Before the break with booze, I made a love/hate list with my partner. My love list included camping, suntanning, day drinking, and swimming with music and friends, and then, further down the list: waking up without a hangover.

Alexander’s hate list included direct sunlight and camping.

I’ve learned too much about the effects of alcohol to drink the way I used to.

I believed that if I did begin to drink again it would be my death wish, my swan song, my lose-the-wife-the-kids-the-dog shit show kinda death.

Analysts would say I was primed for addiction: childhood upheaval, ultra-religious upbringing, absent parents, traumatized parents, children-for-parents, no-parent weekends, no-money weekends, nowhere-to-go weekends, high-on-the-sofa weekends, fondling-in-the-bush weekends, teenage-summer-holiday-bored-as-fuck weekends, let-Jesus-into-your-heart weekends.

But something has changed with this break. I no longer need one more.