Consumption

I travelled to a friend’s birthday over the weekend and the group of friends in attendance are keen consumers. Aside from the material goods they covet, this group has a shared love of consuming booze. Large quantities of it. Quickly.

No excuses accepted; no questions entertained. Simply a ruthless, devil-may-care, unapologetic consumption of beer, wine, spirits and anything vaguely alcoholic, over a sustained period. And no, we are not irresponsible teenagers out to rebel or prove a point. We are grown men, many with families, children and mortgages. Grown men who, in some ways, find it extremely difficult to outgrow binge drinking.

I am not proud of this behaviour, but will not apologise for it either. No one became abusive, rude, objectionable or anti-social towards residents of our Nation’s Capital. This was a well-behaved congregation of beer chuggers.

But it is a worrying trend. As a group we have grown out of a number of activities we enjoyed as teenagers and young adults. For example, I no longer:

steal road signs that have my surname on them,

run nude at parties,

skull jugs of beer for money,

gamble my last $10 on a pokie,

eat the same meal 5 nights in a row,

sleep til 3am and rise at midday.

And the list goes on and on and on.

I drink rarely and I do enjoy a beer with the lads. When drinking I refer to myself, and a number of my contemporaries, as ‘Pringle Drinkers’ – once we pop you can’t stop. This is possibly the worst type of drinker.

In discussions with mates it seems that most of us share the view that commencing drinking prior to lunch and finishing a few hours before most people are heading to work is something we are not interested in doing anymore, yet we continue to do it. It is a real mystery. The power of peer pressure? The need to remain young in our minds?

We all have areas in our life we can improve and booze consumption is one of mine. Sure, some of the funniest and most entertaining times in my life have been linked to booze, but also some of the lowest.

But fear not, alcohol is not the only thing that I enjoy consuming. I am an avid reader and keen eater – ‘consuming’ habits that are far less life threatening and anti-social. The key is finding a balance between the good and the bad.