I’m not a big drinker, I’ll have a few at a party or a night out, but I can go without for weeks/months at a time. However, I’m also not comfortable in social situations.
I’ve found that I need to have 3-4 beers each gig. One after setting up, and one in each break to settle me into socializing. I can perform all night without a drink, there’s no stage fright. There’s only off-stage fright. I like to be a little bit “lubricated” because otherwise I’m very shy, with a couple of beers I can at least shake hands and make polite small-talk with people who come out to see us.
It wasn’t a problem when we gigged once a month, but now it is 2-3 times a week and I’m worried its effecting my general wellbeing.
I know there’s a lot of non-drinkers and recovering drinker on these boards, so what’s the tip for being social without booze? Especially when 100% of your gigs are in "drinking establishments"
I got myself silly-ass drunk, seeing double on a surfing trip when I was 15. There were 5 or 6 of us who were staying overnight on a beach north of Santa Barbara that didn't have much traffic but had some good surf. Was about an hour away from home. When we got there one of the guys headed up the beach and started pulling all kinds of booze out from under some rocks where he had stashed it. He was worried there wasn't enough for everyone, so we sat in a circle and passed the bottles around. We were all 15 and 16-yrs. old. Bottles of booze were: bourbon, vodka, sloe gin, rum, tequila, some regular gin, and perhaps something else. These were all partial bottles like he'd snagged them from his parents liquor cabinet over time. That was a terrible mix of booze as we drank from each bottle and passed it on.
I got totally drunk and could not walk very well to the point I was crawling on the beach. I looked up at our campsite in the sand and saw two lanterns. I asked Charlie if he brought two lanterns and he said he only brought one. I then covered one eye with my hand and sure enough there was only one there
. I really hated that feeling of not being in control....and then I got sick along with everyone else an puked my guts out - at least that fed the fish. I decided I was never going to get drunk like that ever again.
Never really had a challenge to that decision until I started touring with a nightclub group in 1971. We were playing 4-hour gigs, 5-nights a week 50-weeks a year. Did that for 3-years. We played really nice clubs across the Coastal states, Mountain states, and mid-West. However, when we came back into CA to play we seemed to always play military clubs. Military clubs are fine as long as they are not the only things you are playing. After 4-weeks of playing in CA, we'd about had enough of military clubs.
Finally got after our agent to stop putting us in military clubs in CA with the exception of Lemoore Naval Air Station, which was out in the boonies of the San Joaquin Valley. It was the home of a carrier Fighter Wing. They paid well; we were treated well by both the O-Club and the NCO-Club, and was a relaxing place to stay, They let us stay in the Naval Lodge, which was cheap, and we would get at least one really nice meal compted to us because the Officer's Club and the NCO club had an ongoing competition to convince us that their club had a better chef than the other club (both chefs served us excellent meals!). Otherwise meals there were not expensive. We also only played 4-nights there (Thurs.-Sunday) instead of 5-nights, so we got Monday-Wednesday off when we played there. I actually used that time in 1972 to marry my wife back in my home town. Next day we had to drive to Lemoore.
The deal with military clubs is that booze is cheap there...real cheap. We would disburse into the crowd at each of our 3 breaks per night at all of our venues and schmooze with the customers. They would usually be back another night or two with friends and impress those friends that "they knew members of the band!" Worked well for us as it helped the places do well whenever we played there. Invariably these cistomers would buy us a drink...only it was never one drink at a military club, it was always two drinks. So one night I stop in at this one table and they get me two Jack Daniels on the rocks (was years before I started drinking single-malt scotch). Sets were 45-minutes with 15-minute breaks. I finished one and then half of another. Next break, my half of a drink was there along with 2 more. Next break I had 1½ old drinks plus 2 more. Managed to drink the 1½. That last set though was a REAL problem. My fingers weren't working all that well and I was making a lot of mistakes. At the end of the night, those guys were still at the table and expected me to drink all 4-drinks that were now there. I drank one more, apologized, and called it a night. I prided my self on my accurate bass playing and it was anything but accurate on that last set...I once again swore, "Never Again!"
So the next day before we went up on stage I had a little talk with the bartender. I told him I was trying to not drink so much and people kept feeding me drinks. I asked if he could, when someone ordered "Dan's Usual "give me an alcohol-free Bloody Mary". That way I didn't have to insult the folks trying to buy me drinks but could still play my bass all night long just fine. He said sure and said he'd be there for the next three days. So when audience members asked what I was drinking I'd say, "Just ask the Bartender for 'Dan's Usual'.
After that I had no trouble controlling my fingers again. That actually worked fine for me. Sometimes I'd get a real Bloody Mary, but usually I got a Virgin Bloody Mary and never got sloppy drunk again. Never really had that problem with beer because you usually can't tell at a glance if its full or not. But you might try changing your drinks to
@bigboy_78's "Usuals" and see if that works for you.
Now days my drink of choice is single malt scotch which I sip sparingly. I enjoy them a lot with a preference for Islay, Speyside, and Highland single-malts but they are waaaay too expensive to slug down. I also brew my own beer (typically takes a month from brew day to drink-one day) and I stretch those out too just because I don't want to run out and I'm averse to buying very much beer at today's prices. Even at that brew pub, where we hosted so many Open Mic Nights with free beer provided to us, I rarely drank more than 2. You might try talking the bar keep into serving you your usual...
