Shot on a Samsung Phone, with this series of photos below, I explore a side of Irish life we often laugh off as inconsequential, calling it ‘the craic’. However, there is a darker side to our obsessive past-time with the aul gargle. Besides it being marketed to us as a good time, we use it to medicate ourselves with, use it as a shrink, a lover, a friend and too often, a teacher via bad mistakes. Ultimately, we limit our personal development and maturity when we use alcohol as a crutch. 

As a regular drinker, I make excuses to have a beer often (sure it’s the weekend; the match is on; it’s a boring Monday; ah, Tuesday is as bad; ah sure it’s Wednesday, just the one; ah, it’s almost the weekend now, might as well… ad nauseum).

I quit drinking for 4 months last year and loved the feeling of being uber healthy. However, I have developed such an attachment to it, through generational obsession with it, that life feels kind of emptier without a few drinks. I know this is a bad state of affairs, and the best I can do is limit the amount I drink, which is typically dry for a few weeks and back to a few beers. It’s not a terrible habit but I do feel it has contributed to me not settling down. Besides my obsession with art in all forms, alcohol is another past-time that I believe  would negatively affect my family. If I’m to bring a kid into the world, and keep a woman as happy and safe as she deserves to be, I’d have to give up my foibles. Not doing so would damage them, which is what I have explored through this series. This isn’t a sob story, far from it, I love life. However, it does need to be said and talked about, hence the essay and photo series. 

In this series, I explore the effect of alcohol obsession upon personal growth, and how young men and women go off the rails, eventually feeling their way back, crossing over that river of slop, and finding happiness and peace. Life’s a journey, and some go fast, some go wild, and some like me go their own way. Whatever makes you happy, do it. Just do it with your head screwed on.

(There are other series below. Scroll down.)