For a lot of people remaining sober less than half of the days of the week is probably something that you do anyway and only people like myself that have lived a party style of life would even think that this is an accomplishment. Well, to those folks I say that you don't really know what the expat lifestyle is like. When you meet an expat that is NOT a drunk it is very rare over here in South East Asia, and from what I hear it is basically the same in other parts of the world as well as far as foreigners living in the country is concerned.
In my life for the past nearly 20 years, I don't think there has ever been an entire week where I didn't drink. In fact, more often than not I have some semblance of a hangover that ranges from mild to "day ruiner." Not long ago myself and a couple of friends came to the realization that our drinking wasn't even fun anymore, it was just something that we did.
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I have never been one of those people that goes somewhere and has a couple of drinks. I do realize that this comes down to self-control and I guess I just don't have a great deal of that skill. With me and most of my close friend we only have two gears when it comes to drinking. We are going to abstain or we are going to drink all of it.
While I wouldn't consider myself a full fledged alcoholic, I know that I am right on the cusp. You see, I have never lost a job or ruined a relationship with my family or experienced some sort of traumatic run in with the cops because of drinking. I am a functional alcoholic I suppose in that hell or high water, I always get my projects done on time and maintain employment. In many ways I think that my employment might have actually been enhanced by the fact that I had a few. Case in point would be when I owned some businesses in the hospitality industry. My bar was always busy even when no other establishments was and I think a lot of this had to do with the fact that I know the mind of a drunk person. I know what they want and am able to cater to that rather effortlessly. This was a bit of a dark time though even though I enjoyed all of it. It was extremely common for me to have 15-20 drinks per day, every day, for nearly 10 years. Obviously, this is not sustainable and thinking about those times now, I am actually kind of glad that I am not in that industry anymore. I was getting fat and basically just felt either drunk or hungover all the time and I "hair of the dogged" it as a method of treatment. Paracetamol no longer works on me and I just scoff when someone says to take some for my headache.
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That was also me above. There were very few if any instances where if someone wanted to have drinks that I would ever say "no" unless it was too far away from my house. Then it would be a question of selective laziness and how I would gladly meet them anywhere in town but if they wanted to go somewhere beautiful nearby to have drinks I would usually bow out and lo' and behold, hours later they would be coming back from their beautiful day and joining us at the local pub.
Anyway, let's fast-forward to now and how I am living my life. I go bowling every Thursday and while we do refer to it as bowling day, that only takes place for about an hour and half to two hours. The next 8-10 hours are a full-fledged drink-fest that would impress most college-age frat boys.
Then when Friday rolls around we usually will get back on it in the early afternoon just to tame the hangover beast that we have in our heads. Saturday and Sunday normally end up being the same because of the fact that we have friends here that are teachers and they only get the weekends off so this is the only time we see them. I'm not making excuses, but this is just how the week of an expat drinker goes.
I decided not long ago that my Mon-Wed was going to become something we call AFD's or "alcohol free days." On these days I totally stay away from booze and because i know I am weak I approach these days by basically avoiding everyone that I know and I just hang out with my dog.
Nadi (my dog) is more than ok with this and if I had to guess, I would assume these are her favorite days of the week. We don't really do anything exciting, we mostly just hang around the house, have meals where she stares at me with every bite, and watch TV. It's boring but that is what it takes for someone like me who finds it almost impossible to go to events without drinking.
As far as how do I feel on the AFD's is concerned I regret to inform you that I wouldn't say that I actually feel any better. Sure I don't feel nauseous and generally don't have a headache, but as far as having incredible energy is concerned I don't find that to be the case at all. I am the same level of tired that I am on days where I wake up wondering how it is that I got home the night previous.
So I'm guessing that perhaps I am either so used to having a hangover that this is now my body's default state even if I didn't drink, or my body is confused because it is so used to getting alcohol fed to it on a regular basis. I will say this though: I do get a lot more done on the AFD's than on drinking or hangover days.
I'll stick with it for now, but honestly, other than the lack of caloric intake, I don't really see the benefit.