Frankie Mac’s life has always been steeped in alcohol. As he grows older, however, he comes to the realization that he has wasted thirty years of his life. Now trying to escape from his violent past and attending an alcoholics’ support group, he recalls the past three decades that have resulted in the loveless, purposeless wreck of a man he has become.

Frankie’s reminiscences take us back to a working class childhood in Edinburgh where he grew up visiting pubs with his drunken philanderer of a father. As a young man, Frankie had adopted his father’s macho drinking habits and become the leader of a skinhead gang devoted to ska, Bruce Lee and pointless, bloody brawls which had alienated him from society. His relationships with women have been doomed by his insecurity and his need for drink.

When he meets and falls in love with Helen, an art school graduate, and later Mary, also a recovering alcoholic, there is a chance he can reform himself. “This is a film about hope,” says Frankie in a voiceover, but, despite his attempts to break free of himself, he is always getting dragged back...