Recovering Alcoholic

As most of you know, I am a person who knows how to enjoy a drink. I did though, for some time (4 and half months) stop drinking altogether. Mostly to prove a point to myself -- that I can stop and start drinking whenever I please.

Point made. And to bring home the point further, I've started up again. (And the crowd goes wild!)

I have a couple of personal rules though - I can only imbibe during weekends and only if I've been to the gym three times that week. Otherwise, it's soda water. The lousy thing with alcohol is that it makes you fat. There's no going around (pun intended) this fact. And if want to keep the 20+lbs I've lost (shameless self-promotion) off, well, I can't drink like I used to.

I came to discover a lot of things when I was "on the wagon". And one of the more obvious points is that a night out without alcohol is just about as interesting as watching a box of hair. And while I remember everything that happens during an evening of cold sobriety, there really isn't much to write home about. We had dinner. Discussed office politics and weather. Went home.

But throw in a bottle of wine and well... (my father reads this blog).

What I found unbelievably hilarious (but sweet) was the "reverse intervention" that my friends tried to pull a couple of weeks into the whole "not drinking" phase. Two of my best friends literally sat me down, took my hand, looked into my eyes and asked me what was wrong. The people who knew me were not happy for me, they were worried about me.

Insightful bunch.

Don't worry guys, am on my way back.

Top 10 things about not drinking

1. No hangovers
2. You save so much money
3. You lose weight
4. . . .

[someone please help me out here]

Why I stopped drinking

I used to drink a lot. And no, not a lot for a girl, a lot (period). During an average dinner party, I could have 4 glasses of wine and not flinch. If it were a "drinking party" (i.e. inuman), I could effortlessly down double that amount (the operative term here being effortlessly). And if you've seen me in action, you will know that I'm not exaggerating. It's a statement of fact -- malakas ako uminon -- noon.

Hold on to your seats friends, but in the last 30 days, I've had nothing to drink. Nada.

No, I have not found Jesus (he lives in my shower gel bottle). And no, I have not finally given in to my mother's constant "reminders" about my drinking.

I stopped drinking because I could (period). I drank to have a good time, to enjoy the taste of good liquor. To relish the lightheadedness after the third drink. I did not drink because I had to, or because I was sad or wanted an alternate reality.

Drinking to me is like reading fiction, it's a hobby. My days of boozing were great; and who knows, I might take it up again, but for now, I have no intention or desire to.

Praise the Lord.

Dirty, shaken, and with extra olives, please.

It's a sad truth, but martinis, like old records are going out of style. People now drink beer (even during cocktail parties) and wine, tequila and vodka. Gin (the base of all true martinis) has been relegated to a drunkard's poison or a farmhand's drink.

What a sad state of affairs.

Gin is my favorite spirit. It's not easy to drink, you need the right mixers or you end up with a concoction that tastes like Green Cross alcohol. And you need a steady hand and standard measuring equipment (that or years of experience). But there's something about the bite (some will call it an after taste) of a perfectly mixed martini that will make your head spin (or some people gag). And it's that bite (no, not alcoholic kick, I'm referring to a taste) that makes gin so special.

For you plebes, vodka is distilled from potatos or grain (that's it). Gin, while distilled from grains as well, is infused with botanicals, most notably juniper. And no, I did not Wikipedia this. I really know this. It's the botanicals that make gin a "livelier" drink. Vodka is considered a "neutral" spirit. (Ok, that part was Wikipedia-ed.)

Back home, I made my own martinis, but it felt like I was a character in M.A.S.H., sipping from a martini glass in a ratty shirt and flip-flops. Now I sip them in real bars (we don't have these in Manila, why!??!) where everyone understands "dirty, shaken, and with extra olives" and the shocked look I have when servers ask if I want my martini with vodka.

St. Patrick's Day

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day.

So of course ML and I just had to go to our favorite Spanish tapas place and demolish a bottle of wine (sentence not done yet) before heading to McSorely's for some scotch, a lot of ale, and a little rugby.

Crowd was thick, but my ethnicity got us a table and drinks in under 10 minutes. I'm not sure how many people know this, but almost all the bars in Hong Kong that cater to the expat crowd have Filipino wait staff. It's because we speak better English than the locals.

