A man who drank three bottles of brandy a day after his brother died says recalling “the worst moment of my life” got him through tough special forces training.
Levi Delvin-Attille, 34, reckons he has his “guardian angel” brother Joshua to thank for his stint on SAS: Who Dares Wins.
And while Joshua’s death in 2013 triggered Levi’s descent into alcoholism, the HGV driver has since managed to turn his life around.
Levi said: “I always looked up to my brother, growing up, and he gave me the confidence to go on the show and keep pushing.
“He gave me strength when I felt like giving up.
“The day after the first episode aired, I looked up at the sky and I felt him saying to me, ‘Well done, I’m so proud of you’. I got quite emotional.”
Levi’s life fell apart when trainee tattoo artist Joshua, 24, suffered a fatal brain haemorrhage. The brothers, who were just a year apart in age, had seen each other just hours before.
Levi, who says the day his brother died was “the worst moment of my life”, recalled how Joshua had been complaining about a headache.
After his dad called him “in a panic”, Levi, then 23 and working as a labourer, returned home to find paramedics doing CPR on his brother.
“They did chest compressions for about 15 minutes but he wasn’t coming back,” he said. “I was in shock.”
He told how he started drinking heavily to “numb the pain” and would often down three bottles of brandy a day.
But after moving to Dubai in 2015, Levi managed to beat his addiction before returning to the UK to chase his lifelong dream of becoming a paratrooper.
He was left heartbroken, however, when his Army application was rejected because of his face tattoos, which are in tribute to his brother.
Levi, from Enfield, North London, says that after his taste of the SAS on the hit Channel 4 show, he now knows he could never join the military for real – especially now he hopes to settle down and start a family.
He said: “I’m really happy in my life now. I’ve got a fiancée and we are hoping to have a child. I wouldn’t change anything.”
