As George Best's alcohol problems hit the headlines again, MAXINE GORDON talks to a recovering alcoholic about how he won his battle with the booze and to a woman who has been in Alex Best's shoes.

LIKE the Queen, Reg has two birthdays. There is the day he was born and the day he joined Alcoholics Anonymous. He doesn't remember much about the first event some 71 years ago, but he will never forget the second date: July 25 1980, his 'AA birthday'.

"It's 23 years ago this month that I first went to AA," recalls Reg. "I was in tears and shaking as I went into the room. I hadn't had a bath for three months, but I found hope in that room. I listened to the men and women there talking and everything they were saying had happened to me."

Like most young people, Reg started drinking in his late teens, but unlike his friends, he couldn't just pop into a pub for a swift half. He needed to keep drinking until he felt 'high'. He was an actor, trained at the prestigious Royal Academy for Dramatic Arts in London, but before he would go on stage he'd have to down a bottle of cider mixed with gin. Personal relationships fell by the wayside as did his career as a performer.

"I stopped working about six years before I joined the fellowship AA because I could not carry on. I was always using the F word, particularly if somebody was annoying me in a club."

One night, Reg accidentally cut his hand on a glass and had to go to hospital for stitches. "I didn't need an anaesthetic because I was so out of my head with alcohol."

By the end of his drinking days he was living in a shack in the outskirts of Reading. He had holes in his shoes, was in debt and had attempted to commit suicide three times.

"I was depressed and in despair. I just wanted to die. There seemed no hope and the future just seemed black," says Reg.

Feeling like he couldn't go on he rang the Samaritans. "As luck would have it, the lady had a brother in the fellowship," says Reg. "She asked me if I had a drink problem. But I didn't think so: drink was the only thing keeping me alive, giving me oblivion."

Nevertheless, Reg decided to attend an AA meeting near his home in Berkshire. He expected to find the place full of people like him: unkempt and full of despair. But he was surprised. "Everyone was clean and smiling and when I listened to their stories and where they had been I knew I could be the same if I listened to what they were telling me."

The first piece of advice was: don't take another drink, something which Reg has followed to this day. It wasn't easy. Once sober, he suffered from paranoia and didn't work for another two years, but slowly he got his life back together. Six years ago, he followed a childhood dream and moved to Yorkshire. He now lives in Strensall with Beauty, his loyal German Shepherd, for company.

Reg says: "I was lucky to find AA when I did. But I had to hit rock bottom to have what I have today. To win the war, I had to admit defeat: that alcohol had beaten me."

It is something Reg believes George Best needs to stay sober. "This is my view and not that of AA, but George Best needs to swallow his pride if he stands a chance.

"He was very lucky to get a liver transplant: I know people who have died because of liver failure. If you are going to stop drinking, you have got to do it for yourself. You can't do it for your wife or your family.

"And you can't blame pubs for serving alcohol. If an alcoholic wants a drink, he'll get a drink, even if it's three in the morning."

Reg stresses that everything said at an AA meeting or between members stays confidential and that contrary to popular belief it is not a religious organisation.

But he has empathy for Best. "Alcoholics feel very lonely: they think they are the only one and I imagine that is what George Best is feeling, even though he is married. I had to admit I was powerless over alcohol. I imagine George Best still believes deep down that he can still have a drink."

A wife's story

JEAN can guess how George Best's wife Alex is feeling just now. Frantic with worry; full of fear and anxiety and angry that her husband has let her down again. She will be looking for people to blame; maybe even herself. She'll be wondering what she needs to do to keep him off the booze, knowing full well that if he starts drinking heavily again he could die.

Jean knew her husband, Ron, was a heavy drinker before she married him. But she thought he would change. She was wrong. His drinking became worse and she would spend nights lying awake with worry when he didn't come home.

"I'd phone the local hospitals and the police. They'd say he's probably out drinking with his mates." And they were right.

When the kids came along, she thought things would change. She was wrong again.

Then she hit breaking point and took the kids to her parents. It was only then that Ron went to see the family GP and admitted he had a problem with alcohol.

He was put in touch with AA, which in turn introduced Jean to Al Anon, a support group for families and friends of problem drinkers.

Jean admits she didn't take much in at first, but as she attended more meetings she began to understand more about the nature of alcoholism, that it was an illness and how to live with a sufferer.

"It wasn't a quick fix," says Jean. "But I became aware I wasn't the only one living like this. I also learned that it wasn't my fault that my husband would go off and drink. I learned I didn't cause the alcoholism, that I couldn't control it nor could I cure it. And I did learn to have compassion for my husband and accept he did not set out deliberately to do this to his family."

During Ron's relapses back on the booze Jean would find her old pattern of behaviour returning. "I would plead, cry and threaten to leave him," she says. Her husband was even prescribed tablets to make him ill if he took a drink. "The consultant told me to make sure he took one every day. I thought he was, but he kept drinking. Later, he told me had had swapped them for paracetamol. Alcoholics can be very devious."

Whether Ron was drinking or sober, Jean kept attending Al Anon meetings. She says: "People go to Al Anon independently of their partners. It can make a big difference. Many people come in while their partners are still drinking, and it helps because there is so much shared experience. It doesn't tell you to stay with your partner or leave: everyone must make up their own minds."

To find out more about Alcoholics Anonymous, telephone 01904 644026, helpline number (24 hours) 0113 245 4567 or 0845 769 7555 or visit the website: www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk

For details about Al-Anon, telephone 0207 403 0888 or visit the website www.al-anonuk.org.uk The York group meets on Wednesdays at 7pm at the Friends Meeting House, Friargate.

Updated: 09:25 Tuesday, July 22, 2003