What Did I Do Last Night?: A Drunkard's Tale

by Tom Sykes

Tom Sykes always liked to drink. When he was a teenager, alcohol offered a respite from the drudge of his uptight British boarding school, Eton College, and an exciting escape from the hurt of his rapidly disintegrating family.
And drinking was a lot of fun.
Whether knocking back pints with convicted killers after a day toiling in the fields of a strawberry farm or going glass to glass with a corrupt politician as a drug addled, alcohol-soaked young editor at GQ magazine in London, Sykes brilliantly captures the dangerous comedy of a life lived with the bottle ever in hand.
When the New York Post beckons Sykes from across the Atlantic to inject his unique brand of up-all-night reportage into their nightlife coverage, Sykes's drinking is transformed from an enthusiastically indulged pasttime into a professional identity. He devises a weekly bar column for the Post; lands a regular shift on the paper's prized gossip column, "Page Sic"; and launches headfirst into a seemingly endless round of free dinners in New York's best restaurants, free drinks at the city's most notorious dive bars, and painful, hungover mornings spent lying in bed dialing his drinking buddies, trying to piece together the previous night.
Although it seems Manhattan is his martini, the excess of the party scene that Sykes documents ultimately threatens to become his downfall, as the cycle of not-so-innocent tomfoolery gives way to the grim degradations of full-blown alcoholism. Then the question becomes whether Tom can pick himself up off the barroom floor, hose himself down, and maybe, just maybe, save his own life.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Addiction, Humor, Biography

213 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2006

About the author

Tom Sykes was born in Portsmouth in 1979, and educated at the University of East Anglia and Goldsmiths College. He has travelled extensively in Europe, Africa and Asia and worked as a journalist and teacher in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana.
Tom’s writing has appeared in The Daily Telegraph, The Scotsman, New Internationalist, New African, Red Pepper, The London Magazine, Travel Africa, The Journalist, Globetrotter, The Spark Magazine, Wings of Oman, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, The Philippines Free Press and Quill, Going Places, GoNomad, The Expat, The Bristol Review of Books as well as in international anthologies such as Small Voices, Big Confessions (2006) and Urban Odysseys: KL Stories (2009). His novel Bad Territory was serialized in Ruthless Peoples magazine beginning in August 2009. Tom has been a staff writer for the US educational publisher World Trade Press.
Since 2005, he has co-edited and contributed to 3 anthologies of hitchhiking stories that have sold 20,000 copies worldwide. The first, No Such Thing as a Free Ride? was serialized in The Times and named The Observer’s Travel Book of the Month.
Since early 2015 Tom has been the co-editor of Star & Crescent, a Portsmouth-based community journalism and hyperlocal news website which recently received a prestigious NESTA grant.
Tom is a Lecturer in Creative and Media Writing at the University of Portsmouth and is pursuing PhD studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has also lectured at the Universities of Liverpool, Philippines and Malaysia and was a Visiting Lecturer at the Eagle Vision Institute, Ghana in 2013. He is a regular performer at spoken word events and his recordings have appeared on Audiobookradio.net and Wildfire Radio.
A member of the British Guild of Travel Writers and the National Union of Journalists, Tom won the Daily Telegraph’s ‘Just Back’ travel writing prize in 2011. His ‘Ringroad to Immolation’ was named one of the best online short stories of 2004 by StorySouth.com.
He is currently writing The Bradt Travel Guide to Ivory Coast, a chapter for The Cambridge History of Literature and the Environment and Blood is Thicker in Manila, a memoir of his time surviving a Third World megacity with his then partner and four year old stepdaughter.

Reviews

[Lauren]

A good story of how one becomes an alcoholic and how one can realize they're an alcoholic. I liked the scenes of NY described especially being from a former NY Post page 6 editor. If you had bad experiences with alcoholic family members, you should skip this.

[Michelle]

Although I initially felt that he showed his drinking and drug use in a positive light, you quickly realize that he is spiralling out of control and there is nothing "glamorous" about it. Honest, funny and raw at times. This was a great read.

[Tom Newland]

I only found this because over lockdown I was google searching pubs in my school town and found a book which said specifically “the wheatsheaf in Oxted was the roughest pub in the area”. Had to buy to see what this clown was on about.

[Bryan Kelly]

Very enjoyable book.

