Suzanne Harrington: Having a drink problem makes Dry January easy peasy 

Suzanne Harrington: "Spare a thought then for animal lovers with a drink problem, for whom Dry Veganuary is an all-year-round thing. There are upsides to this." Picture: Andrew Dunsmore.

You did it. You made it through the 58 days of January. Spare a thought then for animal lovers with a drink problem, for whom Dry Veganuary is an all-year-round thing. There are upsides to this. 

As well as it being unlikely you’ll die of cirrhosis or ass cancer – although you could still get hit by a bus on your way into the tofu shop – one of the more unexpected upsides of all-year-round Dry January is that (a) fake booze has had a massive rebrand and (b) you get to stockpile it.

Normal drinkers, the ones who’ll casually place half full bottles of booze back in the fridge, or even more hilariously, have what they refer to as a ‘booze cupboard’, may not quite get this. 

Try this thought experiment: imagine you’ve bought your loved ones some Lindt chocolate bunnies, which you carefully put away until Easter. Later that evening, overcome with insane desire, you devour them all, nose to tail, so that only those little red neck ribbons remain. 

Next day you buy more and the same thing happens, until it becomes clear that the only time you can buy anyone a Lindt bunny is five minutes before handing it to them.

Now imagine the same thing, except with booze. This is why people with drink problems never have any drink in the house. (Okay, some might – the ones with wine cellars and chauffeurs to replenish supplies) but for the rest of is, the only reliable stockpile is in the recycling bin. 

We have demonstrated to ourselves repeatedly that if we have a fridge or a cupboard full of booze, we’ll just drink it.

Strolling around the supermarket, before friends who also have drink problems come over for dinner, I notice my favourite brand of fizz – the one I broke up with many Dry Januarys ago - now does a 0.0% option. 

It is identical in every way to the boozy version – same bottle, same popping cork, same tiny champagne bubbles that tickle the inside of your nose – but with zero alcohol and cheap as posh fizzy water A January miracle. I buy half a dozen bottles.

Further along the shelf is my favourite Japanese beer, also marked 0.0%. My heart races a little. I buy a four pack, then notice it’s on Dry January special offer. I throw another four pack into the trolley, then another. Just because you've stopped drinking doesn’t mean you stop being an addict; by the time I get to the till, my trolley is full of fake booze.

A week later, so is my fridge. This is the joy of it– you can stockpile, safe in the knowledge that not even if you have crawled through the Kalahari on all fours are you ever going to guzzle down more than one of two glasses of fake booze in one sitting. 

It does not ignite the more-now-again part of your brain – it just acts as a facsimile for the social, celebratory side of popping corks without destroying your life. Slainte!