On the very same day the news was ricocheting around the internet that Adele had been teetotal for over three months, I had to go to work with a hangover. My hot eyes stared blearily at the screen, taking in her words: “I stopped drinking quite a long time ago now… maybe like three-and-a-half months ago. It’s boring. Oh my God, it’s boring… I miss it so much.”
It’s hardly a rousing endorsement of sobriety, but sitting there feeling exhausted, sweaty, and peaky, I decided that Adele was probably remembering the fun bits and forgetting the bad bits with which I was acutely acquainted at that moment. But look, it could’ve been worse. Much worse. The morning after my 30th birthday, for example, I suffered from such an advanced hangover that I lay completely still for a full day, feeling that even walking to the loo might break the delicate eggshells that seemed to have occupied the space where my brain should’ve been. That I could the other week get on the Tube, go to work, and produce words with said hangover was testament to the moderate relationship I’ve built with alcohol — and in no large part that was because, like Adele, I took a break from the booze.
