I still had work.

I still had worries.

I could still be bored.

There were things in my life that alcohol had covered up or helped me avoid that didn't suddenly disappear because I'd stopped drinking.

But that was useful as well.

I could start seeing what belonged to alcohol and what didn't.

I could also start gathering real evidence against all the things I had assumed before I began.

Would I be bored?

Would I lose my social life?

Would I still enjoy myself?

Could I relax?

Would I be miserable?

Would I spend the whole 90 days desperate for a drink?

You can sit and argue those questions with yourself for years.

At some point, the only useful way to answer them is to live without alcohol for long enough to see what actually happens.

That's what Days 31 to 90 gave me.

My first full Dry January was back in 2011. I did more after that and each one gave me the same feeling.

I'd proved my point.

I wasn't like somebody who couldn't stop. I could. In fact, in my head, I was probably doing better than some of the people around me because I had managed something they hadn't.

That gave me permission.

I'd done January. I'd been good. Now I could drink again.

There was almost a feeling that I had earned it.

I'd joke about making up for the 30 days I'd missed and then slip back into the same life I had been living before the break.

Work. Pub. Sleep. Repeat.

I wasn't coming out of January asking whether I liked that life. I was coming out of it satisfied that I had passed my own test.

The trouble was, I had written the test.

By the time I reached my usual pub time, I had already been arguing with myself for hours. The familiar time was only one part of a wider pattern that had been building across the day.