It began with anxiety. Max* had struggled with the problem throughout his teens, but it was only later that his mother realised he had begun to self-medicate by smoking cannabis. The waiting list for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services was so long that the NHS advised he should be referred to the adult mental health service instead as - by the time he was seen - he would probably be too old for CAMHS.
READ MORE: How did we get here?: A short history of Scotland's changing relationship with alcohol Rehab beds up by just 32 in three years amid recovery crisis Beyond minimum unit pricing: Did it work - and what else should we be doing? By the time he was 17, Max was binge drinking alcohol - usually Buckfast - sometimes with friends to socialise, but other times on his own to calm his nerves. As the anxiety worsened, he dropped out of college and then struggled to turn up for work as a labourer. His mother, Linda*, who lives in the Borders, said a growing dependence on alcohol, cocaine and benzodiazepines such as 'street Valium' started to have a disastrous impact on her son's moods.
She said: "He was having panic attacks. There were times when he punched holes in his bedroom wall. "He wasn't usually a person with a temper but all of a sudden he'd have these outbursts and then he would feel really down afterwards and shut himself away in his room.
"He didn't understand why he found it difficult. He couldn't pinpoint why he felt like that - he was just constantly anxious. .