It has been a strange old month.
I am not convinced yet how much of the strangeness is due to seeing the entire month through Apple Juice and Ballygowan rather than through my more normal white wine haze.
On the plus side have been the mornings, hangover free and-that other aspect of hangover which we forget about-depression free.
There also has been the satisfaction of being holier-than-thou, of people’s incredulity that I could hack a booze free month.
I think the most satisfying aspect is how painless it has been. How in nearly every social occasion (and there were loads this month!)I enjoyed myself as much as ever, and was as loud and boisterous as I normally am.
Another definite positive is that my creativity soared upwards by about ten points on the c scale, my amount of blogs for the month virtually doubled.
(And my hits on my site , as a result I’d say, became my highest ever)
But there were downsides too.
I sorely missed that moment after a tough day when a chilled wine or Kir gave one a short cut into instant relaxation.
There were also moments when being surrounded by drunken friends when sober oneself did tend to make the tolerance levels sink to just under bearable.

I do know some friends will be delighted when I go back on the sauce tonight
(for the purposes of abstinence I follow the pre-Gregorian calendar of four week months.)
They will I think be relieved that a certain pompous observer has gone away.
I’m not so sure.
There is a strong tradition in my family of overindulgence in alcohol, as I said at the beginning of the month what I would love to do is cut down rather than abstain.
I still have to find out if this is possible.
In the meantime I have a bottle of Picoul de Pinet chilling in the fridge.
Sláinte.