“I’m Not An Alcoholic, I’ve Just Been Playing A Drinking Game Alone For 14 Years”

A 32-year-old Irish clubber has today denied accusations leveled at him claiming he is an alcoholic by insisting that he has actually just been playing a drinking game for the last 14 years.

The man, named locally as Jack Hawthorn, a DJ and promoter from Waterford who speaks with a faux-Dublin 4 accent made the denial after friends found him naked and covered in vomit on the floor of a party recently.

Having a drink of warm white wine to steady himself and because drinking warm white wine is one of the conditions of the game, Jack flat out refused to admit that he had a problem with alcohol.

“So people might find me drinking straight whiskey from a hip flask at ten in the morning and think ‘oh he’s dependent on alcohol,'” explained a bleary eyed Jack, “but that couldn’t be further from the truth, I’m actually playing a highly competitive and involved drinking game, by myself.”

“Just because I set the rules and there’s no one else playing doesn’t make it any less of a drinking game,” he added. “It’s not like I’m just making this up to mask an alcohol dependency, that’d be weird.”

Jack claims that the drinking game has many rules which require him to “take big swigs” whenever specific things occur throughout his day like – drinking whenever you wake up in the morning, drinking whenever you have booze in front of you, drinking whenever you hear music you like, drinking because it’s a day of the week and drinking whenever you experience an emotion that makes you anxious or sad.

“The rules aren’t really written down or referable and I’m the only playing but it still totally qualifies as a game and despite appearances I’m not an alcoholic,” continued Jack. “I’d invite you to play but one of the conditions of the game is that only I play, if someone else plays I’ll have to drink a pint of whiskey and em, eh…..actually do you fancy a game?”

“Look, I can stop drinking at any time but if that happens then I’ll lose the game and the forfeit of missing one of my cues to drink and losing is to drink even more aggressively,” concluded Jack.

“So you see, by drinking constantly I’m avoiding losing the game and being forced to drink even more aggressively which will almost certainly kill me, so again not an alcoholic, just playing a drinking game and I’d appreciate it if you could pass me that can of Stella, it’s almost midday and I have to have drunk at least one can before then.”

When it was explained to Jack that winning or losing the game was decided by him – being the inventor and only participant – and that he could just declare himself the winner and stop doing complicated mental arithmetic to keep drinking he leapt through an open window, defensively urinated on our bike saddles so we couldn’t give chase while screaming “I’ll never lose” at the top of his lungs.