Kishore Singh: Getting off the 'high' ground

It wasn't a resolution, not by a long shot, but just like that, out of the blue, I did what I've so often despised in others - I went cold turkey on a no-holds-barred detox binge. There was no preamble, no planning, no cooling off period. When my wife asked the man Friday to fetch me the usual sundowner on the rocks, I simply said, "Darling, I've given up drinking." When she'd been revived with generous help from a snifter of cognac, my wife looked at me reproachfully. "Who are you?" she asked, "What have you done with my husband?"

It wasn't a reaction I'd anticipated, imagining the family delighted by my decision - I was always being upbraided for delaying dinner - instead of which they were treating me like some exotic and not entirely likeable creature. When I explained to my wife that I'd done a fair share of bending the wrist and hoped to become, like Radhe Maa, "pure and pious", she looked at me suspiciously and said, "Tell me the truth, are you having an affair?"

"No son of mine is a vegetarian," my mother pronounced devoutly, her reputation as the clan repository of game recipes dangling uselessly at the onslaught of spinach and mustard. "You're thinking of your other sons," I informed her, "I like vegetables," at which point she hung up on me but called her grandson to ask about the goings-on in our household. For once, my wife and mother found themselves on the same page. "I hate vegetarians," my wife hissed, telling the chef to stir up something entirely unpalatable while she cooked her visiting brother a meal with everything from fish to fowl. My brother-in-law, who seemed content with the 18-year-old Glenlivet my son and I had cracked open at some point in my drinking career, didn't seem too put out. "It's strange being in the company of a teetotaller," he said - in truth, being referred to as one seemed stranger - though truth be said it felt odder being in the company of drinkers. Yawn-worthy conversations, stretched hours before dinner, watching others act steadily sillier - what's to like about such banality?

When you're on a high ground, it isn't easy getting off the slog. With neither mead not meat for company, you'd think I'd done my mite, but found myself offending both hosts and guests in equal measure. Appetisers were "fried!" - yes, I'd started speaking in exclamation marks - or had "salt!" or "preservatives!". I rejected offerings of fruit for being "citrusy!" (I can't stop with the exclamations). Friends looked for others to sit beside them, not seeking the company of a killjoy who delighted in telling them their food was poison.

Heaven help the food fiend who is also an exercise junkie. My sports shoes travel with me in the car for an airing in any convenient park, which can be before an appointment or during office lunch. I'm virtuous to the point of being offensive about my morning perambulation. The good is that I've lost puffiness and pounds and am feeling slimmer even though all that loss has left me giddy-headed so I keep tripping over myself exactly like a drunk person. The bad is that I've become the food (and drink) police, slamming the family's casual ingestion of "cholesterol!" I was reading out the food labels at the dinner table when my daughter groaned, "Dad, how many days has it been?" It's been just a week, I reminded her, but I'm in it for the long haul.