A dad has shared how years of stress and addiction left him considering suicide – and how he managed to break the cycle.
Dean Cooper says job pressure and family demands drove him to drink, and he would often go to the pub “just to drown the noise”, building to a worrying 10-pints-a-day habit.
The 46-year-old’s body started to break down and he saw no way out, until a near-fatal collapse forced him to change his lifestyle – with his children begging him not to die.
“From the outside, I looked fine – I had a high-level job, and was providing for my family, performing, delivering,” Dean, from Lewannick, Cornwall, told Need To Know.
“I was the guy holding everything together while quietly falling apart.
“I knew I was slowly destroying myself, but I didn’t feel it in the way you’d expect.
“I was shouting and screaming, but it was like being in a soundproof room where even I couldn’t hear myself.”
The dad-of-two was struggling to balance his demanding career as an IT director, which involved a lengthy daily commute, with his family commitments.
Juggling two young children, one of whom has autism and ADHD, as well as the “constant unpredictability” of his life left Dean feeling like there was never a real opportunity to recover.
Long days at work often meant he wouldn’t get home until 11pm, where his wife and children also needed support, and with no other family around to help, he was left struggling – and turned to alcohol as an “off switch”.
After an accident at a gymnastics facility in 2019, which left him with a destroyed collarbone, a dislocated shoulder and needing a plate fitted to fix it, Dean spent months recovering.
But his more casual alcohol habit began to spiral out of control in this time.
While it started out as one drink a night, as his stress levels rose, so did the amount he drank – with Dean ending up drinking 10 pints in a standard evening.
He said: “Alcohol became the way I silenced everything – the pressure, the noise, the pain, and the emptiness at the same time.
“Outside of my wife, I don’t think people really saw it.
“People don’t see the cracks if you’re good at hiding them – and culturally, especially as a man, you don’t talk about it.”
Dean said there was even a brief moment when he considered ending his life in 2020 – but even that didn’t stop the cycle.
He said: “I was standing on a train platform and for a split second, I almost stepped forward.
“It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t thought through, it was just there – an impulse.
“But I stepped back, I caught myself and I phoned my wife.
“I just said ‘I get it now’, she said ‘what? get what?’ and I said ‘why people jump’.
“[I told her] I just caught the thought in my mind.
“I sat on the bench, finished my Red Bull, carried on talking, told her I was OK.
“My wife knew I was under pressure, but I don’t think she knew how close I was in that moment.”
Dean says his actions were impacting his family without him even realising.
He would still play with his kids, cook dinner when he could – but he’d do it with a drink in his hand.
He said: “They didn’t just have a dad who was present, they had a dad they watched coping.
“So there are gaps; not in memories for them, they still had good moments, good experiences, but for me there are gaps, that I deeply regret now that I have clarity and happiness.
“That is one of the things that drives me to be the best me for them now.”
While not drinking alcohol during the day, the dad was surviving on caffeine and relying on beer to get him through most nights.
Dean said: “It wasn’t just a few – it was anywhere between four and 10 cans most days, sometimes more depending on stress before the worse later stages.
“[I’d spend] probably around £20 a day at times on alcohol.
“I think there is a knock-on impact of cost too, as I would drink to relax and felt so ill at times I could only go and get takeaway curries – then I’d wait for them and drink whilst waiting.
“It affected savings, planning, long-term stability but never to the point we lost anything or couldn’t do things.
“I balanced it by not eating as much in the day, but my digestion was so bad due to my lifestyle.
“I would be waking on the sofa choking on my own reflux but still do the same the next day to cope.”
Dean says the turning point came when he collapsed by the seafront in 2021, suddenly experiencing all the signs of a heart attack as his body “gave way”.
He was rushed to hospital by his wife, with his children in the back seat of their car.
He said: “I was laid back in the front seat, barely able to move, I had the weight of the world on my chest, like an elephant but then something happened I’ll never forget.
“My children reached forward from the back, put their hands into mine and told me not to die.
“In that moment, everything became crystal clear; it wasn’t about work, it wasn’t about pressure…it was about them.
“I looked up at my children, and all I knew was that I had to make a promise – a real one.
“The difference this time was I meant it, and I’ve honoured that promise every single day since.
“I promised them I wasn’t going anywhere.”
He was diagnosed with a non obstructive arterial heart disease and high blood pressure – the result of “years of pressure, stress, alcohol, lack of sleep”.
From that moment, Dean stopped drinking, cut out caffeine and processed sugar and started figuring out how to move forward.
Dean started off by walking around his house, 200 steps a day proving too much, and slowly worked his way up until he was walking 17,000 steps and exploring his local area.
The dad said he “started to come back to life” during this time as his fitness and mental health improved bit by bit.
He added: “It wasn’t easy – especially at the level I’d been drinking – and looking back, I know how risky that could have been.
“I have done long term damage to my body, but with focus and understanding that I was worth saving and my children needed me, I beat the craving – [and] also the mental fear of dying.
“I stayed aware, stayed hydrated, and kept moving forward.”
Dean also tried a range of therapies, like group sessions and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, but found they didn’t work for him, and instead decided to take the different elements of recovery he found helpful and create his own solution.
He started to share the process on social media, clearing his head along the way and dubbing it ‘Street Therapy’, which he describes as a ‘real-world way of rebuilding your life’
Dean says Street Therapy brings together different parts of recovery, including movement, mindset and self awareness and is “not just for people in crisis” but for “anyone trying to hold their life together while the world keeps moving.”
Dean continues to work hard, but keeps himself disciplined and doesn’t let it become destructive.
He has plans to take Street Therapy national, with the aim of helping as many people as possible, and has launched a podcast, The After The Fall Show.
Dean added: “I’m not an ex-alcoholic, I’m not a burnout story, I’m not a number of sober days – I’m a human being.
“There are still hard days – my body still has scars, stress leaves marks, alcohol leaves marks, life leaves marks.
“But my mind has never been clearer.
“The one truth this journey has shown me is that we are all needed, and that no matter the label, no matter the journey to recover, it can be done.
“But it starts with honesty to yourself and sometimes, the smallest people in your life reminding you of the biggest lessons.”
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