I was used to spending most nights in the pub – my ex-partner was a fairly prolific drinker, who, by the way, has now cut down drastically, partly due to cost-cutting, but also mainly due to having seen the effect that the toll of heavy drinking has taken on Paul.

The difference now is that Paul has always been a daytime drinker rather than an evening drinker, and this took me some getting used to at first.

We would get up around 7am to get ready for work, then either take the train or drive to Poulton-le-Fylde where we were working and work until 12.30.

Then it was time for the daily run into town for lunch at the local pub. This invariably meant that Paul would drink at least 2 pints, sometimes 3, and more often than not, lunch for him was a liquid one.

Then at 2.30 it was back to the office until 4.45pm, followed by a quick trip to the pub for another pint while we waited for our train back to Chorley.

Normally, by this stage I was ready for home, but not Paul.
So, next was a trip to our local pub, The Swan With Two Necks in Chorley where Paul would top himself up with 4 or 5 more pints.

We would probably, if I was lucky(!), leave the pub at about 9.30pm, and on the way home we would call into the local Co-op and I would buy at least 2 bottles of wine, sometimes 3, which he would consume before bed.

While Paul was drinking his wine, I might occasionally join him for a couple of glasses while I ate my evening meal.
Invariably, I would ask Paul if he wanted something to eat, and invariably the answer would be a resounding “No thank you”!

Normally, we would go to bed at about midnight.

At approximately 5am, Paul would get up and raid either the biscuit tin, or eat whatever had been left in the fridge from the day before, and that would be the only time he would eat.

This went on for almost 18 months before something happened that began to change our lives forever.

Next time I’ll tell you what happened next.

Looking back on it now it all happened too soon – we should have taken time out to really get to know each other first – not that I have any deep regrets about the time I have spent with Paul, but, as you will discover later, there were many things I didn’t know about him which only started to surface much later, and by then we were pretty much involved, both emotionally and financially.I can’t really speak for Paul, but from my point of view there were a lot of things that I had to get used to.The first thing that struck me was something that I hadn’t been expecting at all, and that was a purely physical thing – I was amazed at how thin Paul was!

He is well over 6 foot tall and weighed less than 10 stones. Apparently, at one time he was over 18 stones, but that was about 15 years ago when he was a lot younger and earning £100K plus every year, which meant lots of wining and dining and good living!

Looking back now it was stupid of me not to realise that for the six months before we got together he had been living on the breadline, sometimes even sleeping rough on our local Woolworths (as was) loading bay, and he hadn’t eaten properly in all that time.

Not only that, even though, at that time, he was in denial, as an alcoholic, whenever he had any money, rather than eat, he would buy drink. After having drunk himself into a stupor, he would be too full to eat in any case, so he didn’t bother! This is still the case today – even though I cook regularly for him, he rarely eats what I put in front of him, and I don’t think that’s any reflection on my cooking which most people say is pretty damn good!

I often used to wonder why a lot of the heavy drinkers I met in pubs never seemed to eat anything. Now I know that you can get just as full on beer as food and if you are addicted to alcohol, THAT always comes first!That’s all for now….next time I’ll discuss Paul’s day to day habits and how he would sometimes drive me to despair!