This has been a tricky time to try going booze-free

Ihave always admired those who do Dry January – a month seems such a long time, and just when the year is at its most dreary. But at least January teetotallers have solidarity in pain. This year I’ve gone out on a very solitary, rather eccentric limb, and given up booze (largely) in the run-up to Christmas. In fact, this is my first major booze-free period since I was 17, and I couldn’t have picked a more challenging time to kick-start it.

But that only adds to my sense of stubborn pride: I feel like a kind of solitary martyr to the cause of health, standing firm in the face of ubiquitous pressure to quaff.

The pressure is enormous, of course, and people want to know why I’m doing it – especially now. The answer is plain and simple: mortal fear of disease. I’ve long known, but preferred to bury the fact, that alcohol consumption is clearly linked to breast cancer in women (and a range of others in both sexes). When Dame Sally Davis, former chief medical officer of England, told women that they should think of breast cancer every time they reach for a glass of wine, I snorted with derision. It was a deeply killjoy thing to say, as well as brutally simplistic, overlooking the fact that moderate consumption of alcohol can boost wellbeing, which is itself an obstacle to illness.

But in essence she’s right and I felt it was time to face that fact. The links are well-established and there are rising rates of women in their thirties and forties developing the disease, according to Debashis Ghosh, consultant breast surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital.

I’m giving plenty up in radically cutting down. That lovely warming jolt when you pour a glass of good wine; that refreshing sense of possibility when the craft pils is cracked open, the euphoria of the first two glasses of champagne – and, most of all, the sense of conviviality.

I’m holding out for the invention of non-carcinogenic alcohol, or alcohol-free drinks that aren’t horrible. But until then, it’s oat milk hot chocolate and diet tonic for me. Happy Christmas.