I HAD A FAMILY, BOOZE COST ME
WHEN life got really tough, Andy Bryant was drinking around 15 pints a day. What started out as a few drinks on the weekend turned to severe alcohol addiction.
Andy had a girlfriend, worked as a supervisor in a cash and carry and rented his own home. Having left school at the age of 16, he enjoyed making money, which like many other young people, he’d spend on alcohol at weekends and think nothing of it.
He said: “I was living like the average 18-year-old lad, we’d work all week and then on the weekend as a group of lads we’d go out and let our hair down.
“Within a year or two, that turned into drinking every single day. I would wake up and reach over, drink half a pint of vodka each morning. I literally couldn’t function during work without it.
“I regularly turned up to work drunk and a few people, including my colleagues, clocked on and said ‘you need to be careful or you’ll lose your job’, but I didn’t really care. It got to the stage where you could smell alcohol on my breath.”
Andy said he wasn’t a regular drug-taker at the time, but said part of the culture on a night out was to take some cocaine. Then when his drinking habits became so bad that one day he turned up to work drunk, his boss had had enough.
The 43-year-old, who lives in Bridgend, said: “I went in to work and the manager pulled me in and said to me I was getting sacked. I had no argument really because customers were noticing I was turning up to work drunk.
“I remember the day so well because I got paid on that day and I went home and got absolutely smashed. My girlfriend tried to help me and we ended up in a blazing row and she left me. At that stage I had no-one. I wasn’t thinking about my situation and it just became a habit.”
The alcohol addiction took a turn for the worse. He would wake up and drink the vodka by his bedside table, feeling like he had nothing to live for, and as soon as the pubs were open in the mornings he would begin drinking all day.
Andy began drinking 12-15 pints of cider a day, meaning he was getting through well over twice the recommended weekly amount in a day.
He said: “To be honest, I thought I had nothing to live for, I didn’t give a sh**, I didn’t know where to stop. I thought I knew better than anyone.
“My money was mainly spent on KFC and alcohol. Trouble is, you need a way to fund this lifestyle and I had no job, so I started ripping friends off. That will never end well.”
After a few months, Andy wasn’t able to keep up with payments for his flat as all the money was going on alcohol. He was evicted from his flat and ended up homeless on the streets of Bristol, where he is from.
Andy didn’t think life could get any worse, but it did when his brother saw him begging while he was on a night out.
He said: “I’ll never forget that moment. My brother was with his mates on a night out and I was on the streets begging. He recognised me, walked over and told me I was a mess.
“That was the lowest point of my life and it made me want to jump in a river and end it all. People may have opinions of you and that’s fine, but when your own family thinks of you like that, what’s the point?
“I had to get away and go somewhere, so while I was still on benefits I bought myself a train ticket and went to Manchester because I had friends there.”
Andy was hoping for a fresh start, but things got worse as he became addicted to drugs as well as alcohol.
A local dealer would supply him each day.
His dealer was the only person he spoke to and was getting £100 a week from Andy.
He took speed, cocaine and cannabis. He would smoke around £15 of cannabis a day and his drug dealer allowed him to pay when he could, which led to repayment problems.
Andy said: “The only point of contact I had was my drug dealer. He would drip feed me and come and give me drugs for each day. Every two weeks I would go and get my benefits, meet my drug dealer, go to KFC and that was me sorted for two