How I became a person who doesn't drink
For a Gen-Xer who's drunk since their mid-teens, party season without alcohol is a daunting prospect
I’ll say that again: somehow, I have become a person who doesn’t drink.
Nobody is more surprised by this statement than me. For most of my adult (plus a bit) life I was what you might call a “consistent” drinker. Like most Gen-Xers (or should that be British Gen-Xers?), I started drinking in pubs quite a while before I was legally allowed to. Pubs were where socialising done, after all, back in the ‘80s (the wellness dark ages). By the time I was a student, alcohol was embedded in my social life. I couldn’t envisage an evening out without drink and an evening in with my flatmates would invariably be accompanied by a bottle or two of the local offie’s finest* (*cheapest). As terms and funds dwindled, food would be sacrificed long before alcohol and I can still tell you the price of a half of 6X bitter in t…