Huge congratulations, Ringside! Great minds think alike as it’s my one year anniversary too.

For me it’s an anti-climax as I’d cut right down prior to giving up, but there’s no doubt I was alcohol dependent and likely to increase my intake again if I didn’t quit. And whilst the urge/cravings reappear from time to time, the habit of drinking has long gone. If I stay at a hotel or wait in an airport lounge, drinking alcohol is what other people do now.

I say anti-climax, but a fibroscan last August showed all the fat from my liver had gone. If your liver packs up, it’s just about the slowest and worst death I can imagine. I reckon i dodged a whole magazine load of bullets as a fatty liver is a serious condition.

The big secrets are:

1. Accept you have a problem
2. Accept only you can fix it - counselling, groups, drugs are great, but it’s you who chooses to drink or not
3. Accept that moderation is an impossibility for the likes of us. I’m amazed and saddened people don’t realise this.
4. Don’t “reward” yourself after a week or so off alcohol. Your urges/cravings will reappear with a vengeance. The rewards that follow in a few months are many times greater.
5. Accept that the first few weeks will be miserable with cravings, headaches and lack of sleep.
6. Tell your friends and family.
7. Something MUST replace your drinking. If you sit watching TV or at a computer with beers every evening, for example, you can’t just do the same thing without alcohol. You’ll relapse unless you do something different. I took up gym and sports. I have so much more time now I don’t drink.