Sobriety

There are two questions I tend to get asked often about pregnancy. One is whether or not I've had any 'weird cravings' - disappointingly, no; he seems to be into fruit but I haven't combined any mustard and tofu with my apricots lately - and the other is whether I miss booze.

The obvious answer would be yes, but actually, not really. I guess when you can't have it, you don't really think about it. What I am amazed at is the amount of money that remains in our bank account (or used to, before I stopped working and the budget got super tight) now that there is only one of us drinking (and without a drinking buddy, he only indulges about once a week). 

In Montreal in the days before the positive pregnancy test, we were drinking at least a bottle of wine most nights (and often the one litre bottles....oops!). How did we afford it? Who knows. In Revelstoke in October 2009, the dead month for jobs in a ski town, we were totally skint but somehow managed to be drunk pretty much the whole time. 

I always knew we drank too much, in the back of my mind, but being pregnant has made me realise that we really did drink a lot more than most people. I guess when you get into a habit of enhancing any situation with alcohol (or social lube, as a past flatmate used to call it), it starts to feel a little dull when the booze isn't there. But conversely, when you spend nearly eight months NOT adding alcohol to any situation, it starts to seem a bit superfluous. There are a lot of movies I thought I had seen, but after watching them again, I realise I must have been drunk the first time, cos the plot is suddenly a lot easier to understand and I find I have not remembered how it ends. 

All this is not to say that I won't be looking forward to a glass of wine after the baby is born, but just that pregnancy has perhaps alerted me to the possibility that alcohol could have been a smaller part of my life than it was for the past ten years. 

Being sober at parties is weird though. There is something in that 'social lube' moniker. I feel I am a much more interesting person to talk to after a couple of drinks, a fact that has been proved by my recent stone-cold sober appearances at parties. I find the conversation doesn't flow from me quite so readily. I struggle to find interesting things to say - and when I do, I struggle to word them in the quick, witty manner that party talk requires. I tend to give up, hover near the people I know, feel a little awkward. 

I'm also amazed at the amount of energy drunk people have. They dance and run around and seem to be constantly on the move. Is it the sugar or just the destruction of inhibitions that does it? I guess, both. Suddenly, the idea of staying up until 4am drinking seems insane. How quickly I forget!

Perhaps my new, slightly dulled personality at parties is also due to the fact that I have a lot on my mind, and none of it really relates to those around me. I don't want to become one of those people who can only talk about her kid, but that is quite likely where this is heading. I also don't want to be one of those disturbingly drunk party mums who everyone is amused but slightly disgusted by. My upcoming new role has already required some changes to my lifestyle, and no doubt there are more to come.