I work in a pretty high-pressured job: long hours with early starts and late finishes. Naturally, I hit the booze of a night-time, if anything, just so I can get to sleep. How do I hide red wine breath in the morning?

Heavy-Breather, Yarraville, VIC

Dear Heavy-Breather,

Ah, the plight of the closet boozehound. You remind me of someone I used to work with. Each morning he’d stagger into work looking decidedly worse-for-wear and would proceed to shovel not one, but two Four’N Twenty meat pies into his gaping pie hole. Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for meat pies (just ask my friend, Aneta) – only they shouldn’t be consumed in the morning unless you’re returning home from the night before; which shouldn’t be a problem on a business day, now should it? What made it worse was his solution to his smelling like a brewery: dousing himself in Brut 33; patting his armpits like an orang-utan with handfuls of the horrid elixir. There’s nothing like the smell of stewed meat and cheap 1970s cologne to send you hurtling back to the time you lost your virginity.

My advice: drink water before you hit the cot; eat lots of carbs in the morning; and don’t use any perfumes – the alcohol contained in perfumes only accentuates the scent of booze rather than concealing it. Otherwise, it might be time for a career change. Have you considered a high-pressured career where you are encouraged to drink: Australian Federal politics, perhaps?

I do believe there’s more for you to read: