A university-educated chartered surveyor died from a cocktail of alcohol and prescription morphine after turning to drink in his retirement, an inquest heard.
Paul Hopkins was found at his Mumbles home by neighbours, with a half-drunk bottle of wine nearby and another in a separate bedroom.
An inquest into the 66-year-old's death heard Mr Hopkins' wife Liz had been on holiday in Thailand at the time.
Mr Hopkins' brother, Robert Hopkins, told the Swansea inquest in a written statement that his sibling had been educated at Aston and Swansea universities.
He worked as an environmental health officer then as a chartered surveyor in London before moving to Swansea in 1989. The father of two retired two years ago.
Property development was a passion: at one point Mr Hopkins had 11 properties, including one in Roscoff in France.
But, the inquest heard, he "went from working really hard to trying to fill his days". He did this by reading the paper and drinking wine, the inquest was told.
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Three years ago he discovered he had prostate cancer, and took to drink to relieve the pain. Drinking started becoming an issue around 18 months ago, the inquest heard.
In the last few months, his brother said, he was doing well, having cut down his drinking from three bottles of wine a day.
But when he visited his brother days before his death in February this year his brother had asked him for more oramorph - morphine medication prescribed for his lower back pain.
Robert Hopkins noticed he had already taken much more of the medicine than he should have.
A post mortem examination concluded Mr Hopkins died of poisoning, which was a combination of alcohol and morphine.
He also suffered from alcoholic liver disease and a build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries around the heart.
The verdict of acting senior coroner Colin Phillips was that Mr Hopkins suffered an alcohol and drug-related death.
