"When I lifted up a drink I had no idea what I would do or where I would end up," says Michael. "I might say, `I'll be back by nine o'clock', and I'd be back two days later.
"Alcoholism affects your ability to get to work tomorrow morning. It affects the way you get on with your wife and children. There are loads of men who are fond of booze but are not alcoholics. "When it comes to the crunch they can put the drink to one side and look after the family. But the alcoholic can't put it to one side."
Michael speaks from experience - alcoholism almost wrecked his marriage. Today he has been off the drink for many years and is an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. But "off the drink" is a misleading term, he argues. There's more to giving up drink than not drinking.
"A psychic change must take place in the alcoholic if he is to get well," he says. "When I stopped drinking my mind was savage, I had a huge resentment towards my wife and everyone else.
"The alcoholic who becomes sober sometimes becomes a dictator at home. I could easily have lost the best partner I could ever have had. I had to learn I was leading a selfish little life."
The essential ingredient in bringing about that psychic change, he believes, lies in the spiritual aspect of AA. This involves the alcoholic admitting that he or she is helpless and surrendering to a "higher power".
"Most of us have had problems unless we came to terms with God as we understood it," he says.
His view is supported by his colleague, John, who believes that that psychic change is the key to losing the craving for a drink.
"The worst of all is staying off drink but still wanting it," he says. "I knew a man who was off the drink for many years and wanted a drink for every day of that time. If drink still appeals to me I am still under the influence."
The last time he - finally - gave up drinking and returned to the AA, "I was amazed I didn't have that want to take that drink."
AA has just entered its second half-century in Ireland. In ways it is extraordinary that it has survived that long. First, it is made up of thousands of alcoholics. Second, its members are, says Michael, "egomaniacs and as stubborn as they come", a description in which he includes himself. Third, it doesn't enforce rules and doesn't insist that its members help it to pay its way.
"There are no rules that we enforce," says Michael. "We don't say you are not doing the programme. You can go to an AA meeting and tell them they are all mad and there will be no problem about it.
"You could even have a naggin in your pocket and not be thrown out - it doesn't often happen but it happens."
And as regards finance, "we are only supported by our own contributions," says John. "AA cannot own any property, it can only lease. We don't have collections.
"But if a fellow wants to come to the AA and not put a penny on the table from the day he arrives until the day he leaves 25 years later, that's all right."
Yet the AA is flourishing, with 706 groups holding 78,000 meetings each year in Ireland. The traditional image of the AA member is of someone who has lost absolutely everything before turning to the self-help organisation. But that, say Michael and John, is changing.
"I see young lads and lasses who haven't been married and who haven't had a wrecked marriage," says John. "In the early days of AA the rock-bottom cases were the ones coming in the door," says Michael. "Now the rock-bottom has risen; people with jobs, two cars and a family are coming to the fellowship."
People in their teens join the AA. So do people in their 70s.
Many members, like John and Michael, attend several meetings a week. "I would average about two to three meetings a week," says Michael. "It means I give something back."
He also needs to be reminded of what alcoholism could do to him. "This disease," he says, "will keep telling you don't have it."