Since giving up drinking it feels as though my entire internal life is geared towards proposing new ways of enjoying life without alcohol. Mainly the angles I've been exploring are things I enjoyed before that were curtailed by the booze: reading, writing, cooking, DJing, exercising, making wigs out of the hair of my victims.*
Some of these things -- the writing and DJing especially -- have always been enhanced by (a little bit of) alcohol, and I'm pretty sore about the fact that any 'fun' there will be less vivid and present from now on; I'll never again feel that intense rush when I'm drunk and a mix is going really well or when I'm writing and a scene is coming together. Which sucks, if you're me.
So I'm still working on the fun, and I'm contemplating the road ahead that looks like a long, grey motorway, without even a Little Chef to break up the boredom, and I'm still working on wondering whether booze chilled me out or made me angry, and what sort of person I am without it. I think the conclusion I'm coming to is that the whole thing involves a gradual recalibration of what constitutes 'fun' and maybe even what it is to be me, and it'll probably take time before I get there. Ho hum.
Still, they say the grass is greener on the other side, Mr Silver. As the father of tow young children I'd give my left arm for some of the spare time you've got there!
* Okay, not that one.