Perth man Alex McClintock has come a long way from the moment a chance call from his daughter saved his life.
It was seven years ago and Alex was in his garage at his former home in Monifieth.
The combination of a messy marriage split, child access issues, a toxic relationship, overworking, excessive alcohol and painkiller use, and a bad reaction to anti-depressants left him at a low ebb.
Amplifying this low mood was the feeling that he was unable to talk to anybody about his problems.
At this rock bottom moment he was about to do something fatal.
Suddenly, and wonderfully, his phone started ringing.
“It was my daughter Arden telling me she loved me,” said Alex, 48, who at the time was working at Perth Prison.
“After answering the phone I just broke down and thought, ‘what am I doing?'”
“Without that phone call I wouldn’t be here talking to you.”
That was the point that sparked a remarkable recovery.
Alex has since become one of the main driving forces behind establishing men’s mental health charity Andy’s Man Club in Scotland.
From a standing start five years ago there are now 26 groups helping hundreds of men address their problems each week.
In this feature, Alex reveals how he coped with his personal difficulties and explains how sharing problems can be life-saving.
Picked on for being tall
Children can be sweet, innocent and adorable.
They can also be sour, abrupt and spiteful.
Alex experienced much of the latter when his peers turned against him as a pupil at Perth Academy.
Milngavie-born, he came from a “good, loving family” comprising father Ronnie, mother Lesley and siblings Scott and Laura.
But he looked different to other pupils.
“I was tall,” said Alex, who would grow to reach six-foot nine-inches.
“It was something I struggled to deal with when I was younger.
“I was picked on, which set me up for life, getting constantly picked on and bullied for being taller than everyone else.”
Holding back emotions
Sticks and stones can break your bones, and words such as “lanky”, “giraffe” and “big streak of p***” can really hurt.
But it wasn’t until fairly recently that Alex got to the very root of his 2015 breakdown.
“Looking back it had an impact on mental health,” he admitted.
“After Covid I spoke to a health psychologist.
“If you don’t deal with stuff then moving forward it builds up.
“It’s like a dripping tap. It keeps dripping and dripping until eventually it overflows and causes a mess.”
Redundancy shock
Alex’s aversion to secondary school wasn’t just because he was bullied.
“I wasn’t an educational type of person,” he said. “I would rather do sports.”
He left school as soon as he could, taking a job in retail at House of Fraser in Perth until the shock of redundancy in his early 20s.
“I was in my first flat and had to pay bills and support myself in the big bad world,” Alex recalled.
“I was trying to look for jobs and going back to college and doing different qualifications.
“I couldn’t cope and didn’t want to be in the house.”
He was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and put on anti-depressants, which he has taken, on and off, ever since.
Alcohol and painkillers to cope
Alex spent 18 months employed at Perth Leisure Pool and then, after the birth of Arden (now 22), he began working at Perth Prison.
He was initially a residents officer but did some extra courses to become a physical training instructor in the gym.
It was a role he enjoyed but its demands were felt acutely as he went through a messy divorce with his first wife in 2013.
By then he was also father to Katy (now 16).
“We had a young daughter and there were child access issues,” Alex said.
“I tried to support her as well as myself so I did extra hours at work.
“I did lots of overtime so I could get qualifications to work in the gym.
“I had too much on and put a lot of pressure on myself.
“I started to use alcohol and painkillers as a coping strategy.”
Toxic relationship
Alex began a new relationship “very quickly” and moved from Perth to Monifieth.
“I isolated myself from my friends, family and support network,” he said.
“The relationship there turned toxic. There was a lot of mental abuse – not physical abuse – it was just quite controlling. I couldn’t see my friends and family.
“I got myself into a really bad place and struggled to cope and didn’t know where to reach out, who to speak to because I thought I was the only person going through what I was going through.
“No matter what I was going through I didn’t want to burden my friends and family because I didn’t think they would understand and that my pals would take the mickey out of me.
