Alcoholic carpet fitter meets soul mate working at her home for Peter Andre show and gets sober seeing her fight to live as she gets cancer for a third time

An alcoholic carpet fitter who met his soul mate while working at her home for Peter Andre’s 60 Minute Makeover show got sober as he was “killing himself” while she “fought to stay alive” after being told she had cancer for the third time.

David Wilson, 57, first drank to blot out the pain of his parents’ divorce when he was 14, earning the nickname “Glugs” in his twenties because of the “obscene amount” of beer he drank, before escalating to a litre of vodka a day in his 40s – describing himself as a “functioning alcoholic.”

By the time he met author and speaker Emma Campbell, 50, in 2014, while working on the ITV home makeover show, he regularly went “on the lash until 2am” after work, yet began an intensely passionate relationship with her later that winter, which led to marriage two years later.

Still going on often nightly benders and secret booze binges, everything changed for David, of Wandsworth, south west London, in 2019 when his wife discovered she had breast cancer for the third time.

He said: “I was accountable for the first time. Not just to me, but to her.

“I was at a crossroads and asked myself, ‘How do I want to support my wife, and how do I want to support myself?’ It was by being sober.”

He added: “I reached an all time low in my life.

“I was always drunk or hungover and I thought, ‘There’s this beautiful person trying to save herself and I’m killing myself.'”

David, who says drinking contributed to the break-up of his first marriage in 2010, now feels his addictive tendencies were awoken by the breakdown of his own parents’ relationship when he was 14.

Now host of a podcast, One for the Road, offering help to people trying to stay sober, or who are concerned about their drinking – which is in the Top 10 Apple UK chart for health and well-being podcasts – he remembers being heartbroken.

He said: “I felt completely rejected.

“I ended up getting into the wrong crowd. I was never a fighter, I was a lover. But I started drinking.”

Now a dad to graphic designer George, 28, and stepfather to Emma’s children Jake, 18, and triplets Ella, Louis and Theo, 12, constant drink binges became a way of life in his 20s.

By his 30s, then a father, he had piled on weight because of his boozing and weighed 20st.

Still managing to work proficiently as a carpet fitter, he said: “I was always on a bender. I had a reputation for being a boozer.”

He added: “In my early 30s, I started buying take-outs and drinking indoors on top of the pub, which is when it started going downhill.

“I was drinking strong white cider,  but would  get up for work still functioning.”

Switching from beer and cider to wine and spirits in his 40s, he would drink either three bottles of wine or a litre of vodka a night.

He said: “I was drinking a lot of wine -three bottles a night.

“I was getting bigger, so I looked up which alcohol had the least calories and that’s when I discovered vodka.

“I was drinking a litre a night.”

Filled with negativity and unable to hold down a relationship after his marriage ended, alcohol was affecting all aspects of his life.

He said: “I’d be in denial to say that my drinking didn’t have a negative impact on my life. It ruined my first marriage.

“The alcohol affected my judgement and I was looking at everything negatively all the time.”

He added: “I had a string of relationships that didn’t work out as they didn’t fit with my drinking. They were always short-lived.”

Despite his inner turmoil, David plucked up the courage to ask Emma out in December 2014, when the show aired on TV, only for her to cancel, after learning that her breast cancer was back.

He said: “When I asked her out, I was sat at home and we started messaging quite a lot.”

He added: “But then I didn’t hear anything from her. Then one night she messaged me to say she had to cancel the date we’d arranged as her cancer had returned.

“That took us on a whole new direction. I remember I had the worst hangover in the world.

“But in my heart, in my gut, I knew I wanted to be with her.”

He added: “One of our first dates was on the chemo ward of a London hospital.

“She had tubes everywhere.  I’ll never forget it.”

Emma already knew what to expect, after having chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormone treatment and a mastectomy to remove her right breast when she was first diagnosed in 2010.

But she was devastated to discover that her cancer was back and had spread to her skin and chest wall as well.

