The short story is, I drank. It was good at first, then it got really bad. I found Alcoholics Anonymous and started to get well.”

Jack (not his real name) began his bittersweet relationship with alcohol as a teenager.

Sneaking the odd tipple at Christmas as a young boy was a harmless association with drink. Being one of 30 impressionable young boys on a school trip to the South of France was Jack’s awakening to the effects alcohol can have in a social environment away from childhood constraints.

“We went wild!” he laughs, at the recollection of the lads glugging wine and smoking.

“I could have sat there forever. Every time I could get away with saying ‘yes’ to a drink, it didn’t matter to me that I was underage.”

Jack became acutely aware of the effects of drinking; in later life the feelgood factor would be something he came to depend on to take his worries away.

At 17, he fell in love and left school. In the months before starting his job with an insurance company in London, Jack worked for a wine merchants in his home city of Bradford.

Ferrying bottles between the company’s warehouse and shop on his motorbike, Jack recalls ‘losing’ the odd bottle and presenting the label or piece of glass to his boss as evidence.

He says every job he had after that – progressing into management roles with a high street retailer and global confectionery company – brought the opportunity to socialise.

Wining and dining is a traditional way of networking with clients. Jack didn’t need an excuse to drink, it was part of his job, but eventually his behaviour and spending, became too telling.

Returning from honeymoon in Paris, Jack was forced to own up to his first wife about their financial situation. “If it had been anything other than an aeroplane she would have got off there and then,” he says.

Fatherhood couldn’t even force him to forego it. He has three children – one to his first wife and two to his second. There is a sense of remorse when he talks about the son he last saw 40 years ago, and the recollection of his behaviour towards his wives and children.

Jack tried to change. He went to the doctor and poured his heart out to the Samaritans, albeit while pouring another drink.

Through them he discovered AA. “I found AA, but I didn’t get what I was to get later in life, because I was scratching around for anything and everything that would get my wife back,” says Jack.

They divorced and Jack met his second wife. Again the marriage fell apart through his drinking. He admits drink was his oldest and dearest friend. It saw him through good times and bad and, as his life spiralled into chaos, it became his only companion.

In the early 1980s, Jack lost his job through drink-driving. “I had no work, the house was sold and I had nowhere to go.”

He was living in a freezing house belonging to an acquaintance. “There I was with my possessions, a wine shop over the road and nothing else,” he says.

“While I could still sign my name, I was buying one or two boxes of wine on a daily basis. When I couldn’t sign my name, I’d collect my dole money and go to the wine shop. Sometimes I’d buy a bag of nuts or crisps, but basically I just drank.

“Eventually the drink stopped working. Reality was still there, I just didn’t want to face it.”

Jack’s life was in chaos. He’d lost everything and was in debt. “I knew I’d have to go back to AA.”

Alcoholics Anonymous is an informal fellowship of people sharing their experiences to help them recover from alcoholism.

Jack’s previous encounter came at a time when he wasn’t prepared to give up drinking. This time he was determined. “I met people there who gave me tough love.”

He detached himself from the coffee table he’d clung on to at meetings to stop the shakes. He busied himself washing up and making tea.

Through AA came the realisation he had to give up drinking for good. “I thought, ‘It’s not too bad. I’m alive, I’m still breathing and I have the clothes I’m wearing’.”

He knew he couldn’t escape his problems, but he was prepared to try and deal with them where previously he’d failed. “I was either drinking or thinking about it,” says Jack.

May 26, 1986, was the day he had his last alcoholic drink. “It’s just not part of my life now,” he says.

Being part of AA has given him a focus through his recovery. “It keeps the head from getting any sort of idea that drinking is an option,” he says.

Today Jack facilitates meetings and conventions for the organisation. “All they ask of you is to be honest. Be honest with yourself, that is the nub.

“One of the promises of AA is we will not regret the past. It is important for me to remember the whole piece, because that’s where I came from.”

In sobriety, Jack became involved in voluntary work and gained qualifications in careers guidance and lecturing. Before retirement, he was helping unemployed people back into work and he has reconciled with his family.

He hopes sharing his story will inspire others in a similar situation to seek help and support. “If I can get to where I have got, anyone can make it. I was everything but dead,” he says.

“Now it’s about living, taking part in life and getting on with it, because life is possible.”

  • For more information about Alcoholics Anonymous, visit alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk; e-mail help@alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk or ring 0845 769755.