Tuesday August 28 - Throw me in the Tower

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been seven months, 27 days and 10 hours since my last drink.

So, as hinted at in my last blog entry, I'm moving jobs again. After (almost) three hugely enjoyable months at the Daily Post Wales, I've been made an offer I can't refuse. From the end of September, I'm going to be a producer on a brand new talk radio station in Liverpool, with my own show at weekends.

I'm disappointed to be leaving DPW so soon (I was in my last job for six years, just in case this blog gives the impression that I'm a career slag) but I just find this opportunity too exciting to turn down. Exciting - and a bit scary, too.

I don't want to bang on about my career too much, as this blog is supposed to be about the trials and tribulations of a tee-totaller, not the stuttering career of a jobbing hack.

However, I do wonder if my sobrety is responsible in part for the upheavals in my career this year.

Yes, the DPW came looking for me, so my sobriety can hardly take the credit for that. And the seeds of the radio job were sown last year, when I was still a boozer.

However, I believe it may well have come to nothing, were it not for my booze-free project. Going on the radio to promote my blog reminded me how much I enjoy the medium, and made me want to pursue it as a career. Not drinking every weekend perhaps gave me the extra focus - and energy - I needed to get off my arse and pester the bosses at Radio City. My tee-totalism also gave the foundations for a half-decent show when I stood in for Pete Price back in May, which was probably what persuaded them to offer me this job.

But herein lies the conundrum: it seems that giving up booze may well improve your career, but it also means you can't crack open the champagne when you land that dream job, or even get horribly pissed at your leaving do.

I actually celebrated landing the radio job with the next best thing to champagne - curry. OK, so you don't get to feel like P Diddy - swaggering around a curry house with a Lamb Jalfreizi and naan in hand is not quite the same as strutting through (insert name of fashionable nitespot here) with a magnum of Crystal - but at least the good stuff makes you sweat and babble.

As for the leaving do, I'm happy to keep it low key, anyway. It's pretty embarrassing to be leaving after so short a time, so I'm certainly not after a big fuss. I suppose it'll just be another dry night out in which I get to watch Gregg get hammered and then drive him home. I think he's gonna miss me the most.

Rollercoaster career aside, it's been only a moderately challenging week on the not-drinking front. The weekdays were busy, as usual, and it's fairly easy to avoid booze when you get home late, tired and hungry.

The weekend could have been a little more complicated, as we decided to have a barbecue in our back yard on Bank Holiday Saturday. We'd been promised scorching weather and a free concert by various Beatles tribute bands on the field behind our house, so it seemed an ideal time for a party. Which, in turn, would have been a tempting time for me, as our BBQs are usually extremely drunken affairs involving enormous jugs of booze you wouldn't touch with a bargepole at any other time of year. (I have particularly fond - if slightly hazy - memories of last year's Sangria-fest and the great Pimms tsunami of 2005.)

Fortunately (in a way), the sun hid behind a stubborn layer of grey cloud all day, and the "free" concert turned out to be a ticket-only event for mug tourists who had paid £15 each to stand on what is normally a communal lavatory for our neighbourhood cats and dogs. They let us on eventually, but only on the fourth time of asking, and they must have turned a good couple of hundred away. The bands were quite good but with only a few dozen tourists and residents hanging around, Knebworth it was not.

The fact that the streets were crawling with coppers - due to two bouncers being shot on the door of Alma de Santiago the previous night - did not exactly foster a relaxed atmosphere, either.

So, what could have been a highly tempting day for a tee-totaller was really no challenge at all.

In fact, I have to say that the pisspoor summer has made this challenge a lot easier for me. Previous summers for me have been all about sitting in beer gardens (well, the Dovedale Towers car park) on baking hot evenings, or taking a coolbox of beer to Crosby beach on a Saturday, or getting slowly wasted while watching a Sunday bowls match behind the Coffee House. The only weather-related reason to drink this summer would have been a nip of whisky to keep the chill out.

For the record, I should record one other recent event which could have driven me to drink. I was playing golf yesterday and needed to birdie the last hole (a par 4) to achieve a personal best. Highly unlikely, I thought. A long but wayward drive left me with a half-decent approach. A sweet five-iron left me about five yards from the green but 30 yards from the pin. No chance of a birdie now, I thought, then watched in wonder as my perfectly-weighted chip plonked onto the green and followed a joyous arc right into the cup. Birdie and PB achieved in the most glorious shot I'd ever played. I threw my club into the air in celebration and just seconds later - I swear this is true - the Red Arrows flew overhead in the classic V (for victory!) formation. How they knew about my birdie I'll never know, but it was sweet of them to scramble so quickly to honour me like that.

