One Horsley dad can be extra proud this festive season - it marks almost a decade without alcohol.
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December 19, 2013 was the day Scott Fleming attended his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting - and the last time he ever touched a drop of alcohol.
The father-of-two developed a problem with beer when he was working on the railways, consuming 10 drinks a night for almost two decades.
"I wasn't aggressive, but I just drank every day," Scott said.
"I used to finish work and grab a couple of long necks, then drive home and drink another six to eight stubbies.
"Then I'd wake up and go to work, and I'd always turn up for work, but that was every day."
At the weekend, Scott had one rule: no drinking before 10am.
A keen bushwalker, he would pack a cooler bag and head off to some secret cove in the escarpment to have a couple of beers before making the trek back.
At night, he would plonk himself in front of the telly with a Tooheys New, his words becoming increasingly slurred as the night wore on.
"My wife didn't mind if I had a couple, but I never knew what a couple was," he said.
"I couldn't have just one beer unfortunately."
If they ever needed anything up the road, it was always left to his wife Lauren and, as 2013 drew to a close, she knew she didn't want to start another year stuck in the same rut.
"She'd just had enough and I had to quickly think, 'Do I want to continue the way I was going, or do I want to do what's right for my family?' Scott said.
Lauren rang around, found an AA meeting in Oak Flats and accompanied her husband to his first one on a Friday night.
Mostly there to appease his wife, Scott initially had plans to stop at the bottle shop on the way home, but the meeting had a profound effect on him.
"I didn't know anyone until a bloke who I vaguely remember from Dapto came up to me at the end of it and he said, 'Look mate, you've got to keep going at this'.
"He told me all about it and he said, 'Just keep coming every day'.
Scott attended meetings five days a week for the first year and then slowly cut down over the next four.
"It was hard, but I fought off the urges, and I've fought them off for nine years," he said.
"I can walk into a bottle shop to go buy my wife grog and walk out with no urge to buy or consume alcohol.
"You always think you're not going to survive without alcohol, but I'm probably more sociable now and you'll be able to understand me at the end of the night.
"The funny thing is that I'll sit with people who are drinking and I'll have 14 Pepsi Maxes, like I'll go one soft drink for their beer."
Scott's oldest daughter was three when he gave up alcohol and his youngest daughter, born a year into his sobriety, has never seen him drunk.
His wife is happier - and so is Scott.
"It's really something I should have done a long time ago, I don't know what I was afraid of," he said.
"Now I can do what I want, drive wherever I want, I can take the kids places and spend time with them in the afternoon and watch a movie at night ...
"I have a much better home life, it's really good now."
Scott says he couldn't have turned his life around without his own strong commitment to change, regular AA meetings and the support of his family.
"You really need to want to give up, you can't go in half-hearted," he said.
"It's a bonus if you have your family's support but, if you don't, go to the AA meetings. I tell you, you'll make friends very quick.
"I'll never drink another drop of alcohol in my life.
"I've been there, I've done that, I've got the T-shirt."
- Find helpful resources for drinking less here.
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