Last Of The Summer Wine

It’s 3.33 on a Saturday morning and just like that, I’ve had an idea; a lightbulb moment has roused me from the fitful slumber of a muggy summer’s night and catapulted me into the excited mental state of someone on the cusp of a brand new adventure.

After months of nursing a chronic case of inertia I’ve woken alert, with the crystal-clear clarity of someone whose new path is finally becoming visible, after years of wandering aimlessly through the hazy maze of life. It’s like someone finally took it upon themselves to chop back the overgrown meadow that is my unkempt existence and reveal the neatly-kept garden hiding beneath the brambles. Having blitzed my home over recent months, my Lockdown Elf has finally decided to work on my Self. The planets are aligning and the Universe is calling me once more. My get-up-and-go got up and went…but change is in the air. I can taste it.

So what is this big ‘Aha!’ moment I’ve just had? Have I discovered the cure for COVID, or the elusive formula for world peace? Hardly. In the grand scheme of things, it’s nothing. I’ve not reinvented the wheel. The producers of Dragon’s Den won’t be calling anytime soon. But – don’t go! stay with me – because to me, and millions of functioning fuckwits like myself, it could be something. It’s not so much about what I’m going to do, as what I’m going to not do. If I’m talking in riddles, I apologise. Let me start at the beginning…

Hello. My name’s Sam, and I’m an alcoholic.

No, not one of those alcoholics; those sad-sacks who roll out of bed at lunchtime, fumbling for the sticky half-empty (or half-full, depending on your optimism levels) gin bottle on the bedstand with shaking hands, chugging it down with barely a wince. No no NO! That simply would not do. No, I’m one of those normal alkies, silly! You know, the respectable ones with full-time jobs, a mortgage, neat-as-a-pin houses with expensive-smelling diffusers and fresh flowers in a vase on the dining room table…and a lorry-load of empty bottles cunningly concealed in the garden, to be removed under cover of darkness, lest the neighbours see. I’m one of those. I’m one of you. 

Of course, they all do the same. The neighbours, I mean. We wouldn’t want to embarrass one another by accidentally locking eyes as we silently drag the previous week’s glass recycling out of the front door like we’re trying to dispose of a dead body, the telltale trail of red wine snaking down the driveway. Of course, we’re all faaar too middle-class to be cold-blooded killers – the only things getting murdered in sleepy Sevenoaks are crates of Malbec. Any decaying corpses are purely our own on a Sunday morning after a Saturday night sesh.

No, like you,  I’m not a proper alcoholic – I just get blasted at weekends (with the occasional midweek mashup thrown in to spice things up). I wear my tortured soul on the inside, thankyouverymuch. I’m not a daily drinker – or even every other day for that matter – but I can’t remember a single social occasion when I’ve shrivelled my nose up at a visit to Sozzletown.  I’ve never dreamt of letting the side down by being one of those bores who turns down a Negroni. I have a work hard, play hard attitude. I’m a Weekend Offender.

Then Lockdown happened. And life became one long weekend.

Lockdown for me, like so many, was a time for reflection and spiritual awakenings…usually whilst knee-deep in wine bottles at 2am, chatting animatedly to my partner about What Really Matters In Life whilst wearing activewear that I’d slipped on that morning fully intending to do the daily Joe Wicks PE sesh. (Intending being the operative word.)

The keys to the New Normal were finally handed to (most of) us at the end of June: Bumbling Boris peering through shaggy blonde locks, imploring us through the tellybox to come out of hiding and get back to work, and we nodded, albeit apprehensively; square-eyed after months of goggling at Tiger King on Netflix. We reluctantly wriggled into our work uniforms, now a little snug-fitting in places, and tentatively emerged from our locked-up living spaces looking a tad dishevelled, like when they flip the lights on at the club at 6am and you stumble out into the weak London daylight, blinking like a newborn after the darkness, trying to drink in your first glimpses of this Strange New World.

Drink.

Did someone say drink?

I’ve always been the kind of person who applies myself wholeheartedly to the task at hand, launching myself headlong into things. Fellow Aries, you’ll know where I’m coming from – us rams go at it heads down, horns first. We grab life, and all those we encounter, by the cajones (in the nicest possible way, of course). So my approach to drinking in my teens was no different: I locked horns with the target and challenged it to a duel. The booze won, of course. It threw me on my arse. Undeterred, I got up, brushed myself off, and went at it again. Once more, it floored me. But I didn’t mind. I’m nothing if not determined. Another person, another personality, might have walked away. Not me. I got back in the proverbial saddle and continued to drink, battling hangover after brutal hangover, drunken mishap after embarrassing boozy facepalm, until…

…I got quite good at it. I became a professional piss-artist.

I had fun – lots and lots of fun. I have Sauvignon-soaked stories that’d make you laugh until you cried. I have stories that’d make you just cry – from shame; sadness; shock. I have many, many, anecdotes of wild times. I worked a few seasons in Ibiza: say no more. I could write a book of silly sozzled shenanigans (if only I could actually remember most of them). I’ve lived. I’ve travelled the world. I’ve loved. Laughed. Married. Divorced. I’ve suffered and survived heartache greater than I ever thought I would, or could, endure.

And that’s just it: I’ve survived. I’m alive. And I’d quite like to stay that way, actually. People have passed through my life; come and gone. Many have stayed by my side, loyal, clinging like barnacles on a shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean, keeping the shared secrets of our lives like the buried treasure that lies beneath. The one true constant that’s always been there with them, by my side through thick and thin?

Alcohol.

My faithful friend. Or is she? I’m not sure now. Alcohol is definitely a SHE though, of that I’m sure: erratic, prone to mood swings; unpredictable. One minute swirling on the dancefloor, twirling and giggling, the next offering someone out for spilling her drink. Having her as a bestie is both a blessing and a curse. She’s that friend who’ll bolster you, telling you what you want to hear (”that dress really suits you – buy it!”) whilst simultaneously sniggering as you walk out of the loos with your too-small skirt tucked in your knickers. She is one two-faced bitch.

Well, friend. The gloves are off.

This time, Alcohol, I’m in charge. And I’m calling time on 30 years of ‘friendship’. 2020 is the year of change. And, yes, I’m looking at you, sweetheart.

The time has come. I’m calling you out. You and me are done mate.

But can I really ditch her? Only time will tell. Time, and a few thousand judgy social media followers. I’m telling you because I need your help to blow out the weekly blow-outs. I’m on Day 7.

Are you with me?