Sitting on a hard mattress inside his prison cell, Daniel Fincham was hit by two things. First, a crippling hangover. Second, the realisation he’d lost everything – his wife, his kids and the house he just tried to burn down.

The dad-of-three had struggled with alcohol abuse since his teenage years. His complicated relationship with the substance began when he was just 15, describing his first sip as “love at first drink”.

But what started out as drinking at the weekend turned into drinking non-stop. Before he knew it, Daniel found himself consuming up to four bottles of wine a day, throwing up his stomach lining every morning just to make himself feel better.

READ MORE: Mum left hysterical after order for son’s Christening banner goes very wrong

“I liked skipping into work knowing I’d had a few gin and tonics because no one knew,” Daniel, who lives in Hale, said. “I thought, ‘If everyone likes going out on the weekend, why don’t we all just live in this world?’ And that’s what I did – I gave my power to alcohol.”

Daniel’s alcohol dependency began to spiral while studying away at university – feeling a rush of adrenaline the morning he knew he’d be having a drink. “I couldn’t believe the cape it gave me,” the 39-year-old said. “I felt like I could be what the world wanted me to be. I could say all the things I didn’t have the confidence to say. I loved where it took me; I loved the release and the wave of it.”

Following his graduation, Daniel decided to go travelling with friends. He spent time around southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand before settling in Denmark with his girlfriend at the time.

He took up a job at a software company and remained in Copenhagen for four years. But the binge drinking continued – even when Daniel discovered he was only born with one kidney.

© Recoverlution Daniel started drinking in his teens

His drinking eventually led to the breakdown of his relationship. After meeting another woman, returning to the UK, getting married and having a baby, he thought he could change for good.

“After the birth of my son, I thought something would shift inside of me which will make me change what I do,” he added. “It didn’t – and that made me feel worse.”

Daniel got promoted at work, bought a plot of land and built his dream family home. Despite having what seemed like the perfect life, his addiction to alcohol only grew stronger.

Along with drinking, Daniel had also developed a gambling problem, eventually losing a total of £100,000. “I was never present because I was always drinking,” he said. “I had three kids, a loving wife and a massive house but I was empty because none of it had shifted.”

By 2019, Daniel was fully dependant on alcohol. He would wake up shaking and could not get through the day without having an alcoholic drink.

© Recoverlution Daniel found himself going out every night

“That was when it was really scary,” he said. “Because I couldn’t have stopped if I wanted to. I’d be shaking and would have to walk to Waitrose and drink a bottle of wine and I felt better. That’s how I was living.

“I would be drinking four bottles of wine a day and I was f****** knackered. I wasn’t sleeping right. I might have to take days off work, but I’d be lying in bed and still drinking.

“I didn’t want to tell anyone I was an addict because I would lose my job and we had a big mortgage on the house. I struggled to get out of bed and every morning my stomach lining would come up. I felt better when I was sick. Then I’d have to clutch a drink with two hands, just hoping it would get in me and stabilise me.”

Daniel’s life became so controlled by addiction, he even had an ambulance called to his workplace when colleagues found him passed out. When his father arrived at his home to find it littered with wine bottles, he ordered him to go to rehab that day.

“It was a strange time,” Daniel said. “I thought this was a magic wand. But it wasn’t stopping my mind – it was just a black hole of power driving me.

© Recoverlution Daniel during his active addiction

“I would be drinking thinking, ‘You’re an alcoholic piece of sh** and I’d still be drinking it.”

When Daniel left rehab in September 2019, his drinking continued – finding alcohol wherever he could along with being hospitalised several times.

The breaking point was the end of his ten-year marriage three months later. “My wife was taking our daughter to a birthday party and I found a delivery service that would deliver a bottle of vodka to my house,” Daniel added.

“She came back and I had lost about £16,000 in an hour gambling and she left – and that was it. I could accept losing my job, but losing her was the last straw.”

Living back with his parents, Daniel was kept locked inside the home to stop him accessing alcohol. Desperate to save his marriage, he phoned the police so they could let him out of the property and drove to his former family home.

But when he arrived, no one was there. Daniel then lit a pile of logs and went upstairs, believing he would die among the flames.

Emergency services quickly descended on the scene and Daniel was arrested and charged with arson. He was kept in a prison cell until he received a suspended sentence for the incident.

But he later found himself back in prison for contacting his ex-wife – a breach of his sentence. Away from alcohol and gambling, it was inside that prison cell where was finally able to turn his life around.

“I let myself be and accepted that I had lost everything and accepted where I was,” Daniel added. “You need your wits about you in prison and I felt quite secure. It’s not what you think; it’s just people that are struggling. It’s not full of evil people.

“When I came out, I hadn’t thought about drinking. After a few days, I noticed I wasn’t paralysed by this need to drink and I could see my thoughts.

© Recoverlution Daniel is now sober

“I had nothing left to fear so nothing could hurt me. I had a choice – if I kept drinking, I was going to die. I had to decide whether to live or die, and I decided to live.”

Following his release from prison, where he stayed for one month, Daniel attempted to find recovery services to help his journey with sobriety. After searching online, he says he was “blown away” by the fact he couldn’t find any run by former addicts themselves.

“There’s no one right way to recovery,” he added. “But addicts will get addicts. You need to speak to someone who can understand because you think you’re wrong and no one is like you.

“You’re actually not wrong, its just the way you’re made and you just can’t handle substances. You need to find a way where you don’t need them.”

© Recoverlution Daniel now runs Recoverlution

Daniel was six-weeks sober when he launched Recoverlution , which claims to be the world’s first platform dedicated to recovery. Since starting the company two years ago, he now has a team of 30 recovery enthusiasts located in the UK, Denmark, USA and India. The platform helps recovery addicts choose the support and journey that’s right for them.

“We need to heal and be and forgive ourselves and we can,” Daniel added. “You can’t carry it with you; you have to accept what you’ve done wrong and you have to forgive yourself, and only then can you start moving forward.”

READ NEXT: