i don't drink - 'I don't drink!' How to quit alcohol - a drinker's tale

'I don't drink!' How to quit alcohol - a drinker's tale

I'm still counting - are you?

30/7/2016

During a radio chat-show the other day someone asked if I still keep my star chart going after three and a half years. The answer is no, I gave that up after three years, but I do still keep my spreadsheet going. It isn’t something I need as a support to keep me off the booze, I am well past any thought of ever wanting to go back to drinking, but I do enjoy knowing how much money I have saved each year, how much activity I have undertaken, where I have been, and just how many wonderful days and weeks I have enjoyed being free of the alcohol trap I never knew I was in – until I quit.

As I know some of you might be considering making the 1st August the day you give up drink forever, there is a blank copy of the spreadsheet you can download and modify to use for yourself if you want, on www.idontdrink.net

The Club Soda facebook webinar from 27th July

28/7/2016

Club Soda have kindly put together this youtube video from the facebook live webinar I gave last night. I believe the audience all found it useful and so I will be doing more of these on a regular basis. I will put details on www.idontdrink.net

Webinar on Wednesday 27th July

24/7/2016

This Wednesday at 7.00 p.m. UK time I will be live on a facebook webinar through Club Soda. If you would like to listen in, (watch me squirm) and add to the discussion you need to go to the joinclubsoda group on facebook and sign up. Club Soda are a fantastic support group for anyone looking to quit alcohol or moderate their drinking so they are well worth checking out anyway, if you haven't done so already. I hope to see that you are there.

Win a copy of the audiobook of One Less for the Road

24/7/2016

I am delighted to say that Jim Cassidy has finished recording and producing the audio version of One Less for the Road, my book aimed at the drinker who needs to quit, but who like I was, can't imagine life without alcohol.

Jim has done a superb job and you can try and win a copy of the audiobook by simply entering your favourite non-alcoholic drink on my competition page. I will then randomly select 10 winners. You can listen to a sample by clicking below.

BBC Sussex

21/7/2016

I will be a guest on BBC Radio Sussex tomorrow at 9.00 a.m. The feature is to do with a new report highlighting the link between cancer and alcohol and I will taking some questions about how easy it is to give up drinking. Please tune in or phone in if you have the chance.

La Belle France?

20/7/2016

I was in France this weekend and went into a sea-side supermarket for some cheese and bread (of course). By the check-out counter was this stand of ‘hip flask’ sized bottles of spirits all in attractive packaging. This would have been so tempting for the old me to the extent I would probably have wanted to collect the set, especially when I was a kid!

Later that day and back in the UK I saw some kids on our local beach drinking from a similar sized bottle of vodka. They can’t have been older than fourteen but as they were with some obviously drunken parents I thought it better not to say anything - (going into a business meeting with a black eye is not seen as good form.)
I rarely get on my high horse about the sale of booze, especially given my own somewhat maniac background, but when will shops stop making these small bottles of death and misery so readily available. Fortunately, I now see alcohol as nothing more than that, despite how pretty the packaging is.

You have control!

17/7/2016

A wonderful day that simply would never have happened when I drank.

So today my wife and I met with an old school chum of mine and his wife and we flew in his Cessna plane to Le Touquet. Once airborne he let me take control until it was time to land and the same on the way back which was very exciting and quite magical. Whilst in France we hired some bicycles from the airport and cycled into the town, had a wonderful fish lunch, and then some more cycling before enjoying coffee sitting in the sunshine outside a café by the old harbour.

Over lunch and despite only drinking water, being in France we naturally talked about wine. I thought back at the stress such a day as this would have given the old drunken me from the moment I woke up:

‘Will it matter if I have a glass of wine or a gin and tonic before we fly; surely then I won’t be able to have a go at flying the plane; what will happen over lunch? My friend won’t be able to drink as he is the pilot and I will want at least a bottle of wine to myself so will look like a complete alcoholic. What will his wife think as we have never met her before but I understand she doesn’t drink either? What time will we get back to the UK so I can drink some more? Will my wife mind driving home from the airport or be pissed off with me for getting drunk? Will I show myself up? Perhaps for once I can have a day without drink but then it will be day wasted and I will resent having gone there. I wish we could stay at home instead so I can get drunk in peace.’

What a pile of crap and what a fantastic life I was simply wasting! How fantastic it is to be free of all that stress, aggravation, and being dictated to by alcohol. Did I have the best day ever? Yes. Did I miss for one second the fact there was no booze involved? No. Do I still constantly relish the fact I don’t drink even after three and a half years of being sober? Yes I jolly well do. Over and out!

Discover another World

12/7/2016

Me, the Prime Minister and a whole lot of champagne!

12/7/2016

In 2005 I was mislabelled as being Colonel Page instead of Kirkman Page at a Conservative party event and despite being drunk I was consequently treated as a celebrity. The experience ended up as a story in my comedic memoirs ‘The 7.52 to London Bridge’:

‘Make way, make way for the Colonel’, happened all over again and all of a sudden we were in front of Miss May. At this stage some of the champagne and the lunchtime drinks were catching up with me, so I told Miss May in all honesty how far more pretty and feminine she looked in person having only seen her on TV, how she looked the sort of girl I could have gone out with her being the same age as me, how Theresa was one of my favourite names, how she must have some champagne from my new black friend, and I put my protective arm round her and gave her a cuddle whilst introducing her to my more amused than astonished daughter.

I have just posted her a copy of the book. Hopefully she will appreciate the gesture and I won’t instead notice the tell-tale laser point dancing on my chest before my writing career is summarily terminated!

You can find ‘The 7.52 to London Bridge’ at www.idontdrink.net/read-my-books

When the grandson visits...

10/7/2016