When my baby smiles at me I go to rehab

Tom Waterhouse. He's the public face of sports betting in Australia, and he knows what punters want. He also knows what defamation lawyers charge, as noted rugby thug and comedy bandanna wearer Peter FitzSimons is in the process of discovering. Given that, I will choose my words carefully, and only state facts which I am scientifically sure of from my own base of experience.

Tom Waterhouse is worse than ball cancer.

Seriously. Ball cancer, you find the lump down trou, you panic a bit, you get the diagnosis, you panic a bit more, you have the surgery, a month or so later you have the chemo, you get better. From there, you might have to face the Black Dog or Despair Squid as the end-of-level-boss in the next round. Or you might take on the odd Tours de France while jacked off your nana on go-fast. But, essentially, as regards cancer of the love spuds: that's your lot. The malignancy that is Tom Waterhouse is going to be around a lot longer, and cost a lot more people a lot more that is dear to them. For, as Fitzy notes, Waterhouse's business is producing impoverished Australians in bulk, and Waterhouse's business is good. For him, at least. And for the shambling zombie Nine Network, who couldn't have been more desperate to bank his $14 million and give him a WWOS mic and blazer, despite anyone with a brain immediately choosing to switch off their NRL coverage.

Binning sports gambling ads on TV seems such a no-brainer it's hard not to think future generations won't think us four-fifths of fucking insane for even debating it. Think of today's incredulity when considering the anti-suffragette movement, or the White Australia policy, or 1950s cigarette ads proclaiming 9 out of 10 doctors recommend smoking Camel. Who was going to end up on the right side of history just seems no contest, in hindsight. You get the same feeling about marriage equality, about the apology to stolen generations in Australia, or settlements with iwi acknowledging Waitangi Treaty claims in NZ, about banning smoking in public places. How could it ever been not thus? What possible justification could there have been for the way things were, other than bigotry, greed and vested interests? When (and it will be when) Waterhouse and his ilk are shitcanned - or at least put back in their box and placed on a high shelf away from the children - we'll wonder how they were ever allowed become so ubiquitous in the first place.

Makes you wonder though, what's next on the anti-social list? British American Tobacco attempted to harness the lazy logic of the slippery slope in an attempt to turn public opinion away from plain packaging, by inferring alcohol would be next. Completely unlike a tobacco firm to use misleading advertising to gain a commercial advantage, of course (and the parallels between the corporate tactics used by Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big Booze and Big Punt go on and on from there). Alcohol, though, will surely be next, purely from a public health cost standpoint - it kills and injures too many people for it not to be (from drink driving, drunken violence at home and in the streets, non-communicable diseases, yada yada yada).  This is not to be a born-again sanctimonious teetotal cunt (though I am guarding against the risk of developing into one, nearly a month counting into sobriety) but just to predict a likely trend.

The one different alcohol has in its favour is that it does have a safe level of use; while 'every cigarette is doing you damage', one or two standard drinks isn't, and might even be doing you good. But, if you can keep it to 1-2 standard drinks in a sitting, you're doing better than me. (And you're also under-reporting, you lying bastard. Go back and count the empties in the recycling bin and tell the Doc the truth now.) Which is why I chucked it in, until I can get better control over it.

What I've found though - and others I've talked with who've also binned the booze - is the subtle differences between giving up smoking and giving up drinking from a social standpoint. Giving up smoking? There's general social acceptance. There's patches and gum and Quitline and reassuring pats on the back from online and organic pals. Giving up drinking? Tumbleweeds. Odd looks. Mild annoyance. Minor avoidance. Noone likes a born-again punishing-and-straightening moralistic nimrod, and as a new teetotaller in a social situation, you can feel that pause while the possibility is being assessed. And that faint scent of awkward, because nobody who drinks to excess likes being reminded they drink to excess. Go count the empties again.

This will probably change, as societies (particularly the Anglophonic ones) start to take a serious look at their drinking problems. Not to the extent that drinkers will be hounded out of doors and herded to the gutter like smokers are now, but probably to the extent that giving up the turps might not be met with such a large round of WTF. We already have the likes of FebFast, Dry July and Ocsober, which have previously been characterized on these pages as a bucket of abject wank:

Why is giving up the turps for a month in any way worth celebrating? Why is denying yourself pleasure or happiness a worthy exercise, given we're only here for a good time not a long time and no fucker can prove conclusively otherwise? Why are we in a headlong rush to out-smug each other in a race to the bottom to appease the punishing twats who want to run their lives and yours by actuarial tables or religious rote? Some people, of course, need to get off the grog. But if you need to give up the drink for a month to prove a point, you probably need to give up the drink, full stop. You're not cut out for it, clearly. You need to retire from international drinking. You, Olly Reed and Freddie Fittler. If you need peer pressure and celebrity bullying to stop you doing something that's not doing you any good, you're probably incredibly stupid. Drink, or don't drink. Your call. Just don't expect smug backpats, handshakes or reacharounds from the rest of society. Nobody cares about your self-denial, your self-delusion or your self-abuse. 

For the record, I still absolutely agree with all of that. I wasn't expecting to end up taking my own advice, however.

In conclusion, Frenzal are fucken tops.

The Doctor is OUT.