Campral stopped my drinking, it also ended the need to lie.

On Wednesday I went to the funeral of a close friend at Beauchamp Grammar School - Anne Turner - and I met people I had not seen for almost 40 years. Some were instantly recognisable on first sight and there were others whose voices I heard and instantly recognised, but when I looked round could see no one who even vaguely resembled who I was expecting to see.

I went to a school reunion in September 2003 and met plenty of people I knew, but there were no close friends from my year, so although what brought us together this week was tragic, I came away feeling very content.

Everyone at school knew I intended to go into brewing and were eager to learn how I got on - and so I told them. Without exception everyone was amazed when I said that through my work I had become addicted to alcohol; they had never heard anyone openly say they were an alcoholic, they were used to other people giving out this information behind the alcoholic’s back.

But then I went on to say that I had no longer any interest in drinking and had led an effortlessly alcohol-free life for the last eight years all thanks to the love of my life, first she convinced me I had to stop drinking and then to take

Campral, Judith Narvhus transformed my life.

I then went on to explain why I tell everyone about my alcoholism and told about my one-and-only time having residential treatment for my alcoholism.

During my week-long stay in The Andrew Duncan Clinic Edinburgh, a man in his mid-40s was admitted following a severe relapse after eight years without a drink. I wanted to learn everything I could about how he had managed to go so long without a drink, because although I had the best of intentions about stopping, I found it hard to see how I was going to get through the next month without one.

Although my fellow patient had gone without a drink for eight years, it was not because he had changed in anyway, he still had a very strong desire to drink; in fact he had spent every minute of every day of the eight years of sobriety, thinking about drink and was only able to resist having one by spending almost the whole of his life in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting or on his way to one.

One day he had a drink - which led to another..........

Almost immediately after being discharged from the clinic he committed suicide.

I have led a drink free life now for eight years - but I have had no battle to resist the urge to drink - it never occurs to me to drink alcohol - even when it is freely available - and that has been the case after six weeks treatment with Campral

After the funeral, when I was telling my friends about my life as an alcoholic, it was almost as if I was talking about someone else - and to an extent I am a different person now - the part of me that had the urge to drink, has gone completely - and I had also changed in a very positive way; alcoholics tell so many lies to try and conceal the extent of their drink problem, that lying becomes a way of life. In the instant when I discovered that I no longer had any interest in alcohol, I realised that I was also free of the need to lie - and have not done so since.

Where are the alcoholics whose treatment with Campral was profound - a complete success?

In August 1993 when I first sought treatment for my alcoholism, I was a model patient; I was completely open with my psychiatrist (who was also my key worker), I attended almost all the group meetings where I always took an active part, but whilst doing this I could not envisage a life in which I would never again be able to share a bottle of wine with a beautiful woman during a candlelit dinner.

In October 2003 when Judy asked me to stop drinking and I promised to do so, I knew I had made a promise I did not know how to fulfill.

In November 2003 I had a session with the consultant psychiatrist, Professor Jonathon Chick during which I explained my past and the future I wanted, and he suggested a number of strategies which I should consider, but made no mention of Campral.

In 2008, four alcohol-free years after taking Campral, when Judy and I had intimate dinners together, I made her a gin and tonic before hand, and then during the meal Judy drank wine and I drank something non-alcoholic, but I never once felt that I would have enjoyed the experience any more if I too had drunk alcohol

However, the most surprising thing of all was at the many dinner parties Judy and I gave and attended; Norwegian dinner parties tend last a long time - 6 hours is normal -  I would get our guests drinks before the meal, keep their glasses topped up with wine during it, serve liqueurs afterwards, but at no time did I feel left out, or have  the slightest wish to join them and I never felt awkward because I was not drinking.

For a time I wondered if this total indifference towards alcohol at dinner parties was because Judy was in the same room, but there was almost always some opened wine left over which was  re-corked for consumption on another day, and while this was standing in the kitchen or fridge and I was alone in the house, it never occurred to me to have a drink.

