I stopped drinking on 20 December 2017. Over 30 years after I’d started.

Before I stopped, when I toyed with the possibility, I couldn’t contemplate my life, as a lawyer, living in London, without booze. No. Nope. I imagined it would be like having a limb amputated, or someone switching off my best friend’s life support machine. An unspeakable loss. My life would barely be worth living: smaller, greyer, boring-er, sadder, un-fun, rubbish. Over. I would become the virtue signalling gluten free vegan who no one wants at the party. Spurned for being self-righteous and dull. Justifiably so. No. Just no. Impossible.