TOP jockey Robert Winston has talked of his battle with the bottle after the horror fall which almost cost him his life at a Scottish racecourse.

The York-based rider, who was in the frame for the jockey's championship until fracturing his jaw at Ayr in August, revealed he had to check into an addiction treatment centre in Ireland in October to beat his boozing.

In an interview with Evening Press racing journalist Tom O'Ryan in the Racing Post, Mr Winston said his problems with alcohol came to the boil after that horrific accident - when he was kicked in the face by a horse after falling from his own mount - when he found himself with too much time on his hands.

But he said that was the culmination of a number of alcohol-related incidents, which led him on a "very slippery slope".

Mr Winston, who lives in Huntington, said he came to his senses after he climbed up a drainpipe at the back of Malton cinema and smashed a CCTV camera, for which he was being interviewed by police today.

"I was drinking myself to death.

"I just couldn't control it, couldn't stop. There was no way I could have just a couple of drinks; I just wouldn't go home. I had no respect for myself, or for anyone around me," the 26-year-old jockey said.

"They say you don't have to label yourself, but I know that I was in the chronic stage of alcoholism.

"I'm not the first jockey who has had problems with alcohol and I won't be the last.

"What I am pleased about is that I've finally gone and done something about it."

Of his stay at the Aiseri Addiction Treatment Centre, in Cahir, County Tipperary, Ireland, he said: "I went in there very low, as low as I could possibly be.

"I found myself in a big, black hole and I needed to get out of it.

"I had a lot of baggage and a lot of problems to solve, some going back years.

"It was hard, especially the first couple of weeks, but I knew I had to do it."

Mr Winston is on police bail until March in connection with City of London Police's probe into alleged corruption and race fixing. He denies any wrong-doing.

But he said: "I've not felt as well as I do now for at least four or five years.

"I'm like a new man. I am more determined than ever.

"My aim is not to pick up a drink ever again.

"But I can't say for sure I will achieve that. I've just got to take it day by day.

"And every day I don't pick up a drink is a good day."

Updated: 09:57 Friday, December 09, 2005