“That banter mentality we have means we try to see the funny side of things and I didn’t want to appear any less of a man by saying I was struggling.”
Back from the brink
He went to Ninewells Hospital with cluster headaches so was put on medication.
When this sparked a bad reaction he had to come off all of his existing treatments.
“This was the first time I came clean to my doctor that I was abusing alcohol and painkillers,” Alex said.
“I got put on this new anti-depressant but unfortunately with that medication the most common side effect is that you will have suicidal thoughts.
“It was the perfect storm. My life was falling apart, I didn’t have anywhere to turn and now my meds were telling me to kill myself.
“I decided that my family and friends would be better off without me.
“My wee girl would soon forget about me, get on with her life and thrive without me dragging her down.”
This was when Arden’s timely phone call saved his life.
“Afterwards I was embarrassed,” Alex said.
“I packed up all my stuff and moved straight back into my mum and dad’s house and they looked after us for a couple of months so I could get back onto my feet.”
Not reliant on medication
There has not been a single factor behind Alex’s recovery – but rather a combination of measures.
Being on anti-depressants is just one part of it.
“I have always tried to get off these things but I have accepted I need to be on them,” he said.
“I have a chemical imbalance and I need it to keep me on the straight and narrow.
“I have put other things in place – cold water showers, meditation, yoga, exercise, talking to people.
“They are all part of my toolbox to have good mental fitness so I am not relying on that one.”
Meditation can take place anywhere
How, and where, does Alex meditate?
“It is not just sitting at home alone,” he explained.
“It can be going for a run, out walking the dogs, playing computer games – whatever it is that helps you chill out and relax.
“Although I do sit there and put guided meditation on.
“I do it in the bedroom or garden. You can do it anywhere – sitting next to water, at the top of a mountain, wherever.”
Strength and understanding
Alex’s improved mindset coincided with an upturn in other parts of his life.
He qualified to work as an instructor in the gym, where he was able to develop a deeper bond with prisoners while becoming physically stronger himself.
He also met Amanda and married her in Perth in May 2017 – less than a month after his first meeting with Andy’s Man Club.
The charity takes its name from Andrew Roberts, who took his own life aged 23 in early 2016.
Later that year, nine men met in a small room in the Yorkshire town of Halifax with a simple aim of talking through their issues and helping each other deal with their mental health.
As the idea spread the ethos remained the same – every Monday night, between 7pm and 9pm, men get together to talk in a safe, confidential and non-judgemental environment.
There are usually five questions aimed at getting men to open up, from the serious to the light-hearted.
Each group also has a closed Facebook page for anyone who wants to stay in touch.
Key role with charity
On that first meeting in April 2017, Alex and fellow instructor Adam Allison introduced Andy’s Man Club to Perth Prison with recovery activist Jim McKay.
He held little back.
“I told people things I had never told anyone before and I started bawling,” Alex said.
“My mate, who I had known for 20 years, just looked at me gobsmacked because we didn’t talk about that stuff.
“This was something I wanted to get involved in.”
He began as a facilitator and then became a trustee. In 2020 he departed from the prison service after 18 years and took on a full-time role at Andy’s Man Club in project development.
Alex has helped expand the charity in Scotland to reach 26 groups, with more than 400 men meeting up every week.
In Perth and Kinross there is a group at McDiarmid Park and Gleneagles.
And there are also two groups in both Dundee and Dunfermline, as well as groups in Cowdenbeath, Dalgety Bay, Glenrothes, Kirkcaldy, Methil and St Andrews.
‘Man up’ is nonsense
Alex has also thrown himself into numerous fundraising events for Andy’s Man Club.
He has fire-walked, skydived, bungee jumped and even climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2018.
“We just want to spread the message that it’s okay to talk and that big boys do cry,” he said.
“And that it’s nonsense that we should ‘man up’ and shake it off.
“When you see how the charity has grown in six years it is phenomenal.
“To be a small part of that is fantastic. It keeps me humble.
“We have a long way to go and we will keep doing absolutely everything we can.”
