Now he is about to start a new life after battling the addiction while being treated for alcohol related dementia in a nursing home for four years.

MARK THOMPSON met the Falklands veteran who wants everyone to wake up to the dangers of drink.



PETER Treen is not proud to say he is an alcoholic.
But he is also not ashamed of it.

The dad-of-one admits that drink caused his world to fall apart.
Friends stopped ringing, he stopped working and he hid in his home with only the bottle for comfort.

"I stopped being Peter Treen," said the 60-year-old.

"I became someone else, I lost my short-term memory and I became a complete loner."

But in 1986, four years after being among the first of the British task force to arrive in the Falklands, he finally went to see his GP and told him: "I think I have a problem."

"I was quite nervous and had no idea what would happen," said Peter.

"But he just said 'by coming here you are halfway to recovery'. Before I knew it I was in hospital getting cared for and then in homes being looked after."

Peter had spent more than four years in West View Lodge, in West View Road, Hartlepool, getting help with his dementia and learning to look after himself after moving from another nursing home in Redcar.

Now, as he leaves the home today to start a new life, he wants people to hear his story in hope other addicts also get the help they need.

He said: "I am an alcoholic, but I want to tell my story because there should be no shame in it. I am only as well as I am now because of the people who have helped me.

"I was never a bad drunk, not violent or anything like that. I just withdrew into myself and became almost a recluse.

"It happens over such a long time that there's no clear moment when you realise you have a problem."

Peter started drinking heavily at just 17 when he joined the 17th Port Regiment Royal Corps of Transport, which is attached to the Navy and based in Southampton.

"It was a drinking culture and everyone was one of the lads," said Peter who travelled the world during his 18 years in the forces.

Then the Falklands War happened in 1982 and Peter was on board LSL Sir Lancelot, which was among the ships sent to reclaim the islands from the Argentinians.

But, despite hating "the rocks" after losing friends in the war, Peter got a job building an airport on the main island when the war came to an end.