I have just signed up for the March Swimathon and will be swimming 5000 meters again and expect to finish in just under two hours. 5000 metres is 200 lengths of a standard swimming pool so quite a challenge. Luckily since I quit alcohol I have been swimming on average 20 times each month to keep fit so I am more than confident.
This year however I am also doing the team event the day before. In my team are my daughter Alexandra, my son-in-law Andy and my granddaughter Isabella. She will only be swimming 33.3 metres but at three years old she will really deserve her medal!

I was on the station platform this morning and I heard someone tell the people they were with that he is quitting smoking. As you can imagine his colleagues were all very supportive, offering advice and assistance and generally wishing him well.
It made me think how different it is when you announce you are quitting alcohol. 'What?' people say. 'Why do you want to do that?' and similar comments.
Drinking is so much part of so many people's lives it is no wonder it is hard to find genuine support when you first start to quit.
It gets easier of course once you are past the first few weeks because them you have the moral high ground and if challenged can truly state the benefits you are experiencing.
It is a good thing there are groups like Club Soda to provide help and advice for those initial weeks. Do make use of all the help that is available and I am always happy to help where I can. Best of luck.

Ages ago I promised to write another book and now I have started that process.
In the interim I have been busy working full time in the City and helping a young software company thrive. This has involved a massive amount of work and mental input but even at 62 I have the energy and brainpower to do this. Something I should have had available to me all those years ago when I wasted my time drinking instead.
One area of focus in my new book will be looking back at lost opportunities. I said in I Don't Drink that I would never look back but perhaps with age I have been doing just that. As you near retirement age and realise there is only a limited working number of years left you tend to wonder what could have been. I know I screwed up so many fantastic opportunities and all of them were buggered because of my fixation with alcohol.
Watch this space for more updates as I write - Seven years and still laughing - am ex-drinker's tale   

I am delighted to say, that without me saying anything my non drinking example is spreading throughout the office. In the small team of five I work in only one person now drinks and he is thinking of cutting down dramatically. Being surrounded by people saying how great they feel, how alert, and the obvious improvement it has in the work they do really does make a difference. One of my colleague who was notorious for his rose wine consumption even managed five days at a very boozy conference in the South of France and stayed sober the whole time. Showing by example is so much softer than trying to nag people to stop drinking - and it works! 

It is nearly seven years since I had a drink but the other night we were at a restaurant and my wife had a glass of Moet. She has not had a drink for seven years either but gave up just to keep me company. Of course I didn't mind her drinking and I enjoyed smelling the champagne and enjoying the sense of it. Was I tempted? It did cross my mind that I wasn't told to quit, I didn't need to quit for medical reasons and so there was nothing to stop me having a glass too. I even thought how nice it would be  - for a second or two. But then I remembered how addicted I used to be, how much the habit could easily come back and I knew that one glass would be a glass every day, then a bottle, then wine as well, then cider and in no time I would be the same alcoholic I was all those years ago. This time however my body would be able to take it far less and I would definitely be signing an early death warrant as opposed to hopefully having another few decades to live. 

yet another spurious piece of research attempting to prove the benefits of alcohol. I wonder of these are funded by governments keen to retain the tax income they receive from alcohol sales. I remember when I used to drink taking refuge in these sorts of articles, helping me to convince myself that I didn't need to quit drinking after all. If I had continue to listen to these arguments I would be long dead by now - thank goodness I stopped.

This little chap and his three siblings were playing in my garden today and came near enough for me to take this photo. I am so glad to be alive to enjoy moments like this.  

This weekend was the annual swimathon and once again I managed to do 5000 metres (200 lengths) in a good time. Unfortunately I got cramp in the final ten lengths and this messed my time up as I was on for another record of breaking two hours. The cramp was mostly due to the fact the lane was crowded and there were some slow swimmers which meant it was impossible to maintain any rhythm which messes your muscles up. I also became dehydrated probably because of the stress of the number of people and the chaos and that can bring on cramp. It wasn't the pool organisers fault however, we had to allow another swimming pool join us as some bloody kid had pooed in the water at their pool and it had to be closed - bloody kids hah hah
This was my 24th swimathon and the 7th since I quit alcohol. There is no way I would still be able to cope with that distance had I still been drinking, even if I was still alive. When I started all those years ago I certainly never expected to still be doing the event into my sixties. Onwards until next year although I might do the open water swimathon in September if the green algae stays away this year.
PS, I wasn't happy having to wear that pink hat!