‘I’m staring death in the face every day’
Former Bridgend and RGC coach Matt Silva is living a nightmare as he battles alcoholism – but he’s been told by the doctors that he shouldn’t stop drinking. He wants to find a way out, as he tells rugby correspondent Simon Thomas
AS HE talks to me, Matt Silva has a glass of red wine in front of him on the table. The mixture of disgust and despair as he looks down at it says it all.
“I am staring death in the face every day at the moment,” he said.
“I’m putting that into me and I know it’s killing me.
“My liver, my kidneys, my heart. They can only take so much.
“I don’t want to do this anymore. “But I have been told by medical professionals I have to have it. They have said, whatever I do, I mustn’t stop drinking it.”
This is the reality of Silva’s daily battle with alcoholism.
Such is his level of dependence, he has to keep drinking to avoid dangerous withdrawal symptoms.
When he last stopped, back in May, he suffered a seizure at the wheel of his car and crashed into a tree, an accident which could have cost him his life.
He is now desperate to get a hospital place in a rehabilitation unit to help him overcome his addiction.
It’s been a brutal year for the former Newport and Pontypool fullback, who went on to represent Wales in rugby league and have a long coaching career.
After keeping Bridgend in the Premiership, he suffered the body blow of being axed as their head coach a couple of months later.
A new opportunity arose as coach of RGC in north Wales, but personal problems then saw him spiral into depression and alcoholism.
At his worst, he was drinking four bottles of wine and 12 cans of beer a day, with a bottle of gin thrown into the mix on occasions.
He has lost his job with the WRU, who he was employed by for the best part of 18 years, and, to use his own words, he’s lost pretty much everything.
Sat in a back garden in Barry, he has his partner Jo and his daughter Sophie alongside him to provide support and help fill in some of the blanks in his story.
Occasionally, they will chip in with details of just what he has gone through.
It’s a tough listen and a tough tale to tell, but Silva wants it told to help others who may be going through similar issues.
“It’s been the hardest time in my life by a mile,” he said.
“I have lost so much over the last couple of years.
“I am not a mug, I have been around a bit, I am quite streetwise.
“To end up like this is tough. I have lost my job, I have lost my car, I have got no income, I have basically got nothing. I have lost absolutely everything.”
Silva’s struggles stem back some 18 months to the period when he was trying to save Bridgend from relegation to the Championship.
“There was a lot of pressure,” he said.
“It was mental. We beat Pontypridd with the last play in the last minute of the last game of the season and we stayed up.
“That was April and I heard nothing then until the June.
“I phoned up to ask what was happening and they said they were going in a different direction, so I ended up getting sacked.
“So I did the Bridgend thing and just at the end of that I had a marriage breakdown. That was quite a loss.
“I went up north to RGC and I had a few personal issues going on.
“Then, in October, I got diagnosed with severe depression and they put me on anti-depressants.
“It had been brewing from about the August time.
“I loved my running, I used to run 40, 50 miles a week. I stopped enjoying that, I stopped enjoying the coaching.
“I started losing interest in all the things that used to give me pleasure.
“The drinking started then about the October time. I was trying to get rid of the emotion. I have always liked a drink, but not to that extent.
“I went to one point where I didn’t eat for about three weeks. My appetite went completely. I was just drinking.”
Silva went on sick leave from his job with the WRU – for whom he had worked as a coach development officer for close on two decades – and headed back to south Wales. “The decline was rapid,” he admits. “I spent four months just sitting on the settee. I wasn’t showering for weeks at a time. I just had my pyjamas on. I just wasn’t doing anything.”
In February, Silva began a back-towork programme with the WRU, becoming involved with the School of Hard Knocks scheme, based at Barry RFC.
“I had 30 ex-cons, drug addicts, alcohol abusers,” he said.
“I was doing a good job, it was going ok, but it was taking its toll on me. “I did that for five weeks and then lockdown came on in March, so that stopped.”
It was then that things took a drastic turn for the worse.
“March and April, I was really bad,” he said.
“I was drinking a hell of a lot. I know I am lucky to still be here.
“I would be lying face down on the sofa barely breathing.
“Sophie was having to check whether I was alive in the morning. That’s bad for your daughter to have to do that.”
Silva came off the drink for a period in May, but that was to have lifethreatening consequences.
“I was driving down Five Mile Lane, in Barry, and I had a massive seizure,” he said.
“It was like a fit. It was alcohol withdrawal. It’s what happens if you stop drinking suddenly.
“I wasn’t under the influence of alcohol. There was no drink driving. It was the opposite.
“I passed out. I was just gone. I was on my phone to my other daughter, who is a paramedic, at the time on hands-free.
“She said the noise I made when I started fitting was unbelievable. She listened to me crash and she said it was horrific.
“I went into the woods. If I hadn’t hit the tree, the car would have flipped into the river and I would have died.”
Not that Silva recalls any of what happened himself.
“The last thing I remember is leaving the house,” he said.
“I don’t remember driving, I don’t remember crashing. I just remember waking up in an ambulance.
“I found out later what happened. Apparently, I had a seven-minutelong seizure.”
The incident left its mark on Silva both physically and mentally.
“I injured myself in the crash. I have got drop foot,” he said.
“I can’t lift my foot up and I am falling over all the time. It’s nerve damage which they think might be caused by disc damage in the back.
“And, mentally, I was done after that. I shut off massively. I was just face down on the settee.”
Now, it’s a case of taking it day-byday for the 50-year-old Silva.
“I am desperate to stop drinking. That is absolutely making me feel like s***,” he said, gesturing to the glass of wine.
“I can’t keep doing this day after day.
“I am drinking that at lunch time and I am heaving.
“But, if I can’t get it in me, I am going to have a seizure. I have to drink.
“It’s keeping me alive, but killing me at the same time. It’s horrible.
“As I speak to you now, I haven’t eaten for two days. I’m a 15 stone bloke, I’m 13 and a bit stone at the moment.”
Having known Silva for a long time and always seen him as such an upbeat, life-affirming guy, it was pretty shocking to learn what he is enduring right now.
“It’s hard. Without these two, I would be dead, mate,” he says, looking at Jo and Sophie.
“But I am fighting it. I’m having a go. I am trying to get off it.
“I have cut the alcohol intake right down. I am down to two and a half bottles of red wine a day now.
“I am not getting b********d, I am just keeping it at a level.
“I need to go into hospital now to a drug and alcohol rehabilitation unit.
“I have desperately been trying to get on the programme. I don’t want to die.”
So what would be his message in doing this brutally honest interview?
“I need to tell people what it’s like,” he said.
“There’s so many people out there going through it who are too scared to voice an opinion.
“More people need to be open about it. There needs to be greater awareness about alcoholism and mental health issues.
“I think the main message is go and seek medical advice.
“And take care of yourself. I was throwing myself into my work and taking care of everyone else, but not taking my own advice.
“I didn’t put myself first. I got to a point where I didn’t matter.”
As for the future, he says: “I would love to go back into rugby one day.
“I do miss it. It’s that banter. I love it.
“But, at the moment, I’m nowhere near it. I’ve just got to try and get myself well.”
And, on that front, the best wishes of everyone in Welsh rugby will go out to Matt Silva.
Drinkline is the national alcohol helpline. If you’re worried about your own or someone else’s drinking, you can call this free helpline in complete confidence. Call 0300 123 1110 (weekdays 9am to 8pm, weekends 11am to 4pm).