By Samantha Hayes
New Zealanders are being urged to join an international movement called Hello Sunday Morning.
It is a club for those whose Saturday night drinking makes Sundays an unwanted hangover day.
Jumping off the Auckland Harbour Bridge is a sobering thought for anyone, but Daley Tapa is doing it as part of discovering he does not need alcohol to have fun.
He says he usually drinks a fair amount.
“Quite a lot, a couple of dozen, you can sink back quite a lot. I'm a massive fan of tequila shots so that comes out and then it's all down hill from there, man.”
Mr Tapa says he has lost whole weekends to alcohol - a bit like the guys from The Hangover movie.
So Mr Daley has joined Hello Sunday Morning, after too many mornings after where he could not remember the night before.
“Not knowing what you've been up to and not wanting to check your phone because you know you've done something dumb last night.”
Comedian Dai Henwood is two-thirds of the way through his three-month stint, which has not been without its hurdles.
“Especially if you're catching up with someone you haven't seen for while and they've come to town - let's catch up for a drink,” Mr Henwood says.
“And you don't sort of want to say, I don't drink, do you still want to catch up?”
But Chris Raine, who started the movement in Sydney by giving up alcohol for a year and blogging about it, says you soon realise you do not need alcohol.
“It was hard in moments, you know. A month into it my girlfriend and I broke up and that was tough - oh god, I have to learn how to talk to girls sober.”
A total of 1000 New Zealanders die from alcohol-related causes each year.
Alcohol Healthwatch says the real answer is tougher controls on availability, pricing and marketing, but Hello Sunday Morning is good initiative.
However taking the leap and giving up alcohol is not always safe.
For heavy drinkers - who have 12 standard drinks or more a day - going cold turkey can be fatal, and they must seek medical advice first.
3 News