As I sit in bed at midday thinking about eating the leftover pizza downstairs as my first meal of the day, I would normally think ‘What a waste of my weekend.’

I’m 30 now, I can’t remember the last time my friends and I went out drinking. We don’t live in a big city where the average age of people out on the town is older, we’re from a little place where only teenagers go out drinking so all it does is make you feel old.

Also, sitting here with a sore head definitely tells me that I can’t hack it like I used to.

I have a lot of issues with TIME and how it is so precious to me. I’ve already spent half of my Sunday asleep and previously I would have been really hard on myself for that, but recently I’ve been taking a step back to look at the bigger picture.

Now I am not saying that alcohol is a cure, aid, help for anything. It is a dangerous substance if you go overboard with it, but then so is chocolate. If you eat enough chocolate then you will get fat and if you drink too much alcohol then you will 100% become an arsehole that nobody wants to be around.

Trust me, I’ve been that arsehole before.

What I AM talking about is finding the balance, why drinking alcohol this weekend has been great for me is because it has done a lot of things for me that I sometimes fail to place importance on.

1) My issues with TIME mean I overthink everything, I am always thinking about what could’ve happened before and what may still happen yet… am I never present. Having some drinks last night and being around people you care about forces you to live in the moment and for that reason, just for a few hours, my brain got to take  little rest from overthinking everything.

2) Seeing my friends was amazing, when you get to our age and have decent jobs, mortgages, dogs, cats and some even have kids, it is bloody hard to get people together. I am a big advocate of doing little adventures (obviously) but even I am guilty occasionally of shutting myself off from people. Even on the ride into town we were talking about how exhausted we were from playing paintball that morning and didn’t know if we would stay out too late. However, after a couple of drinks I said to myself that this is a one off event that doesn’t come around too often, make the most of it!

3) Remember to have fun! Life can get pretty serious as you get older. I spent almost all my 20s battling depression so it’s been a long hard fight for happiness… and even my friends who don’t have mental health issues DO have their own issues and responsibilities that they are dealing with. What last night did for us allowed us to forget, for just a little while, that we are grown ups with grown up lives. That little bit of booze makes the real you come out, the you who isn’t scared of what people think, the you who doesn’t mind being silly on the dance floor… for a few hours we travellled through time to a time when we could just focus on being happy.

So yeah, I know drinking can be dangerous and I am definitely not going to enjoy my hangover today but whilst my head is sore, it also feels a bit lighter. I’m not saying booze will make you happy, to be frank, that’s fucking ridiculous and it will almost certainly do the opposite if you abuse it. What I am saying is that if you find that balance, the balance where silliness shines and overthinking disappears, then every now and then, it’s fun to cut loose with the people you care about.

Right, I’m off to reheat that pizza!

Paul Day Away…