Memoirs of a Fruitcake. Chris Evans

have around an hour’s sleep in the relaxation room; very deep, very rejuvenating sleep, or at least that’s what I convinced myself it was – enough to last me for the rest of the day.

      After the magic kip, I would jump under a cold shower, get dressed and I was all set. This routine made me feel brand new, come lunchtime and, regardless of what I may have been up to the night before, I was more than ready to go again.

      See what I mean? While the rest of the world was at work every day, I was preparing myself to get perfectly wasted and slowly but surely dealing myself out of the game.

      After leaving the gym, lunch would begin. I’d usually rope in a few pals for company and we would start with a cold beer before moving quickly on to the wine, white or red, it really didn’t matter.

      A couple of glasses in and that protective alcohol-induced soft haze would descend slowly before my eyes like an invisible film, insulating me from the real world. As it took effect, smiles became bigger, conversation flowed more freely and the concept of time became almost non-existent.

      This weird time factor was the most fascinating aspect of what alcohol used to do for me, or to me, if you like. The hands on the clock lost all meaning. It was this disconnection from reality that I enjoyed the most. I saw booze as my key to the ever-elusive philosophy of living in the moment. Living in the ‘now’, as they say in all those books and not having to worry about the before or the after. Simply focusing on being in the present, except of course – it’s not that simple.

      I’m not excusing my drinking or trying to justify it, I’m merely trying to explain what it felt like. I remember taking various drinks on board, and waiting for these periods of cerebral protection to kick in. With the thought of this safety blanket wrapped around me I could look forward to forgetting about the growing muddle of things in life I didn’t understand – or perhaps more accurately, didn’t want to face. Within a couple of hours I knew I would be free.

      This pattern of behaviour became almost pathological, no matter what was going on in the rest of my life, whether it was the afternoon or evening, raining or sunny. In fact I dread to think of the number of beautiful, God-given days I lost to the allure of booze.

      I invented all kinds of rules to convince myself I was still in charge. If I could put off the start to my drinking until at least twelve hours after I had last stopped, then I would deem that a good day, a great day in fact, fooling myself into thinking I had attained some kind of control. Ridiculous, I know, but this was typical of the kind of justification I would cling to.

      I also made another ‘rule’ that once I’d had a drink I would not talk about anything to do with business. Everyone knew that when I was out, I was out. They were more than welcome to come and join in, but all talk of work and anything to do with it was strictly off-limits.

      With lunch over, the company would often dwindle as most people had jobs to get back to. This is when I would find myself hanging around with strangers while I waited to see who was coming out to play next. I’d put in a few calls to friends who might be up for a drink or two later, before heading off to the fifth-floor bar at Harvey Nicks in Knightsbridge – the perfect venue for an afternoon pick-me-up.

      Harvey Nicks bar was always guaranteed to be in full swing by mid-afternoon with ladies taking what they believed to be a well-deserved half-time glass of fizz in a break from another credit-card-melting shopping spree. ‘God help their husbands,’ I used to think, as it was obvious that the vast majority of these wives, mistresses and whatever the others were, probably did little else with their days other than perhaps associated visits to the hairdresser, manicurist and other diversions that cost as much money as possible.