For lent I gave up alcohol.

I gave up drinking after a night out, stating "I'll never drink again" as we all do when festering in a hangover. And whilst it wasn't this one night alone that put me off drinking (although it did involve a lot of cringe-worthy conversations, being followed by some strange and scary men before throwing up and waking up the next morning in my ex's bed), it definitely played a part and that evening, I got to thinking.

Firstly, I pride myself on being a confident person, I haven't always been but right now I think I am - yet why do I need to have had a few drinks to take to the dance floor and to talk to random people? Why do I always rely on alcohol to give me the strength to do that? This was strike one, as this epitomises everything I don't want to become - I want to be in control, be logical and stop making the stupid decisions that have driven my life so far, and lets face it, alcohol was never going to help this.

Secondly, having been out far too much in the month preceding that night (in aid of 'rocking the single boat', as my friend put it) I realised how much it was not only dictating my actions during those nights, but it was dictating my social life. If we weren't going out drinking, we weren't going out. If we weren't meeting to drink, we weren't seeing one another. And I decided that was really sad, so I decided to take alcohol out of the equation all together. Since that evening, with the exception of a glass of champagne on my birthday, I've not touched alcohol.

So do I feel better for it? Absolutely! My skin is clearer, my bank balance is clearer (or would be if I weren't simply buying more things with that money), I've reached a steady weight again: all the signs are good. Has my social life improved or diversified? No. It turns out that drinking really did influence my social life, and this was evermore highlighted by the reaction of my friends.

This Saturday for example, I had an invite to a night out. I said yes but said I wouldn't be drinking so would give everyone a lift to save money (figuring no-one would try to persuade me to drink if they knew it meant no lift home!) and I was told they would text me if the night out was going ahead. I had no such text, so instead settled down in bed with a cup of tea and a few DVD boxsets. I fell asleep half way through a DVD and was woken up at about 4am when it finished with my laptop still glaring at me. In true facebook-adict style, I quickly refreshed the screen only to find a load of pictures uploaded by one of my friends of their night out.

Bitches. Maybe I should have text them to confirm, but they did say they would let me know and then obviously chose not to, or worse, forgot about me completely. So yeah, bitches.

So do I ever intend to start drinking again? No way, it's been such a revealing few weeks - although my social life has definitely declined, those friends I have left are the ones I can actually get along with whilst sober, and surely that's what you want/need from a friend? I can still go out and have a good time, but have more money, look better, feel better and don't have to write off the-day-after-the-night-before to a hangover.

It is a shame though, I didn't think my friends were like that...