I have a drink problem, I admit. It’s not with alcohol though, it’s with Diet Coke/Coke Light (although now I am more into Coke Zero because Diet Coke/Coke Light was always marketed as a girl’s drink whereas Coke Zero is positioned as a cool, manly kinda drink).
Compare and contrast:
with …
That’s marketing for you. If you’re a bloke and you drink Coke without sugar in a white can you’re a big girly faggot; drink it in a black can and you’re a kinky sex God.
Same drink; totally different brand identity.
Errm … where was I?
Oh yes, well actually I don’t really care what brand of low-calorie cola it is really, just as long as I drink lots of it. All the time.
People keep telling me that this is really bad for me. They keep whittering on about “have you seen what happens when you leave a penny in a glass of Coke overnight?”
Well yes, I have seen what it does and I am really impressed. The insides of all of my bodily organs must be spotlessly clean and gleamingly bright as a result of the amount of all that cleansing Coke that flushes through them day and night.
But after 12+ hours of drinking Diet Coke, Diet Coke and more Diet Coke, my tastebuds are getting a bit bored of the sensation and demanding something else to satisfy them. So what can I drink? Water? That’s the liquid equivalent of salad – doesn’t taste of anything apart from healthiness, and that’s dull. Juice? Leave it for the kids. Too healthy again and probably very sugary and fattening.
No, by the evening time, my body is demanding something different. Something more alcoholic.
I drink three different kinds of alcohol for three different kinds of occasions:
1. Beer - this is for pleasant social engagements, usually in the presence of other males because beer is a very blokey, matey, manly kind of drink. Nothing says “I’m a real, normal average and ordinary bloke with no pretensions” like a bottle of beer. It’s for getting a bit of a buzz, but still being able to drive home in a country where they don’t test your alcohol levels and everyone else drives like they’re totally pissed naturally anyway.
2. Vodka and Apple Juice: I discovered this in Riga while I was trying to chat up (unsuccessfully as always) a couple of girls at a club and they both wanted vodka and apple juice. So I had one as well, and it was absolutely great. I’ve never been much of a spirits drinker – most of it just tastes like paraffin or an industrial detergent to me. I guess it’s an acquired taste that I never got around to acquiring. But the apple juice masks the taste of the vodka and the vodka cancels out the sweetness of the apple juice and so it’s a really great combination.
Try it some time.
So vodka and apple juice is my “Saturday night out clubbing” drink of choice. Having been very poor for most of the past few years, I usually start drinking at home from around 19.30, which means that, by the time I go out at midnight, I am already 90% wasted, so that I hit the clubs already fired up, wasting no time being out and sober and I also only need to keep a bit topped up at inflated club prices.
I then attempt to get as drunk as possible without crossing over the line into “I’m going to vomit/feel like shit in the morning” territory. I am very good at judging this and often have a Diet Coke in between the vodka and apple juices to stop me from going too far over the line.
There are occasions that my natural balance doesn’t work though. Sometimes this can happen at house parties when I just keep refilling my glass without being able to measure a shot exactly or keep a running tally of how many I’ve had because I’m not paying for each one.
On other occasions I’ve been in circumstances like being befriended by a group of Russian sailors who insist on my drinking shots with them. In such situations, you can’t really shake your head and say, “Sorry, but I’m just a big girly-man who has had quite a bit already and will be very ill if I take you up on your kind offer, so I must decline.”
So instead I just match them for as long as possible until they too are so wasted to notice that I’ve slipped away from them.
Another talent that I have is the ability to predict exactly how long I have to go before I get so ill that I start to vomit. In many situations, even though I was completely wasted, my brain was doing calculations like “you will start vomiting in around 12 minutes time. It’s going to take you nine minutes to get home and so you have precisely three minutes to get out of the club in order to reach the toilet.”
Due to this skill, the last time I vomited in public was in 1986 getting off the tube in Turnpike Lane.
3. Wine – I have always associated wine with complete wankers and so feel a little ashamed at admitting in public that I drink wine. It’s like admitting to playing golf. Or liking Abba. It just reeks of middle-class dinner parties with twats warbling on about its ‘bouquet’ and ’slight elements of cinnamon and nutmeg’.
What a load of bollocks.
It’s just fucking alcoholic grape juice, for fuck’s sake. Why the hell would anyone spend $30, $50, $100, $200 for a bottle of that?
It always makes me laugh when they give all of these supposed ‘wine experts’ some blind-tasting experiment and they all end up going for some Chilean Chardonnay from Tesco’s costing £2.99 rather than some vintage snobby thing from a noble French vineyard deep in the Dordogne.
Tossers.
No, wine really is for wankers – when they drink it by the glass over a meal. When I drink wine, it’s by the bottle, on my own, late at night when I need something to send me off to sleep and I drink it because it’s a pretty cheap and tasty way to get bladdered of a night. And it’s usually the cheapest bottle of wine I can find (apart from Kagor from Georgia [that's the American puppet nation-state just to the south of Russia of South Ossetia fame rather than the state of Georgia just to the south of South Carolina] which is just too filthy even for me to drink).
I ran out of wine a few days ago. To try and prove that I wasn’t dependent on it, I didn’t order any more straight away. But, within three days or so, I was really missing it and so I got another case in tonight.
Does this mean that I’m an alcoholic then, because I’ve been “missing it”? I wasn’t sure, so I’ve done a bit of Googling.
First Google result:
http://alcoholism.about.com/od/tests/a/quiz_alcoholic.htm
1. Q: Do you lose time from work due to drinking?
No.
2. Q: Is drinking making your homelife unhappy?
No, it’s fucking great! It’s the not drinking that’s making my homelife unhappy.
