IT was ironic that the edition of the Express & Echo I chose to write about giving up drink was the one with an offer of a free pint for every reader, writes Ed Oldfield. Well you can tale advantage of the newspaper's generosity by using the voucher for a pint of Tribute in the edition of Thursday, September 25, and still join the Go Sober for October campaign, which is raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support.
Now, I am the last person to be a killjoy. Drinking alcohol, sometimes to excess, has been part of my entire adult life. It was part of the culture of the mining town where I grew up that you weren't a real man until you could drink eight pints a night. Admittedly this was eight pints of Mansfield Bitter, a much weaker brew than what is generally on offer today.
Drinking went with the job of a journalist when I started out in the Eighties, and that is probably part of what attracted me to it. I spent many a lunch hour in the Bank pub in Plymouth with a wonderful set of characters from journalism's 'old school', ex-Fleet Street hacks whose working lives revolved around pubs and drinking.
Those days are long gone, my liver and I are happy to report, and the offices of the Express & Echo, like every other office now, are alcohol-free. To be honest, we just wouldn't be able to do our jobs under the influence.
When in drink, some people get funny, some people get sad, others get violent. But whatever its effect on you, your judgement is likely to be impaired. From the Thomas Hardy character in The Mayor of Casterbridge who sold his wife, to everyone who has got behind the wheel of a car after a drink, poor decisions are made.
And while alcohol is now cheaper than ever to buy, it is costing us in other ways too. Last weekend Devon & Cornwall Police highlighted their alcohol-related workload. And it makes sobering reading.
On Saturday night, officers in the two counties were called out to nearly 500 alcohol-related incidents. 59 people ended up in custody. Incidents included a domestic assault on a woman in Exmouth, a car crash involving a suspected drink-driver in Exeter, and arrests for being drunk and disorderly in the city. Over the weekend there were more than 800 incidents and more than 100 arrests. These were just the incidents to reach the police. How much unreported crime and physical and emotional abuse behind closed doors is linked to alcohol? I dread to think.
Police and Crime Commissioner TonyHogg says tackling alcohol-related crime is one of his top priorities. But it's tough to achieve. Putting the price up is seen as one way to cut consumption, either through more tax or enforcing a minimum price per unit. Pubs, where there is some control over drinkers, say cheap supermarket booze is forcing them out of business. But putting up prices is never a popular move, least of all with the huge businesses controlling most of the sales.
Meanwhile the media continue to portray alcohol as a necessary part of everyday life. Of course alcohol helps you lose your inhibitions. It also removes the safety catch which tells you what you are about to do may well be a cause for regret through the hangover haze the next morning. And for some people there is the potential for addiction. OK, I have ended up sounding like a killjoy, so enough of that. Whether we drink, and how much, is up to each individual. Alcohol has been with us, causing trouble, since ancient times. And we still don't know how to deal with it sensibly. So why not take a month off, get your drinking into perspective, give your liver and wallet a rest, and support a good cause ahead of Christmas.
It's up to you whether you get back on the bottle. I'm probably going to stay on the wagon.
If you want more facts about alcohol, drinkaware.co.uk is a good place to start. And if you want to join me going Sober for October, find out more at GoSober.org.uk, on Facebook or on Twitter @GoSoberUK
