Richie Nimmo is making every post a winner since acknowledging his alcohol addiction. Photo/Stuart Munro
The hardest journey Richie Nimmo ever made started on a rainy Sunday afternoon in August four years ago.
He was standing on the verandah of his Hunterville home watching his wife and children drive away.
For his wife what had happened in the previous few hours was the last straw. Richie's drinking had forced her hand - and she acted.
He didn't know it then - and at that point wouldn't have accepted the fact - but he was an alcoholic. He was 38.
Richie Nimmo is well-known in this neck of the woods. Educated in Wanganui, secondary schooling at Wanganui Boys' College, he was a better than average rugby player, earning senior Wanganui rep honours for one season as a 25-year-old.
He was also a scratch golfer and won several junior titles and one centre title in bowls. In short, your typical Kiwi bloke - sports mad, hard-working and hard-drinking.
Now 42, Richie is speaking to the Chronicle because he knows that his story will resonate with someone out there and prompt them to get help for their addiction.
"I've had a problem with alcohol since I was a young fulla, about 17 or 18. I haven't disguised it, but rather I haven't admitted it was a problem for me.
"I'd be out with the boys after rugby and it would be drink, drink, drink. Then I'd find I'd get anxious if there wasn't any beer on the table."
After the game of club rugby on Saturday and after-match drinks, he and his future wife would have a meal in town and he'd drink some more.
"But I'd wake up the next morning wondering what had happened the night before. I sometimes couldn't even remember if we'd been out for tea.
"Or I'd help the kids with their homework then ask them to do it in the morning as I couldn't remember doing it the night before."
He doesn't want to hide behind anonymity: "People would read it just as a story about another 42-year-old who had a drinking problem."
In between times, he carved out a solid business career as a greenkeeper and turf contractor operating his own business and contracting services to the local council.
Some years ago, they sold the business and the family moved to Hunterville where Richie is contracted to the Rangitira Golf Club, as well as looking after the town's bowling club and putting in lawns.
This is not a story about a young man going from beer bingeing to hard spirits. He hardly ever touched the spirits. He stuck to beer - but lots of it.
Never during the day when he was at work, but come knock-off time things changed. He'd go to the fridge, knock the top off a beer "and then it would start".
"It was like binge drinking - when I drank I'd drink rapidly. My wife knew I had a problem as I was always encouraging her to drink with me to justify my own drinking.
"Or I would be out after rugby, bowls or golf and say I'd be home at 6 o'clock but in fact I'd fall out of the cab at 11 o'clock absolutely bladdered.
"The amount of times I apologised was sickening.
"My wife would give me a tune-up in the morning and I'd tone things down for a few weeks and everything's lovely jubbly ... but then it creeps up on you again."
When playing senior rugby in the city, Richie was good enough to get a rep trial in the early 1990s.
"I turned up pissed for that trial on the Sunday morning. I was half-an-hour late and had my jersey on inside out. The coach took me aside and said there were guys who'd had a good time the night before but knew when to stop. He just told me to run along home."
He did get another chance in 1995 - significantly after he had won a bet to stay off the grog for nine months.
"I did. Life was good. I was fit, 24, so I took the chance to play for Wanganui with both hands. Had a good season on and off the field."
His job took him and the family to Hunterville and the wheels came off, big time. They rented a house across the road from the rugby ground and the local club was too tempting not to play for.
"That was really the dumbest thing I did, given my drinking problem. Typically country teams played hard and partied hard. And I wanted to get to know the locals as well and show them I could play well."
That's when "normal service" resumed
Training was only one night a week but, after a meal at the hotel, he'd roll back home at 11pm or later, drunk again. And don't forget Saturdays - "once I started drinking I couldn't stop".
The team won its competition, there was a big photo shoot to end the season, family time with a meal and celebration. His wife and the children went home at 8pm but Richie stayed on. He'd be home "soon".
That "soon" was about six hours later. He was shirtless and so drunk he couldn't stand without his mates holding him up. He could remember none of it.
For his wife, it was the last straw. Later that morning, she bundled the kids in the car saying they were off and that he needed to sort his life out.
"I'll never forget that day. It was raining hard and I was standing on the verandah. The kids were waving out the back window. I felt like my guts had been ripped out."
Richie said he knew his wife had done the right thing that day but "that was a long, long day".
The upshot was he contacted someone he knew who had been a recovering alcoholic for 22 years.
"He answered the phone. I said: 'It's Richie here. I need your help.' He said: 'I've been waiting for this call for a long time.' He knew.
"I just broke down and bawled my eyes out. I had no idea what to do.
"But he knew the family wanted me to get help. He came over the next day (a Monday) and that night he took me to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting."
That first meeting was terrifying. Richie was shaking like a leaf and his palms were sweating - but it was a lifesaver and life-changer.
"The people at that meeting told their stories about drinking a bottle of scotch or gin a day. But I kept thinking I'm not an alcoholic because I only drink beer.
"Then another one told how he used to drink a packet of stubbies all day every day. That's when I realised I did have a problem. It wasn't the differences; it was the similarities.
"When I was drinking I'd wake up the morning after with a huge cloud of guilt over me, probably because I knew I had a problem, lying to my wife. It's a horrible feeling. And it's the guilt, because you know your actions are hurting her and your family."
Richie always had a clownish streak in him so his antics after drinking probably didn't look any different to some. But he says he had lost his personality during those last years, his true personality. He was a "happy drunk". Thankfully there was never violence.
In August this year, he'll tick off four years since that first AA meeting. His last drink was on August 15, 2010, about 24 hours after that all-night celebration with his rugby mates.
Oddly it wasn't giving up the drink that worried him as much as him thinking about what other people would think of him; the fear he wasn't going to be your typical Kiwi "bloke's bloke" anymore.
He's comfortable in his space now, however. He's still a single figure golfer and after a round he'll stay for a couple of non-alcoholic drinks.
He feels cured but he knows that, as every recovering drinker knows, Mr Alcohol "is in the car park doing press ups, just waiting for me".
"I'm not religious or anything but things are going well in our lives. I love my wife more than ever, we're secure, the kids are happy and the job's great. I'm pretty sure some of my mates still struggle with the fact I don't drink any more.
"Others drinking doesn't bother me. We have beer in the fridge at home and there are spirits and wine there too for anyone who wants it. But drinking's not a place I'm going back to. It hurts too much and I've come too far.
"We were all binge drinkers as younger blokes. The problem was it stayed with me."
Richie said that first year off the booze was the hardest because the time was counted, whether it was in hours, days or weeks.
"I've accepted alcoholism for what it is - an illness, an addiction. I accept what I am and I'm married to a wonderful woman. Through it all she stuck with me. I'm bloody lucky."
He said Hunterville was a "fantastic place" to bring up kids. He's currently on the board of trustees at Hunterville School, the squash club committee and actively involved in the community.