Filed under Productivity …

Dec 31 2012
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Booze Jokes, Effects of Abstinence, Funny, Humor, Inspiration, Productivity

Living Life Large

YOLS-comedy-night-beer

Howdy strangers!

My apologies if you’ve been wondering what the hell happened to Dipsomaniac Ben but since finishing my year of living sober I’ve been living life large. My silly season drinking didn’t get out of hand or anything but I have been enjoying drinking alcohol again. Very much! In fact my wife reckons I might be in a ‘Honeymoon’ period of enjoying booze during the holidays, especially since it’s summer down under at the mo’. And yes, beer sure tastes good when it’s hot outside!

But something else besides my re-acquaintance with alcohol has happened to me post-YOLS. I’ve been overcome by total focus on my new project, something I’ve named my ‘Year of Comedy’!

If Year of Living Sober taught me anything—apart from simply the comforting knowledge I could go a whole year without a single alcoholic drink—it was that good things come when you focus. Making a simple decision (to abstain from booze for a year) and sticking to it helped me become a better blogger (and perhaps writer in general) and it helped me appreciate something about myself I maybe hadn’t valued enough before: when I set my mind on something I get it done.

Now my mind is set on doing something I have always dreamt of but never had the nerve to try. No, not a triple-loop roller-coaster (done that) but something else with twists, tight turns, dips, dives and climbs towards the giddy heights: stand-up comedy.

Though I have acted on-and-off since I was a teenager, and though I have performed on many stages around the world as a singer-songwriter I have never done the one thing that scares me (or used to) most. To stand on a stage and make people laugh. It sounds simple but since most people are less afraid of death than public speaking, maybe I’m not alone in having felt trepidation at the thought of going mono-a-mono with a comedy club crowd.

But now I am ready. And maybe my year of living sober helped get me there.

Since celebrating my YOLS completion with a beer (or two) and putting together The Little Booze Joke Book (featuring the best Little Booze Jokes from this blog) then doing a radio interview with a Canadian Radio Station (DNTO on CBC radio) I’ve been flat out writing material for my comedy debut. I’ve been standing in my study delivering gag after gag to my nonplussed pussy (not a Benny Hill joke about my wife but rather a reference to our cat) and I’ve booked myself in for an open-mic slot at a Melbourne comedy club.

The future looks bright. Fun, exciting, challenging and bright. I am literally counting down the days to my first stand-up gig ever.

But that is my future, what of my past? Has my drinking habit returned the same as it was before my YOLS or am I drinking less now than before or more?

Truth is it’s not an easy answer.

Since returning to drinking I have had nights when I’ve drunk more than the two stubbies of beer and a bottle of wine I was drinking regularly pre-YOLS and nights when I have drunk less. A few times I’ve left bottles of wine unfinished (though they don’t last more than two days!) and a few times I’ve gone to bed worried there has been no change in my fondness for getting a bit more sloshed than might be good for me.

But here’s the big thing that’s changed: I’m okay with all of it. I feel good that I accomplished my goal of going a year without a drink and though I might have returned pretty much to my pre-YOLS drinking patterns that’s as it is. I am what I am.

As I have said many times in the last year “I am a dipsomaniac”.

But I’m also a lot more. I’m a husband and father; I’m a writer, a musician, an actor and soon to be stand-up comedian. For a year I was a non-drinking dipsomaniac and now I am a drinking one again.

Cool.

Would part of me have liked to come back here and blogged about how I have lost my taste for liquor and have no need to get a bit tipsy anymore? Sure. But that part is just a bit of a show off, I reckon. That part chooses to forget that my main goal for Year of Living Sober was to see if I could do it. And I did. It’s done.

Despite having many ideas for more posts about the life/booze balance, I have decided to put all my focus on my comedy. This YOLS blog has been my most successful since I started blogging a few years ago and I am going to take what I learned and apply it to my Year of Comedy blog at www.bgmitchell.com.

Do drop by. I’d love to share that journey with you too!

