hello mccribb.i am with tazman and keith on this one.i used booze for 20 years to relieve me of "life" and its problems and woes.my life was a mess,one disaster after another.completely unmanagable.i was always running.i couldnt stay stopped for any length of time on my own,,i do remember one time about 8 yrs ago,i had just moved to be nearer my mum in scotland.i had a nasty incident and swore off,it was a horrible 2 weeks of my life.i was irritable,discontent and unhappy,angry,blah blah.so of course i gave in and there insued another 8 years of drunkeness.at the begining of the year i went to AA.i did what was suggested at the meetings where i am and went to lots of meetings and called at least 3 folk every day from the fellowship,within a month i had picked up again,bewildered,depressed at a complete loss i knew something had to change,i am powerless over alcohol and unless i completely changed i was forever doomed to picking up that first one and off we go again! so,i got a sponsor and i got to work on the steps immedietly,i came to believe,i cleared the wreckage of my past and i found a new freedom and a new happiness,there are lots of promises in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous,and when i first started out i thought it would be impossible for these things to be in my life,by the time i got to the 9th step things were happening in my life that i never imagined could or would!.there is a solution and a design for living.and not just white knuckling it but seeing life for what it really is,its a whole new world out there for me now,and thats the truth.you can have this too.all it takes is open mindedness,honesty and a bit of hard work,but h£ll anything is better than active alcoholism,or the head we are left with even after we put the booze down.are you willing to go to any lengths to get a happy life?