Health warning: Not drinking can lead to dehydration! - Vladimir McTavish

I had not checked into a posh hotel. In fact, I was in hospital for two days’ much-need bed rest.

The huge irony is that I have been off the booze since before Christmas

This was only the second time I have ever needed an overnight stay in hospital. The first time was mid-way through the 2024 Fringe when I ended up in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

I’d had a series of fainting fits and was taken to the ERI for tests. At the time, they couldn’t find anything wrong and were completely baffled.

Seeing I was perfectly fit, they sent me home and I went on with the rest of the festival.

Months later, they finally diagnosed the cause. I had been suffering from over-hydration which is not unknown, although fairly rare.

It is caused by drinking too much water and flushing the body’s essential irons, salts and vitamins out of the system.

It is suspected to have been a factor in some of the highly-publicised ecstasy deaths of the early nineties.

It is really amazing that it took over six decades before I was kept in overnight, given all the stupid and hair-raising things I have done over the course of my life.

When I was 8 years old, I fell of a cliff in Elie. OK, I have been back since, and it actually wasn’t that high, but it seemed so at the time.

I split my head open on cattle grid in Argyll as a ten-year-old and as a teenager I was involved in two serious road traffic accidents.

In the first of these, I went through the windscreen and my shredded face required multiple stitches. Still I was allowed home afterwards. We were tougher in the 1970s obviously.

This time around, I spent a weekend in the Western General, receiving treatment for dehydration. Yes, that’s right. Dehydration, of all things. In Scotland. In February. Hold the front page and consult the medical record books.

There can never have been any other cases in this country in the middle of winter. It seems I had just been working too hard a schedule and not been drinking enough fluids to re-fuel. I’ll know better in future.

The huge irony is that I have been off the booze since before Christmas. While alcohol is well known to cause dehydration, as a beer drinker I have assumed that the sheer volume of liquid I swallow will partially counteract this. But neglecting to drink non-alcoholic fluids appears more hazardous than drinking booze.

Anyway, I’m back at work now, seemingly none the worse for wear. And tonight, when I get back from my show, I might actually have a drink.

In moderation, of course. It’s been a long time since I touched the hard stuff and I’m not sure how I’ll handle it.

Three months dry is a long time. That’s twice as long as Liz Truss’s time in Downing Street, although considerably less damaging to the economy.

Celtic have changed their manager twice since my last drink. Although how I managed not to reach for the bottle during Wilfried Nancy’s chaotic reign is anyone’s guess.

Cheers to my escape from the harm of over-sobriety.