It had been snowing heavily and we’d been told to go home from work early. Everyone had been excited. It was a snow day for grown-ups. It meant that for one day only, instead of sitting in work and agonising over whether or not the word ‘however’ worked better than the word ‘but’ in advertising, us copywriters could go to the pub. It was an unexpected day off. Everyone had been excited. Everyone, that is, except I.

I sat in my room watching the kids in the park throw snowballs at each other and I wished that I could’ve been playing merrily with them. I thought about the open fire in my nearby local pub, and the hearty cask ales that my friends were by now almost certainly sampling, and I wished that I could’ve been with them, too. In fact, I wished I could have been anywhere other than in my room, wishing I could’ve been anywhere else. But I couldn’t be. For I had resigned myself to a January of misery. I should explain.

A few weeks before, I had pledged to give up alcohol for the entire month of January. I’d been looking for something to write about since taking on a large multinational hair and beauty manufacturer and this seemed like it might be interesting.

But a few weeks on, it had not been interesting.

At first I’d tried to busy myself by learning the ukulele. Then one day I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and immediately put down the ukulele.

Then I’d decided that exercise might be the key. But exercise, it seemed, didn’t like me.

So on this miserable, snowy day in late January, I found myself cooped up in my room in Bristol, furiously typing up a blog post whilst facing a horrible decision. Was I really going to throw away three weeks of hard work and the hundred-odd quid I’d raised for cancer research just because I couldn’t refrain from drinking alcohol for an entire month? I paced my little room. I didn’t know what to do. I put on my coat and headed out the door.