Saturday 17 December 2016

Still here, moderating

I'm still lurking in the background and reading all of the wonderful blogs that are of a similar topic to mine.

I remain undecided on the moderation topic, but am trying it out for now.  After my 31 days were up I had a few days of heavy drinking then a few days of non-drinking.  I was worried to go down the slippery slope back to my pre-31 days off so have been keeping an eye on things.  Now that I have tasted the sober life it's become easier not to default into a bottle of wine because I'm bored on a Saturday.

We went to Paris for part work/part long weekend away (wine and cheese, ooh la la) then it was a week away in Gran Canaria (wine and tapas, si).  I make it a strict rule not to drink at work events.  So even with 2 nights of extravagant dinners and plenty of French wine, I ended up being the only person out of 14 not drinking, while the rest of them hurried to get their fill on the company's expense. 

Gran Canaria was just for a week of hols.  It's interesting being in another culture that is not so over the top about drinking like the UK.  As I speak Spanish we ventured further afield and were often the only non-locals in a location.  When you ask for a glass of wine there, they give you the same sized glass of wine as the locals would get.  I estimate it at 1/3 of the size of a UK sized glass.  It puts it into good perspective as we whittled the days away drinking Spanish style in the shade of an umbrella under sunny days.

Coming back with the usual holiday weight and knowing that we're coming into the holiday season of parties and endless food, I've made the decision to enjoy party days (at a moderate level) and on the remaining days to make them no alcohol, mostly vegan and heavy on the exercise.  All three tie in together so nicely once they get rolling.  As I did much of those during my month off I decided to up the game and give up caffeine.

So far 2 party days have passed successfully, OH's family does a Chinese meal out and he had his big company party in central London.

OH admitted in advance that he was worried about the company party.  I told him that it was a 'work' event and fell under my 'work' category so he didn't need to worry.  Am so happy to report back that I made him proud!  At the pre-meetup of his department in a nearby pub, the others had 2-3 pints and I had one.  When we arrived it was dazzling, all the party dresses, all the drinks!  I had a glass of fizzy, then a second and then switched to their non-alcoholic mocktail. 

It was quite clever of them, they had an alcoholic version and a non-alcoholic version, they looked the same and were served in the same glasses.  However, they were laid out at opposite ends of the bar and the alcoholic ones had 2 cherries but the non version had a lime bit.  So if you wanted to ditch the lime, no one would know that you were not having what they were having.  Both were based on pomegranate juice.

Around this time all his younger colleagues were flitting around higher than kites.

The doors opened for dinner.  There were 10 of us at a table and 6 bottles of wine.  As I don't drink with dinner I wasn't really bothered.  I did have a glass of wine while others enjoyed the desert but then we went to go dancing.  A number of his colleagues were now a bit of their gourd as the meals were fancy but tiny.

As we needed to get the 11.30 pm train we picked up an open but almost full bottle of wine (i.e. it would have been thrown out) and sneaked it out of the venue and enjoyed a glass on our long train journey home. We ended up giving the remainder of it to others who had been at the party as they had an even longer train journey home.

So glad I cleared the 31 days as that set the foundation to have a moderate night.  I need to keep an eye on it, to keep the alcohol days in check and keep the non-alcoholic days just that.

As I was typing this, OH just called, he's braved town to shop for Christmas presents.  As I didn't drink last night and we need to go to his house tonight by car, he was checking if I still had not opened any fizzy and could he stop by the pub on the way home to have a drink with his sister?  In the old days he would not have bothered to check as the assumption would have been that I would be well into a bored Saturday afternoon and halfway through a fizzy bottle.  So proud of myself, that I could tell him to go ahead and stop.  As a substitute for my boring Saturday I had a nap instead and it was so much better than an afternoon of alcohol.