By the time I was 12 years of age - that would have been about 1967 - I was drinking destructively. At 15, I was sent to an 'Approved' school for almost 3 years. Then it got really bad. I spent upwards of 20 years living rough. Sometimes being admitted to hospitals of one kind or another, just long enough to get patched up and then get back on the drink again. Back to the world which, for alcoholics, is 'normal'. Not 'you're' normal' but ours. It's a place where we live out our lives by 'our' rules, not yours.