All you need to do is go up to the server you think is Pinoy, introduce yourself as a kababayan, and voila! Great table with two ales and two Jacks magically appear.

I used to do this a lot in NY too. And it would impress the hell out of my Argentinian classmates. I'd walk up to a Pinoy maitre d' and get us a through the velvet ropes while the New Yorkers stood in line.

Having a Philippine passport does get you in some places faster.

Recipe for a good time

3 parts* vodka
1 part water
calamansi juice syrup (the one with honey) to taste
lots of ice

*I like it when recipes use the measurement "part". An ounce is a part.

So is a cup.

The perfect drink

When I was a teenager, the male parental unit told me that when I grew up, I would stick to one drink and one drink only. That my tastes would be fine tuned with age. That I would stop mixing drinks and settle down on one drink I really enjoy.

I'm 32. It hasn't happened.

I still look through a menu each time I settle down for a cocktail during happy hour. I still chat up the bartend on how he prepares his Zombies. It takes me about 10 minutes to pick out a drink. And after I've consumed it, I will invariably order something else. Then after that, something else again.

I find imbibing only one type of drink to be boring, and in case that one drink is beer, a distended tummy waiting to happen. You really need to "mix it up" for variety. Imagine having 4 gin and tonics throughout the course of an evening. Just thinking about it makes me sleepy.

Or maybe I just haven't found the perfect drink.

A reliable drink (the primary reason for switching drinks is that they taste flat), but one that will engage my taste buds each time. A drink that won't get me slobberingly drunk, but one that will keep me in that happy lightheaded state for the entire evening. A drink that won't give me hangovers or make me fat.

Or maybe the perfect drink just does not exist.

And I doomed to looking through menus and not seeing anything I want.

The Office Christmas Party

Call me crazy, but I actually like office Christmas parties. (How can anyone not like free booze?)

My first office Christmas party was in December 1999. I had just started working for the Perm and my law school buddy BY (then a third year Associate) invited me for pre-dinner drinks at the hotel bar before the party.

I met Chum that night, so maybe that's why I think of office holiday parties fondly. (Nah, it's the free booze.)

Last night was The Firm's Christmas party. Remember that until September I had worked only for the Perm. That my only concept of Xmas parties was that of the Perm's annual loriat dinners at the Shang Makati.

Dig this: The Firm's Christmas party is not much different. There's not as much food (limited amounts of Thai/Vietnamese cuisine), you're not at a hotel (you're at a rinky dink restaurant at Lan Kwai Fong), and the staff actually mingle, sit and eat with the lawyers (instead of those two groups sitting on opposite sides of a huge hall). Ok so far I am not making the case for the identical Chirstmas party theory.

There was a lot of booze. A lot of people got hammered. And I stood there watching the whole thing like it was a science project. "How do Chinese people get drunk? A comprehensive examination of Asian drinking patterns and behavior." (Trivia: They play this game similar to rock paper scissors. But with head movements. Loser takes a shot. How novel.)

You wouldn't have guessed, but I don't like drinking parties (particularly those with lots of people I hardly know). These parties are loud, people don't make sense, everyone is making passes at everyone else. I like intimate gatherings where the 5 of you drink 9 bottles of wine (I actually did this with friends in law school). I also enjoy a drink with a total stranger where you can just bullshit each other to kingdom come, but please, only one total stranger at a time. Not 24 rip roaring drunk Chinese people.

At the stroke of midnight my colleagues decided to go someplace else. I did too. They went to Wan Chai for karaoke and I went home.

In the 2.5 minute cab ride back to my flat I thought, "That wasn't too bad. Libre toma."

The cure for hangovers

I haven’t had a hangover in a long time. I have one now. It is a mild hangover, but it is nonetheless annoying. It’s like there’s an invisible hand putting pressure on the upper portion of my brain. It’s not painful, but it is irritating. I can’t function. (Well, actually I can. I’m just uncomfortable. And cranky.)

I’ve had more than my share of hangovers. In law school, Sunday was hangover day. I could tell what day it was by recalling the involuntary retching I experienced on the Lord’s day of rest and summoning up the smell of vomit. If I could hardly remember the muscle spasms and the bathroom smelled like pine dew, it was probably a Thursday or a Friday.

