Could you give up booze for three months? Tell us about your relationship with alcohol at sunday@theage.com.au ----------------------------------------------------------

When colleagues remarked on the irony, I'd tell them: ''Gonzo journalism. Just immersing myself in the story.'' But as a particularly boozy December drew to a close and 2011, the year of my 35th birthday, loomed like a giant flashing alarm clock, I realised the story was getting a bit tired. The hangovers were hitting harder and lasting longer. It had stopped being fun. For years I hadn't questioned my ''big weekends'' because it was the social norm - not just among my friends but throughout the community. Most Sunday mornings, Facebook is abuzz with vows of ''never again'' and tales of a few quiet drinks turning into a lost weekend.

Like my native Scotland, where teetotalism is a crime punishable by death, Australia's bonding rituals largely take place over a few beers. We use alcohol to celebrate, commiserate and commemorate. Until recently it accompanied all my social events: parties, gigs, dinners, birthdays, footy, book club, wine club, work functions. Even my dance class was held in a pub. Drinking socially had become an act as unconscious as breathing. Then I woke up on January 1. A new day, a new year but the same stinking hangover. And this one was a corker. It was 4pm before I crawled out of bed. I started thinking about what it would mean to remove alcohol from my life. With my guts churning and brain pounding, the thought of not drinking for longer than a few weeks still terrified me. I knew then I had to do it. The idea of giving up alcohol for three months came from a young Sunshine Coast man I interviewed last year, who quit drinking for 12 months and documented the experience online. As a typical party-hardened 23-year-old, Chris Raine's choice was seen by his friends as social suicide. But what began as a dare turned into Hello Sunday Morning, a social media-based phenomenon that is challenging Australia's entrenched binge-drinking culture. It's a simple concept but a powerful one. Embarking on a three, six or 12-month period of abstinence, participants blog about their experiences - the public commitment helping to keep them accountable and make success more likely. By sharing blog posts on Twitter and Facebook it has a ripple effect, planting seeds for change among the writer's social network.

With more than 360 people signing up in 18 months, the movement is growing rapidly, largely attracting those in their 20s who feel they're drowning in a culture that implores them to drink at every juncture. The aim, says Raine, is not to demonise alcohol but to provide perspective. ''It's easy to get swept up in a drinking culture. Sometimes we just need a rope to pull us back to dry land.'' For me, it was exactly that. Although, I must admit I had my suspicions. Was this a modern-day temperance movement? A slick front for God-bothering puritans? It was neither. What I doubted most was my ability to forgo alcohol for what seemed like a preposterously long period. I'd been a regular drinker since my teens and struggled to imagine how life could be anything short of dull and two-dimensional without it. Didn't the best nights out usually happen after a skinful? That liquid gold feeling when inhibitions slowly dissolve and you share a common buzz with your friends. But I was about to turn 35. I had a grown-up job, a ridiculous mortgage and knees that now made a cracking noise every time I stood up. I could no longer afford to drink like I was a teenager. Stopping was easy. Two weeks in and I felt great. My head was clearer, my skin brighter, I was energised, happier and fully committed to becoming a responsible drinker. But I'd been here before. I'd twice tried Febfast - where you cut out alcohol in February to raise money for kids with drug and alcohol problems. For those months, I'd put life on hold, waiting out my booze ban like a footballer pacing the sidelines, desperate to get back in the game.

