DINNER this week with one of the country’s most famous trenchermen was a little different. The claret was as good as ever but there was only half a bottle. My host had given up alcohol entirely. When he told his friends that he was going to renounce all alcoholic drinks for a time there were unbelieving, but kindly smiles. It was as if Casanova, or a member of The Spectator staff, had declared that they no longer found the opposite sex attractive. It seemed to prove that heavy social drinkers can go totally dry, suddenly and without apparent trouble. He told me that he had had no ill-effects from his abstinence and had lost a desirable amount of weight.
This is the time of the year when older church people, especially Catholics, give up some indulgence. They may renounce alcohol, cheese, coffee, chocolate or even sex. The Shrove Tuesday pancake lunch, the prelude to Ash Wednesday, is all that is left of the carnival festivities of Catholic Europe.
In these carnivals every potential human excess is catered for. In mainland Europe the carnival has traditionally been a time of indulgence before the austerity of Lent. Lord Byron wrote about the wild excesses of the Venetian carnival, where masked partygoers were able to assume different identities. This enabled them to indulge in sexual orgies and infidelities and sink to new depths of decadence.
Not all fasting will be beneficial. It was good to see my host looking thinner and fitter but suddenly abandoning alcohol can have its adverse effects. Seizures and DTs don’t affect all heavy drinkers, but the casualties are mainly among hardened imbibers who suddenly stop. A journalist colleague who decided that a US trip would be the ideal time to give up alcohol had been there only a day or two when I got a call saying that the newsman was in emotional pieces, haunted by sleeplessness and the terrifying hallucinations that come with DTs.
Forty years ago a keen churchwoman gave up alcohol for Lent and promptly had a fit on one of the busiest traffic junctions in Norwich. Another problem is that all alcohol has the ability to reduce the likelihood of blood clotting. Sudden withdrawal of alcohol may precipitate thromboembolic problems — strokes, heart troubles or DVTs. If the newly abstinent are intending to fly, and have a normal blood pressure and no chronic indigestion, they should take some aspirin and plenty of fluids, and exercise on any long-haul flight. Alas, liver function is not likely to show within a month so that Lent is not long enough to put an ailing liver back on the right track.
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The advantage of fasting is that it shows that the mind still has control over the appetite. The resolution should not be to change one’s lifestyle so completely that it causes damage but it can be a prelude to a healthier diet thereafter. Whereas the carnivals of Venice enabled class barriers to be turned upside down only for a day or two, fasting for longer enables, it is said, the affluent to experience the life of those who are less fortunate.
Give up tea, coffee, or chocolate if it is to demonstrate willpower, but this shouldn’t be at the expense of sociability and colleagues’ lives if irritability makes life hell for them. The disadvantages to health of coffee are wildly overrated. Up to four cups of normal-strength coffee won’t do any harm, provided that they don’t cause sleeplessness if drunk late in the day. Tea, rich in antioxidant flavonoids, is health- promoting. The value of chocolate depends on its quality and the amount of cocoa it contains. The darker the better. The best Belgium chocolates are 100 per cent cocoa bean; good quality Caley’s chocolate from Norwich is not far behind. Chocolate, in small quantities, promotes rather than erodes health.