Some moments are so sweet that they simply deserve booze - and that was one of them. Fortunately, there was none to hand, and the only intoxicant available was the massive spliff being shared by the gang of 12 identikit scallies behind us. Not my scene, daddio.

Sunday August 19 - The Temptometer

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been seven months, 18 days and 10 hours since my last drink.

So, despite all my good intentions, it seems I have gone another 11 days without blogging. No new excuses, I'm afraid. As I've explained before, it seems that working 12-hour days and six-day weeks does not a prolific blogger make. All those great diarists of old (Pepys, Frank, Mole) may have produced better works of literature than me, but they didn't have to drive to Llandudno Junction and back every day to produce a newspaper with around one-third of the required staff. Lucky bastards. (Nor, in fairness, did they spend their free time mooching around on Facebook and watching Big Brother, but I'll gloss over that for now.)

But no matter how busy I get, there always seems to be time to be tempted by sweet, sweet booze. Here are a few selected highlights since my last blog, with an indication of the temptation level and preferred tipple.

Last Friday (Aug 10), 7.30pm. Driving home from work, having somehow survived the busiest six-day week of my working life.
Temptation level: 8/10.
Preferred tipple: neat whisky (too tired for lager - just want instant booze hit.)
Actual tipple: tropical fruit squash.

Last Saturday (Aug 11), 5.30pm. With Hannah, Steve and Graham in the Dispensary pub on Smithdown Road. Aston Villa v Liverpool - my first televised match of the new Premiership season.
Temptation level: 7/10.
Preferred tipple: strong lager.
Actual tipple: orange juice and soda.

Last Saturday, 7.15pm. Still with Hannah, Steve and Graham in the Dispensary. Just seen Villa beaten in final minutes due to an unfairly-awarded free kick.
Temptation level: 9/10.
Preferred tipple: champagne.
Actual tipple: more bloody orange juice and soda.

Last Saturday, 9.30pm. Eating Thai green curry in which I had put double the suggested number of green chilies, including seeds.
Temptation level: 9/10.
Preferred tipple: nothing quenches curry burn like ice-cold lager.
Actual tipple: Schloer (you may sound pissed when you say it, but it is nowhere near as much fun).

Monday (Aug 13), 1pm. Receive a telephone call in which I'm offered perhaps the most exciting opportunity of my life (excluding affairs of the heart and underpants). Temptation level: 11/10.
Preferred tipple: the finest champagne known to man.
Actual tipple: mug of cold tea.

Monday, 1.01pm. Realise that accepting this offer will create major aggro and upset people whom I admire and respect.
Temptation level: 2/0.
Preferred tipple: Settler's Tums.
Actual tipple: same mug of cold tea.

Tuesday, 7am. See hard, irrefutable evidence in kitchen of what I have suspected for some weeks now. Ie, that mouse, or mice, is living behind the cupboards.
Temptation level: 0/10. (It's only a mouse, for pity's sake, it's hardly going to drive me to drink.)

Tuesday, high noon. Decide to accept aforementioned exciting offer.
Temptation level: 5/10.
Preferred tipple: either a shot of brandy to calm nerves, or a celebratory Guinness. Not sure which, but I know there will be trouble ahead.

Wednesday, 9.22pm. Check Blues score on Teletext. Beating Sunderland 2-1, with eight minutes to go. Woo-hoo, first three points of the season.
Temptation level: 0/10. I don't need alcohol as I'm already high on the heady smell of success.

Wednesday, 9.30pm. Check Blues score on Teletext. Hapless ex-Blues striker Stern John has managed to do for Sunderland in the 90th minute what he so rarely did for us. Score. 2-2.
Temptation level: 6/10.
Preferred tipple: gin, please.
Actual tipple: nothing but my own salty tears. (Not really - Blues fans don't start crying until around mid-April.)

Thursday, 7am. Find that our humane mouse trap has worked. Instructions suggest the mouse must be released at least 1km away to prevent him finding his way back. No time for that so I release him in the field behind our house, about 50m away. He's very cute and has a distinctive limp when he runs away. We name him Ronnie and feel glad we didn't use a traditional trap.
Temptation level: 0/10. Like I said before, it's only a mouse.

Friday, 7.30pm. Driving home from work after yet another insanely busy six-day week, involving some serious upheaval and decision-making.
Temptation level: 10/10.
Preferred tipple: I reckon about six pints of Kronenberg would do it.
Actual tipple: tropical fruit squash again. Thank Kia-ora it's Friday.

Saturday, 8am. There's another bloody mouse in the humane trap. I take him out back again and set him free, noticing a distnctive limp as he bolts for freedom. Ronnie, is that you?
Temptation level: 2/10. Well, it was good to see the little fella again.
Preferred tipple: Not sure. Is there a traditional drink for welcoming the return of a beloved rodent? Sherry, perhaps.
Actual tipple: tea.

