Hello and
welcome to my blog. My name is Stephen, I am 29 years old, and I have decided
to set myself a little challenge for the start of 2016.
The
challenge has been proposed by the public health team to me and few of my rugby
playing teammates from Morpeth Rugby Club: they asked if we would like to take
part in the Dry January campaign.
Dry January
is aimed at making people think about the amount of alcohol they consume and the
effects that it can have on our bodies, and that is part of the reason why I
want to get involved – I want to see what difference it will make.
Before
starting on the 1st January I will be doing some basic health checks
with the Northumberland Health team including checking my blood pressure,
weight and waist line to see what effects, if any, a month without the amber
nectar has.
I do not
drink every day; however, on a Saturday I would say I generally have at least 3
or 4 pints as a minimum and I generally drink more than that, which is one of
the reason I want to do Dry January… after a heavy month celebrating my
birthday and Christmas and New Year, my wallet and my body could both do with a
break.
I will
clarify now that I although I play rugby, I would not call myself a Rugby
player. I play for the 3rd and 4th team at Morpeth along
with the other ‘social players’; the teams where you are often still trying to
get players at 12 noon on a Saturday for a 1pm meet.
Alongside
the playing of the game, there also exists an associated drinking culture – I’m
not saying that everyone who plays rugby drinks but there is a strong social
culture and I want to tackle my own attitude to it! This is partly why I want
to complete Dry January, to prove that not all rugby has to be linked to
drinking and laddish behaviour.
It will be a
challenge to complete a full month containing five weekends as January 2016
has, mainly because that is the time of the week when I usually have a drink
(or 6).
I will be
raising money for the Children’s Heart Foundation(CHUF) at Newcastle’s Freeman
Hospital and details will follow.
