Thanks John. I was going to repost a blog on LinkedIn called Recovery Is Not a Quick Fix this morning. I have been supporting two guys recently. One was in an intensive residential rehab for two months, came out and immediately relapse. I believe he's stable right now. The other struggled to find help initially but then told me he'd been sober for 26 days - except for a couple of beers! It's not easy. There's no magic pill and it takes a lot of work, with the support of others.

@John Elford I was horrified

He's been sober for nearly one week, monitored by his family at home. He has an appointment with CGL on Monday, with an assigned care worker and the possibility of acamprosate. Light at the end of the tunnel but such a struggle to get any proper help.

I could never drink a high volume of liquid. I think my record as a kid was something like 10 pints of beer. So I quickly progressed to Carlsberg Special to get the impact quicker. A typical evening then became super strength beer, wine, and, finally, just neat vodka. Nowadays, with some of the guys I encounter who have reached physical dependence, they commonly are drinking 1-2 bottles of vodka per day. Thank God, I never reached that stage. When I meet people today with a "drink problem" but it's still "only" beer or wine, I actually regard it as good news, in a sense, because they haven't yet reached the point of drinking unleaded vodka. Looking forward to the future episodes, guys.

Very nice, guys. It brings back a lot of memories. On the main topic of this one, the benefit of sobriety is quality of sleep - nowadays I usually get a full eight hours. The other side of the coin, as it were, is that I'm properly wide awake in the daytime. Two other thoughts came to mind about picking up the first drink. I recall a GP saying to me once - "you seem like an intelligent guy, why did you do it?" Valid question, but also a bit dumb. I also went through the many cycles of believing it would be OK to drink again and trying every trick in the book - only drink on certain days, don't drink spirit, counting units etc, - until I finally realised at rock bottom not to pickup the first drink. Could I do it now after 25 years of sobriety? Why the heck would I want to put it to the test when a life of sobriety is so much better