Wednesday September 5 - God sticks His oar in.

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been eight months, four days and 11 hours since my last drink.

OK, so it's fair to say this blog hasn't gone viral. I'm not getting thousands of hits per hour and a six-figure book deal, like that girl who pretended to be a prossie, or the other one who was obsessed with touching herself, ahem, down there.

However, I discovered today that God is keeping an eye on my progress. Which is nice.

How do I know? Well, I awoke this morning feeling pretty fed up with the whole project, and seriously considering quitting. I'm off to Thailand on Saturday, and the thought of all those Bangkok bars (I'm going with Gem, thankyou, before anyone decides to make any Crying Game-related wisecracks), lazy days by the pool, and glorious sunsets without booze filled me with ennui. Would it really be so bad to cal it a day after eight months? I wondered.

I do tend to get these downers just after passing the major milestones. Ie, I look forward to passing a certain point (in this case, the two-thirds mark), only to discover that sobriety on the other side of the hill is just as dull.

So there I was, home alone on a lieu day, nursing dark thoughts about simply ending it all by cracking open that lonely can of Carlsberg in the fridge, when the doorbell goes. It's the postie with a registered-delivery parcel. And it's booze-shaped.

I take it into the dining room, rip off the brown parcel paper, open the box, then unwrap the tissue paper from the object inside to reveal...a bottle of Moet. Champagne, baby! The one drink which, rather embarassingly, I have been craving the most (see previous blog entries). I'm only slightly ashamed to say that I actually whooped with pleasure.

Of course, I could have bought my own champagne before now. Or drank the bottle that Gem was given by her boss a few months ago. But that's not the same as being given your own bottle, for free. And definitely not the same as one dropping into your hands, out of the blue, on a Wednesday morning. Buy champagne, and you'll feel obliged to drink it from a proper glass, sensibly, with friends. But donated champagne can, ney should, be glugged from the bottle, solo and guilt-free. I might even open it by slicing the top of the bottle off with a hunting knife. (Though I'll need to buy a hunting knife, which sort of ruins the spontanaeity.)

The champagne, incidentally, did not come from God Himself. It was sent by a young chap who works in PR. He had asked me for some free advice about how to place a story about custard creams in the national press. My suggestions worked a treat (I don't want to boast, but it would seem that I'm the Max Clifford of the gluten-free biscuit world) and he sent the bottle as a token of thanks.

Now, I know this was a sign. But the question is: what sort of a sign?

Was it a nasty Old Testament God (deep frown, unruly eyebrows, lots of dark clouds behind Him) trying to tempt me and demonstrate to me my own weakness and fallibility?

Or was it a lovely New Testament God (benign expression, neatly trimmed facial hair, cute little lamb nuzzling up to His knee) simply sending me a sign that He is watching over me?

Despite my previous dark thoughts, I interpreted it immediately as the latter. Rather than wanting to pop that bottle right there and then, and use the sweet booze to wash down my Shreddies, I knew straightaway that this was a special bottle, and one that I fully intend to have as my first drink - but not until midnight on New Year's Eve.

Others would have interpreted such an incident as a nasty tease, but I really did find it uplifting. I must be a glass-is-half-full kinda guy.

Speaking of which, I went to the Penny Lane Wine Bar on Monday night, where even a half glass of squash still sets you back a quid. If the Almighty could sort out those tight-arses, that really would be a miracle.

We had a nice night, as it goes, but sitting outside with Cardy, Gary, Gregg, Graham and Ali made me realise that summer is truly over. Even in jumpers and coats, the unmistakable nip of autumn hung in the air, smelling like crunchy leaves and brand new pencil cases.

On Saturday, perhaps in a bid to pretend it was still summer, I climbed Mount Snowdon with Gem, Cardy, Cumbi and Cathy. Considering I haven't really exercised all year, I skipped to the top without too much effort at all. I don't think that would have been the case had I been drinking all year, not least because I'm now a good stone lighter than I was in January.

After descending we camped Saturday night at Betws y Coed. As usual, I was slightly jealous when we tramped off to the nearest pub and I had to neck sickly OJ and sodas while the rest of the group drank beer. But we were all knackered from the day's exertions, and even the drinkers wanted to call it a night after three pints. We're definitely not as young as we used to be.

I went straight to work in Llandudno Junction on Sunday, while the rest went home. This is my last week in work, and on Friday I'll be having my second leaving do - my second dry leaving do - of the year. It won't be a big boozy do, for three very good reasons.
1. I can't get pissed because of this project.
2. Even if I wanted to get pissed, it wouldn't be very sensible as I need to be at Manchester Airport - a place where I have a history of missing flights due to booze -for 7am on Saturday.
3. I've only been there three months, so I'm slightly embarrassed to be having a leaving do at all.


Er, that's all for now. I normally try to come up with a clever pay-off line for each blog entry. But today I'll just say Amen.