Front Page · Charity Desk
Man Still Credited With Day 14 Of Sobriety, Three Apps Dispute This
His bank, his location history and a voice memo all disagree with the number still raising money for charity.
His phone lit up on the nightstand, just after nine. A JustGiving notification sat on top: "Dave just sponsored you £10 — keep it up!" Underneath it, a blurred photo from three in the morning. He does not remember taking it.
Dave just sponsored you £10 — keep it up!
He is on Day 14 of Sober October, a sponsored month without a drink. His page still says so, in a cheerful green bar, nearly full. Dozens of people have sponsored him, including his mother. The bar does not know about Saturday.
On Saturday, Sober October ended for one evening, around nine. It started with "just the one" at a friend's leaving drinks. The group chat has dozens of messages between eleven and two. None of them are typed by him.
On Sunday he rebuilt the night from evidence, like a detective. His bank app showed a stack of kebabs, one taxi, and a round he does not remember buying. Find My Friends placed him at a postcode he could not pronounce sober. A voice memo sat at the bottom, recorded deep in the night, unplayed.
The postcode was Dave's house. He woke on the bathroom floor. Trousers at his ankles, one shoe missing, the lid down and doing service as a pillow.
His phone's own motion log called the stretch "Stationary." Several hours, indoors, no steps recorded. The bathroom floor, it noted, has excellent signal.
His bank flagged the night automatically, then resolved itself without asking him anything. The alert called it "unusual spending, now considered normal." The kebabs, it decided, were consistent with his profile.
Underneath the bar, the comments kept arriving. "So proud of you, day 14!" wrote an aunt. "Legend," wrote Dave, who had watched him fail firsthand and sponsored him anyway. "Proud of you, mate," wrote the correspondent writing this. He is also on Day 14. He has not been fully honest about it either.
At noon he finally played the voice memo. Long, slurred, left for JustGiving's support line. He asked them to raise his target to five hundred pounds. They did, and logged it as "a voluntary increase, confirmed by the account holder."
He then asked them to rename the page "Soberish October, Technically." Support declined, citing brand guidelines, and offered a new banner photo instead. He asked whether Saturday could be refunded as a rest day. JustGiving said sponsorship has no rest days, "in fairness to everyone else."
He asked them to ring his mother and confirm he was alive. An agent did. His mother said she already knew, and sponsored him again anyway.
JustGiving will issue a certificate of completion either way, at the end of the month, regardless of what actually happened. It already has his name spelled correctly. That part, at least, he did sober.
This newspaper sponsored that correspondent's own Sober October page too. It still reads Day 14. He has not been seen since Saturday either.