I dried out for January, once. I’d recently left my marriage and, as often happens with enthusiastic drinkers in distress, my fondness for a good glass and a good time had blurred into a thirst with nothing good about it. I fled to friends in Cambodia for a delightful, sunny Christmas, then headed to a nearby island for New Year. So, it turned out, did every party-loving lowlife in the country. Midnight found me dancing, reluctantly, with a drunk policeman: his Kalashnikov made turning him down seem unwise.
There would never be a better moment for me to give alcohol a rest.
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