Wednesday May 30 - I Am The One In Ten

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been four months, 29 days and 14 hours since my last drink.

Yes, I am the one in ten. By which all UB40 fans will understand that I'm unemployed. Everyone else probably thinks I'm the solitary chump whose cat doesn't prefer Whiskas.

Only for a week, though. I left the Press Association on Friday, and don't start at the Daily Post until next Monday.

Leaving a job presents a clear challenge to the non-drinker - the Leaving Do - and I'm ashamed to say that I bottled it. I decided it would be easier not to have one.

Cowardly? Yes. But also considerate. The whole point of a leaving do is for the departing employee to make a drunken fool of themselves in front of their newly ex-colleagues. To make ill-advised passes at the woman and pick ill-advised fights with the men. And, naturellement, to tell the boss he's a ****.

Alas, I only worked with one other person in Liverpool, so the scope for passes/fights was extremely limited - she would have rejected the former and possibly beaten me in the latter. And as the most senior member of staff attending, I would have had to call myself a ****, which hardly presents the same drama.

I would have felt a bit of a fraud summoning my Manchester-based colleagues and other assorted journos over to Liverpool on a school night just to watch me drink lemonade for two hours, while failing to make a show of myself.

Yes, it's a weak excuse, but I'm sticking to it. Plus, I do have a joint do planned at Chester Races on June 12.

The reason I couldn't have the do on Friday was that I had a long-standing arrangement to go up to Scotland to see my mate, Rob.

My friendship with Rob, and other long-distance pals, was part of the motivation behind this project. Like most people, I have certain friends whom I only get to see once or twice a year, and so I look forward to those reunion weekends a great deal. So much catching up to do, so much news to share, so many stories to re-tell and grand schemes to announce. Inevitably, however, every reunion weekend would begin in the pub, and not move very far from it for the next 48 hours.

If catching up was the mission, throwing up was all too often the end result, and I would nearly always drive away from the weekend feeling sick and shaky yet none the wiser about my friends' lives. Other than what pubs they drank in. Any stories and plans would be lost in a drunken haze, and discussions about the future tended to be overshadowed by discussions on whether to go for a kebab or a curry.

Anyway, Rob agreed and we decided to avoid pubs and alcohol for the entire weekend.

So it came as no surprise whatsoever when I arrived in Edinburgh at 11pm on the Friday, phoned Rob for directions and was told: "I'm just having a few pints in a pub in Leith. Come down and meet me here."

To be fair to him, he did order a coke - alongside his pint of Guinness - as a show of solidarity. Plus, we did only stay for the one drink and the next day headed north to go and..you guessed it, play golf.

The golf was great, and was followed by a traditional Highland pub for lunch. Remember that cow carcass that Rob Roy hid inside to flee the English? Evidently, they're still using it to make burgers, and I caught some sort of bug from it which knocked me out for three days. Oh well, at least got to sample the atmosphere of Scottish cup final day. (You'll never guess who won. OK, it was Celtic!)

We camped on Saturday night, opting for separate tents after Gemma made one too many comments before I left about the so-called "fishing trips" in Brokeback Mountain. That was the only point when I really missed the booze all weekend. It was a cold and clear night, the scenery was fantastic, we had a great barbecue on the go and - most importantly - I had just thrashed Rob over 18 holes. Just two cans of beer (one to slake, one to savour) would have sufficed, but my iron will held out. And we were in the middle of nowhere, with not an offy in sight.

We played again on Sunday and I finally drove back to Liverpool on Monday morning. Did I feel any the wiser about Rob? I'd love to write some laddish comment here along the lines of: "Of course not, we just talked about golf instead." But, to be honest, I'd say we did talk properly and catch up more than would have been possible on a traditional boozy weekend.

Still, two cans wouldn't have hurt.

And, thanks to the increasing effects of the carcass burger, at least I still got to experience the nausea, sweating, sickness and hot flushes that mark the end of a more traditional reunion weekend.

As soon as I got home, the burger bug kicked in big style, so the only drink I have craved since Monday is Lemsip.

The rest of my week of unemployment has been extremely event-less and I have felt too rough to be tempted by booze. It would require stress or trauma on a massive level to make me want a drink at present.

Still, Big Brother starts tonight. Never say never...