Having a little drink, a toast, a moment of togetherness, has much to recommend it
Quite by accident I have found myself almost completely sober. And I mean, yes right now, but not just right now – 10 in the morning, writing at the kitchen table, child watching some show next to me where a girl of no determinate age lives in a muted Ikea-style bedroom that is somehow alive with magical cats who are also mermaids I think, outside the window a choreograph of binmen, every different kind of weather competing gamely for the day, just had some OK toast. I mean, due to efforts to control my migraines (and a sore lack of fabulous parties), I am living a life largely without alcohol.
Of course, I am not alone – there is a huge and growing movement of people choosing to give up drinking, or cut down, for reasons of mental and physical health, finances, addiction. But looking out, sober, at a culture that is now coming to associate alcohol exclusively with pain, I feel as if we are at risk of forgetting what a truly lovely thing a bit of booze can be.
