A man from Torquay who says he bit a stranger’s nose off during a drink-fuelled robbery, spent years in prison and slept on the streets as a teenager has described how alcohol destroyed his early life and how he eventually turned it around.
Lord Ashley Phipps-Warren said he first started drinking aged 12 after discovering his mum’s box of wine.
He told DevonLive: “By the age of 14 or 15 I was a full-blown alcoholic. If I didn’t have a drink, I would shake and tremble. I was very ill.”
As his addiction worsened, Lord said his behaviour became increasingly violent, leaving his parents to ask him to leave home while he was still in school.
“I don’t blame my parents at all. They continued to give me chances but I was like Jekyll and Hyde when I had a drink. I would smash the house up, cut up the sofas with knives. My mum told me after she thought I was going to kill her.”
Despite excelling at English and drama at school, Lord spent much of his final year sleeping rough.
He even wrote his first book aged 15 while sleeping on the streets, which has now been published.
“I was a child, I was homeless and I was an alcoholic. I used to sleep on the streets in my school uniform. I’d wake up, have a drink and decide whether or not I wanted to go to school.”
Over the following years, Lord said alcohol led him into crime and repeated prison sentences.
Lord Ashley Phipps-Warren is an author and a recovery specialist(Image: Lord Ashley Phipps-Warren)
Recalling one incident that led to his first prison sentence, Lord said he attacked a stranger after running out of money for booze.
“I confronted him on the street and he got all in my face. I ended up biting him on the nose and ripping it off. As he was lying on the floor, I took out his wallet from his pocket and went back into the pub and bought myself another pint.
“The next day I didn’t even know I had done it. I got a tap on the shoulder from a police officer two weeks later and they showed me CCTV footage of it and I couldn’t remember any of it.”
He was then sentenced to eight years in prison. Initially, he saw it as a chance to escape alcohol.
“I missed the booze. I was very ill at first. They don’t wean you off it in prison.”
After serving four years in prison, he was released.
“I walked straight out of the prison gates and went and bought myself a beer.”
He then continued to reoffend, including smashing up Las Iguanas and threatening to cut a man’s head off in a pub in Teignmouth.
He later attended a rehabilitation centre but admitted to continuing drinking there.
“I used to get my friends to smuggle me any booze they could get their hands on, eventually I was found out and asked to leave the centre.”
After living on the streets again he was then moved to another rehab centre across the country where he excelled.
“I was doing really well. So well that I became a trusted resident and they let me go out on a Saturday into a nearby town. As soon as I was out I went straight to the pub and got absolutely steaming. I jumped over the bar and beat up the barman quite badly. Then I was just pouring myself pints while he was on the floor bleeding.
“Everybody was legging it out of the pub and I went to prison again.”
After he was released, Lord said his life continued to spiral. By this point he said he had lost almost all support around him.
“Everyone had gone. I was shunned by everyone. My family and friends didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. I was convinced I was going to die on the streets.”
At his lowest point, Lord attempted to hang himself.
“I blacked out and woke up on the floor, I thought ‘thank God that didn’t work’, I felt like I had been given another chance.”
He then fully committed to becoming sober and for over two years he hasn’t had a drop of alcohol.
Lord says his life has been transformed through recovery, routine and a renewed sense of purpose.
“Everyday I’m up at 3am. I’m in the gym, I eat well, I’m working and doing courses online. I now live with my kids which is all I can ever ask for.”
Alongside maintaining sobriety, he now regularly speaks at schools, colleges, prisons and rehabilitation centres across the UK, sharing his experience and to warn others about the realities of alcohol addiction.
“I don’t want anybody to feel the way I felt. If I can recover, anybody else can. Nothing in this life is given to you. You have to put the work in.”
He also said writing has become a major part of his recovery. Lord has written a trilogy of books called the Inner Upgrade which documents his life before, after and during addiction.
“I thought I was going to die on the streets. Now I’m trying to help other people believe they can change their lives too.”