Giving up alcohol is not as much fun as I’d hoped

Two months ago, I set myself the target of losing 11 pounds in time for the Spectator’s summer party on 1 July. To help achieve that, I swore off alcohol and, had I succeeded, my plan was to start drinking again at the party. I managed the weight loss, but didn’t make it to the party because it clashed with a board meeting of the educational charity I set up five years ago. The upshot is that I haven’t started drinking again and I’m debating whether to remain teetotal in perpetuity.

Temperance has its advantages. I’ve experienced almost no headaches or stomach aches since I gave up the booze, although that may also be connected with my diet. I’ve cut out bread, biscuits, crackers, potatoes, pasta, ice-cream and chocolate and tried to limit myself to about 1,000 calories a day. I’m permanently hungry and often gagging for a drink, but the upside is a sense of moral superiority when seeing my less abstemious friends, particularly when they’re washing down carbohydrates with copious quantities of wine.

I remember hearing Keith Richards say that one of the few compensations of giving up heroin was watching the different emotions flitting across the faces of his former drug buddies when he declined to partake. First they looked shocked, then bereft, then resentful, as if he was passing judgment on them — which, of course, he was. My friends’ reaction, when I tell them I’ve given up drinking, is similar.

Feeling sanctimonious is one of the by-products of self-denial and, pleasurable though it is, should be resisted. In the same way that born-again non-smokers are the most virulent anti-smoking bores, I find myself leaning towards all sorts of authoritarian causes I’ve previously rejected.