Allan* thought his heavy drinking was normal. He openly admits he was willing to sell himself in order to fund his habit. It took a violent fight with his brother for him to realise that he had enough pent-up anger to kill someone and urgently needed to change his ways.

"I did a lot of things I thought I would never do. I thought I would never lay a hand on a woman. But I did. And I am not proud of it.

I did this when I was sober, although sober is relative because there was always alcohol in my body from the night before.

"I never had a drink when I hit my wife, I didn't actually hit her I picked her up by her neck and ran down a corridor with her and threw her on the bed like she was a piece of s**t.

Just like you would take a piece of clothes off and throw it on the bed. I became a liar, a cheat, a thief. I was constantly covering up for drinking and for my behaviour. It ruined me, it really ruined me.

I started drinking to escape from life but eventually drink would no longer give me the effect and it would no longer take away the pain. Once I was drinking I would be like a tornado, just do not get in my f**king way. All the emotions would come out."

Allan's world changed when he found his mother dead on her bed

Allan's troubles started when he was just 12-years-old. He walked into his mother's room and found her dead on her bed. At 42, the image still haunts him.

"I can still remember the 12-year-old boy I was then, seeing  my mum dead on her bed with saliva running down her mouth, and I was on the bed jumping trying to shake her and wake her up..she never woke up.

My world changed from there."

Allan says he started getting drunk occasionally when he was around 14-years-old. From being a straight A student his grades took a nose dive.

"I wanted to do something with my life but that all crashed away. I just did not bother or care. Drinking killed all the feelings I had about the things that had happened, which was good, but I did not know it would lead me to worse things as I was growing up."

'I woke up on the ferry to Sicily once splayed out like Jesus'

Allan temporarily reined in his drinking when he married his wife and the two were saving up to buy a place. This reprieve did not last long though, and the relationship eventually broke down.

"Once I ended up in Sicily, I went out on a boy's night out then the next thing I know I wake up on the ferry splayed out like Jesus on the cross with my mobile in my hand and a few euros in my pocket.

Through all of this there was depression, anger and two attempts at suicide just because I could not handle life. I wanted somebody else's life."

One of the tipping points was ending up alone, he says.

"I was constantly chasing different relationships, I cheated on my wife god knows how many times.

I felt like I was a prisoner in my own home. I started drinking very heavily on the weekend and even during the week. I still needed somebody to look after me. My wife told me that I cannot live without her and she was right."

'I had enough anger inside me to kill someone'

Allan's poor relationship with his brother only compounded matters for him. The tension between the two eventually boiled over into a violent fight outside a pub in England on Christmas Eve.

"I started drinking very early that day, getting beers down my neck from the early afternoon.

Then we went down to the pub and continued. I reached the point of collapse. My brother had one of these big American camper vans. I asked him for the keys so I could have a lie down, but he said no. So I went outside the pub and crashed outside on a bench.

He came outside and said, get into the f**king pub. I refused. I managed to stand up and he once again said 'get into the pub'. I said no and slapped him around the face. He said to me, if you are man enough do it again. And I did.

He grabbed me by the neck and blocked off my windpipe.

We were outside, snow was falling and we were both at each other's throats, literally. I grabbed his neck.  I was about to collapse because I was out of breath. I managed to get his hand off me and knocked him down.

I put my knee over his neck and told him to stay down. He tried to get up so I started pounding on his eyes with the heel of my palm.

Every time he tried to get up I pounded him back down. He just kept on trying to get up. People tried to get me off him but there was no chance. I got off in the end after I had been jack hammering at his eyes for a while.

If you have ever seen someone who has done a round with Mike Tyson, the person's eye closes right over and they can't see, that's how he was.

When I saw what I could do to my own brother, there was a big lamppost, I ran up to it and smashed my own head against it with the anger of what I did to him.

I know today that if I did not change I had enough anger inside of me to kill a person."

The final straw for Allan was when he made a fool of himself at a wedding.

"I went to the wedding and got extremely drunk, same old behaviour. I went out to my car ever now and again and was using it as a big bong to smoke dope.

The tipping point was when at the end of the wedding there was a nice big group of women waiting for the bouquet of flowers. The bride threw it and yours truly caught it.

Things settled down again .The bride then took the garter off and threw that. Guess who caught it, yours truly once again.  Then all of a sudden this big crowd of women was just looking at me with pure disgust and I just couldn't handle it. I said I'd had enough. I didn't even know I was looking for help at that time. "

'For the first time I admitted I was an alcoholic'

Help came for Allan in the form of a woman he got speaking to on the internet who was enduring her own battle with alcoholism.

"The next day I got talking with this woman again, told her I got myself into this mess and have to get myself out of it. We met up for a coffee on a Thursday and I hadn't had a drink since the wedding on the previous weekend.

We met up and got talking. She was talking about things that had affected her life and for once in my life I felt like there was someone like me. I could identify with all of her problems and experiences.

"She told me how her life revolved around alcohol..at that moment  I was thinking to myself 's**t.' For everything I've done in life there has always been alcohol. If I wanted to chat to a girl I needed a drink. If wanted to do karaoke I needed a drink. Monday I would be feeling about Friday's drink. My mind was always thinking about drink and I needed it to do anything.

It hit home that I was exactly like her. She told me she was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) . This woman had something about her, she had happiness. By the end of the evening I admitted that I am an alcoholic. It was the first time I ever understood that I had a problem.

She told me about an AA meeting on Sunday. I did not touch a drink until then. I was scared. That was my wake-up call. This was six years and almost five months ago. That's how long I have been sober."

'I will always be an alcoholic'

Allan says the support structure offered by the AA and its members helped him both win his battle with alcoholism, and more importantly survive sobriety. Nonetheless, Allan says he will always be an alcoholic.

"This alcoholic is grateful because I have been given the change to live again.  I was born, I was a teenager, I got married, separated and died. Since I've been sober I feel like I have been reborn. I get to live two lifetimes in one.

AA has thought me how to grow up. Have there been moments of weakness?  I believe I am an alcoholic and will always be one. Today I don't have to have a drink, tomorrow who knows? Does this scare me? No, because I know if I keep doing the right things I won't have to drink.

I found it harder to keep a job in sobriety than when I was drinking because I am changing as a person, I'm looking at defects in my character. It's quite funny looking back."

Allan's advice to people facing similar problems is simple.

"Don't let it take you to where it took me. The AA convention in Malta is coming up on 24-26 October.  There is an AA for young people. It does not matter about your background, if you let it alcohol will kill you. In sobriety I met a woman who ended up killing herself and that was shocking

I have met friends who have gone out drinking. That scares the crap out of me. If I go out drinking again I know that is the end, I will die. AA saves lives, because it saved mine."