Cheers,

Ben

PS. For a limited time I’m making The Little Booze Joke Book available from Amazon for FREE. You can download your copy from January 1st 2013 until the 5th (inclusive). Hope you get a laugh or two and maybe find some jokes you missed reading on the blog.

☆

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Nov 08 2012
10 Comments
Affirmations, Booze Jokes, Effects of Abstinence, Healing, Health, Humor, Inspiration, Productivity

12 Months of Sober Living: A Big Drinker’s Year Off Booze

12 Months of Sober Living

With 3 days to go on my year of living sober I thought it would be a good time to recap my 12 months of sober living.

Today’s post is a quick-ish look back over my shoulder at some of the sober highlights of my YOLS as well as some of the stuff I normally would have done with a drink in my hand and a couple already in my belly.

And maybe with another one in my sights!

But, and as you’ll know from reading any of the previous 137 posts on how I’ve experienced and coped with a year off booze, I made a commitment to myself to do everything I’d normally do in a life which had for over twenty years included alcohol almost every week (and immediately pre-YOLS, every night) without a drop of booze.

And, I am happy to say I have—so far—kept that commitment.

Not a drop of alcohol in 363 days.

So now, let’s get into…

12 Months of Sober Living: A Big Drinker’s Year Off Booze

Month 1

After an excruciating and blinding (literally) migraine following a boozy family wedding I made the vow to myself not to drink any alcohol for a year. My wife was surprised but supportive. As she was seven months pregnant and not drinking herself I thought it would be a good time to do something good for my health and maybe my family too.

- K.D. Lang concert. YOLS bonus: enjoyed awesome show from one of my favourite singers and didn’t have to line up at the public toilets to relieve myself of any beer, wine or spirits purchased at the bar.

- Flew to Sydney to promote my first novel (The Last Great Day) on national morning television show, Sunrise. Would have normally been tempted by hotel bar-fridge but spent down-time writing instead (did first NANO, during which I completed a draft of a yet unpublished novel in one month). YOLS bonus: more productive.

Month 2

- Public reading in support of foreward I wrote for creative writing compilation book. Free booze but none for me. YOLS bonus: drove home happy to be pulled over and breath-tested for driving under the influence. Wasn’t.
- Christmas. Didn’t drink but still probably ate more than I needed to. YOLS bonus: would probably have pigged out worse if I’d been drinking too.

Month 3

- Daughter born! My wife Pauli, and my then not yet two-year-old daughter, Honey, welcomed our second child, Cherry, into our family. YOLS bonus: being stone cold sober may have given more confidence to my wife I was ready to drive her to hospital should our plan for a home-birth not play out. It didn’t. I drove us to the hospital. (N.B. The emergency C-section went perfectly fine and everyone is healthy and happy).

Month 4

- Exercise. My calendar for this month is FULL of exercise entries. Running, biking, push-uppering. YOLS bonus: on 29th of that month I did 25 push ups. Room for improvement but it was a start.

Month 5

- Quit TVC acting. Twenty-something years ago I was a kid with a dream of becoming a movie star. Somewhere along the way the acting part of my creative output ended up being auditioning for one television commercial after the other. Not only have the rates of pay not gone up for actors appearing in television commercials (not even in line with inflation) but I had become increasingly bored with the way many directors treat actors like cattle. And I had become resentful of being made to wait for an hour to humiliate myself miming eating junk food for a director who’s only direction often is something like ‘I’m not sure what I want from you but do something different this time.’ YOLS bonus: solution to my angst was clear, simply tell the agencies not to call you for commercials anymore.

Month 6

- New novel. Besides blogging about my YOLS and extending our family (!) much of this year has been about me finishing and publishing my second novel, Zippin Pippin. YOLS bonus: no hangovers=more writing. More clarity too.

Month 7

- Emerging Writers’ Festival ‘Structure’ seminar. As an official blogger for Melbourne’s Emerging Writers’ Festival I was also very happy when they asked me to present one of the seminars for emerging writers. YOLS bonus: spent night before seminar preparing notes instead of polishing off a bottle of wine, no doubt reaping rewards of the smooth presentation the following day.

