Single pint

It's just after 2am,

I got to work at around 7am this morning and worked, as I have done for the last three days, like a bitch.

At around 10-ish I sneaked out of the office and wandered into Soho to meet a friend for a drink. While there I also smoked two cigarettes.

The first sip of the beer I ordered was heaven, like syrup from the Gods. Cold, complex, honey and beautiful.

It was the first lager / boozer / alcoholic drink I'd had this year. 26 days is the longest I have ever gone, as an adult, without booze.

Tonight I finally succumbed.

But I finished the beer, realising I needed to get back to the office and stubbed out the cigarette.

On the way back I bought a huge bottle of water and drank the whole thing.

I thought that the alcohol I had was difficult to drink. After a while it tasted dark.

It gave me terrible wind and I burped and burped - to the point of it becoming embarrassing.

Suddenly I just felt so depressed (yet surely it should be the other way around?)

I didn't enjoy the beer like I used to.
In the old days, I would drink a beer as a way to pass the time between glasses of wine.
In my heyday I could easily polish off about four beers, a bottle of champagne and at least two bottles of wine and still be able to remember going to bed.

Tonight I had one beer and I felt weighed down, sluggish and sick.

Perhaps over the last month I completely zapped by alcohol appetite.

A month ago I could booze it up with the best of whoever was out there. Right now, I've had one and I feel terrible.

This is called growing up? Is this called becoming an adult?

Without being able to go out and drink myself into oblivion, what am I going to do?

I feel like a huge part of me has died and I don't know why I am mourning the loss of something that I know was bad for me.

In theory I should be pleased that my appetite for booze has gone. In reality it feels like something has vanished that's not coming back. I cannot, just cannot, work out why I think this a bad thing.