I gave up alcohol, on a ‘day to day’ and unpublicised ‘effort’ basis, on 3rd May last year, the day after I had seriously let a lot of good people down due to my excessive drinking, fuelled by giving in to the unexpected opportunity and the temptation to drink spirits immediately before the dress rehearsal for a play – which I normally avoid like the plague!

I ‘lost it’ during the rehearsal, ranted and raved at the whole company, and walked out on that rehearsal. The unforgivable sin in the ‘business’ – and rightly so!

I wrote out a card and stuck it on my desk. It read like this …

Before you have a drink remember …

1 Why you stopped!

2 What benefits you have enjoyed because you have stopped (absolutely stacks of these!)

Those were sufficient to see me through the really bad times – the tempations – the ‘just one won’t hurt you’ crap – the ‘I deserve one after what I’ve been through today’ … all the tired and shitty and invalid excuses we all use – me too for forty years of my life!

Right now I am shit scared of alcohol. My Doctor says that is a very healthy attitude and agrees with my own view that you don’t return, like a dog, to your vomit.

If you’ve beaten the devil in the bottle, why give him another chance?

Hope this helps!

Best of luck and, if you’re anything like me, continue to treat it as a day by day personal decision – no pressure – no public declarations – just you deciding how you want to live your life – with or without the stuff!

oty x