Month 8

- Birthday. Generally on my birthday I’ll have a few drinks. At least some champagne. But this year, nothing. YOLS bonus: focussed on family fun instead of sloshing self. Go big daddy, go!

Month 9

- Final edits, formatting and packaging for Zippin Pippin: there’s a lot to be done as an independent author! YOLS bonus: even get some work done AFTER dinner.

Month 10

- Zippin Pippin published and promoted, cast to act in indie film with mate (Chocolate, Strawberry, Vanilla coming to a screen near you in 2013!), and Honey turns two. YOLS bonus: fit quite a bit into Month 10.

Month 11

- Continued healing. Over the year I’d been having a treatment about once a month of kinesiology/reiki. I really feel these sessions, combined with my year off booze, have helped liberate more energy and focus my attention on a new, positive future of me manifesting all I want with life by bringing more awareness to everything I think, say and do. YOLS bonus: saving money on booze meant I could happily spend it on investing in my health.

Month 12

- Goal in sight. Perhaps the most significant thing to happen in the final month of my year of living sober is that I will complete it. With three days to go I’m quietly confident I won’t lose my resolve now. YOLS bonus: knowledge I can accomplish something I never have before.

My name is Ben and I’m a dipsomaniac.

Today is Day 364 of my year of living sober.

☆

Little Booze Joke

A penguin walks into a bar and says to the barman, “Have you seen my brother?’ The barman says, “I don’t know. What does he look like?”

How about you? Have you accomplished some positive stuff in the past year? Love to get your comment.

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Dec 22 2011
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Booze Jokes, Effects of Abstinence, Funny, Productivity

Day 41: Knock Off Danger Time For Boozin’

Yesterday was Day 41 of my year of living sober.

Merry Christmas Tree at Melbourne's Joy FM

It was a Wednesday. Being self-employed/freelance I write pretty much everyday and take each day—and opportunity—as it comes. Yesterday turned out to be one of my busiest days in ages and involved a range of ‘business’ activities from website maintenance and upgrading to a radio interview on Melbourne’s Joy FM.

Doing a transfer from wordpress hosted to self-hosted blogging almost did my head in, but eventually I got there. There’s still a lot to learn but I’ll take each plug-in at a time and try and remain patient with my technological limitations (of which there are many).

Having been an actor in a former life, I still get the odd call from a casting agent seeing if I’d like to come in for a Television commercial audition. With one sixteen-month-old baby girl and another Mitchell offspring due any day now I definitely DID want to come in yesterday for an interview with the lovely casting girls at Chameleon Casting for a potato crisp (we used to call them chips in Oz) commercial which would pay more than I earn by selling approximately 1000 copies of my debut novel (which came out in April in Australia this year).

Then, after driving across town for the audition, I headed into the city to try and find a parking space close to Joy FM headquarters. After doing a few laps of the CBD I opted for a safe all day park (to avoid any damn parking fine) which required me to walk a bit further than I’d planned but gave me peace of mind that apart from a cheap won-ton soup in Little China Town, petrol would be my only expense for the day.

The point of this journal-like entry is by the time I got home I was bushed (as an old fogie might say). Being bushed—both mentally and physically—I would have loved a drink. Jeez, I would have killed for a drink! I really wanted a beer, then another, then some wine.

But I didn’t. Despite my mental craving I wasn’t really tempted to throw in the YOLS towel. I just had to frown and bare it, realizing yesterday that the hours between 5pm and 7pm are turning out to be the ‘danger’ period for me. This was when I used to turn to the bottle to ‘turn-off’ from my day’s work. Now I turn to ice-cream or, as I did last night, some left-over mud cake.

Sure, it’s not ideal to replace booze with sugar but at least I’m trying something different. Even if it is just alternating Peppermint with Rocky Road and throwing in the odd Cheesecake Shop special.

My name is Ben and I’m a social experiment.

☆

Little Booze Joke 41:

How many workaholics does it take to change a lightbulb?

One. He can do everything.

