straight and alert.

Oh no, Uniform Choice lyrics. Don't worry, the topic of abstinence is something I won't be exploring in depth here but it has become important to me.

I know this discussion isn't entirely relevant but while leaving TSB earlier, Alice expressed shock at how much a bag of Monmouth beans had cost her, which made me realize that I have no qualms about dropping a lot of money on coffee. That's probably partly due to the fact that I don't go out and spend any money on alcohol anymore.

Toward the end of 2010, my attitude towards drinking changed dramatically. Compared to 12 months ago I am such a different person in mostly good ways. I think it's important to make decisions and follow paths in life that better you as a person because we are all fundamentally fucking awful and anything that can be done to reduce your unavoidable state of worthlessness should be held on to.

Earlier today I saw this article on the Guardian website about an issue that has been in the news over the past few days: alcohol vs ecstasy.

Britain is attempting to tackle its binge drinking culture and the general public's rising reliance on alcohol by heavily taxing it.

According to some unnamed academics, "the UK's death rate from liver disease is twice the figure of 25 years ago, and double that of Australia".

OH WOW, insult to injury, as if sending off all our criminals to populate it all those years enough wasn't bad enough we're now judging how bad our drinking problem is against Oz. Aside from underhand insults, this stat is pretty scary - "deaths traceable to alcohol between now and 2021 are likely to come in at between 160,000 and 250,000". WELP. You don't have to be a non-drinker to see that there is a whole lot of wrong going on.

I'm not trying to be smug (it's a side effect) and I am far from militant straight edge but I feel so much better since I gave up drinking. I look back at how I was a year ago and it scares me. I'm still sad and lonely and angrier than ever, but now I don't abuse substances in order to avoid the cold, harsh light of reality. I'd rather see everything clearly than hide in the dark.

kaffee uber alles.