A Three-Step Guide To Give Up Alcohol*
Success guaranteed! Almost. *Conditions Apply.
Before I begin, let me make a few things clear upfront.
a) I love a good glass of wine. Or two. Or three.
b) I wouldn’t be caught dead with a soft drink or juice (unless it had 50% alcohol in it).
c) I have no intention, whatsoever, of quitting drinking (because if I did what would my brothers gift me on Rakhi).
Disclaimer: All characters in the post are real, readers discretion is advised, alcohol consumption is injurious to health. Blah blah blah. This is issued ONLY in public interest.
Step 1: Get a blood test done.
You need to know your liver, for you to be a ‘live-er’.
So if you have crossed over to the other side (of 40), get a full body check up every six months.
I am a regular. So earlier this year, when my liver parameters were off the chart, I swung into panic-planning my life-transforming-diet-and-exercise routine (gymming, swimming, walking, et al). I did none of these, because within five minutes Udit fished out the last report (with more fucked up parameters). Now compared to that I was already on the path of improvement.
Now, these improved numbers came after my liver had been through its phases — it went from being a woman’s liver (borderline) to a man’s (they have higher limits!) to ye toh hadd hi ho gya stage (when it crossed the man’s limit) to Step 2 and back to man liver. I have to work harder for a woman’s liver. And I am at it.
But before I walk you through step 2, I will tell you a little story about how I made it to cat(egory) ‘hadd hi ho gya’.
I ❤️ Cosmopolitan
Vodka, cranberry, triple sec or cointreau and a dash of lime. Simple.
It was our first anniversary (or was it the second). We had gone to Bukhara in ITC Maurya despite our measly salaries. We were going to spend half of our combined monthly salary on dal makhni, kebabs and the five-star experience. But what the hell!
Anyway, while we waited, the waiter got us the wine ‘list’; this was more ‘encyclopaedia’ than ‘list’. And just when our eyes and hearts were about to pop out—navigating the fucking expensive wine menu— and roll away into the hallowed halls of the Maurya hotel, we reached the cocktail section. phew!!!
For some strange reason, I went for Cosmopolitan. Why? I was a coke and rum person. I didn’t even know coke and rum was called Cuba Librae. I think the image of the Cosmopolitan magazine peeping out of my dad’s bookshelf in the farthest corner of the house imprinted in my mind must have played a role! Subconscious and all that.
Must have because until then I didn’t know of a fruit called cranberry or that Cosmopolitan was a cocktail or that it was the favourite of the leading ladies in “Sex and the City” or that there was “Sex and the City”!
While udit pooh poohed it—‘It tastes like Benadryl’—I went after Cosmopolitan like a woman possessed. From Raipur to Ranchi, from Addis to Assam I got bartenders to give me Cosmopolitan. Some version of it. Any version of it.
Happy hours or not, it was the one and only ‘Cosmo and Chilli Chicken’. And since I insisted on “please, make it strong”, the 45 ml always became 60.
Then Covid hit. After the lockdown when the liquor stores opened, we stocked up on the Vodka; Cointreau was already there. Every evening, Udit made me Cosmopolitans—they were a couple of happy hours rolled into one.
And since mera pati hi mera parmeshwar hai, I would dutifully get sloshed.
S-L-O-S-H-E-D.
Chips, Cheese, and Cosmopolitan. Eat, drink, pass out, repeat. Those were my lockdown evenings and the brief history of my slightly fucked up liver.
Step 2: Change your drink. Vodka to Vino.
So when it was time to give my vodka-soaked, cranberry-flavoured fatty liver a break, I moved to wine.
Red Wine. Rose. White Wine. Chilean. Australian. German. Spanish. French. Italian.
The wine snob in me will tell you “No Indian please”.
And the humble me will admit that I didn’t know for the longest time (till last year that is) that pinot, riesling, chardonnay, merlot (so on and so forth) are all varieties of grapes.
Me like-y, me drink-y.
My wine drinking has been quite guilt free because I very strongly believe that while Vodka hits the liver, the wine goes straight to the heart, alle!
Don’t get me wrong, I still go for the Cosmo once in a while and am very stuck up about the way it is served. YOU CAN’T SERVE ME COSMOPOLITAN IN A DOODH WALA GLASS, GOA!
Anyway, for those who aspire for a squeaky clean alcohol-free liver, I would strongly recommend step 3.
Step 3: Sign up for a Wine Tour
A wine tour will be that last nail in the liquor coffin cabinet.
We were in Bangalore in March earlier this year and Ranjana (the serial planner) proposed a ‘Wine Tour’.
We (Rajeev, Ranjana, Udit and Myself) imagined— a walk through the vineyard, a visit to the winery, grape stomping, lots of wine and cheese, and a good sit-down lunch to go with it.
