Ella Coulter has just spent the last four months sober. It's the first time she has gone without drinking in 15 years.

She has decided to share her story to help break down the stigma surrounding addiction to Australia's most available and popular drug

The 29-year-old is not a stereotypical alcoholic.

"When you say drinking problem or alcoholic, a lot of people just [think of] a man on a park bench with a brown paper bag and that's not the case," she said.

"There are so many people, doctors and lawyers and people like me."

Ms Coulter would drink before going out, without the knowledge of her friends. ( Supplied )

Ms Coulter started drinking when she was in Year 8. She began skipping school to drink with her twin sister Tessa and, as they got older, their drinking worsened.

Working in hospitality in her early 20s, the Adelaide woman was surrounded by alcohol at work and at home.

"I think I normalised it because everyone around me was drinking and because alcohol is a normal thing here, it's legal, everybody does it. I think it's a lot of people's solution to everything," she said.

"When you are happy you celebrate with a drink, when you are sad you have a drink, when you are anxious you have a drink."

Ms Coulter said "no-one knew how much I was drinking, not even my closest friends".

"If I was going to have dinner with my friends I would have a bottle of wine, maybe a little bit more, before I went to the dinner and they would have no idea," she said.

"I didn't think I truly needed help until I was pretty much on my knees crying, saying 'I can't live this way anymore'."

Ella Coulter (right) and her sister Tessa have both battled an addiction to drinking. ( Supplied )

Alcohol services just waiting 'at the bottom of a cliff'

Ms Coulter hit rock bottom at the end of last year. But, inspired by her sister who has now been sober for four years, she booked herself into a three-month private residential rehabilitation program.

It's a program that she considers herself lucky to have been able to afford.

The sisters now work daily at sobriety, but for many South Australians battling drug and alcohol abuse the services are out of reach.

Michael White from the South Australian Network of Drug and Alcohol Services (SANDAS) said the lack of public services meant only around half those seeking help were getting the support they needed.

"If somebody phones up and says 'I want help with my drinking' or 'I want help with my drug dependence' and somebody says 'well come back in four weeks' or 'come back in six weeks' that person is unlikely to still be at the stage where they want to change so they are likely to relapse," he said.

"Without an adequate treatment service we basically sit at the bottom of a cliff waiting for people to fall off and pop them in ambulances and send them to hospitals."

Rehab service provider Simon Bowen says there is a major gap in services. ( ABC News: Sarah Hancock )

Simon Bowen, who runs the private rehabilitation centre Visible Recovery agrees there is a gap in services.

"They have nowhere to go, they either wait for four months to get into a government program that is running or they don't get help, and that window can see people die," he said.

"That's the reality, addiction kills."

In South Australia more people seek treatment for addiction to alcohol than any other drug.

"Methamphetamine in this state is particularly bad and I don't want to detract from that but certainly I see a lot more alcohol admissions than I do drug admissions," Mr Bowen said.

"At the moment, 80 per cent of the people in here are here [for] alcohol addiction."