Tadhg Hickey: 'I wake up every day with alcoholism and I have to treat it every day'

It was that grinding guilt of hurting others that ultimately led me to stop, that and the feeling that I was going to die if I didn't.

Tadhg Hickey. Picture: Cathal Noonan. 

I grew up in McCurtain’s Villas in Cork City which was perfect for a class-obsessed, Wiki-Marxist like myself. We were perched between lah di dah Sunday’s Well and Mardyke Walk (cricket clubs and everything) and Barrack Street, which although quite bougie these days, was the wild west in the early 90s, with more pubs than sense.

It was mostly myself, Mam, Dad and my sister at home (older brothers were married and/or living elsewhere).