I’ve always had a strong relationship with alcohol. I was raised in a pub, from childbirth to the age of about 3. Apparently, I used to escape from the living quarters and streak around the bar. From the age of about 14, where my mum and stepfather would buy me a 3-litre bottle of cider to enjoy on a Saturday night when they went out and left me alone, drifting into pubs from the age of 15, where a half-pint of mild was cheap enough to buy and the old gadgies would make sure we didn’t drink too much, and then onto mega-sessions from the age of 17, where five pints of Fosters could be had for less than a fiver, and I’d fall asleep in a spinning room. Drinking Pernod and black, vomiting up the sludge the next morning.

And then …

Nothing. From the age of about 19 up in my early thirties, my alcohol consumption was negligible. A glass of wine, a couple of bottles of lager, watching a film with my first wife.

And then, in my early thirties, working for Her Majesty’s Land Registry, I started to drink again. I blame one of my work colleagues, Mike Turner. A couple of pints of lager in the Westside Bar. Then, lunchtime benders, four pints of Grolsche in an hour. Returning to work shitfaced. Then a few beers straight after work. Returning home absolutely wankered. Having a bottle of wine on an evening out with someone I loved, drunken sex in the car park, driving home drunk and risking causing untold death and destruction. Separating from my wife, and descending into an alcohol hell. Drinking every lunchtime and every evening. Ten pints of lager, or ten pints of Thatchers cider, or a mixture of both. Ending the evening with vodka. 200+ units of alcohol every week. A drunken haze, a high-functioning alcoholic. Writing in the pub of an evening, slowly consuming alcohol, the writing becoming less coherent. Giving up when I was too drunk to even type.

Separating from my second wife. The freedom to consume even more alcohol. Writing and drinking, the two of them becoming an unholy alliance, not being able to write unless there was a constant stream of alcohol, wishing I could put vodka on a drip. A bottle of vodka every evening. Or three bottles of wine. Or ten pints of lager. Or a mixture of all three.

My mum died at the start of 2020, just a few days after my birthday. I lived in an alcohol-fuelled haze for at least a month.

And then, circa May 2020, I decided to give up. I’d almost managed to get back with my second wife, who seemed attracted to the idea of a sober Shaun. The first day of sobriety, building a Lego model of a Land Rover, and my second wife tells me she can’t get back with me, because her family will turn against her. I stand up, go into the kitchen, pick up a bottle of Jim Beam, the only alcohol in the house.

And I pour it down the sink.

Fifth day of sobriety, and I’m shaking like a shitting dog. Can barely put the Lego pieces together. My alcohol counsellor had told me I shouldn’t just quit, but I should gradually lower my consumption over a couple of weeks. Fuck that. I want to stop. Everyone has written me off as an alcoholic. But I used to do the Go Sober for October, for charity. This time, I’m going to last longer than a month. Shaking and trembling. Then, after a week …

Nothing. The tremors have gone.

And almost four years later, I’m still sober. I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol. I’ve written two novels. I’ve never even been tempted to drink. Don’t get me wrong, I miss feeling a bit fuzzy in a pub, laughing with friends, chatting with strangers, enjoying watching a band. But I haven’t succumbed. I’m still sober. I no longer need alcohol. Maybe I’ve become boring, but I’m not so much of an arsehole. And I’m able to write.

The only thing that’s changed is that I don’t get invited out for a drink with some of my mates. And that’s sad. I miss those drunken evenings. The friends I do go out with, they drink, and I consume diet Pepsi or alcohol-free lager. Sometimes, an alcohol-free Guinness. But if I’m being honest, drinking alcohol-free beer is like having sex without having an orgasm.

Almost four years of sobriety. Do I feel any better? Of course. I’m no longer addicted to substances that can cause damage to my body. Some damage has probably already been done. Maybe parts of my brain have been destroyed. Pre-cancerous cells in various organs of my body. Perhaps I have become Benjamin Beerenwinkel, the lead character in Besotted. And I’ve put on weight. I’m replaced alcohol with fast food and sugar-filled junk. Alcohol-free beer has more sugar.

But at least I can tell those doubters to fuck off. I had an addiction, but I was strong enough to crack it, to discard it, simply by telling myself to stop. The early days, I marked off daily. Seven days, eight, nine … 50, 51, 52 … 103, 104, 105 … Then I marked off the annual anniversary. Now, I’m not even one hundred per cent certain what day I actually stopped. It’s marked down on my Facebook account, and I know it’s sometime in May-ish. Each day was a victory, and now each year is a celebration of my strength and my commitment. Those who doubted me, who told my wife that I would never be able to give up alcohol, that I was an incurable alcoholic, well, they’ve been proven wrong, and I consider myself to be better than them, because while they criticized my drinking, I’m now sober, whereas they’re still consuming alcohol.

Did you doubt me? You were wrong. Lots of my friends were wrong, but they’re my friends, so they get a pass. My enemies, and like a child I harbour enmity towards certain people, were absolutely wrong about me. They don’t know me. They’re not aware of the fact that I am strong, and that when I put my mind to something, I achieve it. I’m stubborn. It takes a lot for me to give in, to surrender.

Never underestimate me.