Lesson 1: We're sleep deprived.
This was an eye-opener. July gifted sweet, nourishing, A-class slumber. Booze may induce sleep, but it precludes the real stuff.
Lesson 2: We're judgmental.
It's tough to say no when doing so is viewed as a social snub. One must come up with endless excuses for one's strange abstinence. I can now empathise with vegans when they're asked why they don't eat food.
Lesson 3: We're thirsty.
Recycling day betrays our nation's drinking habits. Come July's first Thursday morning collection I stood over my kerbside pile of cardboard curios and plastic bric-a-brac which, for the first time in living memory, was bottle-less. 'Twas a novel sight. There I was, a foreigner on my own footpath before the recycling edifice of a puritan.
Lesson 4: We're creatures of habit.
Parties, celebrations and colleagues' leaving soirees are all resplendent with booze. Fair enough too. But it's the unforeseen door knock from a friend or a son home from university that seriously threatens derailment. Every said occasion, were they not in July, would have been paired with drink. When you have to say no for an entire month you quickly realise New Zealand has endless and entrenched excuses to twist a lid. Four rounds of beer-free Super Rugby is tough. So is four rounds of weekends, four rounds of Wednesday date night (where Mr Story cooks for Mrs Story with a few wine matches).
So what did I miss most?
Unfortunately, that's easy. I missed the anaesthesia, the escape, the split from the status quo, the bolthole found in a bottle.
Such is the alluring, universally human search for otherness.
Therein lies some serious paperback psychology - the author's possibly disclosed too much.
Still, my role was never as ambassador and hence, despite the learnings, tomorrow's recycling will boast a more traditional appearance.
