The Stay Inn Club: How Lockdown Has Changed My Relationship With Nights Out Forever
Being barred from the nation’s watering holes and confined to the four walls of my one-bedroom flat for sixteen weeks (and counting) has put me off ever leaving in the pursuit of drunken fun again.
When the Government made the much-awaited announcement that pubs and bars had the green light to open on 4th July, provided they adhered to 13 pages worth of caveats, you fell into one of two camps; 1. Furiously messaging all group chats to arrange a mass gathering at your most conveniently-located boozer or 2. Politely declining any invites in fear of a second wave.
Whilst I was happy local independents and their staff, whose livelihoods were stripped away faster than you can say last orders on 20th March, could begin to rebuild their lives, I fell firmly into the latter category. And that’s not because I’m a ‘party pooper’.
I’m the type of person who says yes (or did) to every social occasion, albeit reluctantly at times, involving booze but as I’ve got older, my enthusiasm for The Big Night Out has dried up. Partly because age has afforded me a wisdom that balks at the thought of another day lost to the bathroom floor. Plus, the obscene amount of money that ultimately ends up in the toilet bowl.
But for all its difficulties and the tragic circumstances which have demanded we bring the bar, school, office, gym and hairdressers into our homes, lockdown has forced me to re-assess my drinking and spending habits with a finer tooth comb. And I’ve reached the realisation that despite my best efforts over my 13-year drinking career (for lack of a better word), I’ve become one of those people my naive, teenage self vowed never to: I prefer staying in.
I started going out at the age of 17 — one benefit of having an older boyfriend was that I got early access to Newcastle’s infamously raucous nightlife scene which equipped me with stories to brag-tell my friends. It felt as though I was a member of an exclusive club, albeit one with approximately 400,000 members. Since then, I’ve enjoyed one-to-multiple nights out, sometimes in a row (the horror), most weeks. That’s 13 years worth of sometimes twice-weekly hangovers and too much money to estimate spent in all manner of drinking holes. For context, the average night out costs me £150, all things considered, so you do the maths I’m too scared to. Simply writing that made my liver shiver.
It’s amazing how quickly you become rich (both literally and figuratively) when you find yourself with a spare £150 a week. That’s an extra £650ish a month — £7,800 a year (!!). The reality of that amount of money dawned on me a few weeks into lockdown, once I’d done all the cliched, Amazon panic-buying (e.g. cocktail kits, dumbbells, generic ‘house stuff’ etc.), of course.
No wonder I was convinced I could never afford to buy a house while renting in London. That pipe dream has now become a real possibility — one I’m certain wouldn’t have been feasible without lockdown. I haven’t actually put that spare cash into a house-savings account — instead I’ve financially committed to hopefully, finally, passing my driving test by the end of the year. Thirteen years after sacking it off the first time round because ‘I would rather spend my money on booze and clothes’ than lessons.
Another reason I’ll be reserving nights out for special occasions post-lockdown is because I’m convinced hangovers are the devil sent to me by my mother to teach me a lesson I never took seriously as a teenage binge drinker — even after a health issue at 20 which was arguably caused by excessive alcohol consumption and landed me a week-long hospital stay.
My hangovers are worse than most and I’m not exaggerating when I say I often vomit for 12 hours straight, not being able to keep anything, even water, down. My long-suffering boyfriend and friends will vouch for that. While I’ve drank moderately (once you get to 30, you reach that elusive point of knowing your limit, who knew?) most weeks during lockdown, I’ve only had a sniff of a hangover that’s shaken off with a shower, stodge and a steady stroll. I’ve not missed the painfully long days lost to the bathroom floor and it was definitely a factor which informed my decision to stay in on so-called ‘Super Saturday’. The scenes in Soho circulating on Sunday morning confirmed I made the right decision.
Rife hangxiety in pre-lockdown, morning-after me, on top of the physical symptoms, ensured a night out was almost never worth it. Especially with the depleting tolerance age gifts you. I’d replay every minutiae detail of my oversharing comments and the vague memories would haunt my thoughts for a few days — even after the hangover fog had cleared. You underestimate the mental energy expended on long-term, low-level anxiety and that’s something I’ve only come to realise in the 16 weeks it hasn’t reared its ugly head. I am free of shame — which is probably the alcohol-induced emotion I struggle most to shake off. I’m armed with a newfound determination not to return to my old drinking habits for fear of losing this new shame-less life.
So when 4th July came—and the weather conspired against the beer-garden-gagging British public — the FOMO that plagued so many of us BC (Before Covid) was notably absent. A quick google of ‘Super Saturday’ was enough to induce anxiety in anyone who’s remotely taking notice of the medical experts’ advice.
For all of its struggles, I am thankful to the lockdown for making me re-evaluate my relationship with The Big Night Out. It’s not as if I was a raging alcoholic but being barred for four months, I’ve realised I couldn’t maintain the social life of even 28-year-old me if I want to establish a comfortable family life in the not-so-distant future.
Going forward, I’ll be reserving nights out for special occasions and not just because ‘it’s Friday’. I also have no obligation to justify my choices to friends who don’t understand. Life’s too short to be stuck at a party you never wanted to go to in the first place.
Of course I’m not naive enough to realise that this is a lot easier said than done. Without the temptation of pubs and parties, the only option is to stay home — the decision has been made for us. But as lockdown eases and the night-out invites slowly trickle in, that’s when the real test will be.