PS. Check out Day 10 for a post about fellow workaholics Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump

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Dec 19 2011
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Booze Jokes, Funny, Productivity

Day 38: Soberly Into A New Domain

Yesterday was Day 38 of my year of living sober.

It was a Sunday.

I didn’t have a hangover but I did feel a little groggy. Maybe it had something to do with the big bowl of Rocky Road ice-cream I had before going to bed the night before? Isn’t processing sugar supposed to affect you in a similar way to processing alcohol? Whatever. All I know is after an early morning walk along the river with my pregnant wife and 16-month-old girl I felt a lot better.

No doubt the strong soy-macchiato at the bakery helped.

When I got home I did my YOLS blog and then committed further to this exercise in discipline and change by purchasing a wordpress add on: I bought the domain name ‘www.yearoflivingsober.com’.

As it goes I’m not averse to buying the odd domain name and have owned a few in my time. The ones I currently own include:

www.benjamingrantmitchell.com (which I update often with links to media like a recent video from a TV appearance promoting my first novel, The Last Great Day)

www.ben-mitchell.com (which, since this url is printed on the artwork, is the site anyone who purchased my 2006 CD, The Stars Can See might first key in)

www.yisyot.com (inspired by a novel I have in the works)

www.zippin-pippin.com (another novel at second draft stage, this one a comedy/romance/road-movie set in America)

www.thelastgreatday.com (which links to my website and may one day link to a page dedicated to my first novel of the same name)

As you can see I already had a few domains going before getting yearoflivingsober.com. Now I’ve got one more. I’m not sure if it was just because I was hang-over free which enabled me to be so productive yesterday (and on the weekend!) but I’ve got a feeling it helped. Plus the $25 I spent on www.yearoflivingsober.com is about what I’d normally spend on a bottle of wine to finish the weekend with, so my former ‘drinking money’ has been invested in something which might live on even after this year is over.

That’s gotta be good too don’t it?

Before I hit the sack last night, the last thing I watched on tele was a special on comedian Bill Hicks. I couldn’t help but take extra note of how former colleagues, friends and family all concurred that Bill really came into his own—he finally found his true voice—when he kicked his drinking habit. Although both were tragically cut short, his career and life really took off when he stopped boozin’.

I guess, when  you’re ready for it, a lot of good can come from making a change.

My name is Ben and I’m a social experiment.

☆

Little Booze Joke 38:

Politically outspoken and philosophical comedian Bill Hicks walks into a bar. The barman says, ‘Hey, Bill want me to make you one with everything?” and Bill says, “No thanks. I already am.”

PS. I’ve got a facebook page too: www.facebook.com/benjamingrantmitchell.writer. Do drop by.

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Dec 17 2011
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Booze Jokes, Funny, Productivity

Day 36: How To Name Your Blog In 3 Easy Sober Steps

Yesterday was Day 36 of my year of living sober.

It was a Friday. I spent some of Friday writing and some of it setting up a new Facebook page for my collected writings. I also did my daily YOLS blog just as I am doing it today.

And all this without a hangover.

Following a theme that has emerged over the last couple of days (longer?) I am still cleaning out my study/office/creative-space (I don’t want to limit my working environment with a ‘label’, like) and found this scrap of paper which shows part of my process for deciding on something as simple as the name of my latest blog.

So, here it is. My version of…

HOW TO NAME YOUR BLOG:

1. Decide on the theme of your blog.

It helps if you have a blog with a narrow—perhaps a better word is ‘focussed’—theme. In my case, taking a year off drinking alcohol and blogging every day something related to that journey is a pretty focussed theme.

2. Brainstorm around the theme.

Think about any catchy (possibly wacky/zany/irreverent) associated words which incorporate the theme.

AKA a 'Soberlog'

3. Follow your intuition and choose a name for your blog that isn’t already being used.

Blogging is becoming more popular every day so I make sure to do a google on any new blog I might be thinking about starting. Luckily, there wasn’t another Year Of Living Sober going so it was free for the taking. So I took it.

