The new Archbishop of Canterbury has spoken of how
his wife keeps an eye on his drinking as a result of his own father's
alcoholism.The Most Rev Justin Welby said that although "I very much enjoy a drink", he avoids doing so alone.
In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, he said he was aware "that the children of alcoholics have a much better chance themselves of having a dependency problem.
"So Caroline (his wife) and I have an agreement that she keeps an eye on me, so she'll say if I am going over... but I have rules myself. I don't drink alone, things like that. The experience of living with a parent who had a drink problem is... very shaping as to one's views of what human beings are like," he added.
"It took me a long time after he died to think back over my time with him with any equanimity."
Mr Welby was named as Dr Rowan Williams's successor in November and is due to be enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury in a service at Canterbury Cathedral on Thursday.
He resigned as an oil executive in 1987 after 11 years in the industry to train for the Anglican priesthood.
He also told the magazine that a day rarely goes by without him thinking of his daughter and first born, Johanna, who died in a car crash in France in 1983.
He and his wife have five other children.