Former Manchester United winger George Best has publicly pledged never to drink alcohol again one week after being released from hospital, where he was being treated for liver damage.
'I should be dead,' Best said. 'But I'm not and now I'm not going anywhere.' Best, 53, said he wanted to start a family with his wife, Alex, 27, who admitted in a joint interview on ITV's Tonight programme on Thursday night that she had punched him on several occasions. Best has a son by a previous marriage.
Best, promising to stay off the drink, said: 'No one can consume the amount of alcohol I was without eventually affecting the most important organ in the body. Drink has no respect for who you are. It's as bad taking heroin or whatever else people take.' He said that being treated in hospital for liver damage was the lowest point in his life, worse even than being jailed in 1984 for drink driving.
