Thanks Dee, I like most others lost touch with him over the years. It's still sad seeing someone live like that. But he lived the way he wanted to. He said more than once that he didn't want to stop. He had been dried out a few times, set up in a flat, "helped" but he always said he liked drinking and couldn't see himself wanting to live without drinking, even the times he wasn't using.
And this is the distinction I think Trimpey makes between being addicted (where you want to stop, but feel you can't, or want to stop using, then again you don't) and chemical dependancy, where you are chemically dependant on a substance, but don't want to stop.