You can't save your booze tokens

Here’s something that happened recently: at around the same time that I cut down on my use of Facebook, I also – steady yourself now – cut down on my alcohol consumption. Stop, wait, come back.

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK.

I haven’t stopped drinking, just as I haven’t stopped checking Facebook. Jesus, I’m ONLY HUMAN. I stopped drinking once before, with disastrous consequences (see also, that time Lisa got fat and angry), so I’m not going down that road again. Besides, I love drinking. Drinking is ace. Drinking really takes the edge off. To clarify: I have not stopped drinking; I have simply stopped drinking to excess.

Here’s what happened: my jeans got tighter, and I couldn’t figure out why, ‘cos I eat all healthy and shit, and exercise like a motherfucker. How I get so fat, yo? And I did a bit of research (see also: intensive googling) and made the startling revelation that BINGE DRINKING IS NOT THAT GOOD FOR YOU.  

Who knew, eh?

And that was the thing. I wasn’t drinking during the week. From Monday to Thursday I was stone-cold sober, collecting up all my booze tokens to use on the weekend. ‘Cos that’s how healthy drinking guidelines work, right? You can save your booze tokens just like you can save your sick days and use them in bulk when you actually, desperately need them, like after a week of ferrying small people around and trying to find matching socks. Fuck yeah!

This seemed strangely logical, at the time. Paul endorsed this logic. And therein lies another problem: Paul and I are likeminded idiots, and we have a habit of endorsing each other’s idiocy. Like, when we were both getting fat and shit, and figured out it was the booze, we spent a good, solid week discussing the merits of drinking rather than eating, as though this was a legitimate lifestyle choice (clue: it’s not). That’s the THING, you see: we have so much FUN when we’re drinking. Like, we dance with the kids, and don’t worry about the state-of-the-floors, and that weird stain on the toilet wall. We CHILL. As such, we told each other, nodding sagely, drinking is GOOD FOR US. It stops us stabbing things.

Unfortunately – or fortunately, as the case may be – we are vain motherfuckers, and as we continued to get fat, we continued to google. Turns out YOU CAN’T SAVE YOUR BOOZE TOKENS. TURNS OUT, when you’re drinking the booze, your body has to put all its effort into converting the booze (I dunno into what) and forgets to convert the fat and sugar and shit, and so that’s why you get fat. I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure that’s the scientific explanation, but I was drunk while googling, so whatever. POINT IS, binge drinking makes you fat, yo.

And so – because we are vain motherfuckers, and for no other reason, apart from being old and less tolerant of hangovers and disturbed sleep – we cut down on the booze. And here’s a confession: WE FEEL BETTER. Like, we sleep better. And we’re not as groggy on a Monday. And we’re nicer people. And we fit back in our jeans. And I can crochet now (I can’t really).

There’s no real point to this story. I still drink, I just drink less, and I’m not for a second suggesting that you should continue drinking, drink less, or stop drinking entirely. I’m an idiot, remember, telling my idiot tales, of which this is one. On which note, go forth and do whatever it is that you want to do, unless it’s incest or line dancing.