The only frame of reference I have is knowing how difficult it was for me to stop smoking, and the fact that I didn't succeed in stopping until I recognized that I was ready.

It may sound odd coming from someone who has been hospitalized a couple of times with alcohol but I think smoking might in some ways be harder to stop - I've never come close.

That said, I think alcohol has far darker sides...

The dependency side is frightening. I've had times when I needed a litre of spirit a day just to function and at one point before the body packed in was even able to drink on top of that while playing in a fairly high standard session. But then comes the next morning and for me anxiety attacks, fears, feeling shaky, throwing up, etc. until the alcohol kicks in. Even then, sometimes, I've made myself so ill I'm bed ridden.

You can't just stop from that point, although personally, when the body has permitted, I have been able to self reduce back down again...
But then I let something start me off again. We are all different but here is how it sort of goes with me...

I can be off alcohol completely for 6 months or sometimes (I did this weekend for the first time in months for a local festival and haven't had or wanted any since - doing that does not spark me off into weeks of heavy drinking) have a few drinks without problem. Even months of having a pint a few nights in the week doesn't but...

Then comes the storm, I try my supposed "coping strategies" but eventually I wind up reaching for the one thing I know can just knock me out and give me mental oblivion for a while... I know full well I am sunk for a couple of weeks but I'll tell myself it won't happen and am usually so fed up and angry I don't care... I might care the next day but when I hit the drink hard in this way, I'm already feeling ill and trying to combat what feels like withdrawal to me.

The whole thing is made worse for me as after a do like that, I need a good month after the episode to recover or I snap at smaller things and basically get into some sort of downwards vicious spiral...

Last time I really blew it was not long after I came out of hospital and a time when I knew I was vulnerable. Folkinfo got hacked, dropped the rebuild as I was finding the temptation to have a drink or two to "cope" with the reconstruction coming in. Father then starts throwing tantrums, somewhere along the line my new computer chair breaks, somewhere else I decide not to let it get me down and played music so my amp blows up, and so it goes until I snap again...

I find it all quite odd. Common wisdom seems to suggest that if someone who has had problems with alcohol has a drink, that's it and may worry and or tell me off if I have a drink.

Personally, I'm feeling much stronger mentally than I was in December last year so it would take more to get me down and I have had a reasonably trouble free time with life in general but I sometimes myself one question and it's quite a different one to their ideas and concerns.

It could be tomorrow or perhaps in two or three years time but the big question to me is how will I react next time one thing after another goes wrong and I reach my screaming point?

Will I have the sense and say "no" or will I eventually turn to something I know (and I can not unlearn this knowledge) can (however destructive) switch things off for a day for me...

I wish I could say I'm cured of that but the truth is I simply do not know. I just hope I never do it again.

Oh forgot there is one difference this time round. I have been prescribed some sort of mild sedative that I can take as and when I feel the need (which has been probably about 4-5 times in 6 months). I know I can get a similar effect to the calming effect a pint would have on me say if for example I was feeling nervous about a doctors appointment but that to me is a small problem. I'm told I can double the dosage if I really feel I'm going to blow it grand style but how it works out has yet to be tested. The situations that have got me to screaming point simply have not happened over the last 6 months.