First Day of Lent

The new life is going well. The amount of whisky I’ve consumed since I was visited by The Old Man of Cappaghcreen on Saturday wouldn’t even fill a Parisian espresso coffee cup, and I’ve had none at all for two days. Moderate consumption of other alcoholic beverages (and none before six o’clock in the evening; new rule) has helped both clear my head and set me on the path towards sobriety and rationality. This restraint on my recent behaviour hasn’t arrived a moment too soon, I can tell you.

Yesterday I went for lunch with Dharmachari Jinaraja, my Buddhist monk. He’s a lovely, lovely man of such charm, wit and compassion that any encounter I have with him leaves me feeling both invigorated and yet strangely calm. He never judges; never offers admonishment for bad behaviour and his habitual advice is always ‘Be patient with yourself’ which – without suggesting that we should excuse any lapses in our conduct – means that we don’t need to beat ourselves up about them as long as we recognize that they’re making us unhappy, and as long as we intend to do something about them. And I do. Meditation is the key to all Buddhist development and it’s quite useless of me to protest that I don’t have time for it when I have previously always been able to find the time to queue at the bar for that next drink.

The number of quotations related to the subject of alcohol is a reflection of its importance in our society – why, I even have one on my Facebook page: "Always carry a small flagon of whisky in case of snakebite. Furthermore, always carry a small snake." (W C Fields) – but I read a quotation the other day which I think is attributed to Dylan Thomas and which is embarrassingly sobering: “An alcoholic is someone you don’t like, who drinks as much as you do.” That pulled me up a bit.

From an early age we are told that drink is a necessary part of civilised life. Hemingway said: “An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend his time with fools” but isn't that just an apologia to justify our own weaknesses? A better solution would surely be to avoid the fools altogether? I know a man (and no, it’s not the monk this time) who is so wise, so interesting, so amusing, and so utterly good-natured that I could spend eternity in his company without ever needing to imbibe the demon drink again. The trouble is of course, I suspect that he needs alcohol himself in order to suffer me. It was ever thus.