Sunday March 18 - Thirsty Thirty

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been two months, 17 days and 19 hours since my last drink.

OK, I'm slightly concerned about this project, as the novelty may be wearing off.

One month without booze: a painful yet gratifying period of purification.

Two months without booze: a chance to really challenge myself and test the outer limits of my will power and self discipline.

Nearly three months without booze: Just crap.

I no longer crave alcohol. I yearn for it.

I yearn for it like a lovesick teenager. I think about it, I dream about it, I want to write a soppy poem about it. Dammit, I'm this close to sticking a photo of a pint onto my school bag - sorry, briefcase - with WB 4 Booze 4 Eva IDST scrawled next to it.

Perhaps that is why my fantasies about alcohol (yes, I'm afraid I do have them) seem to reverberate to my youth.
In these reveries, I am not sipping champagne in swish bars or even a cold Guinness in the Penny Lane.
No, I am 16 again, holding a foaming pint of bitter in a backstreet Digbeth boozer with sticky floors and the unmistakeable whiff of TCP in the air.

God, you know your brain is messed up when you are eulogising a night in the Old Wharf.

Friday night was bearable. I stayed in but had the foresight to avoid watching Comic Relief like the plague (no pun intended), as I knew the sight of Lenny Henry being zany would have me ripping the top off a whisky bottle faster than Dawn French has the foil off her first Chocolate Orange of the morning.

Saturday, however, was much harder, as it involved yet another traditional drinking event: the 30th birthday party.

Thirtieth birthday parties are strange events, anyway. They seem to announce that your social life has turned full circle. Think about it. Your first birthday party almost certainly involved you lying there, blissfully unaware, quietly soiling yourself while your older relatives enjoyed a buffet.

You spent the next 29 years trying to evolve the experience. First came the clown and cake parties, then trips to Alton Towers or the zoo, then McDonalds and the cinema. Perhaps you were one of those sophisticates who pulled out all the stops and were allowed to take eight friends to Lazer Zone followed by Pizza Hut. (There's one 27th birthday I'll never forget.)

Then, when you hit 30, you decide the best plan is to invite all those old relatives back for another buffet. And if you time your drinking badly, they may well end up enjoying it once again while you lie there, blissfully unaware, slowly soiling yourself.

As it happens, this party had all the requisite ingredients. Good venue, nice people, tasty buffet. And Nicky, the birthday girl, timed her drinking to perfection. Drunk enough to enjoy herself, not so drunk as to...(I think that's enough soil talk).

What I really wanted, however, was a proper drink. Because although I had a nice time, what I really wanted was a drunk time. I wanted to talk crap and dance badly and stay up late. Why? Because that's what parties are about.

I went home at around 12.30am. Not a bad effort, but I watched with envy as Gary, Gregg, Graham, Ali and others went on to the after-party, at Nicky's flat. For me, the night was over. For them, it was just hotting up. And that's why drinking is fun.

Ho hum. Only another 288 days to go. I'm sure they'll fly by.

PS. Took my mum out for Mothers' Day today. Went to a restaurant which was very Solihull. All pastels and pelmets and Forever Friends statuettes lining the window sills. I thought mum might not be allowed in as she wasn't wearing gold shoes. Food was good but my premier dessert choice (blackforest gateau, natch) was scuppered, due to its alcohol content. I am a slave to this project.