Tom Sykes at Barnes & Noble

"The thing I miss about drinking is getting absolutely, mind-blowingly drunk," says Tom Sykes, a former writer and editor for such varied publications as British GQ and the New York Post, among many others, and now the author of What Did I Do Last Night? A Drunkard’s Tale. "But nothing else. Not the mysteriously empty bank account, not waking up hung over in the morning, not the fear that my wife is going to leave me."

Speaking with a thick British accent in the cramped music section of a Barnes & Noble in Chelsea, the youthful Sykes reveals, with humorous candor, his unlikely transition from accomplished journalist to unemployed alcoholic to author of his own drunken memoirs. After he was "fired from every newspaper in London," including the Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard, Sykes worked for British GQ, where colleagues at first found his hard-drinking lifestyle humorous – but soon his lies and excuses for his behavior became a source of aggravation.

Sykes then came to New York in 2003 to write freelance for the New York Post and other publications. At the Post, he edited a bar column titled “Block Party” and a dating column called “Meet Market,” and contributed to the famous gossip column “Page Six.” Partying had become his career.

When he finally realized that his alcoholism had taken over and was threatening to destroy his entire life, Sykes says that he stopped drinking “cold turkey” and saw life improve dramatically (“I do look completely different. I used to be green.”). But since his career was based on alcohol, he was suddenly out of a job. So he sought out any opportunity to write again.

Writing about getting sober was the last thing he wanted to do. Although Sykes says that he found writing What Did I Do Last Night? a cathartic process, there were some interesting challenges along the way. “There were bits and pieces I didn’t remember,” Sykes says of his alcohol-drenched nights, then releases a self-deprecating laugh. “I would go further. There were some bits and pieces I do remember.”