NOvember

So, the first, potentially most difficult weekend is over.

You see, I'm giving up booze for November. Hence it being NOvember. Shouty capitals and everything.

Only I'm not quite...

I have had an intention to have a month off for quite a while. Quite a few of my friends give up during January. This is an easy month to give up for:

• because so many people are doing it, there is often some peer support or at least understanding.
• it is the beginning of the year - it is almost like a one-month resolution, so you also get some solidarity from other people undertaking other diets, resolutions or such like.
• it is January - there are no celebrations or holidays or anything in January. There are also fewer birthdays in January.
• it is just after Christmas so people are trying to save and pay off credit cards. As such, fripperous mid-month booze-ups are practically unheard of.
• It is mid-winter. Whilst during the summer a mid-week lounge in a pub beer-garden with a jug of Pimms may sound delightful; trussing up in full winter garb and snow boots to trek down to the pub to then have to unwrap in the overheated environment, only to have to wrap up again when leaving, is not very exciting a prospect, so people essentially hibernate.

So I can understand why people do give up in January. But I don't. I don't for a couple of reasons:

Firstly, because I have a couple of friends who have birthday in January. I have a birthday in December and know how difficult it is to organise anything in December with people already being busy; or trying to save money; so I have considerable sympathy for people who have birthdays in January where there will be a considerable depletion because of the combination of money and weather. So I make the effort to support them; and

Secondly, I don't want to be part of the herd; 'just another one of those giving up drink for a bit'. I would rather postpone it until February (February also being the shortest month to give up booze for!) than just be seen as 'one of those self-righteous, pompous' types. I want to do it for me, not just because everyone else is. I know it would be easier perhaps; but maybe that is detracting from the challenge.

For some reason I was unable to do February; and then in March things started to get busy with nights out. April was Easter and the traditional cottaging weekend; May contained many bank holidays and then in June my busy summer started off with weekends down to London and Brighton and other exciting things. And so it just never quite seemed to happen.

I started looking at things in September. September for me was still quite busy - I had the wedding, a catch-up and a couple of other things organised so it wouldn't be possible. And in October I was to trek down to London again. But November was vacant - I had nothing planned for any of the weekends. Well, nothing except for one - the first, the weekend just gone. It was my nephew's second birthday.

Now, I had expected that - if there was to be any birthday party - this was to be an easy party to be sober at. How wrong I was. Not only was I the only adult there without a child; I was also the only adult without an alcoholic drink. Apparently this was good though - I could get left as the children's entertainer whilst the other adults gathered in the conservatory and drank to their hearts' content (and livers' discontent). Combine this with it being the first - and therefore somewhat more difficult - weekend and I deserve a very hearty pat on the back for getting through it.

They do say the first step is the most difficult, although it hasn't proven too badly so far (party aside). I don't often drink during the week anyway unless I am out on a special occasion. Wednesday - the very first day of NOvember - was one such special occasion. But it was only a trip to the cinema and although it was one of those very classy, arthouse cinemas with a bar where you can take drinks in, I abstained. Even when we went to the pub for a quick drink afterwards mine was a lemonade.

And then I wasn't really in the mood for going out Friday night anyway. All it took was getting into a different routine so that rather than opening a can or bottle on the train I treated the journey as for any other journey and just watched tv. Then when I got home with my fish and chips I just had to enjoy them and a lemonade and settle down to watch some films sober. It was a little strange to keep reaching for the lemonade rather than a beer I have to say; but not distinctly less enjoyable.

I didn't bounce out of bed full of the joys of spring on Saturday. Partly because it isn't spring and partly because I don't want to break my bed by bouncing. But I did get as much done as I wanted before the party.

Saturday night and Sunday morning was pretty much the same too. I was quite pleased to go to the party, otherwise cabin fever might have set in if I had been at home all day I was a bit surprised at how much I thought about having a beer over the weekend though. Daft things like when I was walking back from my brother and seeing a can in the gutter and things like that.

I don't make things easier for myself either. My usual problem is that there is temptation - I always seem to have some sort of booze in the house. And I haven't alleviated that either, if anything I have exaggerated it - there has been an offer on at the supermarket and so I have been stocking up. Thus whilst I was sat watching a rubbish movie on Saturday night (on the recommendation of a work colleague)  I could easily have gone through to the spare room and cracked open one of the  four boxes of lager in there. But perhaps that makes the pat on my back all the better - I didn't just meet the challenge, this was proper adversity that I had overcome. I hadn't just had a trek; this was an assault course.

Anyhow; NOvember, despite the nomination I have given it, is not a strict observance of temperance or prohibition. It is a series of guidelines. Whilst I would like to get to the end of November without a drink, I am not going to castigate myself too greatly if I don't. I have implemented a series of guidlines. Guidelines note, not rules. They are:

• I should aim not to drink at home;
• I would like not to drink during the week;
• I should avoid going out at the weekend unless necessary.

The words 'should' 'would like not to' and 'avoid' are very useful caveats. But, having gotten through the weekend, I do have a certain steel to my resolve now. Essentially, aside from a little lily-willedness; the guidelines only allow for drinking in one set of circumstances: that I go out at a weekend because it is necessary. And those circumstances are not currently presenting themselves during so far.

Next weekend may be tricky though. The combination of cabin fever if I don't set foot outside my property boundary on Saturday; and a family meal on Sunday where the parents may try plying me with wine; is almost as great an obstacal course as a two-year-old's party

Goodness only knows what December will think!