I posted on social media that I never wanted to wake up – what happened next saved my life

On World Suicide Prevention Day, one man opens up about his dark times and how a phone call turned his life around

When people take their own lives it’s always an utter tragedy – that they were in a place of such despair, and the complete devastation for their loved ones, left behind. Suicide is often labeled a “selfish” act, but anyone taking their own life isn’t thinking rationally. In those moments, they’re extremely unwell.
When I was at my very lowest ebb, at the dreg ends of 2020, I had reached the end of a long road to self-destruction. I was an alcoholic who’d quit the modern Western world and moved to Thailand, with several failed relationships under my belt.
That final week of December was the most desperate of my life, though it had been building for a while. I had become hell bent on drinking myself to death. In any 24-hour window I’d consume 10 cans of beer, four bottles of red wine and a bottle of Thai whisky. Plus 40-odd Camel Lights, and Valium and Xanax (bought over the counter out here). 
I didn’t have that many followers on Twitter (as it still was) back then, but when steaming off my head I’d post erratic ramblings.
I would wake up in my apartment – strewn with empty bottles and pill packets, crushed cans and overfilled ashtrays – to find frantic messages from people back home. And not just worried friends and family, but even concerned strangers from across the other side of the world wrote to me begging me to get psychiatric help. 
The next day I would be mortified, trying to shrug it off, “I’m fine,” I’d WhatsApp. Then I would refuse to answer anyone. I’d delete everything – my posts and their messages –  then hide my phone and go out for more whisky. I spent Christmas day that year alone, crying and self-loathing. 
I wanted life to stop, to end it all with booze and pills and fall asleep and just… never wake up. Drunkenly, I tweeted words to that effect on December 30 and within a few minutes an ex-girlfriend, one I hadn’t spoken to in years, rang me. I picked up the call. 
She kept me on the phone for over two hours that night, talking me down from the edge. We chatted about dogs, the weather, silly things really. But it was enough to distract me and not do myself any lasting harm. Knowing someone cared made me realise I needed urgent medical help. It was like I’d come to the end of the road and her call saved me.
Alcoholism doesn’t appear overnight. There’s rarely one cause. I’d grown up a single child in a middle-class, expat suburb of Brussels where my father worked for the European Union (EU). My northern Irish parents had been keen to escape the Troubles for a better life but when my mum walked out on us (for reasons I only understood as an adult) she then fell into an abusive relationship. I hated myself for not protecting her and became a rebellious teenager. 
I was asked to leave my international school and then a boarding school too. I started drinking, which only got worse as I trained as a chef. By the time I was over promoted to head chef at a prestigious Dublin restaurant, I had crippling anxiety, depression and such severe panic attacks I was convinced my heart was exploding. 
I changed careers and launched a business with my best friend following a Dragon’s Den appearance. When that failed we didn’t speak for years. I later found success again, this time in advertising. Yet drinking remained my crutch for decades, destroying my mental health and every relationship.
By the time I’d sold up and moved to Ko Samui in 2018, even George Best would have baulked at the level of my heavy drinking.
But it was when I hit what is known in rehabilitation terms as my “rock bottom,” after that miserable, out-of-control week, which culminated in that phone call, when I finally checked myself into a hospital.
And on New Year’s Eve 2021, as I lay in an ICU hooked up to drips, against the backdrop of revellers outside counting down to midnight, I vowed that if I made it, I had to make my life matter. Make it count for something.
That was nearly four years ago now. I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol, I’ve had some therapy, I take antidepressants, I exercise, and I have found my purpose. While I was lost and recovering I started helping the street dogs that are everywhere out there. They’re mangy, hungry and unloved – yet cheerful, resilient and live in the moment. With every rescue I learnt something about myself. I started sharing their videos online, always with the aim of putting a smile on someone’s face. I wanted to give someone a dopamine boost, whether they were being bullied at school, suffering a break up, dealing with cancer or just hungover after the weekend.
To my surprise, my Instagram followers multiplied from hundreds to thousands and I was approached to write a book in 2022 which, unbelievably, people bought. If writing it was therapeutic however, narrating it for the audiobook – reading aloud my darkest times – was absolutely excruciating.
In the videos I share now I might seem like a guy who’s confident in front of the camera. But I’m not at all. I make those to raise funds and awareness for the dogs. Every penny I earn goes towards making their life better – food, medication, shelter and now a canine hospital, too. We have sterilised 25,000 now, stopping a quarter of a million more puppies from being born – that’s the crucial part of change. Anything else is just a Band-Aid.
Today, aged 44, I’ve no interest in money. Clothes on my back and flip flops on my feet are enough. I’m a natural introvert and happiest in my own company or with the dogs. I certainly don’t crave attention, but because I’ve been open about my mental health struggles online, many people write to me about their problems and sometimes talk of suicide, too. 
It terrifies me, I’m not a counsellor or mental health expert. But I remember when I was desperate, I too wrote to people like Ronnie O’Sullivan and Tyson Fury on Instagram, hoping they’d reply and make me feel less alone. Now I understand why they didn’t, and I feel terrible I don’t write back to those people who reached out to me who need support. I’m not equipped to deal with that responsibility.
I find doing publicity horribly uncomfortable. But I’m speaking out now because I want to send this message to anyone battling with their mental health: I know how you feel. I’ve been there. Some days I am back there. Depression will always come in and out of my life, but I’ve learnt to cope with it better. 
If you feel like you can’t carry on, and never want to wake up, please pick up the phone to a friend. One conversation can make everything seem different. Then get professional help. Suicide is preventable. Like the street dogs I now devote my life to, I am just so grateful and happy to be alive in this world, even on the bad days. 
As told to Susanna Galton
“A safety plan is a crisis plan which helps people – who recognise they may be vulnerable to suicidal thoughts and feelings – identify warning signs early and have a process to keep themselves safe,” explains O’Connor, author of When it is Darkest. “So I’d encourage anyone who feels it would be helpful to make one, it’s a way of planning what to do if the  going gets tough and we’re feeling overwhelmed. Or, if you have a loved one who you recognise could benefit from drawing one up, you can ask them to think about these points.”
“Most people who die by suicide feel trapped or defeated,” says Prof Rory O’Connor, who leads the Suicidal Behaviour Research Lab at Glasgow University, one of the world’s leading labs for understanding and preventing suicide.
“These feelings may also have been triggered by loss, rejection and shame. Essentially, those who are suicidal feel trapped by unbearable mental pain. It isn’t that they want to die, but they want the pain to end, and see suicide as the only option. It is like the perfect storm of factors coming together, when they cannot see an alternative but to kill themselves, as the ultimate way of ending their pain.
“Anyone can become suicidal if this perfect storm of factors comes together. That is why it’s crucial to check-in with your friends and family if you’re concerned about them.”
Just one phone call – or even a smile, a gesture, a message – can show someone they matter and make a difference.
The Samaritans are there for anyone, anytime. Call 116 123
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