Monday November 26 - Booze, booze, everywhere - but not a drop to drink

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been ten months, 25 days and 20 hours since my last drink.

So, it turns out there is such a thing as a free lunch. Particularly when you work for a spanking new radio station. And, of course, all those free lunches come with lashings of free booze - none of which I've been able to drink.

God I'm an idiot. Why do I have to make life so hard for myself?

My first lost opportunity was on Wednesday night. My friends Kate and Andy have started a posh handbag shop in Liverpool city centre, and they kindly invited me to the grand opening. It was a pretty glam do, complete with a WAG (Abi Clancy), a page three stunna (Katie Downes) and a drooling pervert (hi fans!).

Naturally, it also came complete with free-flowing champagne all night. I had an orange juice, which was very nice and all that but it hardly gave me the necessary fortification to have a crack at La Clancy while her lanky fella was busy losing to Croatia. She clearly wanted to approach me, the poor girl, but it was hard with Mrs Batch keeping a watchful eye over her prize beau (moi).

The next missed chance was on Friday night, when most of the CityTalk staff ended up on the guest list for the re-opening of the refurbished Living Room, in Liverpool city centre. I couldn't tell the difference, to be honest. One coat of magnolia paint looks much like the other to me, but it was still a great freebie. Proper cocktails, wine and beer was all on tap for the night. I had another orange juice, and tried to ride the vitamin C rush.

And then on Sunday I was invited to a racing day at Aintree by my journo-turned-PR pals Jon and Jane. Free entry, free lunch and - yet again - apparently unlimited bottles of beer and wine, all at the expense of some kindly, faceless corporation. I had a sparkling mineral water. Mmmmmm, refreshing. I then lost on all but one of the six races, having miraculously been placed on a table with the only two Irishmen at Aintree who knew absolutely bugger-all about horses. Red faces? Yes. Tweed jackets? You betcha. But could they produce a decent tip between them? Could they feck.

Now, I've been to a few corporate days at the races, and lost at all of them. But in the past I've always consoled myself by necking as much free booze as possible to offset the gambling deficit. That was obviously not an option yesterday, although I did manage to make a serious dent in that bottle of Highland Spring. If I could have polished off another couple of crates, I might have broken even. But I'd have wet myself on the Merseyrail train from around Kirkdale to Moorfields.

Oh well. Less than 40 days and 40 nights to go now until I can drink again. That's less than Jesus did in the desert. Then again, He didn't have a pair of comp tickets to the Radio City Local Heros Awards on Thursday night, complete with entry to the aftershow party at Mosquito. If that wouldn't have flushed Him out of the desert and into His gladrobes for the night, I don't know what would.