There are many reasons to
drink, and “just because you can” ranks highly amongst them. There will, however, always be
consequences arising from having that drink, and although most of the time we
dive in headlong and heedless (and quite rightly so), the fact that there will
be consequences can be harnessed, by the experienced drinker, to suit his own
ends.
More specifically, having
that drink may clarify what it is that he wants, and make the actions which
would make whatever it is come to pass more likely to happen. In other words, drinking facilitates
the making of what, to the sober self, may appear to be bad decisions, and in
general I have found that one should always defer decisions until one is not in
a fit state to make them.
Now, in positing a
distinction between drunken and sober selves, I should make clear that I am not
speaking of that massive change in personality indicative of a problematic
relationship with the gods of grape and grain. Rather, I am merely drawing attention to the fact that the
drunken and sober selves see the world, and the self within that world, in very
different ways. The drunken self
tends to see things more clearly, and certainly more intensely than the sober,
and is less likely, perhaps less able, to foresee complications. It is a world where between the
conception and the action, the desire and its resolution, no shadow falls. Or at least, not a very big one.
Many times I have woken,
broken in the morning and desperately hungover, and found notes I have left for
myself about what is to be done that day.
These are directions from the drunken self to the (nearly) sober, aware
of the problems it will be facing at time of reading, and doing its best to
help from its vantage point of clarity.
(That is the respect my drunken self shows to my sober self: it
suggests, it advises, and on occasion it cajoles, but it doesn’t commit. And since to “call her” would be such a
phenomenally bad idea that even my drunken self has its reservations, it is a
respect for which I am grateful.)
The sober self, however
sensible it may perceive itself as, is not a fool. It is aware of the nagging desires that assail the human
soul, but has the advantage over most in that it knows it has a (fairly) reliable
handmaiden with which to realise them should their nagging become too much to
bear.
For instance, when money
is tight (and for the drinking man, money almost always is), but you really
want that bottle of expensive rum, a few pints in the pub (which you will
justify as a legitimate pit stop on your meanderings about town) will break
down the resistance between you and it.
You may wake the next morning anxious and regretting the money spent,
but you will be aware that when evening comes and you have your philosophical
nightcap, that that bottle, and the pause for thought it enables, will make you
happy in a way that the mere presence of money – or more accurately, the
absence of quite such a degree of debt – never can.
Even the agonised process
of writing, hampered as it is by the strictures of hangovers and the inertia of
sobriety, can be facilitated by strong drink. The trickle, the slow drip of words can be transformed into
a mighty torrent, a process I am watching happen now, as I write, a couple of
pints down in the hushed stillness of an afternoon pub. It is, it must be admitted, a torrent
often in need of a good editor [Editor’s note: in dire need], but that is a
service the sober self is happy to perform, out of gratitude if nothing else.
Alcohol is the medium through
which two ways of being can reach each other, through which the cold world of
reality and received wisdom, and the world of the heart’s desires, can mingle
and mix.
Right. I’m off to buy an expensive bottle of
rum now, and maybe, who knows, I might just call that girl. Cin-cin.
