Day Seven: Frobscottle

In the great drama of my struggle against the evil forces of drink, I went to the local children's library yesterday. It had been a week since I went there slightly tipsy with my daughter, and it was the scene of great and inspiring shame.

As predicted everything went fine. The child loaded up on manga and afterwards we went for a drink. I was very aware that at the slightest provocation I would have had a proper beer, but was not seriously tempted, so I had a rhubarb and raspberry tonic. Here's what it looked like:

[NOTE TO SELF: IN ADDITION TO GETTING SPONSORSHIP FROM THE METHS MAKERS, BUM A FEW QUID OFF FEVER TREE, RHUBARB AND RASPBERRY DIVISION]

It was very tasty, if maybe not the most macho drink in the world, and it got me thinking about drinking; not drinking alcohol, just drinking nice liquid.

I have heard from more than one sober person that even before they got in trouble with alcohol they really liked drinking - water or Coke or soup or whatever. I was the same. As a teenager I used to drink several pints of water a day. If there was Coke on offer I'd guzzle the stuff. Perhaps there's something infantile about taking your nourishment in liquid form, or maybe it's just that a drink can fill every part of your mouth with its magical deliciousness in the way that a solid can't.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I think my fondness for liquids more generally must have contributed to my over-fondness for and eventual addiction to alcoholic drink. And for some reason this makes me a little more forgiving of my stupid descent into alcoholism. (I don't think you need a reason to forgive yourself, by the way; I think it's an important part of digging yourself out of the hole of addiction. But it can be helpful to trace the reasons for why it happened.)

One of the bits of advice you often get when you are giving up drinking is to make sure you have a stock of delicious non-alcoholic drinks. I used to be a bit sceptical about that: after all your dedicated drunk is not really thirsty any more than your junkie is really longing for the sensation of a jab in the arm (although obviously there's maybe a pavlovian conditioning going on, as there is for smokers).

But it's not just for the sake of having something to do with your hands. One of the tricks that alcohol plays on you is that it arrogates the pleasure of drinking to itself. (William Porter is very good on this.) When you think of what is lovely about drinking (booze) it is very often the context or occasion that you think about: a lovely gin and tonic with lots of ice and lime on a sunny day, or a lovely hot whiskey by the fire on a grim winter's night, or a few glasses of wine in giddy conversation with friends over dinner.

But that's because drinking a cold drink on a sunny day is inherently pleasurable; wrapping your hands around a hot drink in winter is a nice thing to do in itself. It gives far too much credit to alcohol, and far too little to yourself and your friends, to attribute the joy of goofy late-night conversation to the chemical.

You still want a treat, though, and it can't be booze, so having a few nice non-alcoholic drinks does not mean finding a weak replacement for a strong pleasure, although it can be hard to break that association. I remember reading lists of suggested substitutes for booze when I first gave up, and finding them dispiriting an wishy-washy. Coca-cola is all very well but you also want an adult drink. Kombucha is good because it has that grown-up sort of fermented flavour; limes juice, or ginger are good because they have heat and sourness. Some alcohol-free beers are pretty good, and their qualty has certainly improve a lot, but you always get the niggling feeling that they are missing an essential part of their flavour (they are: alcohol...)

The pleasure an relief of drinking alcohol is, sadly, inextricable from the addiction. The pleasure of smoke for smokers is a sort of negative pleasure - the relief from the symptoms of withdrawal. The little fix of dopamine you get from a drink would not be there if you were not addicted, and I'm afraid what that means is that you can't have the same kind of chemical pleasure from a drink that you used to be able to get. You have to make do with the inherent, physical, animal pleasure instead.

The BFG seems to get endless positive enjoyment out of frobscottle. I think it's only partly to do with the floating and the farting; I do worry that the poor creature is a secret frobscotolic.