Four pints most nights. Sometimes five. Never at work, never on a school morning, never in a way anyone could point at. He told himself it was fine because the wheels were still on.
What he didn't say out loud: he hadn't gone a single evening without it in six years, and he had no idea who he'd be on the other side of it.
The work wasn't a programme. It was learning to be in the same room as the feelings the drinking had been quietly turning down. Three months in he didn't need it most nights. Six months in he didn't think about it most days.
Composite story. Details have been changed to protect identities and do not refer to any single individual.