For quite a few years now I’ve been wanting to give up the drink. Meat too. I don’t particularly have a problem with drinking and I drink far less now that since I started at around 16/17 years of age. My 20s were bad, very bad to be honest. I’d often wake up hungover to bits with no memory of how I got home. Nine times out of 10 I’d still be in my clothes and I’d reach for my back pocket to see if I’d lost my wallet and then check my phone for any angry/stupid texts messages I’d received, or sent, while off me noggin. 

Drinking Your Blues Away

One time I got so upset with what was on my phone that I chucked it in the Liffey, I have no memory of it happening, I was told about it the next day. I had a period as a rowdy drunk too, getting in fights and scraps and whatnot. But look, you get the picture and it’s nothing unique for an Irishman who grew up in the 2000s. 

In my late 20s-30s then I immigrated there was one thing I wanted to swerve; becoming a fixture in the local Irish pub as so many of my compatriots do end up doing. But I didn’t stop drinking. I was still blacking out and/or puking and waking up at home with no clue how I’d gotten there. I’ve no idea how, maybe I was a feckin’ homing pigeon in a past incarnation. And I was self-medicating too, I was miserable for many, many years there, in most of my 20s and 30s and sure I didn’t even know I was. I presumed most people were sad because all people ever do or did is/was complain. Add undiagnosed sleep apnea in to the situation and well, I was a mess and I’ve no idea why anyone wanted to be around me at all. Many’s a night I stood on the balcony looking over it and contemplating putting an end to it all.

But I’m still here and slowly but surely I’ve been drinking less and less over the years. When I moved here first I’ve drink 4-6 beers a night on weekdays and then it would be anything goes on weekends; beer for breakfast? Sure, I’m not working, why not? Or finishing off the beer I’d opened the night before, before falling asleep. 

Yea, mess. Anyway, the thing is, it wasn’t really a problem, it didn’t effect my work, my relationships with friends, family etc. And there’s no way I was the worst in my many circles of friends over the years. It was pretty standard, although most didn’t blackout. Emotionally though, I see now, that of course, it was self-medicating; I didn’t even know I didn’t want to deal with feelings but that’s what it was. I can very much see that now. 

So, it’s been on my mind for a good few years now to just call it a day and not drink anymore so I’m going to try. Meat is going out the window too, I stopped cooking meat but if I’m given it to eat I don’t turn up my nose, so I’m going to have to be a bit more staunch and say thanks but not thanks, I’ll eat your veg. though.

What Rudolf Steiner said about Alcohol

I’d opened the site with the intention of writing about Rudolf Steiner and his thoughts on drink so I’ll finish with a bit on him. I’ve been reading up on the lad again. It’s a funny one, it’s like he bloody appears every now and then in my life and I learn a bit and then I’m onto something connected because it’s sparked an interest and it just repeats constantly, he just appears now and then and I learn something new about this mad life. The fact is though, sure, it’s not a surprise, the chap knew so much about so many things. Anyway, what did Rudolf Steiner say about alcohol?

Alcohol only arose after the Atlantean epoch to help men to become individualized. It closes man off from his higher capacities and encloses him in himself.

But now all civilized people have reached that stage so that alcohol is an unnecessary evil today. Through its use one loses the ability to get along with others and to understand them. Alcohol is especially harmful for esoterics since its use changes all developed higher forces into forces of the personal ego, repeatedly locks it into itself.

By consuming alcohol one prepares a fertile soil for hosts of spiritual beings, just as a dirty room gets filled with flies.

Source

Hard to disagree with the above, except maybe the ‘Atlantean epoch’ stuff but we can excuse it too because Steiner had his own timeline for human/consciousness development so we’ll let him off. And what he says about getting along with others and to understand them, well, yea, I could barely get on with myself and understand myself, so much so I was drinking like mad so I wouldn’t have to confront what made me unhappy; me. 

So, I’m gonna try and go fully Straight Edge for a while at least; no alcohol, no meat, no coffee, no tobacco, no drugs, but sure I don’t be at the last three anyway…I’m not going vegan though, life’s wouldn’t be worth living without eggs and cheese. And, yea, I know I’m posting this publicly but please don’t see it as a hey-look-at-me-and-what-I’m-doing, look, OK, there’s always an element of that when you do anything publicly but really it’s more about putting words down and making a commitment to myself to do something and change some behavior that I’d surely be better off without.