Lent

[naath]

Although I gave up being Catholic I still "do" Lent. I often give up booze, which I did this year. Now, there are things that would be much *harder* to give up, like Facebook or wearing purple or spending money; but I think that giving up booze is actually good for me, as well as useful personal discipline although I like gin too much to give it up entirely (and indeed have some rhubarb and ginger liquor I'm rather looking forward to).

As usual I have discovered that much harder than not drinking is a)that pubs have crappy non-alcohol options; I'm happy with water with food, but if I've gone out for a drink-and-chat and it is late enough for coffee to be unwise then I end up drinking ludicrous quantities of lemonade (which I don't even like) and b)people offer me alcohol A WHOLE LOT and turning down such offers is Socially Hard (Lent is a great 'excuse') which I find somewhat icky in general (although of course people I know know that I generally *do* drink, I'm sure it'd be different with close friends if I didn't, but also that I'd constantly be reminding acquaintances).

Since it is now Easter I have some tasty chocolate eggs to nom, and some gin ;-p

Comments

[andrewducker]

Not doing alcohol is hard. It definitely makes socialising tricky. People can be very persistent.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I find that with pubs too. I wish they would get their act together.

[gerald_duck]

Gosh! I've been basically teetotal my entire life, and can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times anybody's made any kind of fuss about my drinking "soft" drinks instead.

Admittedly, people are a whole lot less likely to expect a driver to drink, but I've not been a driver for all that time, and people often don't know I drove.

My usual tipple in a pub is a half pint of lemonade and a pint of water, which works pretty well for me.

(Meanwhile, I'm using the Android on-screen keyboard. It seems to want to say Leningrad instead of lemonade.)

[naath.livejournal.com]

Ah, maybe it is just that I *usually* want gin then.

Your Android keyboard is silly.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

I agree - it would be nice if pubs sold more drinks that were neither sweet nor alcoholic, things that were about on par with real ale in terms of sweetness/bitterness balance, but without the alcohol. I quite enjoy lime and soda but sometimes I'd prefer something a bit more "special" and certainly a bit less artificial/sugary flavoured.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I'd certainly like something with less sugar in it, although possibly mostly I want something slower to drink so I drink less...

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

At least pubs tend to do coffee now, and J2O for a non-fizzy cold drink. The worst 'hangover' I ever had was when not drinking for medical reasons and at a conference when trying to create a collaboration with a guy who was a bit of a dick and kept offering to buy drinks, so I'd ask for an orange juice - he'd tell me to have a proper drink like a pint, so I'd retort "pint of orange juice then".

He spent a fortune on tiny Britvic bottles and I was sick as a dog after 10 pints of orange juice in one night...