Moderation has always been a harder proposition than abstinence. This time, I decided to embrace all the events at which I'd normally drink, instead of staying home to avoid temptation. Could normal life still look rosy without beer goggles? As the summer went on there were some tough moments. A 40-degree day watching my friends drink chilled sangria in the pool. After-work drinks in a riverside beer garden. Them: a bottle of sauvignon blanc. Me: organic lemonade. I felt like I was missing out and resented the fact I couldn't join in. I'd convinced myself sobriety was boring. Then came the moment. It was Australia Day eve at a friend's birthday party in my favourite Melbourne rock club. A bunch of my closest mates, great music and a bar serving free beer and Jagermeister shots - this was going to be a huge challenge. For the first time, I questioned whether I'd resist temptation. A friend who affectionately calls me ''Rockin' Jill'' - a tribute to my enthusiastic style of dancing - was concerned that without beer I would rock no more. By 10pm his fears proved unfounded. I hit the dancefloor, my whole body buzzing, arms and legs blissfully ignoring the persistent voice in my head crowing, ''You can't dance sober.'' Jumping around like a carefree kid it suddenly seemed so obvious - it's not beer or shots that make a night special - it's good music, great company, feeling loved and the sense of confidence you project when those elements align. That rush you get when a favourite singer hits a note that wraps round your heart and leaves you breathless is just as real when you're drinking water. This was truly a revelation. Before then, I couldn't imagine what a big night like that would look like without alcohol. Now I know. It looks clearer and the feelings last longer. When booze isn't fraying the edges of your memory, the experiences are more profound.

But there was a bigger epiphany to come. That night I busted my long-held belief that alcohol is an essential element in any romantic connection. There was a cute guy. There was chatting. There was dancing. There was a kiss. Sober, I felt more in control. My words were honest and considered, not delivered in a nervous jumble of expectation and awkwardness. I don't know if that's what sparked the connection but I know I felt more confident and attractive than I would have had I been slurring words and slamming tequila shots. As I drove home at 2.30am, ears ringing, heart racing, I smiled when I realised tomorrow there would be no hangover. This was a turning point. I started questioning every belief I held about alcohol's role in my life. I thought drinking gave me confidence. I believed alcohol gave me the courage to speak my mind more openly. Often, this unfiltered honesty got me into trouble. Like the legendary post-work drinks, which saw me give my editor an hour-long masterclass on exactly how she should run the paper. Or the time I confessed to my Mum that the mysterious dent in the wall she'd been puzzling over for years was caused by an unexpectedly airborne television during a teenage party, which briefly turned my parents' living room into a mosh pit. After one too many beverages I can be reckless with the truth, hurling it at people indiscriminately. Now I see that at the heart of many of these conversations is an unmet need. A need to express professional frustration, atone for youthful misdeeds, or most commonly to tell the people I care about most the things I dare to say the least.

''I love you man. No, seriously, I like, really, really love you.'' Beer as truth serum. Vodka as emotional lubricant. Wine as aphrodisiac. Alcohol gives us a convenient safety net should the recipient of our truth-telling not react in the way we might like. ''It was the booze talking. Sorry about that.'' What's harder, is finding a more constructive way to express your emotions. When I stopped drinking I discovered that while it can be scary to lay yourself bare completely sober, it's more authentic than dipping the truth in a bottle of wine and calling it real. Removing alcohol leaves you with no excuses. Without hangovers, doona days or fuzzy heads to blame for my procrastination, I could see what was holding me back - fear. So I started to do the things I'd been putting off. I went back to that novel I began a decade ago. I spring-cleaned my apartment, started running and singing again. It felt good. But there were days when I really craved a drink. A pull the cork out with your teeth, neck the bottle and belt out love songs kind of craving. Almost always it had an emotional root, usually stress. Coming home from a tough day at work, the bottles of red wine on my kitchen benchtop would be so hard to ignore they might as well have been cheering my name with pompoms.

