Quitting alcohol
Flying in the face of my nature as an Irishman
I drink on average 6 pints of Guinness and 5 vodka drinks every week. On the low end of the Ireland drink price scale that is around 66 euro a week. That’s 264 euro a month or 3168 euro a year and let me tell you that is a conservative estimate. I’d say once a month I’ll spend 300 in a single weekend. But it’s not my wallet I’m worried about it’s my brain and body. It is poison. If you leave water, yeast and grains in a jar in the forest for a couple of months you’ll get magic juice that’ll make you want to beat your wife (Joke). We’re drinking death. Currently I am doing the Irish Ramadan aka dry January and I’m planning to extend it for several reasons.
Ireland, the land of drunks
There is a terrible old Irish stereotype that we are all foolish drunkards who don’t waste time on education and instead spend our days labouring and then our nights in the pub. Once we are sufficiently scuttered we return home, and Margaret has a bowl of potatoes and a pork chop waiting for us. A meal that tastes indistinguishable from a bowl of sawdust it’s so dry. This is not true. Irish mothers can make spaghetti now too.
I’m joking we’re not as bad as that anymore but there is certainly an obscene drinking culture. A lot of which I think is the fault of trauma. I heard trauma is generational and by God there’s been enough of it in Ireland. The British enslaved poor Irish for hundreds of years and although we are mostly a wealthy and prosperous country now, the years of hurt are evident in our society. The clearest example you can see of it today is alcoholism. The economy in Ireland has improved so rapidly in the last 100 years that the life I live today is alien to that of my grandparent’s generation. I’m doing advanced degrees and have a comfy remote job. My possibilities for the future feel endless. Compared to my grandparent’s generation. Their future was not so full of possibility. The generational poverty given to Catholics from the Brits made life very difficult. This led to drinking which usually leads to abuse, creating more trauma. Trauma that is passed down from generation to generation not epigenetically but through abuse. Hurt people hurt people and how a lot of them deal with the pain is alcohol. Basically, it’s the Brits fault again. I have seen too many people in my life who are completely controlled by alcohol. I have seen the dark and terrible side of alcohol. Lives ruined. These people are cursed. You can feel it when you’re around them. There’s a darkness that sticks to them. They make all around them sad. Their lives are miserable and pathetic. I’ve seen the worst of what it can do, and I’ve been scared straight.
Monkey meme for levity
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It's not that fun anymore
If you have to drink to enjoy spending time with someone or doing something, then you probably don’t like that thing. This revelation struck me this Christmas. Each year in Ireland as I’m sure is the same in many other countries, everybody returns home and has a big piss up. You speak to people you haven’t seen since last year and say the same thing you did then ‘What’re you at now?’. They tell you and you forget, and you do the same again next year. Very pointless.
Even the time I spent with my real friends this Christmas was anticlimactic. I was not bored of their company; I love my friends, but I was bored of the activity. Maybe we’re just getting old (I’m 24 now 🤢), and our nights have changed from taking drugs and going to raves to more mundane conversations of new jobs and girlfriends. But I think the cause of my boredom was the activity… sitting in a circle drinking. People in Ireland especially rural Ireland mostly have two forms of socialising: the GAA and the pub. Maybe it’s a lack of third spaces but it’s hard to socialise anywhere else. Drinking on its own is boring and if I can’t find something more exciting to do then I don’t deserve free time, and I should donate it to alcoholism. But I’m not there yet and I want to see how long I can abstain and make my grandparents roll in their grave in the process. Hopefully it changes my life for the better and I’ll be able to give a 3 month or god forbid 6 month update.