Is that all you get for being sober for years? A plastic keyring?

I knew there was only one thing left to do to see Alex. I needed to track him down to a 12-step meeting in Notting Hill. And there are many to choose from; without Simon’s inside knowledge it would have been like finding a needle in a haystack. It can feel like a social club – as well as a lifesaver – but it’s more glitzy in some pockets of my area, because Notting Hill is a beacon for celebrities also wanting recovery.

Luckily, I didn’t have to fake my membership, unlike Helena Bonham Carter’s Marla in Fight Club, I joined long ago thanks to a frantic decade of complete and wild abandon in my youth. I had collected many keyrings over the years. My long-suffering dad always said to me: “Is that all you get for being sober for years? A plastic keyring? Don’t they swap it around? Give you an ashtray or something?” But he was missing the point. Every clean and sober day is a gift.

The daytime meetings were casual and usually held in stinking damp church halls in west London, unless you went to Soho. But at the 7.30pm meetings in the heart of Notting Hill – where I knew he would be – people often arrived suited and booted. This included Alex, who was also looking to make a good impression as an up-and-coming property tycoon.