My New Year’s resolution is to cut down on my drinking. I’m not talking about bringing it within the NHS’s recommended limit, obviously. I’ve never met anyone who confines their alcohol intake to 14 units a week, which amounts to a bottle and a half of wine, ideally spread over many days. I’m thinking of something more in the region of two bottles a week.
Why not simply stop altogether? Partly because I’ve tried that before and don’t have the willpower. The longest stretch I’ve gone without a drink was in the two years leading up to my marriage in 2001, because I didn’t think Caroline would go through with it if I didn’t take the pledge. But I started again on my wedding day and since then, the best I’ve managed was to give up drinking for Lent a few years ago.
If I’m only allowed 100 bottles of wine a year, why waste any of my quota on the bad stuff?
The other reason is that as I’ve got older I’ve acquired a taste for fine wine – especially good claret. On Christmas Day I opened a bottle of 2010 Grand-Puy Lacoste and the thought of never being able to taste such good wine again is too depressing.
Last year, I resolved not to drink for three days a week and downloaded an NHS app called ‘Drink free days’ to help me stay on track. You click on the days you manage to abstain and at the end of each week, if you’ve met your target, the app congratulates you. I cheated a little by abstaining for most of January and then treating it like a reserve that I could draw down on for the following 11 months. Nevertheless, I did manage 156 alcohol-free days over the course of the year.
I’ve been toying with the idea of upping that to four days a week, but the problem with this approach is that you tend to binge drink on those days you’ve given yourself permission to indulge.
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