I don’t know why people keep drinking after they’ve gone through a really bad hangover. I’m talking about the hangover you get when you fall asleep with the ceiling spinning. Waking up in the middle of the night to throw up (some times not making it to the bathroom). You feel a little better, but now you have headache. Finally, you fall asleep, but only after you give in to the headache, the dizziness, the dryness in your mouth.

You wake up four hours later (it’s always four hours for me, I don’t know why) and then things really start to get rough. The retching starts. The involuntary-is-there-an-alien-in my-gut retching. Your whole body heaves. There is nothing to vomit though (except for the bitter tasting yellow bile you seem to have an endless supply of). It’s all gone. Remember the pre-dawn hurl? Apparently your body does not.

The spasms stop. You take a sip of water, the dehydration is awful. Your mouth is chalky, your head is throbbing. Everything is too bright and too loud. You sit on the cold bathroom floor with your eyes closed and think, “I will never drink again. I will never drink again. It’s not worth it. Kalokohan.”

Generations have tried to tout hangover solutions. I’ve heard of the take two aspirin before you sleep method. This works, but it might kill you if you get an allergic reaction to the aspirin or the paracetamol or whatever it is you mix with the alcohol. You pass out from the booze, then you stop breathing. Saya.

Then there’s the “dog’s hair” approach. Have a drink in the morning. It will take the edge off. And it does. And then you turn into an alcoholic. Masaya rin ito.

There’s the bloody mary (or insert some other bizarre concoction here) in the morning. All these potions have two things in common. All taste like crap. And none of them work.

From my extensive experience in dealing with hangovers, I have concluded that there is only one cure for hangovers. A cure that is 100% effective. That cure is time. If you wait long enough, the hangover will go away. It always does.

The hand on my brain will let go, and with it, the curtain of sluggish thinking and hand eye coordination will lift. I will feel great.

So great I will want to celebrate by having a beer.

Brenner Needs A Bartend

My standards are pretty low. My only requirement for a dessert place is that it should serve beer.

Max Brenner does not serve beer.

So you can imagine my disappointment last night when I tried to order a SMB Light. (Hey, that rhymes!) Apparently, while MB serves 32 kinds of chocolate, it serves 0 kinds of beer. My friends offered to move, but I figured that like McGyver, I could get myself out of a situation using the bare materials at hand. The situation being we had just sat down to have dessert at a no beer establishment.

I looked around the room and spotted a shelf with what looked like bottles of booze. As I approached the wall I confirmed that the bottles did in fact contain liquor. But upon even closer inspection, I realized that the bottles contained liqueur. You know, stuff like schnapps, curacao, Irish cream, etc.

"I can work with this," I thought.

I scanned the bottles again and spotted a dusty bottle of vodka tucked way in the back. There was vermouth so I asked the waiter if he knew how to make martinis. He responded by giving me a blank stare. Then I asked him if he had orange juice, and he said he just ran out. Great. There goes my Screwdriver.

In about 30 seconds I figured out the different drinks I could prepare. With vodka, schnapps and a few other ingredients on hand, I could make something like 3 different drinks (Mandy Candy, Hard Goya, etc). I add the Irish cream into the formula and we're in for a good time (Mudslide, Screaming Orgasm, etc.). But the waiter looked clueless. I think he wanted me to order a coffee.

So I in a resigned tone I asked, "May Sprite ba, Boss?"

Finally the waiter responds. He asked if I wanted a single or a double.

I think you can guess how McGyver replied.

Corny But True

You Are A Martini

You are the kind of drinker who appreciates a nice hard drink. And for you, only quality alcohol. You don't waste your time on the cheap stuff. Obviously, you're usually found with a martini in your hand. But sometimes you mix it up with a gin and tonic. And you'd never, ever consider one of those flavored martinis. They're hardly a drink!

What Alcoholic Drink Are You?

Forgive the kabaduyan, but the results for this test are actually accurate.

A Dead Giveaway

I was about seventeen when I poured my mom a beer she was to enjoy over dinner. She has about 2-3 beers a year.

I poured it perfectly, effortlessly, tilting the glass just the right angle to avoid the foam. I poured all of the contents of the tinted bottle into the chilled tumbler in one smooth stroke. When it was over, the beer made a soft hiss. I handed it to her with a smile.

She remarked, "I see you've done this before."

Well, whaddaya know?