Dear Oscar,

Tell me, please, why it is that it is something of a learned human ‘nature’ to celebrate life in all of its rewards and plenitudes by overindulging in food and drink! I just do not understand it. Why is it that any form of celebration – even the celebration of the everyday going particularly well – has to be capped off with feasts and wine, and spirits and strong coffees, with sweetmeats and treats, all of which do more harm than good!

It seems to me that it is learned behaviour, but it is a very strange one. So, I am in a very good mood, and I have achieved whatever it is that I have achieved, maybe a trip out went well, maybe everything fell into place the way that I wanted it to, and so I decide I am going to treat myself, to round off a good day by spoiling myself. And there of course is the rub. It is literally spoiling myself!

Now I am not someone who is ridiculously over indulgent, as you well know. I will accept an alcoholic drink or two, I will partake of a bottle of wine, I will order a fairly extravagant meal in a restaurant, maybe a dessert, maybe some cheese and biscuits; but these occasions are actually few and far between, and in the current health dilemma that dominates all social interaction (see my earlier note to you entitled: Pandemic!), there is precious little opportunity to go out and make merry. So, like most of the populations of the world, any momentary celebrations have to be practised in the home. You well know from me, Oscar, that my home environment is singular, that I live alone, have occasional visitors, but that most of my time is spent on my own in my comfortable surroundings, and therefore able to indulge my tastes for celebratory meals at the drop of a hat! And I do so maybe once every week, perhaps once every ten days or so. And every time there is the same result, to a greater or lesser degree, of a hangover that forces me to waste much of the ensuing day in recovery, nursing myself through the stomach pains, and the headaches, and the inability to eat properly. I do not even really enjoy the celebration when it is happening! Yes, I must like the moment when the alcohol takes effect, when I feel excited and happy, laughing at life as it presents itself around me, but I always then go too far, have to be rid of the wine, and all of the food, and so devour and drink it all, go to bed not really aware of what I am doing, and sleep a very heavy sleep, to be awoken early with a chronic dehydration and the sensation that my body is in rebellion. And – one more and – I have been doing this for years, perhaps all my entire adult life!

It is socially acceptable, and in certain circumstances even required. I have been at important occasions where to refuse a drink, a toast to whatever, is frowned upon, and I have been with people who insist that they will buy you a drink, that you will drink it with them, whether you want it or not. I have had ‘fun’, shared happy times, tried new things, new beverages, new foodstuffs around the world, and not really taken account of the cumulative harm that I am doing to myself. You must know what I mean, Oscar dear, you were a gourmand and an imbiber with expensive tastes which you also indulged, and which you shared willy-nilly.

Well, nowadays I find myself saying every single time – it has to stop!

I have fairly recently conquered the excesses of my diet, and I intend also to limit to an absolute zero my intake of alcoholic beverages. You note I say ‘intend’, which leaves a certain wavering point, but I shall take things, as all the self help programmes dictate, one day at a time!

I have a suspicion that you never stopped at all – that you carried on with your indulgences until your very end, with only the enforced respite of imprisonment interrupting you. I get the impression that you had a sense of yourself as if you needed no improvement, despite the condemnation of your age, despite the wagging finger of censure. I suppose you felt you knew best.

I know best.

It has to stop.

Best wishes to you,

Algernon B. Duffoure.