Back on the wagon again ...

I like a beer.

I like the idea of sitting in a pub with good friends and sharing a laugh over a beer, or two, or more.

But beer doesn't like me.

I don't know exactly when it started, it was maybe 15 or so years ago when I noticed that the incidents of hangovers after a Friday night out were becoming more and more frequent, and if I had a few too many then I could guarantee that I would again become aquainted with the toilet bowl through the night.

And so I cut the Friday night drinking down, I started drinking bottled lager, which seemed to help, but soon the intolorance crept back and I was finding that three bottles could start the hangovers again.

And then one hot day in August '98 I came in from work, opened a cold bottle of lager, took a couple of mouthfulls, and a headache started straight away, the bottle went in the bin and I stopped all alcohol consumption.

I stopped for five years, then one afternoon found myself at a rugby match stood behind two lads who weren't really interested in rugby but were very interested in drinking lots of beer - I was transfixed by the beer, like a rabbit in a car headlights I stood drooling at the thought of tipping a cold beer down my parched throat.

And at that point I was bored - its fuckin boring when you don't drink alcohol, I can't explain how terribly, mind-numbingly dull it is to sit in a pub with all of your mates and watch as they sample different real ales, talk about how they taste and enthuse over each and every sip - while you sit there with a little glass of orange juice and occasionally add "mines a bit cloudy" to the conversation.

And so on that fateful day on the way home I bought myself a bottle of red wine on the presumption that if anything would give me a headache again it would be red wine - I had two glasses and I was OK.

Since then I have been a very imoderate drinker, any more then two bottles of lager and I'm really pushing my luck, I haven't re-enacted the nocturnal toilet bowl sessions but I've had some cracking hangovers on just a three bottle session.

And I'm finding something else strange.

I've been good since christmas, haven't had any alcohol since Boxing Day, but on Thursday night I was at a rugby function and on J2O orange all night - had a headache in the morning.

Last night I went out with friends for a (now rare) pub night, stayed on J2O again - I have a headache this morning that two paracetamols won't shift.

Tonight we're all out for a Tapas night, I'm driving so will be on the oranges again but I'm really wondering whether its worth it now if I'm going to be waking up with a headache for the third day running.

So the question is ...

Is it something in J2O ?

Am I developing an intolorence to sugary drinks ?

What the fook am I supposed to drink on a night out ?

Why don't licensees cater for non-drinkers ?