‘I asked to keep my alcohol tag on after it helped end my life of crime’

Not once in six and a half months did any alcohol pass his lips. The experts put it down to a number of things. From knowing they’re being monitored, to it being a constant physical reminder and it being a great tool not to be peer pressured into a beer. 

“Want a beer, lad?” 

“Can’t,” he says, pointing at his tag. 

No further questions. 

Danny turned such a corner, he actually asked his parole officer if he could keep it on indefinitely. 

“When I was coming off it, I was a little bit nervous. I got a little bit upset,” he recalls.

“I was chatting to my missus about it and saying, ‘I’m coming off this tag next week and what’s going to happen then if I get stressed out?’.

“I was worried I was going to end up on a mad one so I asked to stay on it.”

He was freed from his tag in November last year (2023). Without it, he thinks he would probably have been back in prison. 

Danny tells me: “I don’t know where I’d be if it wasn’t for the tag giving me six months clean.”

That’s the formula. Take people away from their frantic drinking lifestyle and all its pitfalls and spirals. Make them realise how much better they can be without it. Encourage them to make it permanent. 

Danny took his partner for a night out at a crazy golf venue in December and hadn’t realised they’d paid for the Christmas deal, which came with two complimentary drinks. For the first time in his life, he didn’t feel the need to leave his glass empty. 

“Since I’ve been on that alcohol tag, I’ve not been interested in drinking at all,” Danny says. 

“It’s helped me move away from it because normally when I get out of prison, it’s all about getting on the sesh. 

“That’s what I relate getting out of prison to because I’m still a bit of a kid in the head because I’ve been away all my younger years, so that’s what I relate to getting out of prison to – having a drink.