I could visualise myself taking the first sip, feel the muscles uncoiling and jangling nerves settling down. It's confronting when you realise you've been using alcohol as medication but it's doubly rewarding to discover that when it's not an option, you have untapped inner resilience to call on instead. Alcohol might ''take the edge off'' but the next morning those edges are sharper and cut you deeper. After nearly two months, and more social hurdles vaulted in the illuminating glow of sobriety, I noticed that many of the settings where I'd usually reach for the wine bottle or head to the bar no longer triggered the Pavlovian response they once did. Sure, there were occasions where there really was no substitute for a nice glass of wine or a cold beer - dinner at a fine dining restaurant, a garden party at the Governor's house, a scorching summer day. But the resentment quickly evaporated and acceptance took over as I got on with enjoying the moment. I began to find my abstinence was more of an issue for thosearound me. Perhaps alcohol plays such a big role in how we identify with others that removing it - even from one member of the group - has a substantial impact on the drinker and non-drinker alike. ''When is all this going to stop, Starkers?'' some would ask in exasperation, as if I'd lost the capacity for rational thought, and any endearing character traits had temporarily abandoned me. I didn't think turning off the beer tap had muted my personality but sometimes it felt that without booze I'd become invisible, paling into the background like a cloud in a clear white sky.

People would raise their glasses to ''cheers'' the group but wouldn't clink mine because it was filled with water. Some friends disappeared altogether, alcohol seemingly the only glue in the relationship. Others acted with mistrust or defensiveness, as if my choice was a judgment on their own drinking habits. I realised that even if I didn't need alcohol to enjoy social situations, sometimes it made other people more comfortable if I acted as if I did. Some saw it as a personal challenge to get me back on the sauce. At one party, despite repeatedly telling the host I was driving (my default excuse when I couldn't be bothered explaining further), he was so insistent that I have ''just one beer'' I eventually said I'd necked a couple of whiskies before I left the house, just to make him stop. A barman in my local pub even offered me a free vodka shot, leaving it on our table to see if I'd ''pass the test''. I can only imagine how tedious it is for people who never drink to face this constant peer pressure and judgment. It's tiresome constantly explaining why you're not drinking in a culture that does little to embrace a booze-free lifestyle and much to encourage the polar opposite. When you opt out, you start to see the absurdity of alcohol propping up practically every social pastime we value. Nowhere was this more apparent than at the Australian Open - which has renamed the biggest day of its tennis tournament ''Heineken Saturday''. When I visited, I saw shirtless young men staggering around, clearly only there to get drunk, much like the punters passed out face down in the Flemington turf every year at the Melbourne Cup. And why wouldn't they when the organisers, funded by alcohol companies, have designed a beer garden so enormous - complete with deckchairs, live music, giant screens and an array of takeaway food - that people need never leave? It seems ludicrous that all our major sports events are awash with booze, backed by a substance simply not conducive to sporting success. Swimming against that tide was always going to be a challenge. Having a sober birthday, an even bigger one. I'd planned to finish up my Hello Sunday Morning stint a week early to give my youth the send-off it deserved. My brother, his wife and my two nieces were coming to Melbourne to celebrate with me and I figured one week shy of three booze-free months was good enough. By the time my birthday came around on March 24, the notion that not drinking would somehow make that family time less fulfilling seemed ridiculous.

Without the support of friends, family and colleagues through this experience I'm sure I would have cracked open a beer many times. It has reinforced how lucky I am to have so many wonderful people in my life. Two weeks ago, in a Brunswick beer garden some of them joined me as I had my first booze-free birthday party in almost 20 years. Without alcohol I was able to appreciate their presence with a clear head and picture-perfect memories the next morning. There were moments I felt like joining them in a beer, but they were fleeting. What has been enormously humbling is how my choice has made some of them contemplate taking their own break from the booze, suggesting that attempting to change the way we drink is a conversation worth having. Knowing I don't need alcohol to be confident, honest or affectionate has greatly diminished the value I place on it. But I think there are more lessons to be learnt if I want to fundamentally change the way I drink. Alcohol will be part of my life again, I'm sure, but I feel so much more healthy, calm and motivated right now that I'm reluctant to give that up just yet.

So this binge-drinking reporter is going to try another three months without booze and see what new challenges arise. Will a girls' weekend be just as much fun without champagne? Can I survive a Melbourne winter without red wine? Will six months of no drinking see me kicked out of the Press Club? I'll tell you at the end of June. hellosundaymorning.com.au