It’s time to ditch the please drink responsibly campaign. Asking Irish people to act Swiss around booze is like asking the Vikings to close the gate on the way out. After my holiday in Spain, I now know the campaign we need. Get Drunk Properly.

The Spaniards in San Sebastian have a tapas approach to getting wasted. Why fill up on main courses of booze when you can tip away with little mini-bites of drunk all day long. Myself and the wife arrived at around lunch time and headed for the old town at the top of the town. Every bar has a selection of tapas (known locally as pintxos) up on the counter so there’s no awkwardness around ordering. Just eat what you like and pay on the way out. We grabbed a couple of sophisticated ham sandwiches and looked around to learn how to drink like a local.

A lot of people were drinking small beers, less than half a pint, so we had three of them a bit too rapido. Things started to look up. A lot of people were ordering cider so we followed suit. The waitress made a big deal of pouring a shot-sized cider each from a freshly opened bottle. We thought she was a bit silly and knocked it back. It tasted very strong. Who’s silly now? Us. Foolish in fact. We paid up and headed for the fresh air.

The wife got a fit of the giggles and sat down on some church steps. I thought I was going to keel over with the euphoria. A gaggle of Japanese tourists looked on like we were street entertainers. And then a funny thing happened. Nothing. We didn’t go straight into another bar and double-up our bets with more cider. The wife tried to suggest it but couldn’t get it out through the giggles. Ten minutes later, we’d sobered up.

It was one of the best piss-ups we ever had. And here we were at half two in the afternoon, with just tiniest hangover and the day stretching before us. We went into the next bar (the old town in San Sebastian is one long line of next bars). They liked their wine in this bar. So did we. We had two each and some more classy ham sandwiches. Here we go again.

This kind of afternoon drinking went horribly wrong in Amsterdam last year. We darted into a Belgian bar to get out of the rain and were lucky not to be taken out on a stretcher. The place had an amazing selection of strong beers brewed to help monks believe there’s more to life than sex and gossip. The guy behind the bar tried to warn us to take it easy, but Dutch people have a way of making a warning sound like a challenge. Like I say, a stretcher.

It’s different in Spain. I noticed a few people drinking extra small beers. These are no more than shots of beer in a small glass. Wash down your mini ham sandwich and still drive home. Or put a little pep in your beer buzz. This is when I realised the road to better boozing. Drink just enough.

You see, the Spaniards aren’t just the best soccer team in the world. They’re also world class drinkers. Their range of finely calibrated drinks means there’s always something just right to keep them on the sweet spot.

Everybody has their own alcoholic sweet spot. Mine is somewhere on the third pint when I realise why I got into drinking in the first place. You didn’t feel this good ten minutes ago and you’ll feel worse in ten minutes time. A lot of hungover time is wasted re-discovering that the next pint after the sweet spot is when the night starts to go a bit squidgy.

The Spaniards don’t do pints. They’ll serve you a shot of beer to keep you at the sweet spot, so you’ll keep digging into their mini-dinners. Everyone’s a winner. We had a second glass of wine followed by some world-class espresso and went for a walk by the beach.

This set the tone for the holiday. We’d have three or four mini piss-ups every day, each with its own tiny hangover. I asked for a glass of white wine at lunch one day in awful Spanish which might have translated as can I have a bag of badgers please. The waiter came back with a bottle. We drank it. It turned out the €20 set menu included a bottle of wine each. We were tempted. Why not, we’re on holidays was rolled out. Then Amsterdam got a mention. We asked for the bill. There’s plenty more life in this day.

I learned two things. One, there’s no need to do the dog on it. Two, I’m getting old.