On Saturday night we treated ourselves to a "put yourself together a six pack" that one of our local store does. I always love sticking in a Newcastle Brown - it's what I started drinking and takes me back to living in Newcastle as a student. Plus it's just darn right tasty. I was just going to post the above picture and be like "look booze from Detroit" but then I got to thinking about how my attitudes to drinking have done a total U-turn since being a student.
Going to Newcastle Uni as a student, drinking comes second nature. Newcastle is the party city after all. Prior to uni I rarely went out - its kinda limited when your town only has four pubs and everyone knows each other and you constantly see the same faces and the same fights. Moving to Newcastle was a huge culture shock and I fully embraced it. My suitcases of clothes and books where accompanied with packs of Bacardi and a bottle of Jack Daniels. I went to my first ever club during Freshers week and over the first year we (I say we meaning most of me and my house and "block" mates but predominately me and my closest friend at uni as many didn't opt for the Monday nights out) were going out drinking three times a week.
Monday night was (and most probably still is) student night, we'd head for a couple of bars and end up in Digital for the Superfly night - the indie night. This was in 2005/6 when indie music was my life and it was huge - think Libertines, Razorlight and Maximo Park and you're half way there. Thursday was a £1 a pint night - seeing we lived close to a Scream pub it was only right to make the most of it and to finish off the student week Friday night was spent at the student union making the most of their just rock bottom prices. Loads of our housemates went back at 10PM we stayed for the dancing and partied till 2AM.
I'd gone from not drinking to being to girl everyone knew would be drinking triple whiskey and cokes and skittles. Don't get me wrong I never had a problem, I knew when to stop and most of the time I was the one looking after my friend who was a little wild when drunk. So much she climbed into a Marks and Sparks trolley on the way back to our student flat and was stopped by the police in the process.
When people see me know they probably think i'm down right boring, I rarely drink, I actually don't like it anymore. Granted i'll have the odd whiskey or rum and coke but there's no way I'd get drunk anymore. I hate nightclubs now - probably because of all the drunks I've seen in my past, all the fighting, the creepy men and loosing of housemates. Maybe I went out too often as a student, maybe I just got it all out of my system. I see clubbing as something I did as a late teen, not what i'd do know as a late 20 year old and i'm so far removed from that person I can't see myself doing it.