THE HERALD is to be commended for throwing a spotlight on the ravages of alcohol in its loveLife campaign during the past week.

I am always moved when I hear stories of people who are recovering from alcoholism. Unfortunately, for every alcoholic in recovery, there are 5,000 or more practising alcoholics. Those who are in the firing line dealing with this insidious illness will be only too well aware of the total denial that keeps many alcoholics drinking, even when they are confronted with evidence that if they continue to drink they will die within a short time.

In my view, the alcoholic who perhaps is the most desperate of all is the 'net curtain' one. The mother who drinks at home and lives in constant fear of being found out, because it could mean that her children will be taken away from her and put into care.

Or it might be that the father is the alcoholic and the mother is doing a big cover-up job to the outside world. If the father is a violent alcoholic then the children will be living in constant fear. They will fear going to school and they will fear going home from school. An alcoholic home is an unpredictable place to live, the children can never be sure whether they will be kissed, cuffed, cursed or cuddled and what might be all right one day might be unacceptable the next.

In my experience the healthiest member of a family, that has a practising alcoholic living in its midst, is the member who reaches outside and asks for help. Thankfully these days there is much help available and the stigma surrounding alcoholism is lifting. It matters not who the sufferer reaches out to for help, what is paramount is that the sufferer is separated from alcohol, because once that is achieved he or she can then begin to learn how to handle sobriety – or put another way, how to live life without alcohol.

KEVIN ROCHE

Plymouth