IT TOOK the end of his marriage, the loss of his business and being told he had just weeks to live before Terry Martin came to terms with his alcoholism.
"I was drinking one to two bottles of vodka a day," said the 59-year-old, who has an engineering business in Ongar.
"It was hell, I lost my business, my wife, everything."
Hitting "rock bottom" in September 2000 was the wake-up call he needed and Terry checked himself into The Priory for a 28-day rehabilitation programme.
He hasn't touched a drop since.
After experiencing the devastating effect of such heavy drinking first-hand, Terry, and two fellow addicts he met in The Priory, Debby Peirson and Nigel Bongard, joined forces to set up alcoHELP, which has visited 1,400 primary schools so far this year, speaking to more than 100,000 children to educate them on addiction.
And this week, the charity fired a warning to the county's drinkers after new figures reveal 16 per cent of people in Essex are drinking at a level which is bad for their health, while there were 202,865 alcohol-related hospital admissions in the county in the past year.
Terry, who began drinking at a young age when alcohol was cheaper and attitudes towards underage drinking were less strict, told the Chronicle: "I wouldn't stand a chance now.
"Vodka, the drink of the alcoholic, hasn't gone up in price. It's cheaper now than when I bought it 15 years ago."
But he says there is a change in perception amongst younger people towards alcohol and, in particular, binge drinking.
"There's a divide opening up, because youngsters are more aware. As socially acceptable amongst young people as it was in the past – much like with drink driving – it used to be the case that people didn't see a problem with that, but that has changed.
"But there are a lot of functioning alcoholics that still hold down jobs for years, and a lot of binge drinkers don't even realise they are alcoholics. But if you then say to them 'go a week without a drink', they say 'oh no I couldn't do that'.
"But that does as much damage to the body and is a drain on the health service and there's a link to drugs because I don't know of a drug addict that doesn't drink a lot as well."
Speaking of the charity, which celebrated its 10th birthday in April, Terry, who lives in Ridgewell, near Finchingfield, added: "We wanted to give something back, but didn't know what direction to go in at the time.
"We decided that to really make a difference we'd need to get the message about the dangers of alcohol across to young people.
"It takes 30 seconds from drinking alcohol for it to start taking effect.
"Alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs and if it was discovered now, it would be a Class A."
AlcoHELP has now been visiting schools in the county for a decade, teaching children as young as 10 about the dangers of alcohol and reaching more than 100,000 pupils with its hard-hitting presentations, including real-life videos of booze-fuelled car crashes.
It even gets youngsters to try wearing the aptly named "beer goggles", which mimic the effects of being drunk without having to take a sip, while others can see what they will look like in 10 years' time if they drank 20 pints of lager a week, thanks to the "Change Your Face" drinking time machine.
"We try and visit as many primary schools as we can in a two week intensive period, sometimes we go to over 30 schools during that time," said Terry, a former governor at Felsted School.
He estimates he has gone into 1,400 primary schools so far this year, speaking to more than 10,000 children to educate them on addiction.
"All of us in the team are ex-alcoholics, we know what it's about, there's nothing we don't know and we're honest with the kids about what we've been through," he added.
"A lot of the kids, even young ones, will already have experience of addiction in their families, whether it's brothers, sisters or parents."
Terry and his colleagues blame the rise in drink problems at advertising targeted at young people and cheap drink deals offered by supermarkets.
"There are so many different products now, some are made to look like sugary soft drinks," said Terry.
"And cheap, super strength, extremely powerful, drinks are a big problem too,
"80 per cent of all the shop sales are to people with drink problems."
But Terry says the team is not advocating abstinence.
"We're not prohibitionists, having the odd drink is a great pastime, but people need to be aware of the dangers."
The charity held a day of action earlier in September with a 10-point action plan, in which it lobbied the government for a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol for all alcohol sales, restricted alcohol sales to certain times of day, and larger warning labels on booze bottles.
