Working for nine years in The Royal Marines and later working as a bodyguard in the Middle East meant Stockport-born Sam Murray witnessed traumatic and brutal events - including seeing friends killed.
As a result the father-of-three battled severe depression and was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Six years ago Sam, who had turned to drink and drugs to try to control how he was feeling, felt there was no way out and stood on the edge of a platform at Stockport train station ready to take his own life.
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Fortunately a by-stander dragged him away and he was taken to Stepping Hill Hospital, where he spent two months on a mental health ward receiving counselling and therapy.
After being discharged, the demons returned and he says the medication he was taking made him feel worse.
Just two months after leaving hospital Sam, who went to St Anne's RC High School in Heaton Chapel, and made a second attempt to end his life by taking an overdose.
But suddenly realising he didn't want to die Sam made an urgent phone call to a military charity called Rock2recovery, who sent an ambulance and he had his stomach pumped in hospital.
He says: "I knew I had to address it.
"I had some talking therapy on the phone and thought I was OK so I went back to doing surveillance work, doing some high level work working with presidents.
"It was extremely stressful and again I thought I could cope but I wasn't - I was relying more on drinking and drugs.
"It became too much."
Over the next 18 months Sam saw four friends, all ex-marines like him, take their own life one by one.
He said: "They were all similar to me, all family men, similar age and happy on the face of it - but they weren't.
"So I thought 'that is enough.'
"We set up a support group for veterans, and we all started looking after each other.
"There were literally thousands of us.
"Then it became not just veterans but emergency service workers like the police, because they have massive traumas."
Sam, who has two daughters - Holly, 17, Daisy, 13 - and a son Joe, 21, started looking at alternative ways to deal with mental health and went on a therapy course to discover ways of helping himself heal while also helping his fellow veterans.
Things finally turned around when Sam found cold water therapy - which involves dipping and swimming in outdoor pools and rivers - and breathwork, which he attributes to his transformation and recovery.
He says: "The impact it has on mental and physical health is phenomenal - it blew me away."
After starting to visit rivers and lakes around New Mills and Hayfield, veterans started joining him, as did his friend Helen Barnett, formerly armed response with Met Police, who had been shot, blown up and stabbed three times.
He said: "She had severe PTSD and nothing had worked for her. She saw a video of mine, so she did some breath work with me and jumped in the river in winter and said she felt amazing.
" I realised I could help people combining breath work with cold water and that is how my journey took me to where I am now."
Sam, who lives in Hulme, now practices and teaches the therapies to other people and groups including police veterans and NHS workers.
Sam met his current partner nutritional therapist and breathwork practitioner Miranda Bailey, 52, in 2020, and they both teach these stress-relieving skills to others in Manchester, the High Peak and the wider north west via their practice, The Breath Connection.
He says: "The thing that gave me life, I am giving it back."
He ran 50 miles on his 50th birthday - July 17 - along the wild terrain of the Cornish coast to raise money for three charities that have helped him - and many others - on their journeys; Royal Marine charities; Rock2recovery and The Pilgrim Bandits, and The Garden House, which provides a safe environment for Sam to take veterans/emergency service workers to practice the breathwork therapy.
Sam says: “Without these organisations, I know that I personally wouldn’t be here today, along with many, many others.
Every penny you give will make a massive difference and could be quite literally lifesaving.
“Charities such as these help veterans get back on their feet, and my practice is also designed to help ex and current military, as well as serving police officers, blue light professions and anyone else who suffers from stress, anxiety or depression.
It’s great to give back to charities and people who have given so much.”
Sam’s Go Fund Me page can be found here
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