It's the sobering tell-all tale of a young, successful, hubristic, hard-drinking journalist who in his meltdown becomes the scourge of pubs and shebeens around the country. Regularly found comatose, collapsed in a puddle of his own excesses, Siddall became a frequent patient in lock-down psychiatric wards. He finally confronted himself after being ordered by court to two years in rehab.

Dystopia punches hard in the solar plexus and in a world awash with so-called misery memoirs and vic-lit (victim literature) provides a new take on addiction. But far from being a mere account of sordidness and degradation – or "war story" – it also peels away the misconceptions about this disease. Dystopia delves deeply into the myths and misinformation surrounding addiction, a condition that's been dubbed "the most democratic and painful of all diseases."