If you ever meet me, you'll probably think me odd. Offer me a cup of tea and I'll politely refuse it. Ask me for my telephone number and I'll suggest you write it down while I dictate it. Anything I try to carry I'm likely to spill or drop; I find it almost impossible to write, even my own signature. My disability affects almost 4% of the population. It is one of the most common neurological disorders, more common than stroke, Alzheimer's or migraine, as much as 20 times more common than Parkinson's. It is essential tremor, or ET.

I have had ET since I was eight, though it can strike at any age. It is an uncontrollable shaking of the hands, or sometimes the head, sometimes both. Its cause is unknown, but inheritance may play a part. It may be an instability in the neuronal feedback loops controlling the hands and head. Sex chromosomes or hormones may also be factors, given that head (and voice) tremor is more common in females, while hand tremor is more common in males.

ET is not life-threatening; until recently it was known as benign essential tremor. However, as any ET sufferer will tell you, even a "benign" disability can severely affect one's life. At school, fellow pupils tirelessly turned to me for unwilling entertainment. Giggling and pointing accompanied most of my school dinners as I failed to get food from my plate to my mouth. There was no respite in the classroom. I would often be "volunteered" when a teacher wanted someone to write on the blackboard. If I knew it was to be my turn I would miss the bus, hide in the toilets, feign a fatal illness - anything to avoid the humiliation. No one came to my aid, that I recall. I would have hated that anyway: it would only have attracted more attention.

When I was a teenager my mother took me to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, where we were unexpectedly paraded in front of a lecture hall full of medical students - a mortifying experience that served no purpose other than to establish that I was not suffering from Parkinson's.

Early on I realised that many careers were closed to me. I would never be a doctor or dentist, nor a painter; I would never be able to work in a bank or post office, or anywhere involving form-filling; and notwithstanding an excellent vibrato I would never make a good musician. But I was fortunate: at least I could make my choice in the full knowledge of my disability. Those who contract ET later in life aren't so lucky. A professional violinist was already in the middle of a successful career when ET put paid to that.

I chose the computer industry, partly because everybody used keyboards instead of pen and paper. Over 30 years I developed various strategies for surviving the working day such as asking receptionists to sign visitors' books for me, claiming numerous sprained wrists. The only duties I could neither avoid nor handle satisfactorily were business lunches.

It was at university I discovered alcohol was the only thing that steadied my hands. With a pint inside me I became like everyone else: I could lift a glass with one hand, write my own name, flip beermats. So from then on, whenever I knew my ET was to be "on show", I always tried to get a couple of drinks down me beforehand. Unfortunately, over the years the effect gradually wore off. At 20 a single pint was enough; before an important business lunch at age 45 I needed three, or a whole bottle of wine. Plainly, this couldn't go on.

I made an appointment with a neurologist at Oxford's Radcliffe Infirmary. Maybe a proper cure had been found while I'd been drowning in my own. He confirmed the diagnosis of ET and asked me how I handled it. I confessed that drink handled it for me. He wasn't surprised: "Many ET sufferers use alcohol as a form of treatment. That's why they risk becoming alcoholics."

"There are now three other treatments," he went on. "The most successful is the beta-blocker, Propranolol. If that doesn't work we can try the anti-convulsant, Primidone, but that can be addictive. The third is botulinum toxin." He smiled at my raised eyebrows. "Yes, as in botulism. We inject it directly into the forearm muscles and it has the effect of inhibiting the tremor."

He suggested starting with Propranolol, known to help about 40% of ET sufferers. It was naive of me, but for the first time since the age of eight I felt optimistic, enough even to "come out" by openly telling people that I had ET, after 40 years of being ashamed of it. After eight weeks I reached 160mg/day, on which I have remained ever since. The tremor stabilised for a while - it may even have lessened a little - but then resumed its deterioration. On one memorable occasion I needed so desperately to have steady hands that I took the betablockers, a few stiff drinks and a dose of Primidone. Halfway through the evening I felt as if I had been run over by a bus. And my hands still shook.

Willing to try anything by then, I went to an acupuncturist, who concluded that the alcohol was actually making my condition worse. Within three months she had got me off it and I remained teetotal for a further year. The tremor undoubtedly improved. I also felt a lot better.

Unfortunately I couldn't afford to continue attending her sessions indefinitely, and what with various new stresses in my life I am now back on my old diet of booze and betablockers. The tremor continues to deteriorate so I suppose the next step is botulinum toxin, though I don't relish it.

A doctor in Birmingham recently announced that plunging the forearm into cold water can diminish ET to as little as a quarter of its normal strength for up to 90 minutes. Perhaps there's a market for a portable arm freezer to strap on just before those difficult public occasions.

I have also heard that in extreme cases, thalamotomy (surgical destruction of part of the thalamus) has proved effective, but I don't think I'm that desperate yet. Maybe, like most ET sufferers, I should simply learn to live with it - betablockers, drink and all - though it would be nice to be sober occasionally.

There is a bright side, apparently: if we manage to avoid cirrhosis we tend to live longer than other people. We also have higher IQs.

• The National Tremor Foundation: 01708 386 399 (staffed on Thursdays only).