Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Beware of 'accidental' beer

Today was the first day of a proposed month-long abstinence from alcohol.

(A supplementary New Year's resolution for me this year. It had taken a few days to psych myself up for this. And yesterday happened to be a friend's birthday party, and also the Saddle Cantina's infamous Cinco de Drinko promotion - half-price drinks all day on the 5th of the month. Hard to pass that up! So, I thought I'd try to lay off the booze from the 5th to the 5th. I'm not going to go crazy over this: I'll be allowing myself the occasional exception for 'special occasions' - like another birthday coming up next week, and maybe the Chinese New Year; but my aim is to avoid habitual, every-day drinking.)

I nearly fell from grace on Day 1 by reflexively ordering a beer with lunch in a Chinese restaurant. I had been insufficiently alert to this danger: it is now very difficult to conceive of having a Chinese meal - particularly a very spicy Chinese meal (man, those wings were evil) - without a beer.

What's worse, I realised that I no longer conceive of beer-with-a-meal as alcohol within the terms of my self-imposed ban; it's more like a soft drink!

Luckily I was with my recording partner DD, a strict and dominating type, who saved me from an accidental beer.

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