A dad-of-two who battled through years of trauma, stress and addiction has spoken out about the moment he reached breaking point – and how he finally managed to break the cycle.
As a high-flying IT director, Dean Cooper was commuting from his home near Lewannick in Cornwall to Scotland each week, travelling hundreds of miles across the country and being away from his family for days on end.
The pressure of his job drove him to drink and at one point, the 46-year-old found himself consuming up to 15 pints a night to help alleviate the stress.
His body started to break down and there was no clear way out.
It was only when Dean was taken to hospital following a near-fatal collapse in 2021 that he realised something needed to change.
“When you’re near burnout it’s funny,” he said. “You don’t see any alternative other than continuing.
“To cope with the pressure of life, I was drinking. So I wouldn’t get home until sort of 10 o’clock when I was in London, for example, and then I’d end up having four or five pints.
“To eventually at one point when I was in massive burnout because I couldn’t cope with the commuting.
“Scotland became 15 pints a night at one point.”
Dean started walking the country lanes of Cornwall in his recovery(Image: Dean Cooper)
Dean said the pressure of supporting his wife and two children at home, one of whom is autistic, began to mount. He knew if he wasn’t making money, their lives would suffer as a result.
But it wasn’t until he felt he was going to die that he realised what mattered most.
“I had the weight of an elephant on my chest, my heart weight was going bonkers. I was burning up. I couldn’t breathe,” he said of a pivotal moment he was rushed to hospital.
“I made a promise to my kids that I wouldn’t die.
Dean knew he had to change his mindset and replace negative addictions with positive ones (Image: Dean Cooper)
“I stopped drinking on that day. I gave up sugar, gave up caffeine and then basically started trying to figure out how do I rebuild myself without killing myself in the process – because you have to be very careful.
“I’m coming up to four years sober now, so it’s about four years ago when I had my main collapse.”
From that moment, Dean started to up his daily step count, simply walking around his home at first before walking each day around the Cornish lanes.
He also started to share the process on social media, clearing his head along the way and dubbing it ‘Street Therapy’. It’s a method he now credits with saving his life.
“ I’m a systems guy by trade. I’m very logical,” he said.
Dean felt the pressure of being away from his family and promised his children he wouldn’t die(Image: Dean Cooper)
“I figured life out without counselling, without medication. So much of it is about understanding that every single person has things that break them. Everybody – and we don’t talk about it.
“We always have problems. We’ve always got stress. We’ve always got a past with trauma, abusive parents, addictions, taboos, whatever it may be.
“Once you understand that and you stop comparing yourself to the world, you can begin to do a bit of work on yourself.”
He added: “I’m still working, but I prioritise myself over work. So the priority was my health and longevity.”
Dean, who shares his method with thousands on TikTok, is also now launching a podcast to help bring his Street Therapy mindset and his ‘Icarus’ method to life.
It will see him speak to a host of ordinary people in Cornwall and beyond who have faced a range of challenges themselves while discussing how they have overcame them.
You can find more information about Dean’s Street Therapy and Icarus method along with his podcast, launching March 23, here.
Dean is now launching a podcast to chat others about their stories and share his Street Therapy mindset(Image: Dean Cooper)
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