I wrote a few days ago about how I am changing my life for the sake of my health. This has involved getting more fruit into my system, cutting back a great deal on alcohol and exercising a bit more. I bought the bicycle and have been using it a lot, I now always have fruit in the fridge for when I get hungry, and I haven't touched any alcohol for a week. Yesterday when some people asked me to go to a social gathering I went and after a Coke Light or two, I relented and had a beer.
In the end I had 3 beers and needed to leave because I was starting to feel like a traitor to my goals but here is the thing that surprised me: I felt drunk just after 3 beers.
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Because I have this new system I decided to not do what I would have done in the past which is to just continue to drink more and more and more until I have ruined myself for the night and likely the following day as well. I only had the 3 drinks and I was kind of pleased that this small amount of alcohol had such a large affect on me. You see, for the past 20 years or so I have drank almost every night unless I was extremely ill. That probably sounds like the lifestyle of a madman to many people but that is just what expat life is like. I decided to stop doing this because it was becoming very usual for me to have 10 or more beers every single day and hangovers were just part of my life.
I'm not saying that I am going to renege on my decision to change my life, that is still something that is going to happen for me but I think that last evening kind of opened my eyes to how quickly things can change for my body. A week ago 3 beers wouldn't have affected me at all, but yesterday after about 2.5 I started to feel like I was approaching being quite drunk and this is strange to me. I think it is because of the fact that I tend to drink very quickly and this is not likely to change anytime soon. It is just part of who I am now. While some people can "nurse" a beer over the course of an hour or so I am incapable of doing so.
This might in part have something to do with the fact that because it is so hot here in South East Asia that if you do get a beer, the drink stops being the lovely ice-cold that I demand of my beers pretty rapidly. It is so hot here in Asia that it is very common for beers to be served with ice cubes.
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The first time I was offered ice cubes in a glass with my beer I thought it was hilarious but after time it kind of started to make sense. Now I think I am going to ask for ice with my beer on the days that I do drink no matter what. I suppose there could be a couple of benefits to this: One, it will slow down my pace of drinking and two, i'll sneak some hydration in there as well.
I was a little disappointed in myself for drinking at all since my original health plan was to cut out drinking entirely outside of bowling Thursdays and special events like birthday parties. However, I do like that I had the discipline to head home after just 3. To most of you out there that are not alcoholics this might not seem like much of an accomplishment but if you understood how one drink for me almost always leads to 9 more, perhaps you can put it into perspective.
The big surprise was the fact that a mere 3 beers affected me the way that it did because in the past this has merely been a warmup for me or would be considered a sensible lunch.
Now today I am going to stay completely off the sauce as penance of sorts. The good news is that I had dinner when I got home and then basically went straight to bed. I made it halfway through First Blood Part 2 and then went to dreamland. That movie has not aged well by the way and I wonder if it was banned in Vietnam when it was released.