At the start of Lent in 2012, I gave up drinking, writes Michael Taylor.

In the back of my mind, I was pretty convinced it was going to be for good. It had to be for good. 

I'd quit a few times before, started again in moderation, but the truth was I didn't enjoy it and, frankly, I wasn't very good at it. A bit like golf, which I also gave up. 

The last time I got roaringly drunk was after the funeral of my dear friend Tim Edwards in 2011. I was at a particularly low ebb, realising it was both a sedative and a release. 

I thought back to my younger days, to the desperate hangovers, the swaying, the failure to keep up on a bender and wanting to sleep in nightclubs, and the awful things I said to people when sozzled. 

I have now been sober for 10 years and think that's worth shouting about. 

I've now become one of those weird people who doesn't drink. 

In the past, when I did socially have a bevvy, or had a bottle of wine, no-one ever asked me why I did it. 

At first, I felt defensive and that I was under pressure to justify it, but as time has gone on, most people have been fantastic about it and I have never felt like a pooper. 

But here are three reasons why I don't. 

1. Horror. I wouldn't say I was always an idiot when I was drunk, but I was always drunk when I was an idiot. I added to the messiness of drunken Britain. My wife Rachel and her elderly mum love musicals, but the theatres are now full of women drinking heavily, to the point where one show was stopped for safety reasons. Over the years, I could add my own stories of carnage at all-day cricket and concerts. It's a fairly unattractive picture of our rather drink-sodden culture. 

2. Health. Since I stopped, I have lost weight. I do more, I feel well. I throw weights around and I climb mountains. I don't think I would if I was absorbing the calories like I was. I also feel better prepared to deal with mental health challenges too, without that option, or alibi. 

3. Home. Our kids are nearly all grown up now. They have their own relationship with alcohol but I want to be there for them if it goes wrong and to set an alternative path to life that doesn't involve getting wrecked all the time. I think at times I have been a terrible example. And how can I hope my kids don't get stuck into the rut of benders if our example is the rowdy middle-aged version of that?

I don't buy the evidence of occasional surveys that show how young people are turning their backs on a culture of excess drinking. I think it's far more nuanced, and the evidence I see is a destructive habit amongst people of all ages. 

The thing that mitigates against me talking about this more is coming over as a pious bore who won't go for a drink with someone. 

Yet it's my fundamental truth and I have to speak it. The conversations I've had with other friends who have given up, and people I've only recently met, have been really revealing. I hope I have been able to add some lived experience to those steps people are taking. 

You can listen to Michael Taylor and Neil Summers on Music Therapy on Tameside Radio 103.6FM on Sunday evenings from 9pm to 11pm. Click here to subscribe and catch up on previous shows.

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