“I ended up moving in with my grandparents – when I was seven. I don’t know why. That’s just the way it was. My Mam and my step-dad – I don’t see them. I haven’t for years. I never knew my Dad.
When I was 12 or so I started drinking. You wanted to be the same as everyone else. Up around the school there’d be 50 to 100 people – everyone who couldn’t get into a pub. You’d do four cans or so. Then eight or twelve (cans). By fifteen I was doing straight vodka followed by a sup of Coke and a fag – ‘chasing’ we called it. Then there was some hash around and I did some party drugs too.