Toby Young: Why I’m giving up drinking. And chocolate. And ice cream…

I’ve gone completely overboard with New Year’s Resolutions this year. I’ve sworn off three illicit substances — alcohol, chocolate and ice cream — and vowed to eat an apple every day.

I’ve given up alcohol before. The first time was when I was living in New York in the 1990s, though the episode that prompted it happened in Switzerland. I got spectacularly drunk at a nightclub in Verbier and woke up the following morning without my signet ring. This was a family heirloom given to me by my mother so I was understandably distressed. It turned out I’d given it to a young Swedish woman who I’d proposed to the night before. I didn’t drink again until I got married, more than two years later — not to the Swedish woman, obviously. I never saw her again.

There are some advantages to not drinking. You lose weight, save money, work harder and sleep better.