"I THINK NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME FOR A BEER"
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, upon repealing Prohibition laws in 1933

Let me paint you the picture.

It's Sunday evening, shortly after 8pm. I'm sitting at my computer wearing a floppy woolen beret, a grey blanket draped over my knees and a hot cup of 'Yogi; Breathe Deep' tea drawing next to me. I have been inside all day. Enjoying the moody grey blanket draped over the downtown skyline, and the occasional impressive swirl of snow outside the window.

Partly, I am being overly conscious of a vaguely sore throat that threatens to derail my big performance this week, and partly I'm only vaguely conscious of what I might otherwise have been doing, in a former lifetime, on a New York Sunday night...

I'm twenty days into a one-month sobriety challenge. Of course those of you even vaguely following this blog might remember that I tried that once before, and it ended after a rather pathetic 72 hours. But this time two things are different.

1. I have not only a pseudo-sponsor, but a partner in temperance, joining me on the crusade, and staring me down in moments of weakness.

2. Most importantly, this time, the challenge has been laid down by my father. In fact, it was almost more like a dare. And so, it has become a matter of pride, and more importantly, a matter of competition.

As one who likes to think I can do anything to which I set my mind, and who would firmly hold that my consumption of alcohol has always been well short of intervention-worthy, more horrifying than trying to live in Manhattan sans martini, is with what overwhelming pride (and perhaps borderline shock) my father has responded to hearing the news of my success. At the one-week mark he even forgave a speeding ticket I incurred in his car on a recent trip home to Australia. (Unfortunatley when the second ticket arrived in the mail, much of that sheen seemed to have worn off).

Having never been a smoker, I can only imagine trying to quit induces similar pitfalls. It seems to me it's the habitual associations that are the hardest to conquer. Great pizza without cheap red wine, the Superbowl without an icy beer, the pool hall without a strong vodka... Brooklyn without anything you can get your hands on. I mean let's face it, without a cocktail, Friday night happy hour becomes nothing more than one hell of an overrated hour.

On the other hand, drinking water all night in its various creative forms (iced/boiled/soda/seltzer/tonic) is an interesting sociological experiment. We get to watch, as others not only fall off the wagon, but knock over coat racks, kick over garbage cans, fight with their partners, stumble into taxis. Even more benignly, we get to walk through that uniquely alcohol-infused 'wet breath' expelled into the air and faces of passers-by in crowded bars. We get to enjoy the voices of fellow pool players become louder, and louder and finally dissolve into squeals and shrieks. And not mind so much, as realise that most weekends, or even most nights, it's probably us.

All that said, my interest in the social sciences have a definitive time limit, and that limit is exactly one month. No more, and (because I can't thing of a clever way out of this stupid challenge) no less.

So I will make it to February 22nd if it kills me. And it well might.

As if my father were the devil himself running around planting apple-martini trees in this dry, dry garden of Eden, I received an email last week inviting me to hear an Irish poet read at something non-ironically called the 'Global Nomad Poetry Salon'. It's sponsored by Jamesons. It's at the SoHo loft. Cocktails start at 6.30pm. ON FEBRUARY 21st!

Five hours from the finish line stands an Irish man, in downtown New York City, holding a free bottle of Jamesons. And while I suspect not even God himself (and certainly not my father) would be able to resist such temptation, I'm determined to make it.

Because when midnight comes, I will be ordering the biggest Big-Apple martini I can find, and announcing that while yes, YES I CAN go a month without drinking, I would never hope to be in the distasteful position of having to do so again. For if nothing else, I think we can all agree that listening to Irish poetry while sober is just plain bad manners.