Less than a year later, the besotted couple decided to move in together – but it was then that David’s drinking got the better of him.

Confessing to Emma that he was a “functioning alcoholic,” by which he meant he was still able to run his life despite his dependency on booze, this soon proved not to be quite the case.

He said: “Two or three months into living together the cracks started to show.

“Emma noticed that I looked drunk and I started to resent the situation.

“We started arguing. We were falling out and I was passing out on the sofa.”

All this time, Emma was fighting cancer but, somehow, love kept them together.

Thankfully, she went into remission and, despite David’s drinking, in September 2016 they got married.

But David’s drinking continued to affect their lives, with him recalling a terrifying lost four days over Easter in 2018, when he upped and left – going to Eastbourne in East Sussex and drinking in the pub all day before drowning himself in vodka on the beach.

He said: “I thought I was going to die. It was freezing outside and I could have had hypothermia.

“I carried on drinking and was blacking out.

“I reached an all time low in my life.”

Carrying on what Emma describes as a “toxic relationship” for several years, it was not until January 2019, when she was told her cancer – by now stage four – had returned again and spread to her left breast, that her determination to live gave him the wake-up call he needed to remain sober once and for all.

He said: “I thought I was going to kill myself from all the drinking, while she was fighting so hard to stay alive.

“I also knew she’d had enough. She told me she couldn’t do it anymore.”

He added: “It was a sign from the universe that I had to quit.

“I saw her on the chemo ward clinging on to life and knew she’d had enough of me and my addiction.

“I love her and that made the difference.”

So, on January 7 2019, after speaking to a close friend who suggested they should both try to stop drinking for three months, David quit.

Dealing with the physical and emotional hell of alcohol withdrawal, as well as his wife’s cancer and facing the traumas that made him drink, meant the first few months were especially tough.

Experiencing night sweats, shakes and horrendous mood swings, he says he resisted the temptation to drink because of his friend’s unerring support.

He said: “I had to face all my problems sober for the first time. I’d blotted out emotions for 40 years, so I suffered mental withdrawals and chronic cravings.

“It felt like I was starving for drink. My brain was telling me I needed it to survive.

“But having my friend meant I didn’t feel alone.”

He added: “I had to try and stay positive and take things one day at a time.”

Although he attended a few AA meetings, David found the support that worked for him online – on Instagram and later, by launching his podcast in May 2021.

He said: “Just sitting with yourself and connecting with your feelings can make all the difference.”

He added: “It’s never too late. Connection is the most important thing – even just having a coffee with a friend.”

Now coaching people whose drinking is in a “grey area,” where they worry about it but do not consider themselves to be alcoholics, his podcast is also a huge success.

It has been downloaded over 100,000 times and has featured celebrities from Ollie Ollerton to Denise Welch and Michelle Heaton.

Advising people to be “completely honest with themselves” if they are alcohol dependent, he said: “That decision to quit on January 7, it saved my life.

“My whole life has turned around, just from giving up one thing – alcohol.

“It’s not just saved my relationship with Em – it’s saved my family, my health and my career.”

He added: “I feel like I’ve just started living. It’s never too late to turn things around.

“Alcohol affects you, those around you and your health, but sobriety is achievable.

“Removing alcohol from my life has changed everything.”

Emma, who continues to have targeted chemotherapy treatment at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital, says David’s sobriety has added a new dimension to their marriage.

She said: “The fact he is following a sober path means I know I can lean on him and don’t have to walk on eggshells.

“It’s created a space for me to focus on my health and my healing.”

She added: “The timing couldn’t have been more perfect for him to take that step. It’s strengthened us greatly.”

If you want to follow David and Emma’s stories, you can follow them on Instagram @soberdave and @limitless_em.

For help and advice with problem drinking, see your GP, contact the Drinkline national alcohol helpline on 0300 123 1110 or Alcoholics Anonymous helpline on 0800 9177 650