Here’s a list of other possible names that helped me get to YOLS. I think my favourite is ‘Spew No More’ but ‘Are You On Antibiotics?’ is also pretty good (you know, as in what somebody says when they are shocked at their former drinking friend declining a drink).

The other names I chose not were:

Boozefree

BoozeHound

YouCanHaveOneCan’tYou?

OnTheWagon

You’reNotAnAlcoholic

WinoBeGone

My name is Ben and I’m a social experiment.

☆
Little Booze Joke 36:
A Chicken Parmigiana walks into a bar and the barman says, “I’m sorry but we don’t serve food here.”
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Dec 16 2011
2 Comments
Booze Jokes, Effects of Abstinence, Funny, Healing, Productivity

Day 35: Collectible Clean Out

Yesterday was Day 35 of my year of living sober.

It was a Thursday. I spent most of it cleaning my study. Being someone who finds value and inspiration in almost anything (why else would I keep a print-off of a flight confirmation form for a holiday across America 3 years ago?) I have  a tendency to collect a lot of…well, junk.

Besides long outdated travel itineraries my junk consists of various items including (but in no way limited to): old phone/computer leads I don’t use BUT MIGHT NEED ONE DAY, novelty/souvenir hats I never wear BUT MIGHT NEED ONE DAY and stacks of business cards from people I met once seven years ago, did no business with BUT MIGHT NEED ONE DAY.

That’s my problem: I think I MIGHT NEED ONE DAY lots of stuff that simply ends up clogging up my drawers. I’m also sentimental and very nostalgic. Until yesterday I’d kept a worn out piece of paper (the shape of a bookmark—but not as sturdy) folded up in my wallet for almost 20 years. This precious item was a hurriedly scrawled reading of my astronomical chart done for me by a co-worker back when I was selling movie tickets at an arthouse cinema in Melbourne.

And like the food diary from my successful diet a couple of years ago I wasn’t ready to part with the record of how the moon was in Capricorn and Mercury was in Gemini when I was born.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday I chucked a heap o’ stuff including the scraps of paper that had meant so much to me.

Can this newfound resolve to let go of my nostalgic keepings be attributed to my sobriety? Possibly. Though, even before my YOLS I have sporadically engaged in these type of clean-outs many times before. But something about yesterday’s one was different; yesterday I felt like I was letting go of more than old physical junk: there was an emotional release too.

How ‘New Age’ of me, hey?

Anyway, my desk is clear now and the bookshelf behind me is no longer stacked beyond capacity. Today, I’ve got room to move, to think and to create. Plus, thanks to my iPhone camera I’ve also got digital representations of things I’d previously found most hard-to-part-with; after taking a photo of it, I was happy to toss away a rubber heal-tag that had come off one of my favourite cowboy boots about two years ago.

It’s amazing what you can live without!

My name is Ben and I’m a social experiment.

☆
Little Booze Joke 35:

A hamburger walks into a bar and the barman says, “I’m sorry but we don’t serve food here.”

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Nov 25 2011
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Booze Jokes, Healing, Health, Productivity

Two Weeks Sober! (Two down, fifty to go)

Absence makes the heart wonder

Yesterday was day 14 of my year of living sober.

It was a Thursday.

14 days divided by 7 days-in-a-week = 2 weeks down. That’s two weeks sober. That means I’ve got 50 more weeks to go.

Sheesh! I’ve only just begun (as The Carpenters might have sung).

Will I make it? I mean, I like drinking—maybe I love drinking. Especially wine. Before I stopped I drank a bottle of plonk a night.

Have I missed drinking? A bit. But, I think there are more benefits coming from giving up than would have come from continuing my daily habit without at least trying something new, just for the sake of it.

Sake looks like saké.

Mmmm…saké.

Am I obsessed with my relationship to booze? Perhaps. But at least I’m willing to explore it. Which leads to the next point: isn’t it also a tad egocentric to keep a diary online of what some might consider a pretty boring, pointless exercise?

Maybe? Maybe not.

