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Dead at 22. Gareth Anderson should have been just beginning his life - at university, settling down at work, dreaming a young man's dreams, harbouring ambitions and hopes.
But he was robbed of those dreams, those ambitions, those unlived years, because he was addicted to alcohol.
You've probably heard of him. A few years ago, he was the young man who boasted on social websites of downing 30 cans of super strength larger, how he was a "full time stoner and alcoholic" and how he feared ever to find himself sober. His ex-policeman father fought unsuccessfully to get him a liver transplant.
If that doesn't stir your memory, Gareth Anderson was the one who, while being treated at the Ulster Hospital detached himself from his drip, left his bed and shuffled to the nearby Moat Inn, hoping to be served a pint.
After treatment in London, there was a brief recovery but then he took to drink again and tried to kill himself. And now he is dead. Aged 22. Because of booze.
We do not know the demons that drove Gareth to his death but, while an extreme case, his story isn't unique in Northern Ireland.
Our society revels in drink. We are obsessed by it. Here a man can still be judged by how much he can put down in a 'sesh'; it's a place where a teetotaller is an uptight pain in the ass while someone slumped in the middle of Shaftesbury Square is 'a good laugh'. For the drunk, tomorrow is literally another day where the slate is wiped clean and we all pretend to 'forget about the whole thing'. In a society where the whole point of an evening out for thousands and thousands of people is get 'blootered' why should we be surprised that young men are literally dying in front of our eyes? Not for us the glass of wine and sophisticated chat about politics and books around the taverna table. That's for big continental jessies.
We yadda yadda yadda about the reasons why we in Northern Ireland cannot envisage an evening out without alcohol. The remnants of working class industrial culture? Socially disenfranchised people seeking relief from the grimness of their lives? A cold, rainy place where people are drawn to the cosy glow of their local pubs like moths to a flame? Reaction against the innate puritanism of the place? We just like a good gargle? So it goes on.
But we do have a real problem. They may not make the headlines but we have thousands of Gareth Andersons in our midst. Thanks to alcohol and a culture where every landmark in life - birth, exams, marriage, career change, promotion, success and failure, even death - is greeted with a tidal wave of booze.
Car wrecks hiding death by alcohol. Heart attacks hiding death by drink. Suicides hiding death by booze.
Of course, the Government should 'do something' about it - be it introduce a minimum price for alcohol, close the pubs earlier, increase education and awareness.
Don't we give ... ahem ... 'heavy' drinkers too many bye-balls? The colleague at a works do talking like a washing machine by 9.30pm? The friend who downs a couple of bottles of wine each evening with their meal?
The boozed up Lothario? The nasty gaunch bugger who thinks it's permissible to 'give his opinion about things' after five pints?
Do we ever have the nerve to tell them off? No, 99 times out of a 100, we ignore their transgressions. Or worse, we lionise them. 'The state of you last night', 'Been there, mate', 'Respect yo! You can put it away ...'
Maybe for their sakes - and for ours - we should stop handing them endless 'Get Out of Jail Cards' and just tell the truth. "You are a nasty drunken boor".
But that would mean being a party pooper, wouldn't it? It would also mean that we would have to do something. You know, take a real interest in someone's life. Much easier to say, "Aren't you the boyo?" and cross to the other side of the room.
Maybe nothing and no one could have saved Gareth Anderson from killing himself through booze. Heaven knows, his desperate family tried. But thousands of lives could be saved if we changed our attitude to so-called social drinking. Investing even a quarter of the effort into controlling alcohol consumption that was put into banning smoking would be a start.
Don't hold your breath.
