It'll be a dry January without you...and February...and March...and so on.

It seems many of us are teetotalling currently. January is the month for wagon climbing with many signing up to Alcohol Concern's Dry January or Cancer Research's Dryathalon. Not so difficult perhaps after a few festive weeks of imbibing bath loads of booze as many Brits do: often in a more wally than jolly way as coppers who beat the high streets up and down the vomit strewn country would attest to - phew. I too have spent the last couple of weeks drinking or sinking more than usual. Champagne is my favourite tipple and I find I have no trouble at all tanking half a bottle of it, perhaps I'd drink even more if I was left to my own devices, but it's good to share. Given I have my birthday, Christmas eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's eve with a smattering of days where friends who know my champagne loving ways, pitch up with bubbly under their arms (freaky! - I mean in a bottle), during Decadent December, well it all adds up, but not if you actually have to do the adding the morning after. Add to this the port with blue cheese, the Limoncello, the Frangelico (that monk's cassock-shaped bottle is so cute with that little rope! Tastes righteous too!) and the 'somehow as it's Christmas it's obligatory' Sherry before dinner and other stuff that usually lurks in dark cupboards for 11 months of the year and you get the (fuzzy) picture. Then there's the spicy reds...the smokey whiskies...

Here's the rub: though I usually don't drink much at all: 1-3 glasses at most when out and occasionally when in with my hubster; I occasionally drink a bit more though usually not as much as outlined above; but during a recent discussion, I came to the realisation that I had been drinking for over 30 years with only the occasional 9 month break for the kids - and even then there was the odd festive glass. My hard core drinking years (and then some) were in my late teens/20's. By 27 I was pregnant with my 17 year old and booze went out the window, along with fags and other unmentionables, for the 9 months, after which I drank way more moderately - my son created in me a survival instinct hitherto I had lacked. Since then I have continued to drink, though very rarely to excess, and I can go for weeks without any wine at all (apart from the festive frivola-la-la outlined in paragraph one, I basically drink red wine); but here's the rub-a-dub: I very rarely do not drink at social occasions.

And here's the rub-a-dub-dub: I am going to try and not drink any alcohol at all for 12 months. I am doing this for a number of reasons. I want to get fit body, mind and most of all, spirit. To this end, I have started running - my lungs nearly exploded and my legs nearly fell off last Monday evening - more on that another time. Mind: I need mine, and given I don't get much sleep I feel the alcohol even if it is only one glass. And spirit: I am going to be a lot more serious about studying the Bible. I am also hoping to experience more of the wild, mystical things of God. So here's to imbibing the Holy Spirit. Cheers!

Me and my unwitting, though very witty, moderator