‘I was good at drinking,’ says Alex, our chair. I like Alex because he says exactly what he thinks and after years of drinking he got his life back on track. He’s in his mid forties and has always worked in the building trade but now runs his own company. His first marriage collapsed but since putting the pieces of his life back together he has married again, his angel, as he calls her, and they have one daughter aged three. ‘By the age of thirty I was a pro,’ he continues. ‘If drinking were a job I’d have been a higher-rate taxpayer. I really liked the man I saw in the mirror, the guy who could still drink anyone under the table.’ He lifts up his shirt collar for effect, making a few of us laugh. ‘Check me out.’ He clicks his fingers, winks at a woman in the first row. ‘I could talk the talk and walk the walk. I was the geezer who was the first on the dance floor and the last to leave the party, and always ready to do a quick deal on the side. If I saw anyone on a Sunday washing their car at midday I thought they were flipping mental. The pubs are open! What I didn’t understand was the progression of my drinking, right, how dangerous it was becoming. If I had a bad day at work, you know, like something crucial was being delivered on site and it was the wrong bloody thing and time was critical, I’d tell myself all would be fine, I’d feel calmer once I’d had a couple of pints down the local.’ He takes in a deep breath. ‘I got married at twenty-eight. Bad decision. I loved her, I hurt her, but looking back I was a mess, in no fit state to take on any responsibility or take on a mother-in-law. If she threatened to come over …’
There are lots of smiles in the room, Harry nudging me gently. Neve, sitting on my other side, gets that one.
‘A right old dragon I have to add …’
Denise looks up from her knitting muttering, ‘Cheeky sod.’
‘I’d have a couple of pints before she visited and sneak off to the bathroom or bedroom when she was chatting to my wife. Mother-in-law always wanted to know when we were going to have kids. I couldn’t do anything without a glass or bottle in my hand but I didn’t see it then. All I knew was drink was becoming my friend, my parent – I needed it around me, to function. Ironically it was tearing me apart and it’s only when I realised that moment, that rock bottom moment that we all have, that I could suddenly look in the mirror and see a very different person. Someone pretty pathetic, actually,’ he says, his tone more sombre now. ‘Someone lost, frightened and powerless over alcohol.’
I find myself nodding in recognition as he says, ‘Someone who needed to change.’