[Sarah]

What confused me about this book is how easily the main character was able to overcome his addiction. For the whole book it portrays him as a completely out of control alcoholic and drug addict, which he was - but it seems that as soon as he starts going to AA, he is able to completely leave behind his old life. That really threw me. I can't help but think that he is sugar-coating his recovery. I thought the book was going to be more about his recovery but most of it was just a chronicle of all these times he got drunk / high and got into trouble, and literally didn't remember where he had been the night before. after a while it got old It was an interesting book because I gave her perspective I don't usually think about, and I didn't really find the character unlikable despite what a lot of other reviewers have said. I did, however, find him hard to relate to. He seems to have everything going for him, but was messing his life up anyway. I know it, took a certain amount of courage to write this book ut I wonder how he's doing now

[Jim]

Maybe it's because I can identify with some of the alcohol-fueled endeavors mentioned in the book. Maybe it's because I can also identify with the author being a writer and therefore a frequently drunk writer like myself. Maybe it's because I can identify with the parental abandonment issues he has that may or may not have been what caused his alcoholism in the first place. Whatever the reason, I definitely enjoyed this book much more than the previous memoir that was recommended to me. Sykes writes with an honestly and sense of self-deprecation that i can definitely appreciate. His style leads to a fast and pretty enthralling read. All that being said, it's a memoir, and as I've described in detail on my blog before (found here), I'm not the biggest fan of memoirs because, for the most part, I don't see the point. Still, I enjoyed this one, and that's what counts.

[Tamara Doherty]

This book was only "unputdownable" because I was desperately trying to find something likeable about this town-terrorizing drunk/drug-addict. Sykes and his antics were deplorable, and I was horrified by how someone's humanity could be so thoroughly replaced by a chemically-induced persona. The writing is brilliant for depicting the shocking emptiness and darkness of addiction, but it was a bit disturbing for my taste.

As far as accounts of falling into your own "addiction abyss," I liked "Dry" by Augusten Burroughs MUCH better. Burroughs tugs at your sympathies, his writing is hilarious, and his story is more appealing.

[Gretchen Carey]

This is a highly entertaing book about self destruction. It's a good guide to night life in London and New York as well. I want to go to some of these places he describes one day! It's sad that he almost looses everything because of his problems, but I feel like he is a good character to relate to. His problems could easily happen to any normal human being. His first few chapters about Eaton are interesting too and only further promote my idea that if you put too much restriction on kids they're lash out eventually.

[Tim Corke]

An easy read that follows the life of Tom as he boozes it up at university into a alcohol fuelled lifestyle as a reporter and journalist in London and New York. It's an amazing existence and makes you wonder how someone could maintain it for so long. It's written as almost a therapeutic reminisce and in places it's funny, sad, pretentious and incredulous and shocking.

It'll make you think and consequently also allow you to appreciate the occasional bottle of wine!

[Joy]

sent to me for early review by the author, who is deliciously british and one of ny's socially prominent sykes clan. book really struck a cord with me, as i'm a weekly bar reviewer like sykes, though hardly of the page six caliber. he did a good job of humanizing the whole columnist lifestyle and was spot-on about how easy it is for the whole thing to spiral out of control--and into alcoholism.

[John]

This book started out alright with some funny stories about one person's excessive drinking. But soon, after hearing the same story night after night, it got old and I ended up disliking the storyteller wondering why he couldn't just get his life together. By the end he got it together but it could not make up for the rest of the book.

[Tobey]

probably one of the most interesting "drunkbooks" I've read so far. Plum Sykes' brother, a former Etonian and NY Post writer, drinks too much and tries to figure out why and what he did last night. Features some Ozzy Osbourne in the mix

[Justin]

I would actually give this 3.5 stars. The book was written rather well and certainly kept my attention throughout. I guess I was hoping for more of a redemption-type story. If that's not really why you would read a book like this, then you would probably really enjoy this book.

[Eva Evangelisious]

The authors has his own perception of alcohol that makes you actually relate your self with him and sympathize him. It can be witty and funny at the same time, helps you distract from your own problems.

[Toby Bulloff]

occasionally funny comments about party life in NYC

[Rebecca]

Crazy life!!! Very interesting and entertaining.

[Gillian]

A real eye opener. So open and truthful. Its amazing given the quantities of drugs and alcohol that he could remember enough to write this. Highly recommended.

[Isabel]

Funny, sad and very readable.

[Stella]

funny drunken tales that made me feel better about my own college alcoholism, yet sad that this guy manages to keep a significant other.

[Hanna]

So much more believable than James Frey. Sykes writes with brutal honesty that doesn't come off boastful like Frey. I'm never moving to New York. I would not survive.

[Becky]

Good tales of excess. The rehab bit seemed a bit easy though...

[Emily]

Amusing, light read.

[Danielle Moore]

"A hangover is the physical expression of despair."

[Rebecca]

Bit boring really, just a guy getting pissed every night.

[Maureen]

A little wierd, but insightful look into the party life in England. Maybe college life in general.