I have a confession to make. I have never been dead drunk. I have been quite definitely happy and expansive on a number of occasions, but I have never really been plastered in a "who-gives-a-fuck what I say or do"; "sing Khe-San at the top of my lungs and vomit all over the counter at McDonalds" kind of way.

This used to concern me. "What sort of Australian male was I?", I wondered in my early youth, until I realised that Australian males come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I come from a family of top class drunks. My father, a journalist, is a very happy and entertaining drunk, which is definitely a good thing - better than being a glowering, violent one, after all. More than one of my fondly remembered girlfriends got dead drunk in my company, and later told me that they had no recollection of our subsequent intimacies under the summer stars. It was a bit of shock when I realised that when I whispered sweet nothings into their ears, they really were sweet nothings, because the sentiments didn't actually register, at all!

But what was it with me? I heard a psychiatrist say once that women who got drunk and smoked were “in touch with their destructive forces”, which meant that they were “more out there” from a sexual perspective (this was strictly a bloke conversation at a footy game; I shouldn't be revealing it here). Turning this on its head, I wondered that, because I wouldn't get drunk, I wasn’t in touch with my “destructive forces” or I was afraid of my sexuality (?)? What are one’s destructive forces anyway? Because I am a bloke, I didn't give this more than five seconds analysis before moving on to more productive things, like food and sport.

This made it a bit hard for my best man when he was fishing around for stories to tell at my wedding. He didn’t have any about how I sat on a wall in front of my parent’s house for an hour before my father had to come out and collect me. Or how I stole a hat off a police officer or got locked up for the night.

There are a number of prima facie reasons why I don't like getting drunk. The first is that I inevitably end up getting a blinding headache, a migraine behind one eye and a numb face, and that's not fun. The second is that I don't really want to lose control of my own actions. The third is that I get bored with having to go to the loo all the time.

I have tried it. I've tried the drowning your sorrows approach to getting drunk, but I was still alert and awake and depressed at the end of it. I've tried the get drunk at a family lunch approach, but that didn't work either. I've tried the Christmas work party. I've also tried the big pub crawl overseas approach with your friends, it was great fun, but I remembered every second!

I’m no longer bothered about the issue. But I've got a weekend trip with my footy team coming up soon. This might be the appropriate time to reconsider the issue in a happy way with the assistance of a few beers?

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