Authors Electric

Resolutions. Don’t we all just hate them? It’s like we deliberately set ourselves up to fail. Start the diet. Do the exercise thing. Give up alcohol. And we start out from such an overindulged, lazy and alcoholic place that we convince ourselves it must get better and it can’t be that hard just to get clean, can it? But then we set impossible targets and beat ourselves up when we consistently fail to achieve them. January is too dark and cold and miserable to do much more than scoff all the Christmas leftovers while watching the latest must-see series on Netflix. Add to that the ever-gloomy news of pandemics and plan Bs, face-masks and lateral flow testing and it’s no wonder we’re all so bloody miserable, is it?  I don’t do dry January. I like my weekly pub quiz nights accompanied by wine. I don’t feel the need to prove to everybody that I’m not an alcoholic – I know I’m not, and I don’t actually care what other people think. Diet and exercise? Hmm. Not a resolution, no, but I do...

Dry January is hardly a new concept and when I mentioned I had taken it on I had a few ‘underwhelmed’ responses, like, ‘I am doing it anyway and not asking for money.’ Not that I was asking for money for myself, but for the golf club's chosen charity of SCaRF . It was actually a spur of the moment decision taken on  Dec 31 st and one I quickly began to regret.  Customary tipple First of all I may not be a heavy drinker but for the past few years (starting with a job where I wasn’t happy and needed the six o’clock pick me up) I had become – despite giving up that job -   a very regular one. Some nights you just deserve it, right? Other times you just need it! So despite the eye-rolling from golfing buddies oblivious to my off the course habits, I knew it wouldn’t be easy.  A few people did issue warnings – January? The very worst month for self-imposed sobriety! And so much longer than February! Too late, the die was cast, a sponsorship list was already in t...