Day 40 - October 8th

Day 40 - October 8th
This night made me question why I even like drinking - would have been exactly the same sober
Drinks with Shayne at comedy night and then workers
Very average

        One thing doing this challenge taught me was to appreciate drinking without getting absolutely trashed. I noticed around this point in the year, when the end was in sight and my drinking days were getting close to single figures, that by the nature of the challenge I'd set myself, I felt like I'd wasted a day if I drank, but didn't drink to oblivion. I'd told myself that the move to Melbourne would change me, but my mindset was still essentially the same. I'd found an analogous group of mates to get fucked up with, and a girl to spend time thinking about, the only difference was the names on the street signs.
        Also I had nothing to aim for. When I was in Adelaide I could point myself towards the goal of leaving for greener pastures, but now I was in those pastures and didn't know what to do with myself. Comedy. Just do comedy.

        I had a drink that night because I'd just met Shayne Hunter, a comic from Brisbane who'd come to Melbourne to do gigs for the week. I was excited at the prospect of hanging out with him because he was a good comedian. I'd seen him kill it at a couple of open mics where I'd bombed my ass off, and I guess I thought if I hung around him some of that might rub off on me. I didn't realise that he didn't drink, or at least that he wasn't drinking that night, so I bought a beer, then stood next to him drinking it and feeling stupid.
        I drank blindly, committing to the hope of a wild adventure – I knew that even one beer counted as a day, and I wasn't about to cheat myself and ignore it, as badly as I wanted to. We caught a tram to somewhere vague with this girl Shayne was seeing, walked around a little searching for some party or something, then headed to The Workers when we couldn't find anything. After half an hour there we called it quits.
        It wasn't drinking that made this night a failure, it was the pressure that I put on it because I was drinking. For me now, a couple beers with a new friend after a gig sounds great, but in 2012 it wasn't enough. Because of the challenge, and the limits I'd put on myself, I was always desperately swinging for the fences.

Click here to read the next part - Day 41 - October 10th