While the Government makes plans to pull the plug on cheap booze, mum Alison Dixon is all too aware of the dangers after her son lost his battle with the bottle and took his own life. Here, she tells Liz Rowley about her campaign to ensure there's help for those who need it.

IT'S a vicious circle that even the Government is struggling to control. The more supermarkets drop the price of alcohol, the more pubs are under pressure to introduce happy hours.

No-one knows the pain and suffering alcohol addiction brings more than Alison Dixon, whose 26-year-old son Oliver took his own life in September 2005 following a lengthy battle with drink. But while the loss of someone so young has been unbearable, the 60-year-old mother from Sandbach has devoted the last 12 months campaigning to warn people of the dangers of alcohol in the hope that fewer people will suffer like her.

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Listen to Alison's story above as she collected signatures for her petition in January 2008

"I am pleased the Government is beginning to take it seriously," says Alison, who recently delivered a petition with over 4,000 names to Downing Street asking the Government to increase funding for alcohol services in Cheshire.

"I've written to Gordon Brown to say they must take principled action," she adds. "I want there to be cross-party discussions about how this issue is going to be addressed.

"All of us, especially parents, have a responsibility to make sure our children know and understand where drinking can lead and I think there is a huge responsibility for the Government to look at what it has done in allowing alcohol to become so freely available and so cheap that children buy it with their pocket money."

Born two months premature, Oliver was diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder when he was 16, but by then had already begun to drink in the hope of becoming more accepted by society.

"He actually suffered from Autistic Spectrum Disorder from infancy but slipped through the safety nets because he was so bright," says Alison. "It wasn't until he was 16 that he actually got a diagnosis. But the problem with this particular disorder was that it made it very difficult for him to make sense of the world.

"By the time he reached his teens, he was so desperate to fit in and feel accepted by his peers that he started to do what lots of other young people do, which was to experiment with different substances."

Aged 15, Oliver had started to drink, often buying two-litre bottles of cider for as little as 99p. Needless to say, by the time he was in his early 20s he had a severe problem.

"The trouble is that when you are young, you don't realise you can become addicted. There are no warnings," says Alison.

"It's terribly difficult to monitor a 16-year-old who is going out drinking as you can't be with them 24 hours a day. All you can do is try to discourage them from drinking.

"It wasn't until much later on that he realised he had a problem. He preferred to be seen as a drunk person rather than as someone with mental health problems.

"I knew he had a problem because he was getting into trouble, but drink brought him temporary relief from all the bad thoughts he was feeling and made him think he was just like everyone else."

Alison admits to crying every day for the first two years following Oliver's death.

Knowing she could put her energy into making a difference was something that gave her strength to carry on.

"After Oliver's inquest, the coroner actually wrote to the health authority to express his concerns about the number of people, and young people, who are dying from alcohol related illnesses," she explains.

"Yet six months later, in March 2007, I read in the local press that the alcohol service had lost three of its counsellors because they couldn't get funding.

"At the same time they had an 80 per cent increase of referrals from GPs of people with alcohol related problems.

"The drinks manufacturers and the Government are making billions out of this industry, yet none of it is being put back into the services to help people who have become addicted."

On the day Oliver died, he had been trying to get in touch with his counsellor at Central Cheshire Alcohol Services, in Crewe, but no-one was there to answer his call for help.

Alison says: "The list of telephone calls he made that day were the greatest gift he could have given to me, because it told me that he didn't want to die. Although he's gone, I know he's still with me and still inspiring me to get the message across."

Starting her campaign on October 4, 2007, Alison took to the streets of Crewe, where she stood for 16 weeks in the hope of raising awareness about the dangers of making alcohol so cheap and accessible. Now, just over a year on, she can't believe how much interest she has received.

"As a result of everything that's happened I've been invited into schools to talk to teenagers about the reality of alcohol. It's been very emotional."