Most of us love a drink or 12 and we’ll find any excuse to have a bevy in the evenings. It’s not like we’re alcoholics, but when a bit of bubbly goes down well with every occasion from ‘steak night’ to ‘date night’ to ‘girls night’ to ‘singles night’ to ‘bad day’ night to ‘Wednesday’ night to ‘I’m gonna die alone surrounded by cats and empty bottles of vodka’ night, a nice strong beverage can be hard to resist, right?
However, sometimes it takes staggering home from work at 4am in the morning, accidentally vomiting up your McDonalds into the kitchen sink and having to clean it out the next day using one mug, a pair of tweezers and a toothbrush whilst your mum screams her head off about how you damaged her porcelain fucking plug hole, before you realise there are actually many pros to NOT drinking. Maybe that’s just me, but sometimes we’ve got to admit to ourselves that our lives would be a little bit better off without alcohol, so put down your bevies and listen. Literally. Here’s a few reasons why going dry could be good for you this autumn….
1. You’ll save a shit load of money
Most of us like to act like we have a bottomless bank account once we’re pissed. Of course, if that were the case, we’d be doing something more extravagant with our time than spending Saturday evenings getting pissed on Seel Street whilst desperately trying to avoid wools and women dressed in tutus and penis hairbands for their disgracefully tacky hen parties. Spending £30 a week on drinks whether that is on nights out or on wine to get you through Mondays amounts to £120 per month or £1560 per year – (take that figure to £60 a week and you’re over £3000) . That money could buy you a flight to the Bahamas, and I’m sure most of us can manage to put the drink down for that.
2. You won’t get hangovers
It is actually quite astonishing that humans have managed to create nuclear weapons but not a cure for hangovers, especially when they are capable of just as much destruction. No matter how good a night out may be, it’s almost never worth the pain the next morning when vodka seeps from every orifice as you suffer on what feels like deaths door. Not drinking will save you from headaches and regret, and you’ll begin to appreciate the extra free time you’ve gained from not wasting your days in bed. Waking up fresh on a Saturday morning will allow you to actually DO things with your free time like brunch with friends or joining that gym class you’ve been putting off since January. At the very least you’ll enjoy being alive, which is more than can be said when suffering a moral hangover…
3. You won’t get moral hangovers
It’s one thing to feel physically distressed from a hangover but it’s an even worse thing to feel emotionally distressed when you regret everything you said and did last night. That drunken meltdown that probably should have occurred on a therapists couch but happened at a bar instead; that one night stand with the first gobshite that bothered to chat you up; those dance moves you whipped out when you thought you could shake it like Beyoncé and whatever your friends were referring to when they text you ‘you were sooooo funny last night’. You didn’t mean for those things to happen, they just did, and next thing you know you’ve woken up with a gut wrenching feeling stretching from your stomach to your fanny that you might have chlamydia and you might not have any mates left. As someone who embarrasses herself more often than the average human being, a huge plus side of going dry is being able to wake up after a night out and not feel like you can’t show your face in public ever again.
4. You’ll think more clearly
Alcohol affects our judgment. This explains why we often make stupid decisions when drunk such as whipping out our phones to send texts that we think have the poetic romance of a Shakespearean sonnet but actually go something along the lines “heyyyyy u okaiiyy whart u up3 to lofve uu” (not that I’ve ever done that…). One huge benefit to sticking to diet coke on a night out is that unlike vodka, it doesn’t taste like you should text anyone, least of all that gobshite ex of yours.
5. Health and skin benefits
Alcohol dehydrates the body and skin, which makes us look like a tired and run down piece of shit when hung-over. Making that worse is the fact that we often can’t be fucked to take our make up off when drunk, but leaving foundation on over night really clogs your pores, especially if like 75% of the girls of Liverpool (me included) you wear 300 layers of it. Cutting out alcohol for a while will make you look and feel better inside and out.
6. You might lose some weight
Like everything else that tastes good in this world, alcohol has a fuck ton of calories in it. This is especially true for wine. The average UK wine drinker takes in 2000 calories in wine a month according to the NHS website, but best to double that if you’re from Liverpool and triple that if like me you’re an eternal member of the singletons club. Alcohol also makes us act like big fat pigs when we gorge on pizzas like we’ve never been fed at the end of a heavy night. If you cut out drinking even just for a month, you might find that your jeans fit a little more comfortably by the end of it.
7. You’ll remember it’s possible to not drink and have fun
Drinking can be fun but no one should feel like they need it to have fun. Providing you’re in good company you can have a great night sober or drunk and at least sober you’ll remember it. Once you start waking up with memories of dignity rather than debauchery and feeling fresh rather than hung-over, you’ll probably find you won’t even miss drinking that much. Trust me, these words ain’t coming from a middle aged holier-than-thou prude with a stick up her arse but from someone whose drinking habits have in the past made Homer Simpson look like a light weight. Drinking when socialising is defiantly enjoyable, but definitely not necessary for a good night out.
XOXO
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