I am nervous as I walk into my local Wetherspoon. At best, I expect to see women with tattoos pulling out one another’s hair while their track-suited boyfriends puke for England. At worst, I expect to be stabbed. If you were to watch Sky One’s Street Wars (and I do – I just can’t help myself), you would believe that pedestrian precincts were battle zones: yobs throwing punches at police; police throwing punches at yobs; slags in gutters; hysteria; running mascara; foul mouths; vomiting, fighting and copulating, all at the same time.

And Wetherspoon, in my overactive imagination, is the binge drinker’s church. It is the pub chain that bucks the post-smoking-ban slump. While other landlords are pulling their last pints and handing their keys to the developers, Wetherspoon is in the black. It is the credit-crunched boozer’s last refuge, offering discounts to fuel our descent into boozy chaos.

Hmmm. Here I am at the bar, and it’s not that bad. Mind you, it’s a quiet Wednesday in a well-to-do commuter town. I imagine the Wetherspoon in Nottingham or Newcastle on a Friday night might be more edgy. All we have here are some 17-year-olds pretending to be 18 and a man with a long grey beard, long grey hair and just enough change in his pocket to get quietly, swayingly smashed next to the fruit machine.

Which is what I’m hoping I can achieve with a £20 note. To find out what is exercising the government so much, I am binge-drinking with my friend Martin. How binge-drunk can one get on a £20 note?

Pint of Abbot, please – £1.79. The government wants to stop all this drinking. A report last week, Changing Our Drinking Culture, reported a steep rise in alcohol-related hospital admissions. It blamed the industry for not doing enough and it moved us closer to a mandatory code. Pubs and clubs will be banned from serving wine in big glasses. Happy hours will be illegal. Discount drinks will be out. “The evidence from the review and hospital admissions data clearly makes this the right time to consult on a far tougher approach to the alcohol industry,” says Dawn Primarolo, the public health minister – a hectoring woman who really, really doesn’t like us getting drunk.

Another Abbot, please – £1.79. Before you write in to say it’s not clever, this binge-drinking lark, I hear you. I know it’s not the kindest way to treat one’s liver, but this is a free society. Sort of. We should be allowed to drink, to drink heavily, even into an early grave.

Pint of Barn Owl, boss – £1.79. The offers at Wetherspoon are irresistible. Two meals for £7.69 is a cheap date in any country. Martin and I are taking full advantage of the Wednesday real-ale club (£1.79 a pint! I’m used to paying closer to £3). And the spirits, my goodness: £1.35 for a Bell’s with a free mixer. And it’s £1 more to double up. Just a pound. And they always ask if you want to double up.

Blimey, though, what’s an After Shock? Some sort of pink drink, like at the dentist’s. Sounds like fun.

One After Shock, your honour – £1.70. I look around and decide I don’t like the puke-coloured carpets. I know why they’re that colour.

“Let’s go halves on a cocktail pitcher to wash away the taste of the After Shock,” I suggest, in an attempt to break through our loss of enthusiasm. Martin looks nervous. We have to choose between a Woo Woo, a Blue Lagoon and a Cheeky V (Wetherspoon appears to be adhering to a previous government report that asked for a ban on aggressive names such as Killer, Flick Knife and What You Looking At?).

Jug of Cheeky V, my good man – £2.30 each.

This consists of two WKDs (turquoise alcopops) and a 50ml shot of port. Yes, port. It doesn’t quite wash the taste of the After Shock away.

According to the latest report from the Department for No More Fun, there are 811,000 alcohol-related hospital admissions a year, compared with 200,000 previously. And this figure is supposed to be increasing by 80,000 a year. I need a drink.

Double Smirnoff and Red Bull, my faithful, long-serving bartender – £3.69.

At £13.06 I’m not ready to throw bricks through windows or stop respecting the boys in blue (I love you, boys in blue) but I am drunk. More worryingly, I have consumed the majority of my weekly govern-ment-recommended alcohol intake. In a moment of clarity, we skip the tempting raspberry sambuca spritzer offer (£1.70), the Pimm’s (£2.15 . . . oh posh), the mojitos, the super-strength world beers and the wines (from £7.39 a bottle).

No, we need food. It’s too early/late for breakfast (£2.59 for a fry-up, every day until noon, free wi-fi available). I’m too old for the children’s menu (£3.49, with fruit bag and activity pack). Martin doesn’t fancy anything on the £7.69-for-two menu, so we go for the burger-and-chips option. It costs £4.59, which is a lot for a deeply depressing burger but – hang on a second – includes one of, and I quote, “14 quality drinks”.

The burger deal, please. With a pint of Coors Light, since it’s included, squire.

“I don’t think I can spend the whole £20,” Martin says.

“We should, though. A challenge is a challenge,” I reply.

What I don’t get, if we’re all supposed to be drinking 60% more than we were in 1970 (but, incidentally, only 17% more than in 1976), is why all the pubs are going out of business. Wetherspoon is doing all right. You could say it’s the reason so many other, less mass-market, more atmospheric, better pubs are being converted into luxury flats.

And in the same week as we were told we were in trouble for enjoying happy hours, Enterprise Inns – which owns 7,800 pubs – said its profits were under pressure from sharply declining beer volumes and the need to provide support to its tenant landlords. About 600 have applied for assistance under its business recovery scheme.

It’s confusing. And all I know right now, at 10.55pm on a miserable Wednesday in this depressing Wetherspoon, is that I have £2.35 left.

One shot of Laphroaig. Splash of water. And no, sverykind really, but I won’t. I just won’t double up. £2.05.

Martin doesn’t either. We zigzag back to our wives, 30p in our pockets, apologies and excuses at the ready. The teenagers zigzag home too, but more noisily. Annoyingly, even. Yobbishly. They’ll learn, Dawn; they’ll learn.

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