Also, I guess there are some alcoholics out there who might accuse me of trivializing their LIFETIME commitment (of taking ‘one day at a time’) by ONLY committing to 365 days.

But, even though I have and understand these many questions, and I accept some people won’t get it, as even the hardest working prostitute knows: you can’t please all of the people, all of the time.

So I blog. Every day. I blog about every day I don’t drink.

For a year.

My name is Ben and I’m a social experiment.

P.S. Here are the 14 posts I’ve made over the first two weeks. Why not choose one at random and make a comment? Go on. You might find the one that’s funny!

1. Drinking Games For Non-Drinkers

2. Don’t Miss A Song

3. Busy Booze-free Writing

4. Monday Teetotaller

5. Cause and Effect

6. Detoxification Feels Like Mud

7. Week and Strong

8. Area Nightclub circa 1986

9. First Time Pissed (aka First Time Pished)

10. Social Networking and Teetotal Trump

11. Teetotal Twelve and Mr Mini Bar

12. 8.20 am in Sydney

13. Snoring is Funny

14. YOU’RE ALREADY HERE (THAT’S NOT THE NAME OF IT, I MEAN YOU REALLY ARE ALREADY HERE)

 

Little Booze Joke Number 14:

Q. Why did the Irish wine-drinker cross the road?

A. To get to Cork.

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Nov 23 2011
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Booze Jokes, Fiction, Film & TV, Productivity

DAY 12: 8.20 am in Sydney

Sober in Sydney

Yesterday was day 12 of my year of living sober. It was a Tuesday.

In Sydney for an appearance at 8.20 am on Channel 7′s Sunrise (a national Australian morning television show), I was perky and hangover free.

Sunrise was great fun!

The presenters, Mel and Kochie asked about my novel, The Last Great Day, and I felt comfortable and happy with my answers. I did my first ever hello-down-the-camera to my daughter, Honey and I wished my wife Happy Anniversary (for the previous day—the day I jumped a plane out of Melbourne town!).

Off camera after, Kochie jokingly mentioned I would have scored big brownie points with that cheerio move.

And I did.

Emerging onto Martin Place I got a text message from my wife saying Honey was watching and she’d waved at Daddy on the tele. Nice. And, despite the fact it rained, almost literally, the whole two days I was in Sydney, the rest of my stay was just fine too thank you. I spent most of it writing in my hotel room but found time in the evening to head out and catch Woody Allen’s latest film, Midnight In Paris, at the Palace cinema on Oxford Street, in Paddington.

I can recommend the pizza’s at Dimitri’s in Surrey Hills too. It’s a cool joint which serves alcohol and soft drinks. I had soft.

Lovely.

My name is Ben and I’m a social experiment.

Little Booze Joke Number 12:

A grasshopper walks into a bar and orders a beer. Astonished, the bartender pours a pint of the requested tipple while trying to engage the obviously depressed little green insect in conversation.

“This is amazing,” says the bartender. “You know, we’ve got a drink named after you here.”

The grasshopper looks up unimpressed.

“Really?” says the grasshopper. “You’ve got a drink called Kevin?”

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Nov 22 2011
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Booze Jokes, Humor, Productivity

DAY 11: Teetotal Twelve and Mr Mini Bar

Alcohol Dependent in denial

Yesterday was day 11 of my year of living sober. It was a Monday

In the morning the producers of a morning television show called Sunrise asked me if I would be able to fly to Sydney (from Melbourne) to give an in-studio interview about my novel, The Last Great Day, instead of the studio hook-up we had planned. By that night I was in a hotel room in a different state to my wife and baby for the first time since I met my wife or we had our baby.

With such a break from responsibilities it might have seemed the perfect opportunity to ‘let my hair down’ and have a couple of beers or even a bottle of wine. But having taken my personal pledge not to drink for a year it was easy, well, not to.

I’m sure my eyes looked better for it this morning too. And, despite getting up early and spending a couple of hours walking around town looking for somewhere appealing to have lunch (I ended up at a Vegan joint down the road from The Menzies—where I’m staying), I’ve been very productive with my writing today too.

