‘Grandma’s dying words helped me win my lifelong battle with alcoholism’
ATTACKED AND LEFT FOR DEAD AT 13, MATT HAS TURNED HiS LiFE AROUND I went off the rails when my baby son died in my arms following a birth defect.
A MAN who turned to alcohol to cope with childhood trauma is turning his life around after his nan issued a devastating plea to him on her deathbed.
Matt Penn suffered sexual abuse at the hands of an older man and started drinking alcohol as a teenager.
Then his health suffered when he was hit over the head with a “snooker ball in a carrier bag” in an unprovoked attack that left him with brain damage.
The 40-year-old said: “When I was 13 I was attacked and left for dead.
“I was assaulted outside Chatham cinema in Kent, where I lived back then, in 1994 with snooker balls in a carrier bag and I had a blood clot on the brain.
“I’ve got three dents in my head and a foot-long scar.”
Matt, who now lives in Branston, received compensation for the assault and was spiralling into addiction and spent the money on alcohol.
He said: “I had trouble sleeping and the drink would knock me out. After that I went downhill.
“I joined the Army and there was a big drinking culture. You work hard then you have a drink to take the edge off.”
Matt married and was delighted when he and his wife found out they were expecting a baby.
But his son, Joseph, was born with anencephaly, a serious birth defect when a child is born without parts of the brain and skull.
Matt told the Burton Mail the tot died in his arms in 2008. He said: “I knew he was going to die, but he died in my arms and I couldn’t handle it.
“I went off the rails and it ruined my marriage.”
Since then, Matt has met someone else and gone on to have another child, but has always battled with drink and would often take himself into a room and drink alone.
But he recently vowed to turn his life around after his nan made a devastating plea while on her deathbed. He said: “I went to look after my nan when she was on her deathbed.
“She told me not to use her as an excuse to get drunk when she died. It was then that I decided to stop.”
Matt set up a social media page called “alcohol no more” to document his recovery – and has now gained more than 44,000 followers who are sharing his journey.
He said: “I did my first video and I relapsed that same day. I picked myself up and the next day I started again.
“I never talked about my upbringing, but when I started doing the videos, it was like a form of therapy.
“I didn’t think people would actually listen.
“I’ve tried to stop before over the years, but this time I don’t want to wallow – I want to deal with my problems head on.” Matt has now been sober for more than 100 days and says it feels like “a weight has been lifted”.
He said: “It feels good to help others and I wanted to ignite something in others in the hope of helping them.
“I have talked people off the edge.
“I’m not qualified, but I’m not judgemental and I understand what people are going through. “Drinking isn’t a big thing to a lot of people but I’ve seen it destroy family members and it could’ve destroyed me. “I wanted to break the cycle.”
Matt Penn
Matt Penn before he stopped drinking, left, and now more than 100 days sober
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