Jill Stark, a Sunday Age writer specialising in alcohol and public health issues, came to write her first book, High Sobriety, after one big night too many. On January 1 2011, she woke up with the hangover of all hangovers and decided it was time for a well overdue break from the booze.

‘The irony was that binge drinking had been my job – for more than five years, I’d written about the health and social consequences of Australia’s alcohol consumption. At the weekends, I wrote myself off.’ Hear her discuss the clash of those two worlds – and Australia’s conflicted relationship with alcohol consumption. (Or read the transcript!)