I just finished about 2,700 words for a chapter of a new novel I’m writing and now I will post this blog.

Then I will have a bath and soak happy in the knowledge I won’t have any over-priced half-bottles of wine on my bill tomorrow morning when I check out.

Just another bonus of going Teetotal for Twelve months—hey, that’s got a ring to it.

“I’m on a Teetotal Twelve.”*

My name is Ben and I’m a social experiment.

* Trade Mark/Copyright/Domain Registered/Not Really.

Little Booze Joke Number 11:

Q. How many alcohol dependents in denial does it take to change a lightbulb?

A. Ten. But they’ll tell you just the one.

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Nov 21 2011
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Booze Jokes, Drinking Game, Effects of Abstinence, Fiction, Film & TV, Productivity

Drunk Zuckerberg vs Teetotal Trump – Alcohol & Money

Yesterday was day 10 of my year of living sober. It was a Sunday.

It was also another day where I continued with my year long experiment of not drinking any alcohol at all. There was no normal weekend trip to the local bottle shop to buy my normal bottle of wine and six-pack of beer, and despite some internal reluctance to make way for a new habit I tried to console myself with the fact I would be saving about a hundred, maybe two-hundred bucks a week by not drinking.

Looks like I’m finding a new way to get loaded: saving money.

After putting our 15-month-old daughter to bed my wife and I sat down to watch a video. We decided on The Social Network, the film based on the true story of the founding of Facebook. We’ve been meaning to see it for a while but what with being parents now we don’t always get to do everything we mean to. My wife thought the film was a bit dialogue heavy but I really enjoyed it, once I got over the fact a billion dollar empire was built by some guy called Mark in the few years I was bumming around London trying to become a rock star.

Jealous much?

Why hadn’t I become a computer programmer? was a question I asked myself more than a couple of times.

In one scene in the film Mark Zuckerberg ‘interviews’ interns for a new position by inventing a drinking/programming game in which the budding programmers have to do shots while devising complex coding. In an earlier scene the Zuckerberg character spends an all-nighter drinking beer and programming, and this is, we are lead to believe, the night he came up with the idea for what became Facebook.

Perhaps it is simply because I am on a break from booze but I paid special attention to these scenes of drinking and creating. It made me think a bit about the role of alcohol in creative breakthroughs. Also, since most of the film is centred around legal-battle flashbacks, it is interesting to consider how reliable Zuckerberg’s memory of events was considering he was supposedly tanked at the genesis moment.

As we are told via the closing credits, and however Zuckerberg ‘got there’, his company changed the way much of the world communicates, making him a very rich man in the process: Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world.

And, according to The Social Network, beer helped him get there. Cool, right?

I’m sure the target market of fourteen-year-old boys would agree. The idea that getting drunk after bad-blogging your girlfriend (who’s just dumped you for being judgemental, manipulative and highly strung) can lead to riches beyond your wildest dreams is one which would obviously appeal to angry young men everywhere.

But what of another route to worldly success? Can you make a billion without getting wasted?

Love or loathe him Donald Trump has, like Zuckerberg, made a lot of money too. There are probably many differences between the two men but I think one notable one is Trump is a non-drinker. That’s right, Trump is a teetotaler: Teetotal Trump.

In the article linked to in the previous sentence Trump explains how after watching his brother die from alcoholism it was easy for him to give up the hard stuff. Of course, he’s a business man first and foremost though and doesn’t seem to suffer any moral conundrum in owning and marketing his own brand of ‘Trump Vodka’.

However Zuckerberg and Trump made their buckets of cash it seems, in some way, alcohol played a part. Whether drinking leads to creative thinking or poor choices is not an easy question to answer (there are too many other variables to consider) but one thing’s for sure, taking a year off booze is definitely helping me make some money.

Already I’m saving about thirty bucks a day.

My name is Ben and I’m a social experiment.

Little Booze Joke Number 10:

Q. What do you call someone who uses Facebook drunk?

A. An Off-Your-Facebooker.

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