The site was originally launched to store his funny drunken tales from the weekend but within weeks it escalated and thousands of befuddled people had read up on the tales of drunken debauchery.
News spread fast and within weeks of its launch Befuddle was featured in top Internet websites and national and regional press, radio and television.
Now the site receives thousands of visitors daily and in November 2003, it had 1,500,000 visitors looking at 5,500,000 pages!
The ball started rolling when Befuddle was featured in Yahoo! and the national tabloid The Sun announced the launch in their "Punny Old World" section:
PINT-ERNET
RAY Theakston, 25, of Leeds, has launched a web-site devoted to boozy tales at www.befuddle.co.uk
The Yorkshire Evening Post did an excellent full page spread:
Drink site brews nicely online
TALES of alcohol-related adventures and mishaps are food and drink to thousands of bar room raconteurs.
And a Leeds computer worker has now come up with the idea of devoting an internet website to his favourite subject.
Ray Theakston's site, www.befuddle.co.uk, has had thousands of hits from all over the world since he set it up in his spare time from home at the beginning of this month.
Now he is looking at ways of further developing his idea and maybe becoming one of a growing number of internet millionaires who have made a fortune from exploiting the commercial potential of computer technology. The site is a celebration of drink-inspired anecdotes and jokes - many of them rather too risque to reproduce here in a family newspaper. Needless to say, they include supposedly true stories of incidents on nights out and on holidays.
The site's popularity has snowballed since it gained publicity in the national press and on a popular website as one of the websites of the week.
Ray, 25, who lives in Burley, Leeds, and works for the new media company Ananova in the city, said: "Everyone's got a story to tell in the pub so I thought why not have a website where people can put their own stories, along with alcohol jokes and games.
"The name 'befuddle' sums up my character completely because I'm in a befuddled state every weekend. Judging by the response to the site, many other people around the world are as well.
"Every day I am getting about 300 new people visiting the site and more anecdotes and jokes are being submitted by people every day, so I am spending every evening adding to the site."
Ray - who is no relation to the famous Yorkshire brewery with which he shares his surname - is now looking at the possible commercial possibilities. A popular website could be a money-spinner in terms of advertising or sponsorship.
He said: "If I could make money out of it that would be brilliant but at the moment it's just something I enjoy.
Ray, who regularly drinks in his home town of Middlesbrough, was featured in the local Evening Gazette, who wanted to highlight the dangers of drinking ... on top of a computer :)
