The Bevvy and Me
I’ve had a weird and complicated relationship with drink for a wee while now and I wanted to find out what the script was…
Bevvy is, undoubtedly, class. A few pints with your mates, cocktails with your pals, a dram with your granda. It’s the much more exciting and fun alternative to ‘getting a coffee’ which is, undoubtedly, pish.
But in recent years, while I’ve found myself enjoying drinking much more, I’ve also started to question just what exactly I’m getting out of it.
Pros: It’s class, a good laugh, brings mates and family together.
Cons: Can cost a fortune, makes you do and say ridiculous things, hangovers (now accompanied with dread and horrible guilt!).
My first forays into drinking were much the same as everyone else’s; a sneaky swig from my granda’s can of Tennent’s when I was a wee guy, a sip of rancid vinegary wine belonging to my auntie at a party, then forcing down straight vodka and glugging cider and MD 20/20 as a teenager. Pretending to the world and myself that, despite hating it, it was actually good.
Pints came later when an (even more) awkward and gangly Chris McQueer started to hit the pubs and dancings of Glasgow. Pints and cans are obviously the best forms of bevvy. Everyone knows their limits when it comes to these two; how many it’ll take to get you steaming, how many is just enough, how many can kick a hangover into submission, exactly how many each of your pals can handle. Then there’s the joy of a freezing cold pint on a summer’s day. Lukewarm cans on the bus to the fitbaw. A quick one after work. With your dinner. Cans are good but the humble pint is the best of the best for me.
The best thing about pints for me is what I like to call The Three Pint Glow. After three pints I am the best version of myself. The guy I want to be all the time instead of the self I actually project to the world. After three pints I’m relaxed in any company. Happy to converse with anybody. Feel confident enough to fling jokes about, tell stories and mingle like fuck. In that moment where I’m standing at the bar, having just picked up my fourth pint, and heading back to the conversation — I am the guy I want to be all the time.
Before that magical third pint, I’m shy, a bit nervous, quiet, not wanting to say too much in case I say the wrong thing or make a joke that no one laughs at. After I finish the fourth, move onto the fifth, sixth and beyond — I am starting to get annoying as fuck and should definitely have called it a night already.
It was when I noticed this pattern a few months ago that I realised my relationship with alcohol wasn’t as healthy as I’d previously thought.
In the throes of a fucking stoater of a hangover, I asked myself: why do I do this?
I’d woken up after a night out, instantly cringing as I remembered all the riddy-inducing things I’d said to people the night before. I checked my phone, mortified at the things I’d written on Twitter. It’s a normal thing to go through on a Sunday morning. We’ve all been there. But this was the first time I had actually asked myself, ‘why did you not just stop after the third pint you fucking idiot?’
The fact is my pals were in much the same state and were probably too embarrassed about their own escapades to be thinking about mine. So it’s not that bad, I reasoned. So why am I still filled with the guilt and dread as mentioned earlier? And that’s not to mention the fact I need to be sick and have a pounding sore heid.
The sore heid and need to spew are obviously physical symptoms, easy to deal with and they’ll always go away within a few hours. But the guilt and the dread stick around for a good while longer, sometimes even days afterwards. The reason being is that the drink turns me into someone I’m not. It makes me live a lie for a few hours. The three pint guy I become is sound enough, if I could stay like him all the time I probably would, but that’s no me. The four, five and six pint guys are wankers and I hate them, but again, they’re no me.
The guilt and dread seem to stem from the fact that I’m not comfortable with how quiet I am while sober and so I drink to change that. Which is definitely not a healthy and normal thing to do when you think about it.
Going teetotal is the obvious answer to stopping these horrible feelings and thoughts but, for some reason, it’s seen as an odd thing to do as a young guy.
The few times I’ve been out while I’ve been ‘aff it’ or have the motor with me, I’ve received all sorts abuse from my pals. ‘Just take a drink fuck sake’ ‘get a grip’ ‘what’s the matter with you?’ — all things that have been said to me and that I’ve, at some point, also said to my pals.
I do a fair amount of spoken word performances, going on stage and reading out my work, and when I first started doing this, the nerves were too much for me. Stomach churning, hands shaking and all that. To counteract this I’d have a couple of cans beforehand on the train through to wherever I was performing or a couple of pints at the venue. This would quell the nerves and make me feel confident but it was leading to sloppy performances. I’d get a few laughs at the start by saying something like, ‘aw I might lose my place while I’m reading here cause I’m a bit half cut!’ which is a bit dodgy.
Maybe that would be funny the first time you go and see someone perform but by the second and third time it looks a bit sad. Over the last year or so, I’ve done all my readings without any liquid encouragement. I’ve mostly conquered the nerves and stage fright and my performances have gotten much better, slicker and funnier (I think).
Now that I’ve seen the benefits of removing the bevvy from that one small part of my life, I’m definitely going to try and drink less. I’m maybe not quite ready to go teetotal just yet but I imagine I will one day. For now, my relationship with drink isn’t causing me any physical health problems so that’s sound. But now that I’ve identified the unhealthy aspects of my bevvying I can sort them out, work on them, deal with the fact that I’m just a naturally quiet guy and maybe even learn to just stick to the three pints and call it a night.
