A teetotalitarian state: Paddy Cullivan’s year without booze

'Play Piano Man!" roared the red-faced man in the blue blazer and the pink shirt, so loudly that my eardrum shut down as his beery breath and warm spittle coated the right side of my face and the piano. "I am playing it," I rictus-grinned back, as the rest of the inebriated 2am crowd swayed and tunelessly bleated "Sing us a song. . ."

How drunk do you have to be to request a song while someone is already playing it? It proves one thing: you don’t have to be stupid to get drunk, but everyone who gets drunk gets stupid.

On July 14th it will be a year since I gave up drink. The reasons are many, from my inability to deal with hangovers to my poor choices when I was drinking. I’ll save the confessions for a therapist, but just to say: I needed to stop. I felt I was losing time, life, health and myself. I had reached a stage where the doors that slam in your face as a creative person in Ireland were starting to affect and change me more and more. And the depression that drink creates was wrecking my ability to see the world in a balanced way or to embrace happiness.

As it happens, I have some bad news: not drinking makes you realise the world is an even scarier, more precarious place, because you can’t get drunk as a joyous “time out”, even if the fear that comes with hangovers is gone. Another daunting effect of not drinking is a lonely, detached acceptance that you are going very much against the herd, and life will never be the same again. I accept this where an artist should be positioned anyway. I had just forgotten it in the years since I left NCAD.

Drinking is how friends meet and interact, how we celebrate. It is part of the melancholy, therapeutic fabric that binds the Irish. It also stops us dealing with the things that made us this way and has probably been a factor in everything from failed revolutions to failed economic decisions. I think it’s time we all gave it a break.

I said as much in my show Solutionism at the Limerick Spring Festival in April. I took a show of hands to see how many in the crowd agreed with my solution of "Ireland taking a one-year break from alcohol"; few did. Then I played a compilation of news reports from around the world about a certain famous drunken interview.

The mood in the room changed. How had we allowed this to happen? And while we’re on the subject, are we living with the economic consequences of an alcoholic population and their leadership choices?

One year of prohibition would clear the air, help our health service and allow us to see things as they really are. I’m talking about one year, not a decade. Pubs would complain, but at least they would have one year to bring their food and coffee up to scratch. God knows their non-alcoholic choices aren’t any cheaper.

Unfortunately, it would be hard to implement because nobody “drinks that much”. Drinking leads to lying, and lies about drinking are the worst. The biggest is the “glass of wine” lie, which is complemented by the “just the one” lie. Few people open a bottle of wine and have just the one, apart from nice Americans who take things literally or the kind of controlled, moderate people I have never met in my life.

Even the language we use (“are you going for a pint?”) is a lie, a conspiratorial nudge that all involved know will lead to a five-pint mini-binge.

Creatively bingeing

I had drank since art college, and being the ones who had to see if Jim Morrison was right about breaking on through (he was), we pushed our bodies. Though it was never about being drunk – it was because we loved being around each other, staying up until dawn, pushing ourselves mentally and creatively, arguing passionately about art and music and improvising hilarious situations, putting them onstage and into our art.

Later on, drink became the done thing, a reason for disparate people to hang out for hours, to de-stress from and avoid the complicated world. Finally, it was just a habit. I have friends with a low tolerance for alcohol and I’m jealous. I’m more Hemingway than Fitzgerald.

When I gave up, I worried about how I would be able to do things. But the occasions are the same; I’m just not drinking. I’m still laughing and having fun, just not as late. Nobody wants to hear the same story repeated six times after 1am. I drink non-alcoholic beers.

Other non-drinkers scoff, but the placebo effect is important, especially with Mexican or Indian food. And in keeping with my teetotalitarian aspirations, I drink a delicious craft beer, Brewdog’s Nanny State, which is practically alcohol-free.

On the plus side

Positives? My health has improved drastically. I was overweight before, with a permanent beer belly. I lost about a stone, which stayed off, although the body is a stubborn vessel and will do its damnedest to maintain its ideal overweight, as you substitute pints and kebabs with cake, coffee and tea.

Sugar is a real issue for me, one I hope to tackle as my next big life change. Like Orson Welles, I gaze longingly in bakery windows, lying to myself about the nutritional value of chocolate brownies.

Still, despite my childish gorging, I simply don’t put on weight like I did when I drank, when the Guinness gave me a “false appetite” at 3am (although kebabs are a great way of getting your quota of cabbage). At a recent health check, my cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure were normal, a kind of pat on the back that helps me stay the course. I have no plans to go back on the jar.

One nasty revelation is pain. I have no pain in my head any more, and wake completely clear-headed. The pain is now evenly distributed to the rest of my body. I get out of bed like a half-man, half-crab, the opposite of how I was, which was bounding out of bed with a head like an angry bee. Drink had an anaesthetic effect, dulling pain; it’s so strange.

I’m a musician, writer and satirist. As well as picking two of the most traditionally alcoholic careers ever, I also have to watch current affairs every day, which would turn anyone to drink. But now I can think, write, plan long-term and have lost the short-termism that plagues people with too much brain power and not enough outlets. And I finally have control over my finances, something that had been destroying my self-confidence since my earnings plummeted.

Most importantly, my vocal range has improved, although never quite enough to truly enjoy singing Piano Man.

• Paddy Cullivan is touring his show Solutionism around Ireland until Easter 2016. paddycullivan.com