Not for the first time I’ve been advised, for the sake of my health, to abstain from alcohol. I was not too alarmed. To adapt Mark Twain’s aphorism: ‘It’s easy to give up drinking, I’ve done it lots of times.’

In fact the quip has some point. I’ve always found it relatively easy to stop drinking. The trick is to continue to abstain. In my experience, the mere fact of stopping is intriguing in itself. For a time. It feels unusual and interesting not to drink at lunch and dinner or (a lifelong habit of mine) at my two daily writing sessions.

It can feel liberating not to be concerned about whether there is wine in the fridge. Or to worry, as a regular drinker always must, about whether there is enough alcohol available. It’s almost fun to walk past the bottle shop without a second glance. Saving money is another plus, as is weight loss.

But this feeling soon wears off and other factors come into play. While it isn’t too hard to avoid drinking during the day, evening is another thing. There is something about six o’clock that calls to the drinker with a siren song.

I’ve adopted many strategies in my periods of abstinence, some of which have lasted for months. A highly unsatisfactory one is to switch to alcohol-free wine. For some reason the makers produce a sweetish beverage, which is disagreeable.

Some years ago, having read a letter on the subject in the Sydney Morning Herald, I followed the DIY instructions in the letter. If you bring wine to the boil the alcohol is expressed as a vapour, which can be burnt off. ‘Allow to cool’ as the recipe says. The alcohol has certainly gone and one could easily drink a bottle at a sitting without feeling anything more serious than bladder pressure. But the taste is thoroughly unpleasant. Invariably the few times I’ve adopted this strategy I’ve ended up mixing the de-alcoholised product with real wine and this has proved a slippery slope back to regular drinking.

Curiously, when living in America for a better part of a year in 1982, I tried the technique with what the Americans call ‘jugs’, similar to our flagons at the time, of very cheap wine. The alcohol burnt with an alarming hiss and spit and a variety of colours suggestive of the chemical impurities present. I quickly abandoned the method.

Diet tonic water (because the high sugar content of standard tonic water is unsuitable for a diabetic), with ice, a twist of lemon and a shake of Angostura bitters makes a good substitute for a gin and tonic. But it soon palls and the temptation arises to spike it with the real stuff.

I am innocent of the various signs that mark the alcoholic – behavioural change when drinking, blackouts, interference with work, and so on – but I have been heavily dependent on alcohol for good humour, sociability and creativity. I’ve also used alcohol to reward myself, sometimes when there was nothing to be rewarded for.

Temptation is the first problem. A voice within that contradicts the good advice. Social situations present the greatest challenge. Like most people I think that a party without a drink is no party at all and alcohol is an automatic adjunct to the writing life. A meeting with a publisher or agent or fellow writer without a drink? Unthinkable.

My doctor has set me a trial period of a few weeks to see if my health improves and the improvement is sustained. But he is realistic, adding that if the result is a cheerless, unproductive life, it may not be worth it. It will be interesting to see.