It might have had posh patrons, but the idea was to make treatment available “to anyone who desired it”. Growth has been slow but steady. After initially providing assessment, counselling and referral, it opened two residential halfway houses, one for men and one for women, and in 1992 it launched Sharp, a 12-week day-care programme that has been successful enough to spawn in 2005 an offshoot in Liverpool. Last year the CDC merged with the residential treatment centre Clouds House and the fundraising and research body Action on Addiction.

The merger has given Millington-Drake, who is 52, a new and freer role within the organisation. “I was stifled by directives, health and safety initiatives, employment law. I spent all my time complying. Now I’m back to doing what I love.” When I put it to him that he is something of a saint, he looks appalled. He prefers to see his drive as “pathological. You could say I’m addicted to the addicted.” If so, it is an addiction that doesn’t need any treatment.