Beat the Booze

Edmund Tirbutt has been teetotal for over 21 years, after drinking heavily during his years at university and subsequently finding it difficult to drink in moderation in his 20s. He tried various methods of cutting down and introduced rules to reduce his alcohol intake, including only drinking at weekends or when on holiday. Neither of these approaches worked as he always ended up drinking to excess. His decision to quit was determined by the intervention of a friend - when he was 28 years old - who told him he would end up sad and alone and, most probably, soon dead if he did not quit the booze, which he then did almost immediately. Since then his life has changed beyond recognition. He fulfilled his ambition to become a journalist on the national papers, and during the final seven years of his journalistic career won a remarkable 18 awards for excellence. Helen Tirbutt has been teetotal for over two years, after deciding that life without alcohol is infinitely better than a life with it. She made the decision to quit drinking for lifestyle reasons. During her 20s and 30s Helen worked in the City in the area of PR and Communications, and alcohol was very much a part of that lifestyle in the boom-bust years of the 1980s and throughout the 1990s. After setting up a copywriting company with her husband Edmund in 2004, she made many changes to her life, including moving out of London, taking up meditation and introducing more healthy ways of dealing with work tension and stress. She quickly found that it is a total myth that you can't have a good time without alcohol, and realised that there are plenty of other healthier and more effective ways of dealing with the modern day worries that cause many people to drink.

PART I - HELPING YOURSELF 1. Forget the word alcoholic 2. Who said drinking alcohol was cool? 3. Giving up alcohol completely 4. Cutting down 5. Getting professional help PART II - HELPING OTHERS 6. Helping adults 7. Helping the young 8. If only... 9. Helping employees APPENDICES Appendix 1 - More detailed medical information Appendix 2 - Recent statistics Appendix 3 - Sources of help and contact details