Throwing away a social crutch...sort of.

My favourite.  None of this.

So, Febfast.  Over a third of the way through and powering on.

Two weekends down, two to go.

Enjoying discovering ginger beer (virgin Moscow Mules) and virgin Mojitos.

I have bought a lot of limes.  Limes are great.

You can never have too many of these.  Febfast or not. 

It's very easy at this time of year to bunker down socially and not do much, the days are very busy, many people are laying low after summer holidays and the days are frantically busy with the kids settling in and new regimes to implement, new sports to sign up for etc.

Who's got time at night to drink?  Well, normally me.  Monday to Wednesday I'm (usually) pure as the driven snow.  Thursdays I normally need a bit of a glass of something, Friday to Sunday we are often out and there are often possibilities to 'have a few'.   On holidays it's open slather.

And none of this either.  

I'm from a drinking family.  Social lubrication has always been the norm, rather than the exception around my parents and their friends.  With the result that we grew up with the same attitude.  Well I did anyway.

My parents threw some humdinger parties.  The morning after my brother's wedding (I was 4), our lounge room floor was positively coated in sleeping bodies.  When I woke up and saw all my brother's mates (who I loved) there, I was so excited I took a flying leap onto the best man and woke him up.  I am surprised I lived to tell the tale.

I remember waking up at dawn following my Dad's 50th to find him still dancing in the kitchen to one of his presents, a record single of 'The More I See You' by Peter Allen.  No idea who gave it to him, or knowing my Dad's taste for Tijuana Brass and Les Paul, why they gave it to him, but he was still going strong, and I (aged 5) danced with him.

So to me, drinking was just something you started doing when you were old enough.  Or even, not old enough.  'nuff said.

This is not to say I haven't had periods in my life when I haven't drunk.  Three pregnancies and months of breastfeeding meant I took enforced abstinence for more than a year three times.  But that was over 5 years ago.  Another break is well overdue.

Since the silly season started back in November I'd noticed it was becoming far too easy to polish off a bottle of wine (or more) over the course of a social occasion.  Enough was enough.  I was starting to become a marathon runner, where really a social jogger was more appropriate.

I need to become piss unfit.

The problem was, and still is, I love a bit of social lubrication to over come my introvert tendencies and turn myself into a talkative extrovert.

Instant extrovert.  

But not too much because then I just become a dickhead.

Anyhoo, I have a few (just a few) social bits and pieces coming up which will require me to get out there without my crutch.  I must not quake, I must get on.  Whatever issue it is I have, I need to overcome so I am in charge.  Because if I'm honest, I have not always been.  In charge.

You know?