She’s a believer in alcohol, a fan of pubs, a ‘normal Irish person’. Today, Ann Marie Hourihane begins a social experiment: quitting alcohol for one month. How will she handle it?
I’m giving up drink. For a month. Starting today. I could not have done this without the generous support of my friends. A drinking friend, who said “Giving up drink? But you’ll never get that time back again!” Another drinking friend, with whom I share bottles of wine most Fridays, at a wine bar thronged by women like ourselves, and who was particularly heartwarming: “Who am I going to drink with now? This is really selfish.”
My nondrinking friends, on the other hand, gave me a warm welcome to the world of temperance: “Oh, a month isn’t long enough at all. There should be an article in The Irish Times every week about what it’s like to be a nondrinker in this country. Any fool can give up drinking for a month.”
It remains to be seen whether this fool can give up drinking for a month. The longest I have ever abstained from alcohol is three weeks. A month will be new. Although I’ve never attempted it myself, giving up alcohol for a month is – or was – a routine event in this country, as many people would spend November, the month of All Saints and All Souls, alcohol-free. Others would do the same in January, and perhaps during Lent too.
Source: Ann Marie Hourihan, The Irish Times, 04/05/2014
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