Christmas Cheer: How I Gave Up Alcohol a Week Before Christmas
This December I celebrate ten years alcohol-free but it took nearly losing everything to get sober.
Picture the scene: December 2014.
A Christmas work party in London. Oxford Street is ablaze with twinkling fairies while my colleagues and I are deep within the bones of a sumptuous restaurant. Huge skewers of meat arrive while tinned Greek music mingles with free-flowing alcohol. At that time, I am vegetarian and living in Brighton with my wife and child.
My boss was a big drinker and glasses were continuously replenished. I didn’t eat much, on account of being vegetarian. After the meal, myself and two other gay colleagues decide on a quick drink. At 10pm there is plenty of time for a G&T and still make the midnight train home.
It was never going to be Just One. Moderation lies fallow in my vocabulary.
After a couple of drinks with the Christmas gays in Soho, we had the genius idea of blagging our way into the Groucho Club. I had visited a week earlier for lunch with a friend and could surely pretend to be her! The boys were up for the ruse.
We hurried along the seasonal streets as the morning frost started to land, adding…