We were in for a surprise.
a) There were no vineyards; the only grapes we saw on a vine were at the entrance.
b) While the wine was decent it was served with amul cheese cubes and cream cracker biscuits.
c) Lunch was a buffet of sambhar, biryani, rasam, egg curry, dal makhni, gol gappa and raita. This was a far cry from our collective imagination of a sit-down lunch of roast chicken and grilled fish with sautéed vegetables, crispy potato wedges and creamy mushroom sauce.
And, d) the grape stomping was a wooden barrel with some very rotten black grapes. Getting in and out of the barrel was nothing short of an Olympic sport!
The ‘wine tour’ was basically a 45 minute talk by the tour guide on a hot afternoon on the side of a huge wall. I think everyone heard him patiently in the hope that beyond that wall was the ‘vineyard’.
But as it turned out it was the wall of the winery, which meant we saw one crushing unit (with nothing being crushed), many winery tanks (which could have been the fermentation tanks) and no casks.
The 45 minute talk had information on types of wine, where grapes are grown or not (that should have been our cue), alcohol content, bit of a north-south joke, a couple of sexist jibes, and information about courses in wine tasting.
But the best was yet to come.
After the winery we are taken for wine tasting. Wooden panelled hall, with wooden benches and tables, bar at one end and a little stage like space at the other. The acoustics were poor so absorbing everything that the guide was trying to instil in us was strenuous, especially with all the very fast drinking.
Once wine was poured in our glasses, we were instructed to look at (and appreciate) the colour (against the light), we learnt to hold the glass at the stem or the base and not caress the bowl like our life depended on it.
We were made to air the wine — a little diplomatic shake and stir of the wine glass— and then inhale the smell and taste. We were expecting grapes. Obviously.
But the wine taster, insisted we would also smell and taste vanilla, cinnamon, clove, almond, lemon, pineapple, oak, orange peel, strawberry, plum, tomato, mint, tobacco, eucalyptus, onion, leather, tree moss, vinegar, rubber, metal, kerosene, Basavanagudi flower market and Madiwala vegetable market (and not in a good way).
And we did. You would have, too.
After so many rounds of sipping, swirling, chewing and glugging the wine, it could have tasted of mortuary, if he insisted.
By the way, it was proper chewing. The chewing really got to us. The incessant chewing numbed the insides of my cheek. I stopped feeling any sensation. Everything felt like metal —water, food and of course, wine.
At some point Rajeev and Udit dropped out of the wine drill but Ranjana and I kept at it. We were the wine drinkers. But the way things were going, we weren’t going to remain wine drinkers for very long.
I gave up at the stage when he wanted us to sip and swirl the wine, bend forward at 90 degrees, then chew and drink. I think this was his trick to get high quickly or not get high at all. Don’t remember now. But it seemed like a fool proof way to throw up. Ranjana, the sport, gave it a shot. I think. That was it, for her too.
We withdrew from the wine tasting. And resigned to drinking —to test if we still had it in us— and marvelling at the excitement of the younger lot who exchanged numbers with the guide, just in case they weren’t able to get high enough on a Friday night or couldn’t cure a hangover the next day.
His trick to not get a hangover— fill your stomach with Rasam and Rice a few hours before your big wine party. And voila!
Anyway, drunk and with a pretty numb mouth we had lunch. Took a few photos. Packed ourselves in the car and headed home.
“I don’t think I can ever have wine,” I remember telling Udit. Ditto, Ranjana.
It felt like a loss. Like losing a confidant. I was sure this was permanent damage. This could have been the end of our drinking journey. But we are made of sterner stuff.
Anyhow, you can give it a shot, if you are anywhere near the fence, you might just tip over to the other side. The teetotaller side.
Thankfully, we got over our little setback. Like I had said in the beginning —Success guaranteed! Almost.
It took a few months and some very good wine to undo the damage for me. Ranjana, on the other hand, embarked on a couple of very successful wine trails to wipe out that memory and restore her faith in wine once again.
Happy to report, we are all back to our normal, wine-buying, wine-swigging selves.
Moral of the story: A wine tour doesn’t necessarily mean a walk in a vineyard. And in Bangalore, certainly not.
Three cheers to responsible drinking and to and my writing circle to keep the writer alive and kicking in me.
Classic Savvy! Are you educating us or eradicating us with your serious-toned hoot of an essay... it is hard to tell?
The only info you have withheld is this: how many Cosmos/wine did it take to write this full essay!
This could be a three step guide to many different things but what I am taking away is live life to the fullest and enjoy!! (And avoid wine tasting tours in Bangalore!)😁