Paul got drunk for the first time at the age of nine, although he had started drinking even before then. After taking a mixture of whiskey and beer, he suffered a blackout and had to be rushed to hospital. It was the start of 20 years of dependency on drink and drugs.
"I should have been dead a thousand times, so I've been lucky," he says.
Paul has just completed his fourth week at Harristown House. He had been in and out of the Children's Court from the age of 10, and as an adult has been sent to prison 16 times.
He started drinking with friends when they gathered near his home at weekends, and stole drink or the money to buy it.
"It was all I knew. When I started to abuse drink and drugs, I didn't see any danger. I just thought it was the norm. I didn't even know about addiction, I just thought it was what everybody else did."
He realised at 19 that he needed help. He went to a treatment centre for the first time, but did not put his heart into it.
"I looked at it that I was too young to give up, that I had my whole life ahead of me, and that if I gave it up I would have no enjoyment ahead." He went on to take LSD, speed and pills.
When he got out of prison last year, he again resolved to give up drinking and went to a treatment centre for four weeks. "I had my heart set on it. I kept away from old friends because I knew I would be dragged down again. I got a job, something I never had before, and everything was going great."
Problems started again when he had an accident at work and severed the tendons in his fingers. In hospital he was given a morphine shot and a prescription for painkillers. "This set the craving off worse, and then I was doing nothing again and started to abuse the tablets. Then I started drinking again, down on top of them."
On one of these occasions he committed a larceny for which he was sent to Harristown House. "I was really low at the time, and after committing that it brought me lower again because I wanted away from that.
"There is a part of me that is happier that I got caught, because I could have gone on to do worse things. Then the old part doesn't want to be caught, but I am happier now because I can do something about it."
After four weeks on the programme, he says it is going to mean taking one day at a time. "I won't say it is easy. It is tough when you are faced with the truth . . .
"The truth is hard, when you look back at what you did and all the hurt I've caused, especially to people who cared for me."
He says he was never educated about the dangers of drink, and that young people today need this information more than ever. He accepts that the future will not be easy.
"I hope to get back on track - in work, attending meetings and feeling better in myself and my way of thinking. I do have a fear that if I go back drinking I will be back in prison again.
"I know I am going to have to take it one day at a time. It will be a struggle but it can't be as hard as what I'm after putting myself through the last few years."