Drier States.

It's the 21st day of doing this. Three weeks. Three weeks of chamomile tea and long walks and early nights. Its like being on holiday when you're seven. Or when you're seventy, though there is less smiling and North Face weather-wear involved. Its mainly fine - after ten days of insomnia I'm now sleeping ten hours a night and I'm getting quite a bit of writing done.

But look at that face. The bags under the eyes. The twitchy quality - the ghosted expression as though he's just heard someone crack open a can in the other room. Look at that philtrum: as dry and lightless as a canyon on the moon. The forehead in dire need of a panel beater. The admittedly excellent hair. That man is a portly German pioneer of the Neue Deutsche Welle who has binned the heroin and the Liebfraumilch but stuck with the sausages. 

That is the face of a dry, dry man. It looks like the plant you didn't water before going on holiday. It looks like the sort of quarry that Tom Baker has just trailed a big scarf through. I guess what I'm trying to say is this prolonged sobriety hasn't been a walk in the park. Though I have plenty of walks in the park - that's what I did when I couldn't sleep for the first ten days of my confinement. 

In fact my face, as it so often is, is a red herring. I just happen to look unfortunate. I've made it grainy and black and white in order to look serious, but I basically have quite a silly face: all sulky mouth and fat eyebrows, like Tony Hancock failing the audition for Spandau Ballet, so it hasn't really worked. But you know - I'll look ridiculous if it means you flip a few coins in my general direction. 

Being boozeless does throw up interesting ideas about the Northern European culture: after half five in Belfast city centre there is literally nothing to do but go to the pub. Outside of town the coffee shops stay open, and, in town, I suppose you could go to a restaurant or the cinema. But really - the pub is the thing. That's it - the cultural monolith of western culture: we go to the pub and we drink together. We laugh and we fight and we cry frothy, boozy tears. That's what we do. We still measure our masculinity in pints or, more insidiously, as masculinity is a failing model, how "fun" we are. No one wants to be boring or square and the best way to prove your worth in any social situation is to pour intoxicating liquids down your neck like your oesophagus was on fire. 

 Drink is both our reward and our consolation; the alpha and the omega and all the other less impressive Greek letters in between. I miss booze but I don't miss the way it has been the architecture of my adult life; the lip-smacking carrot on the end of the stick. It's delicious, it's expensive and that shit will kill you, man.

But then I talk big. And as the clock strikes midnight on the 31st I shall be uncorking something high in alcohol and higher in deliciousness! Because, sod it - its been an entire month.

I nearly forgot the link! Please donate any coins here:https://www.gosober.org.uk/users/john-higgins-2ers