A message of support

[CycleCoach]

It might be related to the fact that Covid screws up your nervous system and gets into your brain; I lost my sense of smell and taste, the only thing that I could actually savour was distilled alcohol and the Whisky tasted just fine!

Reading this and in the context of the has science got it wrong thread and sensory perception I can't help but wonder if the after effects of Covid might have something to do with your change from digital to analogue after so many years?

Many might see it as a recovery of sorts

[CycleCoach]

It might be related to the fact that Covid screws up your nervous system and gets into your brain; I lost my sense of smell and taste, the only thing that I could actually savour was distilled alcohol and the Whisky tasted just fine!

Reading this and in the context of the has science got it wrong thread and sensory perception I can't help but wonder if the after effects of Covid might have something to do with your change from digital to analogue after so many years?

Many might see it as a recovery of sorts

[CN211276]

It has been revealed, in Top Secret leaked documents from the CIA, that the COVID-19 virus has been created in a clandestine laboratory in China - not by the government but by a conglomerate of audio manufacturers.

This virus reprograms the brain's auditory sensory input and causes the sufferer to discard all of the expensive apparatus he has recently bought and to then purchase new equipment to replace the units he disposed of several decades previously. From Chinese-based factories, of course.

Currently in development is the COVID-20 virus which will reverse this effect and generate a new wave of replacement purchasing - and then of CD players and Betamax video recorders.

[CN211276]

It has been revealed, in Top Secret leaked documents from the CIA, that the COVID-19 virus has been created in a clandestine laboratory in China - not by the government but by a conglomerate of audio manufacturers.

This virus reprograms the brain's auditory sensory input and causes the sufferer to discard all of the expensive apparatus he has recently bought and to then purchase new equipment to replace the units he disposed of several decades previously. From Chinese-based factories, of course.

Currently in development is the COVID-20 virus which will reverse this effect and generate a new wave of replacement purchasing - and then of CD players and Betamax video recorders.

[slinger]

Stu, never say never, mate. The problem is not drinking, it's using booze as a crutch. Trust me, I've been there. Going "cold turkey" because you made a bit of a twat of yourself will just put a different type of pressure on you.
You're changing your drinking habits for your kids, your wife, your extended family, and maybe your friends too, and your health, obviously, which impacts on all the other reasons because you'll probably end up dying before your time and depriving your kids of their dad, etc. You've got to want to do it, for everyone else first, not just you.

The amount I used to drink would probably scare the shit out of even you. How about drinking all through a three-hour lunchtime (Guinness, and brandies) then going straight out after work and ending up drinking "Limp Dicks" which was a cocktail I invented consisting of a large brandy mixed with a large scotch. Many many times I failed to work out how I got home from London.

Or how about not being able to go out after work because I had to get home in time to either work in or actually run my local pub for the night, followed by a lock-in until about three a.m? Sometimes I even only just got home in time to get ready for work, go to work still pissed, get a hangover around lunchtime, and hit the pub again to drink it away. These weren't isolated incidents, it was a lifestyle. It was made worse, probably, because I was a "sprits" man. Three pints and I was done and on the shorts for the rest of the session.

Marriage probably, eventually - she put up with me for much longer than I deserved - saved my life. I missed quite a bit of the first ten years of my marriage because I was too pissed to appreciate it, or remember it, and there's no getting that back.

As I think I've said before, when she passed away I promised myself I wouldn't go back to it and try to lose my pain in a bottle, which would have been far too easy, but would have felt like a betrayal. I don't even fancy a drink these days, and she'll have been gone 4 years in September. Mind you, a lot of that is self-preservation. The few times I've had a drink I woke up feeling like death the morning after.

Right, I think that's quite enough self-flagellation and "confessions of a drunk," for now

[CycleCoach]

Stu, never say never, mate. The problem is not drinking, it's using booze as a crutch. Trust me, I've been there. Going "cold turkey" because you made a bit of a twat of yourself will just put a different type of pressure on you.
You're changing your drinking habits for your kids, your wife, your extended family, and maybe your friends too, and your health, obviously, which impacts on all the other reasons because you'll probably end up dying before your time and depriving your kids of their dad, etc. You've got to want to do it, for everyone else first, not just you.

The amount I used to drink would probably scare the shit out of even you. How about drinking all through a three-hour lunchtime (Guinness, and brandies) then going straight out after work and ending up drinking "Limp Dicks" which was a cocktail I invented consisting of a large brandy mixed with a large scotch. Many many times I failed to work out how I got home from London.

Or how about not being able to go out after work because I had to get home in time to either work in or actually run my local pub for the night, followed by a lock-in until about three a.m? Sometimes I even only just got home in time to get ready for work, go to work still pissed, get a hangover around lunchtime, and hit the pub again to drink it away. These weren't isolated incidents, it was a lifestyle. It was made worse, probably, because I was a "sprits" man. Three pints and I was done and on the shorts for the rest of the session.

Marriage probably, eventually - she put up with me for much longer than I deserved - saved my life. I missed quite a bit of the first ten years of my marriage because I was too pissed to appreciate it, or remember it, and there's no getting that back.

As I think I've said before, when she passed away I promised myself I wouldn't go back to it and try to lose my pain in a bottle, which would have been far too easy, but would have felt like a betrayal. I don't even fancy a drink these days, and she'll have been gone 4 years in September. Mind you, a lot of that is self-preservation. The few times I've had a drink I woke up feeling like death the morning after.

Right, I think that's quite enough self-flagellation and "confessions of a drunk," for now

Thanks for your comprehensive advice Paul, it's very helpful. Your back story gives a lot of weight to your advice.

That's some pretty hard core drinking you describe there Paul but it doesn't scare me. I've been in the gutter due to drink before so I am very familiar with what it's like. Marriage and kids diluted it down to just weekends but I would still "go for it". I have never classed myself as an alcoholic but maybe I was getting close at one point.

Generally through the last 12 years or so I haven't had the urge to drink through the week. C19 and shit going down in my family escalated things though, to a point I was not happy with and my family had noticed something was up. Cold turkey is the only way I know how to deal with this. I see a future completely free of the burden of booze and that makes me feel good and warm inside.

It is not easy. This weekend has found me thinking about drink at numerous times and I have been a bit grumpy in the evening. I expect that will pass as I get used to the new normal. I get the "it's not the drinking that's a problem, it's the using it as a crutch" any maybe one day I will have a completely different attitude to booze and be able to use it responsibly, but at the moment I need to eradicate it from my life.

Thanks again everybody.