Stop me if you've heard this one before. My flatmate went to a small social gathering where alcohol was on offer. She drank a prodigious amount of it. She did a battery of stupid things and proceeded to throw up a couple of times. The next morning, nursing a beelzebubian hangover, she moaned that she was going to give up drinking.

Sound familiar? Can you guess what happened then?

She gave up drinking.

Ha - Weren't expecting that, were you?

Everyone's looked with scornful amusement at our friends twitching at sunlight, begging you not to breathe so loudly, and swearing never, ever again. But of these pathetic beer monsters, how many of them have you seen drinking coke at next weeks party? That's what I thought.

Of course, in addition to the comedy cases, there are the serious ones. These are the people who have had really bad nights - moving past vomiting on the host, and onto being verbally, and in a couple of cases physically abusive. These are the people who, upon remembering their actions the previous night (or, in most cases, having me remind them of them) feel more than embarrassment - they feel shame, remorse and self-loathing.

And of these sad cases, these people who profess to be barely able to live with themselves, how many of them have you seen drinking coke at next weeks party? Yep.

A person of my acquaintance once told me that they were giving up drinking for a month in the light of an act of physical violence committed under the influence - He lasted 2 1/2 days. Another acquaintance in an identical situation who swore they would never drink again, actually lasted almost a month before their next episode of abusive violence.

This has led me to the conclusion that I am the smartest person in the world - You see, I have come up with the solution to the problems of these pathetic wretches. This is a radical, untested theory, but in the interests of furthering science, I'm willing to share it here:

Don't drink.

This isn't to say cut out the fire water altogether - some of my best friends are booze addled drink demons - but if you don't like yourself or the things you do when you're drunk - Don't get drunk. Someone once told me that it wasn't quite as easy as that. But, how hard can it be - If you made even the most beer sodden of tequila worms drink NON-alcoholic beer flavoured carbonated water, they'd tell you that it tasted like bubbly, vaguely hoppy horse shit. Surely forcing gallons of the worst tasting brew in the world, which you are fully aware will give you violent mood swings, down your throat until you are made physically sick, would take more will power than, oh, say, not doing so?

No-one drinks for the taste, they do it to get drunk - This is why I'm at a loss to explain the soaked wretches who wax lyrical about how much they hate what they do when they're drunk in between jugs of beer.

And just while we're here - Alcohol lowers inhibitions. It doesn't alter your personality, it just removes your desire to hide your baser tendencies. This means some bad news I'm afraid - If you're a cock when you're drunk - You're a cock. Drunk or sober, your personality remains the same, you just lose the impetus to lie to people you want to like you. Defending yourself to your friends with "It's not my fault I acted that way, I was drunk" is the same as saying to a judge "I didn't mean to admit to committing that crime, I was dosed up with truth serum at the time."

Like I say, I'm not advocating an abandonment of the ways of the bottle, I'm just sick of people saying "God I wish I hadn't done that - Pass me another beer." Buying a jug of beer costs 5 dollars, not buying one costs nothing. Drinking assaults your taste buds and bladder. Not drinking doesn't. So stop telling me it's so fucking hard.

--Apathy Jack