SUNDAY 21ST MAY 2023
Well, if that was my week off, I’ve had it! I didn’t get done all the things I’d wanted to do but then, that’s hardly surprising – I never do. Not that I’m going to complain about it – that’s just not the way I roll these days!
MY WHY
This week I picked up Eat, Drink, Run by Bryony Gordon from the library by way of motivation for finally committing to do a marathon. I didn’t know the back story so it’s been an interesting and inspiring read. Near the beginning, she wakes up in a hotel room with puke everywhere after over-doing it the night before and I realised that this is one of the “joys” of drinking that I haven’t yet touched upon. Oh, my lord – how much have I puked over the years?! In my first year at university my drink of choice was snakebite and blackcurrant and I can still visualise the many toilets I threw up in pebble-dashed by that distinct pinky-purple puke. I can also remember, on one occasion, a friend assuring me as I puked that it was fine –I was just making room for more. On another occasion, I woke up next to a pile of puke full of the chocolate flavoured fudge that I’d been eating the day before (and funnily enough have never touched since) and was forced to consider that I could actually have died by choking on my own vomit. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to everyone who has ever cleaned up my puke – from the younger sister of a teenage boyfriend who cleaned my teenage vomit out of her kitchen sink to the poor MacDonald’s employee who had to clean up a disabled toilet after I’d projectile vomited all over it after a 2-hour car journey the morning after the night before. Yes, whereas my early drinking years often culminated in puking that night, as I grew older and more tolerant, the puking moved to the following day. Many’s a time I’ve thrown up at work – thankfully, not recently! I honestly can’t remember the last time I threw up due to alcohol. Whereas that sounds like a good thing, maybe it’s not – maybe it’s just evidence of increased tolerance built up from years of relentless abuse. To be honest, despite the unpleasantness of the puke coming down my nose and the fleeting sense of shame on the occasions when I knew that someone else was going to have to clean it up, I was never really all that bothered by it – better out than in, as they say. It wasn’t until I read ‘This Naked Mind’ that I considered the physiological side of the story….. throwing up is your body’s way of making sure you stay alive, instead of dying from alcohol poisoning. Gulp!
Theme Tune: It’s Saturday Night by The Proclaimers