I recall during my early years as a clinical psychologist being asked by hospital staff to speak with a 32-year-old man addicted to alcohol who was being discharged following treatment for pancreatitis. This had been his third admission for the same illness, and hospital practitioners were exasperated by his choice to continue dri- ing despite being repeatedly told it would cause irreparable damage to his pancreas from which he would be unlikely to survive. I met him in a side-room on the ward. He sat in his pyjamas in the corner of the room, thin and ashen looking, with a worried frown fixed...

I recall during my early years as a clinical psychologist being asked by hospital staff to speak with a 32-year-old man addicted to alcohol who was being discharged following treatment for pancreatitis. This had been his third admission for the same illness, and hospital practitioners were exasperated by his choice to continue dri- ing despite being repeatedly told it would cause irreparable damage to his pancreas from which he would be unlikely to survive. I met him in a side-room on the ward. He sat in his pyjamas in the corner of the room, thin and ashen looking, with a worried frown fixed...