My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been four months (!), four days and seven hours since my last drink.
One of things that used to annoy me about drinking was the sleep disruption.
I would look forward to a Saturday morning lie-in all week, then go out boozing on a Friday night and wake up at 6.30am the next day - heart pounding, head thumping and a mouth as dry as Gandhi's flip-flop.
I'd try to get back to sleep but it was no use, and I'd inevitably stumble downstairs and look for something soothing on TV. Something that wasn't loud, bright, nausea-inducing cartoons. Or a BBC News show presented by the B-team muppets who know all too well they are just holding the fort while Kaplinsky et al go for their weekend colonic irrigation.
I'd usually settle for TransWorld Sport, a weekly magazine round-up of sports that you never knew existed. To Montreal now, for the World Squat Thrust Championships...
Anyhow, I can officially report that going tee-total does guarantee a Saturday morning lie-in. Instead of waking up at 6.30am, I now sleep like a log until 6.45am. So, I've effectively traded an enjoyable social life for 15 extra minutes in bed. Brilliant.
Actually, that's not fair. I did have a good night last night. Me, Gem, Henry and Michelle went to Chilli Banana, a Thai restaurant on Lark Lane. The food was fantastic and the service was great, although one slightly over-zealous waitress - who had clearly been brainwashed at some customer service cult - spied that I was drinking only mineral water and sidled up to me to suggest I try one of their "fantastic range of fruit juice!"
Yeah, that's just what they want. Just like the drug pusher who preys on the vulnerable and the disillusioned. They see you're on the water - they know you're weak - and it's "hey, why not try a dash of cordial in that?", or "how about some fantastic fruit juice.."
Before you know it, they've got you hooked on £5 glasses of the freshly squeezed juice of mangoes handpicked by trained monkeys in a remote Pacific island and shipped back to the UK in golden crates lined with silk.
Yeah? Well, not me. Find a different mug, sister, cos I AIN'T BUYING! NOT TODAY, NOT EVER! YOU HEAR ME? I WILL NOT BE YOUR FRUIT JUICE SLAVE!
I didn't say that, of course. I just said: "No thanks, I'm fine with the water."
But I think she knew what I meant.
The rest of the week was so busy that avoiding booze was easy. I supppose I could have done with a beer when I watched the Liverpool-Chelsea Champions League semi-final on Tuesday. It wasn't that I particularly craved alcohol, but I could have used the bottle to subdue Jimmy, who has suddenly remembered he is a Liverpool fan again. And not a modest one.
I was also so busy that I barely noticed the passing of April into May, which means I am now one-third of the way through this challenge. That is definitely a serious milestone. I suspect the next two months will fly by, and then I'll be halfway there. Not that I'm "wishing my life away" - which is something my mum always advised against (usually when I was forward planning what I would have for each birthday and Christmas present between 1984 and 2010).
It's just that I'm quite thirsty.
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