They Brew it, I sell it, You Drink it... and so do I..

Wednesday 18 July 2012

Lifestyle Change

I drink a lot of beer.

If I'm being honest with myself I drink on average about 3 pints a day. Days off are few and far between and that was fine for me. I enjoy myself and don't consider to be hurting anyone or being a menace to society. This post may seem a little personal. Well, it's my blog and it's where I write about my life so that's what I'm going to do.

I have a condition. It's not a dangerous condition or anything life threatening, but a condition it is, and it's something I've had for around 7 years now.

Last week during some time off, I decided it was time to finally do something proper about it and went off to the Docs for some medication. Things were explained and medication was given and I was feeling good about it.

I asked the Doc how things might be different and, to be honest, if I could drink on these pills. I explained my background to her, I explained I worked at Beer Ritz and that I enjoyed a beer quite a bit. She told me I was drinking far too much, which when I thought about it, was something which I could not truthfully disagree with.

She told me for the first month or two on these pills, until things settle down a bit, I shouldn't be drinking more than a pint a day, and should have at least two days off a week. 5 pints a week. That's what she advised. At least for now. Going from 3 pints a day to 5 pints a week is a bit of a shift.

That means no more three pint-ers after work in my local Arcadia. It means no more lazy afternoons spent in North bar drinking all the crazy beers on draught. It does not however mean I have to massively alter my life though. I can still go to Arcadia and all my favourite local haunts. It just means I may have to have something else after the first pint. Once I get used to the pills, I can start to re-evaluate my limits and see where things go from there. But for the foreseeable future, it does mean that I won't be attending any more 'Open Its' to drink my way through 10 different Imperial Stouts!

I won't be going anywhere. Don't worry, this isn't a post about 'Giving up the Ghost' so to speak. I'll still do my beer reviews, my pub reviews and still live a ghoslty blog life. It just means things might be a bit slower and a more relaxed pace than normal. Not really a bad thing I guess...

Will I be able to manage? Of course I will, but I'm not saying that temptation won't be crawling up my back constantly. I'm hoping these pills will do the trick. If they can I believe it will improve my quality of life 100%, and I also reckon going from, what some would say, a 'binge drinker' to a very moderate drinker will also vastly improve my quality of life if I'm being honest with myself.

The next few weeks is going to be a rather interesting, and lifestyle changing time. I took my first lot of meds today and I'm hoping it's going to be the start of a better life. Fingers crossed!

Life of moderation. It's probably about time...

11 comments:

  1. of course they're basing moderate consumption on weekly limits that were admitted as being plucked out of thin air...

    why not drink halves instead of pints, you can drink the same number of beers, just in smaller serve.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You may be surprised how much more you get out of the beers you drink as your palate isn't quite as overloaded. All the best, hope it works!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Best of luck dear chap. 2 or 3 days off during the week is always a good thing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good luck with it - if only they made hop patches the way they make nicotine patches, it would help us all cut down (or at least deal with the cravings & temptations!). Hope things start to improve for you, I'm sure you'll get just as much out of the few beers a week as long as you choose them wisely!

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good luck! I'm sure you'll turn elitist as hell as you'll have to choose wisely the things you drink!!! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  7. You're doing the right thing, beer is not that important. Hope the meds do the trick for you :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Good luck and I second the halves idea :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks to everyone for the comments and support.

    I think I may go for the Rick method and become a beer elitist, it sounds fun! ;D

    ReplyDelete