Saturday December 1 - The Finish Line In Sight (but I'll have to walk to it).

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been 11 months and ten hours since my last drink. ONLY 31 DAYS TIL B-DAY.

I had a rude awakening this morning, and not in a good way.

One of the original plans for this booze-free year was to get fit. I've never been a Sport Billy, but even in my drinking days (ie, any time after the age of 15) I would do just enough to keep the wolf of morbid obesity from my door.

After a heavy Friday night, I would regularly haul myself out of bed on Saturday mornings and jog around Sefton Park, sometimes even finishing with a Guinness fart-fuelled sprint.

Other times I would leave trails of purest Sambuca sweat on a Picton squash court, or pound the cross-trainer at LA Fitness until I had burned off the calorific equivalent of ten pints of Kronenburg and a Saffron special. Occasionally I might cycle along the Mersey until my deathly grey hangover pallor was replaced by a ruddy-cheeked nausea.

This year, I've done diddly squat. That's not a special type of squat thrust. I just mean I've done nothing. Nada. Zilch. Nowt.

I could give excuses as to why that might be - the change of jobs, increasing work load, golf (which is not proper exercise in any way).

But the real reason, if I'm being honest, is that my non-drinking has armoured me with a sense of smug self-righteousness.

Why should I exercise when I am already sacrificing so much?

Why bother exercising when all I drank last night was orange juice and soda?

Exercise is for the weak and sinful. I am pure of soul, so I must be pure of body!

So when I awoke to a crisp winter morning today I decided to pull on my trainers and Ron Hills (calm yourself, ladies)and jog around Sefton Park. Not for the exercise, you understand, but for the pure joy of it. Breathing the cold air deep into my lungs, hearing the rhythm of rubber sole on pavement, splattering the dog-walkers and asthmatic fun-runners with mulchy puddle spray as I raced joyously past them.

Yeah, that didn't happen.

Instead I was in agony after about ten minutes. My thighs burned, my chest pounded and I was desperately trying to clear my airways of the type of gooey spit I haven't experienced since I was a tubby schoolboy. The stuff is like ektoplasm - you try to spit it out and it stays attached to your tongue via a two-foot trail, swinging round and hitting the back of your head.

After fifteen minutes I had to stop and walk for a bit, casting my eyes to the ground in shame whenever a sprightly jogger ran past in the opposite direction. Suddenly, my bright yellow Asics running trainers and Ron Hills were a source of shame. At least most unfit people have the decency to waddle around the park in pair of Converse baseball boots and combat shorts. There was me with all the gear and no idea.

I got round, door to door, in 39 minutes and 47 seconds. I used to do it in under 30 minutes in my boozy days. Ouch. A valuable lesson has been learned. Sobriety, for all its virtues, does not keep you fit.

Anyway, the good news is that it's now December. The booziest month of the calendar, for sure, but also the last one. In less than 31 days, I will have completed my mission, and that's a great feeling.

To celebrate the end being in sight, I plan to update this blog daily until the end of December with a morsel of wisdom or question about boozing/sobriety. Think of it like an Advent calendar, but without the chocolate or the picture of baby Jesus in the manger.

Today's offering is this. How close a friend do you have to be before you help a drunk girl on a work night out? I only ask because I went to the Radio City Local Heroes awards on Thursday night, and onto the after-show party at Mosquito. Then to the after-after-show party in a Chinese karaoke bar beneath the Shangri La restaurant. (Well, it's nice to do your bit for charity.)

I knew one of the girls in our party by face but not by name. At 3.30am, I discovered her name was Jenny. As in "Oh look, Jenny's got her head on the table and she's puked on the floor." Thankfully, at that point, she was being attended to by two other girls, so I left them to it. I did feel a tad sorry for the two blokes on the same table who were trying to enjoy their meal but, hey, if you can't stand the puke, get out of the late-night karaoke bar.

Anyway, all was fine until about five minutes later when Jenny, who was now alone at the table (apart from the two aforementioned gents and their largely untouched spring rolls) decided to stand up. She lurched towards me with the unmistakeable face of a girl about to chunder once more. I was wearing a rather fine shirt and my favourite jacket, not to mention newly-purchased shoes of the softest brown leather.

Reader, it shames me to admit that instead of catching the lurching female, I stood aside. Alas, she turned on her heel and seemed to lurch at me again. Once more I sidestepped the danger. For a third time, her face now ashen (and for this I must take a share of the blame - it was not the right time to be making her dizzy), she came at me. This time, with all the skill of a matador, I stood in front of a chair and dived at the last second, allowing her to fall back into a sitting position. Thankfully, the cavalry teetered back on their heels and I was able to escape the immediate danger area.

But afterwards I was touched by guilt. As a sober and responsible adult, should I have done more to help? Should I have held her in my arms at the first lunge, and risked a torrent of sick down my back? Should I have insisted she be put into a Hackney cab and handed the driver a crisp £20 note from my own wallet? Or, as little more than a nodding aquaintance, was I right to absolve myself of responsibility as quickly as possible?

Discuss.