Saturday, 2pm. Regular readers will not believe this but I won at golf. Honestly. Played the 18-hole at Bowring Park with Jimmy, Gary and Graham, and beat them all. It wasn't even a fluke. I was just in The Zone. Am considering becoming a professional gofer.
Temptation level: 8/10.
Preferred tipple: champagne all round.
Actual tipple: sweet, milky tea (for the shock).

Saturday, 5.30pm. Arrive at Claire and Paul's house in Leeds for their annual summer barbecue, which this year has been rained off so we go for a meal and to a pub instead.
Temptation level: 6/10. It would always be nicer to booze at these events but it is no longer a big deal to refuse, as booze-less nights no longer hold any fear for me.
Preferred tipple: Lager.
Actual tipple: tea.

Saturday 11.30pm. Realise, after about two hours and a scary number of pound coins, that pub quiz machines do not pay out more if you are sober than if you are drunk. They just take, take, take.
Temptation level: 0/10. Trivia, it seems, is more addictive than booze.
Preferred tipple: Never mind that, just stick another quid in!
Actual tipple: Coffee and apple-and-raspberry J2O.

Sunday (today) 9am. Check humane trap but nothing inside. I miss Ronnie.

Wednesday August 8 - Even if I wanted to drink, I wouldn't have time...

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been seven months, seven days and 23 hours since my last drink.

God I'm tired.

Giving up booze was supposed to give me loads of time, but I feel busier than ever. It makes me wonder how I used to fit all the drinking in. Just years of practice, I suppose. And having a piss-easy job with a 15-minute commute didn't hurt, either.

I spent Friday and Saturday last week in Welshpool, for Gregg and Hannah's wedding, and I have to say that being off the booze has never been so hard.

I always thought I would miss booze the most during difficult times - a really boring night out with people I don't know, for example, or a period of major stress.

In fact, it was the opposite. This weekend was so damn good, I felt it deserved alcohol - not as a tranquiliser to numb the pain but as the icing on the cake.

I have made so many fantastic friends in Liverpool over the past seven years. Friendships that were forged mainly in pubs and bars and late night sessions waiting for the Booze2U van to arrive outside one of our homes at 3.30am.

Although we remain close, it seems that various factors - careers, families, homes - have conspired to make us spend less time together.

But this weekend, as we all decamped to deepest mid-Wales, felt like being 25 again. The whole gang was together - including Matt from Dubai and Jon from, erm, Ormskirk - the sun was shining, we were all booked into the same hotel, and two of the very lynchpins of our group were getting spliced.

It was in many ways the perfect weekend - the sort that didn't come around very often when you were younger and come around even less now. Weekends like that should be savoured. They should be preserved. And how do you preserve something? Why, you pickle it in jars of alcohol.

So, yes, I was tempted to drink. I was tempted when we played 18 holes of golf on the Friday, and I had to slake my thirst with warm orange squash while they got ice cold lagers. I was tempted when we sat outside the pub on Friday night - the first warm Friday this whole shitty summer - and I nursed sickly pots of blackcurant and soda while they got pint after pint of Guinness and cider and red wine. I was tempted on Saturday lunchtime, when we spilled out of church and I minced around with a mineral water while everyone else - the pregnant and mentals aside - got stuck into the Pimms. And I was tempted on the evening do, when I toasted the happy couple with lukewarm coffee instead of champers, and drank Appletize all night because it sort of looks like booze.

Did I have a bad time? No, I had a great time. It was a brilliant party and despite my sobriety I led the charge on the dancefloor, and sang myself hoarse to the extent that Gregg took me aside and asked - with some incredulity - if the mind-bending dance drug ecstasy had finally made it to Welshpool. (For the record, it hadn't, and that goes for the rest of my year, too.)

However, I do have to wonder if a brilliant night could have been made even better by alcohol. And now I'll never know. At least, not until Gregg's next wedding, which won't be for at least a few years. (Joke.)

By the way, the one advantage to staying sober at a wedding is that you get to feel smug and superior at breakfast the following day, as the other guests struggle to keep down the cooked breakfast. Unfortunately, due to our hotel room being the noisiest, hottest, lightest place in Wales, I couldn't sleep for more than a few hours. Hence, at breakfast, I felt almost as wretched, paranoid and tearful as the band of brothers (and sisters) who were last seen screaming Bon Jovi songs with their ties wrapped around their heads.

The difference was that they got to sleep it off while I had foolishly volunteered for the Sunday shift at work.

Hence the lateness of this entry, and my ongoing fatigue.

Sorry.