it is a much misunderstood condition. A lot of people perceive alcoholics as being wasters swigging meths out of brown paper bags. Not so. I hold down a good job, and would probably be classed as "a productive member of society". I am a nice person with a relatively healthy social life, to everyone who knows me I am apparently quite normal.

The twist is that I drink on average 180 units of alcohol a week. This may sound like a laddish boast, but you'd probably find most alcoholics will underestimate their consumption because we are emabarrassed about it. It is in fact a quite humiliating experience trying to dispose of the empties. I used to smuggle them past my housemates into the bottom of the wheelie bin on the evening before collection. I've since stopped caring and just put a bin liner of empties out for the recycling men.

so why? As you may have read in another post, I suffer from quite severe insomnia. putting me to sleep is a dirty job, but somethings gotta do it. The truth is that I've never found something that gives me the same level of peace that being drunk does.

I have previously argued to people that I drink as an antidote to my insomnia. In recent years I have realised that this is not true. I think I drink alcohol in the volume I do for the same reason as my insomnia - I have trouble switching off. It may seem like a cop-out, but I find that I constantly think, constantly have to remember everything that I've done wrong, everything that I've got to do, "pressure" in the simplest sense. Alcohol is a depressant, it slows the mind, ironically it gives me some peace from myself, which is constantly upset because I'm an alcoholic.

it would seem strange to a "normal" person that I would engage in an activity that is definitely killing me, and destroying my life. However I honestly believe that without the respite I've had from getting drunk, my mind would have flipped anyway. I cannot accurately explain why, but I have always been frustrated as a person. As a child I used to run around the house shouting, trying to rip the radiators off the walls (my parents had a hard time). The reason for this behvaiour is that I was "bored", I couldn't sit still. Even now, while I can sit still, I do this by retreating into my head and just thinking about everything I can.

So here I am, an alcoholic insomniac. Life involves doing my days work, fulfilling all commitments I have, so I can privately leave my head. I would like to know how common such a situation is. Most people drink alcohol to "relax", I think a lot of alcoholics don't accept that they are.

Hangovers have become a normality, I no longer get headaches, but my stomach is permenantly unsettled. I drink everyday, not because I want to, or need to, but because it is better than life when I don't. I don't stop because I cannot see the happy end. Possibly I'm moving onto the depression side of things, but I honestly believe that alcoholism is a symptom rather than an issue in itself. You cannot quite drinking if you don't have something to quit for, equally so you would not drink if you didn't have a reason to knock yourself out.