In a departure from her usual column, where she attempts to break through the stereotypical gender barrier, or something, Charlotte Howells tries to explain why she is mostly teetotal...
I'm not saying I haven't got more than a little merry, I have, many a time. I'm not saying I haven't downed more drinks than I could remember, hiccuped my way through wine filled meals and 'enjoyed' tequila slammers and flaming sambucas. I have, and it was fun...for a while. But to be fair, by the time it was legal, I'd kind of had enough...
I'd had enough of lost days to hangovers, of embarrassing myself, of puking my guts up. Of living a life where socialising revolved around drinking until you felt ill. Because I've only got one life, and that's not really what I'd like to do with it.
I don't really see anything wrong with people going out and drinking to have a good time. But it makes me sad that people have to drink to have a good time. It saddens me that the main leisure activity in this country is getting drunk. Is there really nothing else to do? Are we all that inhibited that we can only have fun while inebriated? I'm shy to the point of ridiculous, but even I know that I can have a good time without drinking.
I just spent three months in Canada, and the difference was startling. People did things. They went for walks, skied, went to the pool, went out for non-drunken meals. And they hardly ever went out just to go drinking. If you went to the pub, all you'd find was English people getting wasted.
Over here, if you don't want to go out and spend money on poisoning yourself, you're the one who's boring. The one who has 'no life'. But what sort of life is it where your weekends involve doing stuff you don't remember, followed by recovering from the stuff you don't remember? What's the point of going to a new place if all you're going to do there is drink?
So what do I do, if I don't drink? I remember my conversations with my friends, I go places and actually know what they look like. I have interests that don't involve the bottom of a bottle. And I feel that my life is better because of that. I don't want a life that I won't remember, I don't want all my time with my friends to be a blur. I want to look back on the good times, and for them to be clear.
I've also seen what alcohol can do when it isn't just a weekend thing. When it's an everyday, can't live without it thing. And it isn't pretty. Drink not only throws away your memories, it can throw away your health, alienate you from your friends and family, and turn you into a person you're not.
I quite want to keep my memories, my health, my non grey and sallow skin, my money, and my sanity, and for that reason, I won't be drinking any time soon.
Charlotte Howells would like to point out that she doesn't see anything wrong with the occasional amaretto and coke, but that binge drinking does not qualify as a hobby. She edits Kiss and Makeup, for those who collect make up for a pastime, and Nollie, for women whose interests are of the extreme variety.
