Punter: "Play Walking in Memphis"

Me: “I can’t. That lyric is a tissue of lies. Everyone knows Americans drive everywhere.”

Stunned silence.

Punter: "Play Walking in Memphis."

Who says drinkers are more craic?

There was a big reaction to my previous article about going teetotal for a year, so I've written a follow-up, with tips to help anyone who might be thinking of giving up or cutting back. There was a bit of vitriol directed at me over that article, but it was vastly outweighed by messages of support and good humour. I'm a bawdy polemicist, but in general I want to help rather than draw attention to myself. The key thing to quitting is planning and knowing that life can be as much fun without alcohol. Well, tolerable anyway. Here are some tips.

1 When to give up

One person said, "I want to give up, but it's Friday. And I'm going drinking tonight." Friday night is a bad time to give up, to be honest, but whatever works. For me it was a drizzly Tuesday morning when I didn't have any work and had a few days to "bed in" the process of drinking lots of water, tea, anything else. I made a calendar and adopted the AA's 90-day rule, which I had read about in Tom Sykes's boring but helpful What Did I Do Last Night?, the last 40 pages of which are revelatory.

2 Events, dear boy

A big issue for people giving up is the litany of events that require drinking in Ireland, from christenings (“wetting the baby’s head”) to Christmas (also known as “Hallmark 7”) to Saturday (they don’t make you send cards to each other for that yet, but they will). It’s helpful to tell yourself, “I am having drink-free Christmases, birthdays, nights out from now on”. You won’t constantly battle with yourself, saying things like “I’ll give up on Monday, after this weekend’s events”. This is the country that placed St Patrick’s Day bang in the middle of Lent, after all. Not helpful.

3 Exile on main street

If you need to avoid certain things, then do it – for a while. And cafes are a must in any civilised society. But the idea that you can’t walk into a pub needs to be tackled. I love pubs, I work in them, and the best of them are full of life and crackling conversation. The good ones always did food and entertainment too: The Clock on Thomas Street was our college bar in the 1990s, and there was a karaoke night, a table quiz night and perfect toasted ham and cheese sandwiches. It was a nirvana in the time of Nirvana. Some seemed to think my proposal to stop Ireland from drinking for a year would lead to the closure of every Irish pub, 90 per cent unemployment figures and a loss of billions. That simply wouldn’t happen, although pubs would just have to up the ante in all other areas. I don’t want people to stop going to the pub; in Galway I know a host of oldies who go to the same pubs they drank in for years, but now they have coffee instead of booze. But can we have better coffee, please? And stop charging €5.80 for non-alcoholic beer. You know who you are.

4 Substitution

A big turn-off for people who want to quit is the idea of having to drink water or Coke for a night, and not having wine with meals. I will drink pints of non-alcoholic Erdinger quite happily throughout the night, but what other options are there? One of the joys of developing the “adult” palate is that you get to enjoy sour tastes. To this end, soda water and tonic are two flavours that work. A revelation is non-alcoholic ginger beer, particularly Fever-Tree: it’s strong and fiery, perfect in a cocktail setting and works surprisingly well with certain foods. Water is the best accompaniment to meals, as you get to savour tastes without alcohol being in the mix. My sommelier friends will disagree, but they would also agree you lose your tastebuds after the first bottle of wine anyway. Any kind of tea works too. I’ll never propose that Ireland give up that: we love tea more than anything, even booze.

5 Shock corridor

On nights out, dealing with the shock, disbelief and slagging from people is a test.

My favourite recently was: “Will you have a pint?”

“No, I don’t drink any more.”

“You’ll have a shot so?”

I don't judge; it's our conditioning. It's a good idea to have a drink in your hand at all times. People go crazy if they see you without one. They seem to go through an existential crisis when you reveal to them that you don't drink. It's like you've given up Christmas or television. They think you are ill, and you can see their thought process: how can you not drink? Honestly, I've only ever had fun experiences with this, and as long as nobody is preaching to anyone else, the subject quickly turns to more interesting stuff.

6 Creativity: Advent 

Patrick Kavanagh's poem Advent is the cornerstone for anyone who understands the need to give something up. Opening that chink too wide is an unfortunate part of the human condition. Curiosity and indulgence are natural; order and sacrifice are not. Any real artist will tell you a kind of monkish discipline and routine is essential to create. The breakdown comes when we think that also equates to boring. When Kavanagh talks about reclaiming his sense of wonder, I know what he means. I want to engage with things as I did as a child, the things that first blew my mind and made me want to be creative. When you enter the adult world and realise how base and skewed everything is, you can easily turn cynical and turn to drink. It levels the playing field. It flatlines what makes you special until you don't think you're special any more. I'm finding creativity easier now because the physical and mental blocks that drink puts in the way are gone. I want to finish things and plan big things, as opposed to the short bursts of creativity Julia Cameron refers to during her drinking years in The Artist's Way.

Some or all of these tips may help, or they might not. All I’m saying is they made the process easier for me. And of course, getting your head straight involves more than not drinking. Being on the dry doesn’t mean you are incapable of stupidity or malevolence, as some non-drinking despots (and presidents) have proven. But to know you can change course is a help. Next month: I reveal my secret recipe for dry black bread and colourless tea.

• Paddy Cullivan is touring Solutionism around Ireland up until Easter 2016 (including Sunday, November 8th, at Kilkenomics). More information on paddycullivan.com