Journalled on Sunday, 25 May 2025 | Santo Cristo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 25 degrees, hot, sunny, and slightly overcast.

Yesterday I went to Guarabira’s birthday BBQ.

I stayed until about 8:00 and drank a lot for me, considering I’m not used to drinking anymore. The BBQ was genuinely nice. Besides drinking and talking, I got to journal and read a little, despite the movement and the confusion, so it wasn’t a wasted afternoon.

Today I’m paying the price. And when I say “so much,” I don’t mean legless, falling over myself, being a nuisance. It’s just that I’m no longer used to drinking the way I was when I was younger, and I don’t enjoy it the way I used to either.

I like beer or wine, never spirits. In my mind, the simple act of drinking a beer already means I’m relaxing, whereas spirits, maybe because of where I come from, always struck me as something that destroys a person. I grew up working-class in England, where drinking isn’t just a habit; it’s woven into the culture itself.

The pub, the pint, winding down after work, meeting friends, bar games, socialising: all of it is rooted deep in how English people relax and connect. I still remember my father letting me take a sip from his pint glass when I was eleven years old. So alcohol has been in my bloodstream, quite literally, for a long, long time.

The Weight of What We Pass Down

I think it was last year, on Yasmin’s birthday, or maybe Christmas or New Year the year before, everyone was making a toast. Me, Nalva, her sisters, the whole family together, and Yasmin wanted a small glass of champagne. Nalva was about to hand her hers, but I stepped in and said she was too young. Nalva understood. Yasmin accepted it.

What I’m trying to say is that past generations were maybe more careless, even ignorant, about raising children, without fully grasping the consequences of these small acts. I didn’t let Yasmin drink champagne because at 15 or 16, her body isn’t used to alcohol yet.

For her, at that age, that first buzz is like nitroglycerine: not just for the moment, but for what comes after. Once it’s in the bloodstream, it’s already altering her brain chemistry, sometimes in ways that don’t undo themselves.

That thought took me somewhere darker. One of the times my mother visited Brazil, I found out she used to put sherry in my brother’s bottle when he was a baby, because he was restless, always crying, hyperactive, and she couldn’t take it anymore. It was too much for her, so she put sherry in his bottle for some peace.

How mad is that?

A loving mother, by all accounts, but ignorant, maybe even reckless enough to dose her son’s bottle to get through the day. I don’t know if she was dealing with postnatal depression or couldn’t cope with my brother, or the whole situation. Either way, it was too much, and that’s what she did about it.

I’m not judging her. I’m fairly sure she had some degree of postnatal depression after having Russell. It was probably overwhelming, and rather than throwing him under the bus or drowning him in the bath, the easiest way out was to make him a premature alcoholic.

Whether by coincidence or fate, my brother grew up to become a heavy drinker, and he still is. Try finding a photo of him on Facebook that doesn’t have a pub or a drink in it. You won’t.

A Legal Drug, Everywhere

Alcohol, call it a drink or call it booze, is a legal drug that’s been stitched into almost every culture on earth. Scotland has its whisky, Russia its vodka, Brazil its cachaça, Mexico its tequila, France its wine. On and on it goes.

It’s simply part of the fabric of the world we live in. I drank far more when I was younger than I do now. These days, thankfully, I drink a fraction of what I used to.

Right now I’m trying 0% beer. I like the taste; I don’t want the effects anymore. I want to stop completely, and I have managed short stretches before, but going 100% dry is hard. It’s not only willpower, though that’s part of it.

It’s the sheer number of temptations, direct and indirect, that trip you up before you even notice you’ve fallen into the pit.

There’s something strange about walking into an English pub and asking for something non-alcoholic. It makes you feel like you’ve done something wrong, like everyone’s watching, like you’re not quite normal. Same at a party, when everyone’s drinking, and you’re not: you get self-conscious, like you’re the odd one out.

There’s always some temptation waiting along the path you’ve chosen. The question is whether you stay on it, even when it’s hard and takes real discipline, or whether you wander down that familiar winding road instead. Discipline and self-respect are the two words that matter most here.

Because it was never just a beer, it represents euphoria, connection, escape. And there’s a real stigma to ordering a non-alcoholic drink in a bar, because for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years, society has taught us that good times come with a drink in hand. That stigma can be cruel in the moment, but in the end, it’s on us to do what’s right for ourselves.

Escape Valves

Life is hard. Brutal, even, at times. So we look for ways out, escape valves to relieve some of the pain. Social media, drink, drugs, even sex or work pushed to an extreme- they’re all outlets that hand us a quick shot of dopamine to get through the day.

We’re not machines, though in some ways we behave like ones, repeating the same patterns day after day. The difference is we carry feelings, neuroses, emotions, all the things that make us far messier than any machine could ever be.

What I’ve found is that simplicity is easily dragged into the trap of self-indulgence, and once it’s there, it’s hard to pull back out. It’s a way of being, an immediate pleasure that life keeps placing in our path. Discipline and self-awareness are what save us from it: knowing your own traps, staying honest with yourself, and recognising what’s good for you and, more importantly, what isn’t. Without that, life gets a lot harder than it needs to be.

Looking back, I think that’s the real inheritance my family passed down, not the drinking itself, but the pattern underneath it. My mother reaching for sherry because she had no other way to quiet the noise. My brother reaching for a pint because it’s what the men around him always did.

Me, reaching for a beer because relaxing and drinking got wired together somewhere in my childhood and never fully came apart. None of us chose these patterns consciously. They were just there, handed down like an old coat that fits badly but keeps you warm enough that you never think to take it off.

That’s why I didn’t let Yasmin have that champagne, and why I’m sitting here with a 0% beer instead of the real thing. Not because I’ve solved anything, but because I’ve finally started noticing the pattern instead of just living inside it.

Discipline isn’t really about willpower in the end; it’s about staying awake to your own habits long enough to ask whether they’re actually yours, or just something you inherited without ever agreeing to.

Self-awareness is the only thing that breaks the chain. Everything else, the pub, the toast, the bottle of sherry, is just the coat someone handed you on your way out the door. You don’t have to wear it. You have to notice you’re holding it.