I woke up without a hangover.

I should be used to this by now. Having just completed 365 days off alcohol, you'd think waking without a hangover would have gotten a little blah by now (for the record, it never gets blah, it's always awesome). Only this time, for the first time in a year, my Friday night's activities did involve alcohol. And not just a couple of drinks either. On my first night of being officially "back on the piss", I stomached no less than 11 alcoholic beverages, two of which were (amazing) cocktails, one of which was a cocktail shot, four of which were French Champagne and four of which were white wine. Holy crap. It makes me sick just thinking about it. But the weird thing is I wasn't. Sick I mean. In fact, and contrary to general popular prediction, I did not get hammered after my first sip, or hammered at all. I totally kept my shit together the whole night. I can remember basically everything that went on, down to conversation specifics, and I woke this morning reasonably hydrated, with a cleansed face free of last night's makeup, and with only the tiniest hint of a headache. A miracle? Only a little bit. I made sure I kept my water intake up all night, and a lot of the drinking we did was accompanied by really delicious food. Although what was a bit strange was that everyone else seemed to be getting a bit more hammered than me. Maybe they were drinking faster, or not sinking water along the way. I dunno. What I do know, is that today I felt great. In fact I'd go so far as to say I have felt kind of in love with the world all day. I think it's because, in finishing My Year Off The Piss, and reacquainting myself with my old evil friend alcohol, I have discovered an enormous sense of liberation. I am not only free to drink if I want to, having lifted the hard and fast rule of sobriety, but I am free to leave it alone if I want to as well. I know I can do it. And I am no longer nearly so enamoured of alcohol's charms. Drinking last night was fun, definitely. In a bar and party setting, it was fun to be a participating member of the party crew once more. But what's even more fun, is doing cool, successful shit. Alcohol's okay, but music projects, book projects, writing a brand new blog? It's these things I'm addicted to now. So better keep moving yeah? It's time to make some cool shit happen.