January Blues

This kind of happens to a few of my friends the first week of each new year. They party to excess over the holiday season, drink too much, dance all night, get up and try to work too. All the money gets spent and they have that alcohol ‘come down’ which everyone gets but usually only gets acknowledged physically rather than emotionally.

You do know alcohol’s a depressant doncha? It lowers our psychological barriers, our inbuilt resistance to doing stuff. That’s one of the reasons why it’s fun. You can be more yourself than you are regularly. But afterwards, there’s usually a price to pay. The next day there might be physical symptoms and it can knock the immune system out of the ballpark too. Look around you at all the flu that’s going around. Coincidence?

That’s not all. There’s also an emotional come down. While my buddies are feeling physically drained, they’re also getting emotionally down. I know this won’t last but it happens and it’s worth realising that it does. Then it’s not so much of a shock. Play some Howlin Wolf and get into it. Detox, exercise, keep to your regular patterns. Ignore people who write in slogans. Ha! Caught you there.

Physically run down. Emotionally under the weather. Cold. Fluey. No money left after the excess of Christmas. There’s only one thing left for my poor friends to do. Go out and buy themselves hair shirts in the January sales.

Well, it made me smile.

So that was last week. Now everyone is little more detoxed and it’s time to get off the sofa. Play some music. Pick that guitar up and start thinking about a holiday in the sun…