A recovering alcoholic who was drinking two litres of whisky a day says coming to live in Kent saved his life.

Pete Reading moved to Gravesend from a town north of Dundee, Scotland, around a year ago after his cousin paid for his train ticket and invited him to stay after realising how bad his problem had got.

Pete started drinking when he was 14 years old but it soon spiralled out of his control.

The 47-year-old said: “Initially it was just good fun. It should have been fun but after a night out my friends would stop but I would not.

“It escalated from there. For a long time, I was a functioning alcoholic and then I started losing everything in my life.

“I lost my job and I alienated my family as they were watching me just destroy myself. I took to sleeping in the streets. I was busking to make a few quid. I was pretty close to the end.

“I was drinking two litres of whisky a day as the more you drink, the more you need. I was in a really bad way.

“When my cousin realised the state I was in, she got me down here, she paid for my train ticket. It has been coming to Kent that has helped me.

“I know I could not live like that for much longer. Since I sobered up I realised how much of my life I wasted.”

Pete, who was working as a steelwork fabricator, has now been sober for around six months and has started a walking group as he hopes to build a community of people that are also trying to get on the right path.

“Giving up alcohol has been the hardest thing I have ever done,” he said. “It has been an extremely long road to recovery but it is achievable.

“When I stopped drinking I found it hard to socialise. It was really difficult as I always socialised in pubs and by getting drunk. Walking helped me to socialise without alcohol. I want to help people get out there again.

“Those years of my life have been a waste. I am trying to help people by sharing my experience so it was not wasted time. If I can help people, I can try to justify the last 30 years.”

He is also taking on a mammoth mission to walk The Saxon Shore Way, 160 miles from Gravesend to Hastings along the coast, on August 26 to raise money for Meningitis Research Foundation. You can donate here.

He will be setting off from Gravesend Town Pier at 10am and is inviting anyone who would like to walk some of the way with him to join.

Pete’s walking group Walking With A Reason meets every Sunday at the Clock Tower, in Milton Road, Gravesend, at 1.30pm. More details can be found on the Facebook page here.

It is open to anyone who wants to walk, talk and laugh, as Pete hopes to help and support others by sharing his journey.