Amanda’s diary is a record of achievement.

“Day one, day two, day three..” penned on each entry may not seem significant to anyone else, but for Amanda it records an important chapter in her life.

She has been abstinent from drinking for 300 days. Amanda doesn’t deny that it’s been difficult. Her only regret is she didn’t do it sooner.

As doctors warn that people should go at least three days without drinking, to allow their livers to recover from the effects of alcohol, the spotlight has once again been placed on our binge-drinking culture.

Amanda, from Bradford, was in her early teens when she started drinking. She is particularly concerned about young people and hopes sharing her own experience will raise awareness of the devastation drinking can cause.

“I was drinking problematically practically all my life,” she says, adding that she doesn’t think there is enough education in schools about drinking.

“That is where it does really need to start,” she says. “At that age you think you’re just having a good time and think it’s normal. You think you’re abnormal when you’re not doing it, so throughout my life it has been a problem.”

She tried recovery but failed. “It was a good service, but I don’t think I was ready,” she says.

The turning point came when she was drinking a litre bottle of vodka a day. “I needed help. I’d tried umpteen times to do it myself, but I just couldn’t do it. Piccadilly opened the doors to me,” says Amanda, referring to the Bradford project which has helped her and many others beat their addictions and turn their lives around.

The Piccadilly Project launched in Bradford 15 years ago under the umbrella of Lifeline, a national charity providing drug and alcohol programmes nationwide.

Treatment involves structured support and after-care. Within that is the SHARE programme (Self Help Recovery Exchange) involving recovering addicts supporting others wanting to beat their addictions.

The project also works with other agencies and partnerships providing detox and rehabilitation.

Amanda’s recovery programme involved structured care and relapse prevention. “The more you put in, the more you get out,” she says. “I had to learn how to be an adult sober. You have to change old habits. It may be tough, but that is the reality of it. The change in your life is very much worth it.”

Amanda is now a volunteer peer mentor with the project, using her experience to help others.

Martin Barrett started drinking at 18. “Out with mates, having a good time and losing your inhibitions is usually where it starts,” he says.

“Then I started to use it if I got a little down. I started to use it as a short cut to relaxation and a lazy way to not feeling. As I progressed through life and things got a bit more complicated, I was picking it (alcohol) up every time there was a difficulty.

“Then it got to the stage where I was building up difficulties as an excuse to drink. At that stage I think I was in trouble.”

While Martin’s family and employers were supportive, he went through a stage of telling himself he was only hurting himself, when, in reality, his drinking was impacting on others.

He thought he could control it, but he couldn’t. After seeking help 18 months ago through the Lifeline Bradford Piccadilly Project, he knew he would have to remain abstinent to succeed.

“I felt I could no longer throw the goodwill back in their faces. No matter what my situation, I had to take responsibility for my addiction,” says Martin, 45.

Now undergoing a recovery programme, he is looking forward to becoming a representative for the organisation’s feedback group.

“I feel the structured day care has been my battle,” says Martin. “I have had to get up close to the enemy and take my life back out of its cold, dead hands.

“Now I have my wits about me. I am not guaranteed to get everything right, I am only a human being, but I stand a fighting chance.”

For more information, call Lifeline on (01274) 735775.