3. Q: Do you drink because you are shy with other people?
Yes, that’s part of the reason, but only when I’m out in the club. Not when I’m in front of my PC writing random rants like this one that no one ever reads anyway.
4. Q: Is drinking affecting your reputation?
No, not drinking pints with the lads. It’s drinking girly drinks like Diet Coke that could be affecting my reputation or telling Russian sailors that I’m not enough of a man to match them shot for shot.
5. Q: Have you ever felt remorse after drinking?
Not really.
6. Q: Have you had financial difficulties as a result of drinking?
Not really, because I get pissed at home on the cheap before I go out, as I mentioned earlier.
7. Q: Do you turn to inferior companions and environments when drinking?
No, I sit in front of my PC for most of the day whether I’m drinking or not.
8. Q: Does your drinking make you careless of your family’s welfare?
No, I am careless of my family’s welfare when I am sober – that’s why I keep on starting so many mad new businesses.
9. Q: Has your ambition decreased since drinking?
No, I wish it would actually, then I’d stop starting up all these mad new businesses and act like a normal human being instead.
10. Q: Do you crave a drink at a definite time daily?
Yes, at about 22.00 when I’m totally fucked off with answering idiots’ emails all day.
11. Q: Do you want a drink the next morning?
God no, can’t think of anything worse. I need my caffeine in the mornings.
12. Q: Does drinking cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
No, you fucking twats. It’s not drinking that causes me to have difficulty in sleeping. That’s one of the main reasons that I drink a bottle of red a night – because it sends me off immediately.
13. Q: Has your efficiency decreased since drinking?
Efficiency at what, exactly? Be more specific, please. Sexual efficiency, yes. Writing random bollocks all night, no. Getting off to sleep inside 20 minutes, no.
14. Q: Is drinking jeopardizing your job or business?
Nope
15. Q: Do you drink to escape from worries or trouble?
Only a little bit. I’m going to answer no.
16. Q: Do you drink alone?
Yup
17. Q: Have you ever had a loss of memory as a result of drinking?
Nope (at least I can’t remember losing my memory 
)
18. Q: Has you physician ever treated you for drinking?
Nope
19. Q: Do you drink to build up your self-confidence?
Yes, in social company that’s partly the case.
20. Q: Have you ever been to a hospital or institution on account of drinking?
No
That was nearly all no’s. Must be OK then – let’s see what they say:
Your score is 20%. According to the Office of Health Care Programs, Johns Hopkins University Hospital, developers of this screening quiz, if you answered 3 of these questions with a Yes it is a definite sign that your drinking patterns are harmful and possibly considered alcohol dependent or alcoholic. You may want to seek an evaluation by a healthcare professional.
Oh fuck off! Even the fucking Pope would fail that test, you bunch of nanny-state, hypochondrical wankers.
I demand a retest.
So let’s try the next link on Google:
http://www.ehealthmd.com/library/alcohol-use/alcoholuse-alcoholic.html
| 1. How often do you have a drink containing alcohol? | _____ |
| (0) Never
(1) Monthly or less (2) 2 to 4 times a month (3) 2 to 3 times a week (4) 4 or more times a week |
|
| 2. How many drinks containing alcohol do you have on a typical day when you are drinking? | _____ |
| (0) 1 or 2
(1) 3 or 4 (2) 5 or 6 (3) 7 to 9 (4) 10 or more |
|
| 3. How often do you have six or more drinks on one occasion? | _____ |
| (0) Never
(1) Less than monthly (2) Monthly (3) Weekly (4) Daily or almost daily |
|
| 4. How often during the last year have you found that you could not stop drinking once you had started? | _____ |
| (0) Never
(1) Less than monthly (2) Monthly (3) Weekly (4) Daily or almost daily |
|
| 5. How often during the last year have you failed to do what was normally expected from you because of drinking? | _____ |
| (0) Never
(1) Less than monthly (2) Monthly (3) Weekly (4) Daily or almost daily |
|
| 6. How often during the last year have you needed a first drink in the morning to get yourself going after a heavy drinking session? | _____ |
| (0) Never
(1) Less than monthly (2) Monthly (3) Weekly (4) Daily or almost daily |
|
| 7. How often during the last year have you had a feeling of guilt or remorse after drinking? | _____ |
| (0) Never
(1) Less than monthly (2) Monthly (3) Weekly (4) Daily or almost daily |
|
| 8. How often during the last year have you been unable to remember what happened the night before because you had been drinking? | _____ |
| (0) Never
(1) Less than monthly (2) Monthly (3) Weekly (4) Daily or almost daily |
|
| 9. Have you or someone else been injured because of your drinking? | _____ |
| (0) No
(2) Yes, but not in the last year (4) Yes, during the past year |
|
| 10. Has a relative, friend, doctor, or other health care worker been concerned about your drinking or suggested you cut down? | _____ |
| (0) No
(2) Yes, but not in the last year (4) Yes, during the past year |
|
| (But she complains about pretty much everything I do anyway and so I’m not really sure if she counts.) | |
| Now add up the numbers in all the boxes. Write the total here. |
That would be 13 then. So what does that mean?
If the total is 8 or more, you may have an alcohol problem. You may want to talk with your doctor or a mental health or alcohol abuse professional to get help.
Oh just fuck off, will you? I just drink a bottle of fucking wine most nights to get to sleep and because I am bored of the taste of Diet Coke, and this is like a BIG PROBLEM?
I’m not some fucking wifebeating loser sitting in the gutter with a bottle of meths in my hand, singing in an Irish accent and crying because alcohol has fucked up my life completely.
Bloody do-gooders – they’re enough to drive a man to drink.
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October 9, 2008 at 1:01 am
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