Drink O’Clock
It’s 5 o’clock somewhere! The happy mantra of many can be heard across the land as we mark the end of a long work day, a long week, a birthday, a barbecue, a good day, a bad day or as we gratefully reach for it to help bolster us through dinner with those small humans who on the dot of witching hour turn a little feral.
A summer rosé, a warming malt whisky, a flute of celebratory bubbles, you can be sure any foodie worth their salt will know just what to match with what. (And if, like me, you’re a foodie only in the sense that you eat food, then you’ll know the pain of discussing such pairings.)
So many people drink, in so many different ways. Even within the sometimes-hyper wellness-aware yoga community, most people I’ve met drink. Which is all well and good. Unless it’s not. But mostly, yes, it’s the way of things in my world.
Once I started practicing yoga I noticed the effect alcohol had on me was exacerbated. Just as I found that eating a crappy meal the night before an early class left me feeling less than stellar on my mat, so did a glass of wine. If I had a drink the night before I felt lousy, twisting and bending as if in quick sand, sweating it out all over the mat as toxins scrambled over each other for fresh air and coffee. It cancelled out the feel-goods that usually floated me out of the studio.
I preferred being yoga drunk.
I’ve never been much of a drinker anyway. The word lightweight was thrown around a bit back in the day but it’s only been in recent years I’ve given it the consideration I think it deserves. Not about how much I drink or how, rather why I drink at all. What I realised was, yoga or no yoga, I don’t think I ever took the time to ask myself if I actually enjoyed alcohol. Once I did, it was easy.
Before yoga* I used to politely accept a glass of wine, take a sip or two and pretend to finish it or carry it around all night.
Before yoga I used to smile politely and say things like, thanks but I’m driving, I’ve got to get up early, I’m on antibiotics …
Before yoga, you could say I lacked some balls.
Since yoga though, well, things just got all authentic and real and, quite honestly, exhausting as I’m continually held accountable for my own wellbeing and happiness. The cheek.
Since yoga I seem to be getting spectacularly good at saying what I mean, what I am and what I want.
Because why, for the love of all that is good, should I take a drink only to make other people feel more comfortable? Why, when I rarely think to myself, oh I’d love a pinot, do I say as the glass is handed to me, oh lovely, a pinot? Why, when I question to death every other single thing in this frustrating, thought-provoking existence do I care if some bore dismisses me because I’m not gagging for a glass like the rest of the gang?
Why, when somehow or other, I’ve taken part in bringing up a smart, savvy, self-aware young woman who has enough nous about her to state quite plainly when she does or doesn’t want a drink and is fairly scathing about my generation’s drinking habits, do I care what anyone else would think of me?
Exactly.
There’s no hesitation now. No, thank you is just that. No more, no less.
Sometimes I have a glass of something. Mostly I don’t.
From the very first time I practiced, yoga made me feel clean. Cleansed, actually. And I like it, I do. That I want to embrace that feeling isn’t so hard to understand. I think it was there all along and yoga, the gift that keeps on giving, helped clear things up a bit.
That I continue to learn to mindfully breathe, move and be present in my own life has been somewhat of a revelation to me. It’s a good place to be – even better stone cold sober.
– Jane
What about you, do you drink? Do you judge, even just a little bit, people who choose not to? Are you drunk right now? Kidddddddding!
*As in before I started practicing yoga, not right before class. Because I practice in the early morning. Although, you know, no judgement here.
Also, in the spirit (ha!) of the confessional you should know that I never preferred red wine to white. I just said I did.
© The Yoga Connection 2015