Macmillan has raised more than £1m from its alcohol abstinence mass participation event Go Sober, with more than a week still left of the challenge.

Macmillan’s dedicated Twitter stream for Go Sober tweeted a countdown to hitting the £1m-mark on Friday and achieved the milestone by the morning. On reaching £1m, the @GoSober account tweeted “So proud of all our sober-heroes!”

As of this morning, Go Sober has raised £1.05m. The event, which challenges participants to remain alcohol-free for all of October, still has ten days until it finishes.

When launched, many in the sector queried Go Sober’s resemblance to Cancer Research UK’s Dryathlon, which similarly involved participants abstaining from alcohol for a month. The CRUK event, which was held for the first time in January, raised £4m.

But while Dryathlon specifically targeted men, Go Sober has attracted a strong female contingent. Nine out of the ten top individual fundraisers on the Go Sober tally board are women, with the top fundraiser having raised just shy of £3,000.