Warning: drink this now and you’ll regret it later

I’M over the two-week mark in Sober October, which means I’m veering into smug territory. I wake up feeling focused and refreshed, my house is tidy, there are fresh vegetables in the fridge, I’m on top of work and I have time to execute a five-step cleaning routine in the morning after meditating. This is me sober: calm, productive and desperately boring. The halfway mark in my annual give-up-booze-and-fags routine is the danger zone. It’s easy to get complacent. “One glass of wine won’t hurt!” I think to myself on a Monday night after a long day. This leads to more than one and culminates with me dancing alone in my flat to The Four Tops at 3am. The next day I text my friends to say I have fallen off the wagon hard, but they already know because I sent them pictures of the aloe vera plant I bought from the shop at midnight when I went to get more drinks and cigarettes.

Hungover and humbled, I stare at the warning on the box of fags and decide booze should come with its own warning labels. Every bottle of cider should read: “I am not your friend. In fact, your stomach hates me.” For red wine: “Three glasses of this will have you pining for your ex and stalking their new girlfriend on social media.” White wine: “A bottle will make you feel invincible. You will buy drinks for strangers and fully believe that you are the most popular person in the bar. You will wake up with an empty wallet and pockets full of receipts for drinks you don’t remember drinking. Your headache will make you wish for death.” Shots: “Would you like to feel amazing for 10 minutes and then like absolute hell for two days? Then drink me!” Whiskey: “I know you think you are Don Draper from Mad Men and in a way you are — because no one likes you right now.”