'Tina's suffering inspires me to carry on'

After hitting rock bottom, Niall Harbison started rescuing dogs in Thailand. Then he found an emaciated golden retriever who embraced her freedom after life on a chain...

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Moving to Thailand and giving up everything to care for stray, abused dogs wasn't on Niall Harbison’s to-do list seven years ago when he had his own business in Manchester.

But suffering from depression, alcoholism and seasonal affective disorder (SAD), he knew he needed a life change, and after visiting the South East Asian country a few times before, he decided to make the leap.

"I'm quite impulsive," says Niall, 45, from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. "I sold my business so I had a little bit of money. The idea was to escape the rat race and get healthy.

"But when I got to Thailand I had nothing to do, there was nobody to tell me not to drink, so I drank every day for more than a year. It was a combination of things - I broke up with a girlfriend who moved here with me. It was Covid and everyone was drinking a lot. I was stuck in with nothing to do. All those factors came together."

He was living on the paradise island of Koh Samui, yet Niall was just stuck inside, drinking. "I drank myself nearly to death," he says.

After being rushed to hospital where he was treated in the ICU ("they were pumping me with drugs as it's dangerous to detox too quickly"), he had a series of revelations. "When I was nearly dying, I thought no one's going to care or remember you if you didn't do anything worthwhile. I realised that money and fancy possessions don't really matter.

"I knew if I survived this, I wanted to do something worthwhile. The things that had flashed in front of my eyes were memories of playing football as a kid, and my dog. Dogs were a huge thing for me as a child and as soon as I got my first house when I was 33, I got a dog. He was a Labrador cross called Snoop - he came to Thailand with me."