The Night that Changes Things

The penny has dropped. Something has clicked. The missing piece of the jigsaw has been found. I've seen the light. OK I think you get the drift now, and that last one was a bit too akin to religion and so I think I'll stop there. Last Thursday night (the 26th of January 2012 for those of you that like to take notes) I went out to the weekly pub quiz at my favourite watering hole in Edinburgh with friends. No there wasn't any wild boar or zebras there but there was a lot of alcohol and I had my fair share along with my companions. We drank deep into the night, mixing our poisons all the while before making our weary way home - via the late night pizza shop of course. This is not a story of drunken antics (of which there were quite a few) but more about what developed the next day, and the lasting effect that it should have on me.

The morning after was tricky, I'm not going to lie. Being a person who knows when he has to get out of bed for things and then being someone who generally sticks to that, I was up for my 9 o'clock lecture as usual. Just as a side-note, whoever decided that 9'clock lectures on a Friday morning were a good idea deserves to always be the person that has to lecture in them. Anyway, up and at 'em I was on Friday morning after a shower that I can barely remember having and a breakfast that was a mere drink of water. When I arrived at the lecture theatre I felt like I has won the Olympics - and I mean the whole thing - because it was nothing short of a miracle that I made it there without feeling the urge to 'chunder' everywhere. I sat down in the lecture theatre and I felt nothing more than a sore head mixed with the elation that I had managed to make it there. That was when I intoxicated my peers. 

One of the worst side effects of drinking heavily and then having to get up only a few hours later to sit in close proximity with you friends for 50 minutes, is that they can all smell the night before off you. I was, as I said, showered and I had given my teeth a good scrub before leaving the flat but there was the distillery/brewery smell about me that I think repulsed everyone within a 5 metre radius. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could have made me more embarrassed that morning.

You know that something has hit the fan when you friends can almost guess what you were drinking the night before just from sitting beside you. I will be the witness to the fact that I did have a lot to drink the night before but I never realised how much until that moment. I spent the whole 50 minutes wanting the world to swallow me up - and that wasn't because we were getting lectured on servitudes either. Embarrassed actually doesn't cover it and to those that are reading this year now that were in LT4 on Friday morning and had the displeasure of sitting with me, I can only apologise to you (again in many cases).

I therefore vow that this will never happen again. I've heard many people say that they are going to stop drinking after such an experience but that is usually because they have made their own lives horrible the day after. When it starts to make other people uncomfortable as well as you (and my goodness wasn't I feeling crap for the rest of the day) then something has to change. I'm not going to stop drinking because I don't have to. However, recently I've become more and more disillusioned with the discrepancy between the positives and negatives of heavy drinking and I've decided, for now, that enough is enough - literally.

You've read it all before and you probably will again but it almost feels good that it's come to such a head. My Friday morning experience might not seem that bad to some people (it might even be a common occurrence for some) but to me it was a low in my life that I'd rather not repeat.

Thanks for reading and always drink responsibly, as I'm sure you already do.

Martin