A Twist in My Insobriety

This is going to be a column on sobriety – тре́звость. For three reasons.

First, a piece on Russian vocabulary depicting the state of inebriation – состоя́ние опьяне́ния – would take a book, while sobriety can fit in one page.

Second, my first-ever American host (Chicago, 1988) was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous (анони́мные алкого́лики – we have this here too now). That year, on the night of my 27th birthday, like all newly-converted zealots, my host preached the virtues of his new motto, тре́звость но́рма жи́зни (as we used to say in Soviet times), while sipping his non-alcoholic beer (нулёвочка).

My host был в завя́зке (or завяза́л – literally, tied the knot), i.e. had been on the wagon, for several years, but his tellingly одутлова́тое лицо́ (puffy face) belied many visits to the вытрезви́тель (sobering up station, sometimes called a “drunk tank” in America).

So there he was, sitting in his gorgeous home, тре́звый как стёклышко (as sober as a little glass), and his Polish-born wife was also ни в одно́м глазу́ (“not in one eye” – i.e. fully sober).

Being myself, I quoted a Russian proverb on the theme: Тре́звый укра́л, а на пья́ного поклёп (the sober guy steals, but the drunk gets the rap). They nodded their heads in approval. But the conversation soon died out. Their ску́чный (dull) lectures on the undeniable value of staying трезвяк (colloquial synonym for тре́звость; note also the nice old adjective тверёзый, a folksy version of тре́звый) were starting to get me down.

To liven things up, I poured myself а со́точку (little 100 grams) from the otherwise useless bottle of Stolichnaya vodka I had brought them as a token of Soviet-American friendship. And I even tried to “woo them into complacency,” citing one of my favorite quotes from Leonid Gaidai’s classic film Diamond Arm: За чужо́й счёт пьют да́же тре́звенники и я́звенники (Even teetotalers and those with ulcers will drink at somebody else’s expense).

It was all to no avail. By now my host had set aside his нулёвочка and was drinking mineral water with ice and lemon. I resorted to a quote from another Gaidai film: Гу́бит люде́й не пи́во – гу́бит люде́й вода́”* (It’s not beer but water that kills). But Bernie continued with his water, while that со́точка (plus another) was having an impact on our poor, jet-lagged young Soviet journalist. He was turning into a perfect illustration of the proverb что у тре́звого на уме́, то у пья́ного на языке́ (what is only on the mind of the sober man, sits on the drunkard’s tongue). Indeed he was casting out pearls from Russian folklore (mostly crude jokes that made the host’s Polish wife both flush and laugh). And he even claimed that he and the wife were ро́дственные души́ (kindred souls), because she too was a Slav. But of course, his English was rather shaky back then, so he pronounced “Slav” like “slave” – surely a malapropism before an American woman, no matter where she was born.

The next morning I woke up at 4 a.m. with a severe похме́лье (hangover) and my host, during breakfast, compassionately poured me a beer (this was clearly somewhere he’d been before).

On our way to the airport (the itinerary of our USA-USSR Emerging Leaders Summit was taking me to Philadelphia) my host switched on the radio and I heard the Tanita Tikaram song (for the first time) that dealt with тре́звость: From my hands you know you’ll never be / More than a twist in my sobriety.

Twenty-three years on (the third reason for writing this column) Tikaram’s tune got stuck in my head again when I read how Russian vice-premier Dmitry Kozak demanded that our Olympians observe a тре́звый о́браз жи́зни (sober lifestyle) during the London Games (see page 12) because “Olympic values are not compatible with alcohol’’ (олимпи́йские це́нности несовмести́мы с алкого́лем). Mean­ing, there will be no vodka to celebrate Olympic medals – either for Russian sports functionaries or sports stars themselves. Oh, well… They will probably comply with it for a couple of days. But then, to paraphrase Tikaram, we all know this will never be more than a twist in our insobriety.

*В жи́зни давно́ я по́нял
Кро́ется ги́бель где
В пи́ве никто́ не то́нет
То́нут всегда́ в воде́
Ре́ки, мо́ря, проли́вы
Ско́лько от них вреда́
Гу́бит люде́й не пи́во
Гу́бит люде́й вода́