By Martin Bishop
I FEEL good, I feel clean. I have been a long 12 hours without alcohol, including being asleep.
I’m not saying it was easy. The toughest hour to get through is between 10 and 11am. The fridge is just yards away. That can of lager is beckoning you like a temptress. You can almost hear the ring pull whispering “Pull me, pull me!”
But I summoned my last reserves of spiritual power and self-denial. I did deep-breathing exercises. I drank four pints of slimline tonic. I stared at the hour hand on the clock, willing it on like the train in The Little Engine That Could.
I know I can make it till 12 o’clock. And if I can do it, you can. You just have to believe in yourself. Believe that you can subsist on cereal and non-alcoholic liquids for four hours.
Know in your heart that this will all soon pass, that however slowly the time seems to drag, it will be 12 o’clock quite soon.
Keep your eyes on the prize. First, the sense of achievement. Second the ‘pssscchhh’ as you finally open that much-deserved can of Kronenbourg, or the pleasing ‘crack’ as you unscrew the first bottle of wine.
There is no greater pleasure than an earned pleasure. The next 12 hours will fly by but try to savour them, for the battle to not get wasted until lunchtime begins anew tomorrow.
