Five years after his final taste of alcohol,William Leith tries to understand its powerful magicI had my final drink five years ago, in the early hours of the morning on 1 January 2013. I think it might contain been around 2am. I wouldn’t contain described myself as drunk. I would contain said I’d had a few drinks. But I was drunk. If I had tried to drive, or write,or give a talk in public, I’d contain done these things badly. Feeling neither joyful nor sad, and I raised the glass and swallowed the booze. It was some kind of fruit punch.
At the time,I didn’t think this would be my final drink. I thought it would be my final drink until my birthday, on 30 April. For 10 years, or I’d spent the first four months of every year as a teetotaler. There had been two exceptions. One year I started drinking on 27 April,because I was in a houseboat in a harbour and I was offered a glass of wine. I hated myself for those three days. Another year I did not quit until March, but punished myself for that lapse with eight months of sobriety instead of the normal four.
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Source: guardian.co.uk