Uh-oh...

Yikes, readers! I did not think it would be so soon into this iteration of Sober Me that I would run the risk of a relapse, but I had two beers yesterday.

I had a date with a nice woman at a nice bar in the city centre. I did not think ahead about what I would drink. I wasn't really nervous, and I have no problem asking for a sparkling water or an alcohol free beer in a bar, so what happened?

I think it was something simple: she was nervous. She arrived at the table and said, with winning frankness and vulnerability, something like: I'm really nervous. I don't usually drink but I think I'll have a beer.

And I was caught off-guard and I just said Well me neither but so will I and I did. We had our drinks and went to the cinema and talked about the film over drinks afterwards. This time she had a coffee, but I wanted another beer, and had one.

There was no real harm done. I slept fine, I am not hungover, I have no desire to have a drink today. But getting away with just one or two beers is how it starts for me. I have learned I can drink normally, moderately, without horrible consequences, and the danger is that it's much easier to learn this lesson than to learn the much more important one which is that drinking one or two consequence-free beers is the way to getting complacent, allowing myself one or two casually, and getting back into the horrible pattern of compulsive, destructive drinking.

The only way I can usefully frame yesterday's beers is as a warning. Let me say: I came very close yesterday to acting in a way that could really harm me, never mind repulse this nice woman.

Do your work, blog. Let this be a lesson.

Call me a wet liberal if you like but I am generally against the physical abuse of children. I have to say, and I'd never really notices this before, that the Dutch schoolmaster in this picture does not look like a sadist (the girls watching on seems to be enjoying the scene, though). I might make this kindly disciplinarian my spirit guide, just for today...