In January 2011 when I learned that my liver had recovered fully despite the many years of being an alcoholic, I knew I had to talk about the effortless alcohol-free life I now lead as a result of taking Campral. I knew that before I could speak with authority, I needed to know why Professor Chick had not mentioned Campral as one of the options in 2003.

When I met Jonathon Chick in September 2011, he told me that although he knew Campral worked well in some people, there was no way of knowing in advance who they were.  He went on to tell me that it was he who had conducted the UK clinical trials prior to Campral’s approval in 1995 and that at the end of the trial,  no difference could be found between Campral and the placebo.

However in a follow-up study 3 years later Campral’s true effectiveness became apparent; all those subjects who had been given Campral and were still abstinent (not drinking alcohol) at the end of the trial, had still not started drinking,  whereas almost all in the control group had.

People like me for whom treatment with Campral is profound, are not mentioned in any of the studies, they focus on the time to first relapse and the amount of alcohol consumed  post-treatment, but all have a significant number who dropped out of the trials.

I wonder for how many of the Campral trial dropouts the treatment was so successful, their lives so transformed, they just walked away to live out the rest of their lives in peace with their families and never go near and clinic for the treatment of alcoholics ever again?  

What is it that the people like me for whom treatment with Campral is profound have in common?

The alcohol-free life offered by Campral and Alcoholics Anonymous could not be more different

During the one and only period that I received inpatient treatment for my alcoholism, until shortly before admission a fellow patient had led a drink-free life for eight years - I was eager to learn how he had been able to do so.


What I learned horrified me; although he had not drunk alcohol for eight years, he said he had spent every minute of every day wanting to do so and had only managed to resist by attending every Alcoholics Anonymous meeting he could - up to six a day - and organising his movements between them so that he never passed a pub or off license; he only did his shopping when supermarkets were not permitted to sell alcohol.


Although he had managed not to drink alcohol for eight years, he had not changed as a person and his whole life was taken up by "not drinking"; shortly after being discharged from hospital he committed suicide.


I started taking Campral at the beginning of August 2004 and just six weeks later when confronted with the alternatives of drinking beer (which was what was expected of me) or choosing to drink something non-alcoholic (which was what I knew was best for my health), I discovered that I no longer had any desire to drink alcohol. In that instant I knew my life had changed for ever.

For ten years I had been preparing myself to live my life doing without something upon which my whole career and social life had been dependent, and something I really enjoyed - and suddenly drinking alcohol held no attraction for me.

I had refused drinks in pubs many times before but had always made an excuse for doing so. I had lied about my drinking and then lied about the reasons for not drinking. In the instant that I discovered that I no longer had any desire to drink alcohol, I realised I was free; there was no longer any reason to tell lies.

It was the first occasion on which I told people who were not alcoholics themselves, or connected with the treatment of alcoholism, that I was an alcoholic and how I had become one. I was only able to do that because I knew with absolute certainty that I would never drink alcohol again.

There have been very few occasions since when I have to make such public declarations, but two have happened in the last ten days; I have just started working with a group of researchers at Huddersfield University in the north of England, to celebrate the agreement we went out to a pub for lunch and as my brewing background had been very important in establishing my credibility, so when I chose a non-alcoholic drink I also told them of my route into alcoholism and my subsequent escape.

Last week was the end of an era; my mother was one of nine children and last Friday was the funeral of the last of them, I made a point of going because I feared that it would be the last time that I would see many of my cousins, much of the day was spent catching up with one another’s lives and everyone wanted to know why I was not drinking beer. I had given my explanation several times when other people came to hear me talk about my experiences first hand.

Several people expressed surprise that I talked so freely about my alcoholism but I told each one that the change that Campral had brought about was so profound that I found talking about my alcoholic self was almost like talking about another person.

One of the mourners was not only my late uncle’s doctor, but a very good friend of the family and in that capacity spent the evening with us; he was very interested in my recover. I think that at last I have found a doctor who has fully grasped the implications of my experience.