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.