George Bush: 'Drunk as a skunk', he decided to stop drinking

ON his 40th birthday George Bush got "as drunk as a skunk" and then told his wife he was planning to give up drinking for good.

In an interview on United States television last night, he said: "Laura, bless her heart, kind of, you know, looked at me like, 'I've heard this before'."

Now 64, he believes the decision to stop drinking set him on course for the White House.

"Alcohol becomes central to your life," he said. "And I finally woke up and realised that I did not want to live a life where alcohol was central. And I'm convinced, I really am convinced, had I not quit drinking, I wouldn't be sitting here as a former president."

Mr Bush said he was a "habitual drinker" rather than an alcoholic.

"I could easily have a beer or two, or a martini before dinner, bourbons, B&Bs," he said. "I was a drinker. Now I wasn't a knee-walkin' drunk. And I have concluded I was not chemically addicted, like some of my friends were."

However, the former president said his love of alcohol changed his perspective on life.

"Well, it became a love, and therefore began to compete for my love with my wife and my daughters. I was a rootless guy, and drinking didn't compete with anything."

He recalled a few incidents where alcohol "caused me to be stupid". Once, he said, he was drunk at his parents' dinner table. "And I'm sitting next to a beautiful woman, a friend of mother and dad's, and I said to her out loud, 'What is sex like after 50?'"

It was one of the occasions, he said, that made him realise he had become a "wiseass".