Daniel Wright glanced at the clock at the bottom of his computer screen. It was 5pm. He said goodbye to a colleague, closed his laptop lid and made the short walk from his home office to the fridge.
He turned on some music and sat alone. One lager turned into two, two turned into ten. It was just an average Tuesday. By the time the night was over, his table was full of empty cans.
“I was depressed,” the 36-year-old, who lives in Urmston, told the Manchester Evening News. “I didn’t have any joy or anything as a result of the drink. I just wasn’t getting any happiness from life. I was just drinking.”
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Daniel’s complicated relationship with alcohol began when he was at university. The binge drinking continued once he graduated and continued into his working life.
But what started out as drinking at weekends turned into drinking every day – with the dad-of-one going on to lose jobs and his driving licence as a result of the substance abuse.
“I was drinking every other night at uni,” he said. “Then in the earlier stages I was going out in Manchester binge drinking every night. I got involved with cocaine and then got done for drink-driving. It’s all negative evidence linked back to alcohol.
“I’ve lost jobs because of it. There were two jobs where I was high up as an operations manager. I was too anxious to deal with the role because of taking drugs and drinking at the weekend. I was too anxious to go in.
“People assumed it was because I couldn’t be bothered. I would have loved to have gone in, but it was just a spiral of anxiety and drinking to excess.
“It got a lot worse during lockdown. I was working from home at the time and drinking every single night. I was just in my room on my PC working from there. I wasn't around colleagues and didn't have structure.”
Daniel had been out in Stockport to celebrate a promotion at work when he was pulled over by the police. “I turned right when I wasn’t supposed to and the police spotted and pulled me over,” he added. “That’s done and in the past.”
Daniel believes his previous alcohol addiction link back to his struggles with OCD – or obsessive-compulsive disorder – where people have repeated, persistent and unwanted thoughts, urges or images that are intrusive and cause distress or anxiety.
There was a time he was unable to leave his home because he thought he had dust on his glasses. “At uni, I had major issues with OCD,” Daniel, who now works as head of finance for a car brokers, added.
“There were points where I thought I might have dust on my glasses and I couldn’t leave the house because of it. I thought, ‘My glasses aren’t clean, so I can’t go to lectures’.
“I spent day in the house because I was paranoid about it. The only way I stopped having those thoughts was by drinking, and that’s how it spiralled from there.”
It took a shock diagnosis for Daniel to turn his life around for good. Six months ago, he suddenly began experiencing feelings of dizziness and double vision.
Worried by the symptoms, he took himself to hospital to get checked out. Following several brain scans, doctors determined Daniel had multiple sclerosis, or MS, leading him to stop drinking altogether.
Multiple sclerosis is a condition that can affect the brain and spinal cord, causing a wide range of potential symptoms including problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance.
It's a lifelong condition and can sometimes cause serious disability. For Daniel, it can often make his speech slurred. “At that point, I made the effort to give up drink completely,” he said.
“Since doing that, it made me realise that going teetotal is such a positive thing. It’s not really talked about and we need to talk more about it.
“You have a busy day at work and you go out. It’s just a thing that everyone did. There was less about it in the media at the time where people now are far more open about issues.
“I’m head of sales now and my life is a world away from what it was. (Alcohol) is glamorised but you don’t see your friends the next day. You don’t see the impact it has.
“When I stopped drinking, it was like nothing made me happy because I wasn’t drinking. I trained my brain into thinking it made me happy. The change was unbelievable when I stopped.”
Daniel and his friend, Alan Rowe, have recently set up a podcast called Two Mancs One Mic to discuss topics relating to drugs, alcohol, eating disorders and other mental health issues.
It aims to help people struggling with those particular issues realise they are not alone. Daniel said: “We are two Manchester lads on a mission to help people realise that no matter what they're going through they are not alone.
“Our aim is to discuss topics that aren't widely spoken about due to people feeling ashamed, embarrassed or isolated from the rest of society.
“Along the way we will invite all walks of life on to the show to discuss their own experiences, from rock bottom, on their way back up and turning their lives around. We will be sharing our own first-hand life experiences and how we have managed to move forward and build a better life.”
For more information, visit the link by clicking here.
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