A portrait of the piss artist as a young man by Tadhg Hickey

It was love at first taste for 15-year-old Tadhg Hickey when he drank a can of Scrumpy Jack on the night of his exam results. Straight away it provided a cure for that constant feeling of ‘something wrong, something not quite right’, a way of numbing anxiety and childhood trauma. He realised he was extraordinarily good at drinking and energetically threw himself into a life of pubs, parties and staying pissed, while also managing to become a comedian – but alcohol would have the last laugh. Here, Tadhg shares the redemptive process of recovering from this deadly but ultimately treatable illness, and remaining sober.