Listening to Victoria Derbyshire on Radio 5 Live in 2011, I heard a lady called Rachel talking about her problem with alcoholism. I had always been aware that for thousands of people this is a medical condition and not simply a deliberate act by thoughtless and selfish people. But, listening to Rachel, an anaesthetist (who had for obvious reasons lost her job), underlined that even more. The hopelessness and desperation of this intelligent and tormented woman was such that I can remember exactly where I was when I listened to her slowly peeling away the layers of her addiction and misery.

On the same programme over the three years that followed I heard her several times chronicling for us her journeys in and out of rehab, into and out of the relapses. This week, we heard that she had died, having just come out of yet another slide back into the agony of alcoholic addiction.

It seems that many others like me were moved by the sadness and waste that inevitably characterises the life of the addict.

We never heard from her husband and daughter who had to support her and endure her frequent lapses back into the temporary euphoria and prevailing despair the alcoholic experiences. There is finally a numb kind of peace for them, at least, after what must have been an horrendous and helpless time watching someone they loved systematically destroying themselves.

If the ‘pull yourself together’ brigade – and we have all been guilty of saying that, I suspect, on occasion – ever needed proof that alcoholism needed a lot more help than those three words, then Rachel offered that proof.

I consider myself very lucky in that I do not have an addictive personality. And it is entirely a matter of luck. It may be that I have a controlling personality, because I really dislike not being in control. I never enjoyed those occasions in my youth when I experienced the effects of excess. If I had, it could have been me phoning in. Or you, dear reader.

We are the product of more than our DNA, of course, but genes combined with early life experiences can undoubtedly go a long way to removing the ability to function in this pressure cooker of a modern world.

It ill becomes those of us who are lucky enough to be able to escape alcoholism (or indeed anorexia or self-harming) to be judgemental.