to drink or not to drink
Posted in journal, opinion on June 10th, 2010 by george
Throughout my life, it is music that has been my number one preoccupation. However during some periods of my life, drink has run a close second. Since I was a teenager, I have had a long and turbulent relationship with the demon alcohol.
My family moved to Cambridge in 1967, the summer of love(!). At seventeen and fresh out of boarding school into a student town full of pubs, my drinking career took off without a hitch. For the next several years, despite passionate affairs with most of the available recreational drugs, drink remained the undisputed protagonist in my hedonistic heart.
I moved to London, then the streets of Paris, where hours of playing music every day began in earnest. Still a drink of some kind was never far away. Life’s essentials were reduced to a minimum as all surplus funds were offered up at the altar of Bacchus. Fortified with ‘Dutch courage’, I embarked on one adventure after another throughout my 20s. Having lived to tell the tale, I cannot honestly say I regret my alcoholic exuberance. Without the booze, I may never summoned up the nerve to do many of the things I did. Read more »
