was as if nobody could bring me down; I felt like I could fly; I felt like I was walking on air and that I could control everything around me. It was as if nothing could go wrong.

The best part about it was that I was so far out of the other end of the affects of the relatively small volume of alcohol that I definitely couldn't have been drunk - 4 beers tends not to have much of an affect on me. I think the change from feeling the depressant affects of alcohol to feeling like I hadn't been drinking whilst I was still in the company of friends was the thing that induced this feeling. I don't think that I have ever been as lucid in my whole life as those two nights as I walked home. The first time that it happened I had my iPod on and so the music that I was listened to might have contributed to it but the second time (and the time that it was most palpable) it was just me and the silent night around me. It was only a 5-10 minute walk but in that time I think I hit the top of the world.

I've tried to emulate that feeling since then without the use of alcohol but to no avail. The closest I get is when I'm on a little bit of a caffeine hit but it doesn't feel quite the same. I don't know what chemicals were released into my head on those nights but I'm going to put it down to my body just saying thanks for not abusing it with a whole crate of beer. It was like a reward for drinking in moderation - not a prize that I've picked up that many times sadly.

I sometimes worry that somebody somewhere is slowly painting a picture of who I am through small bits of information that are in my blog posts but then I realise that the chance of anyone taking the time to do that or there being anyone as sad as that is slim and so I'll keep writing in the same way until I get a knock on the door in the night. 

Thanks for reading, 

Martin