How saving street dogs in Thailand helped this recovering addict save himself

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From Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

On the small Thai island of Koh Samui, Niall Harbison sets out every day to feed dozens and dozens of street dogs.

Hearing the familiar sound of his moped, "they all come running out, wagging tails and they're delighted," said Harbison, author of Hope: How Street Dogs Taught Me the Meaning of Life.

"They're like, 'Oh there's the little Irishman coming.'"

Harbison's book details his efforts to feed, sterilize and rehome some of the 6,000 stray dogs on Koh Samui, a fraction of the estimated 1.6 million stray dogs in Thailand. Videos of the dogs he rescues from abuse and malnourishment have gained him more than a million followers online.

But while he's been busily saving dogs, he says those dogs have also saved him. Harbison moved to Thailand in 2018 amid a deteriorating addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs.

"There's a good chance I'd be dead, I'd say. I'm not even joking … I was addicted to Valium, and I was drinking three bottles of wine a day," he told The Current's Matt Galloway.

Years before he moved to Thailand, Harbison was a private chef on the yacht of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, serving celebrity guests like Bono. In 2009, he pivoted to media and marketing, setting up and later selling two social media companies.

Beneath that success, Harbison was dealing with depression and anxiety, and using alcohol to cope. His move to Koh Samui was partly in search of a healthier life, but by the end of 2020, he landed in the ICU after a heavy binge of alcohol and prescription drugs.

Harbison lay in that hospital bed over New Year's Eve, convinced he was dying as he listened to the fireworks outside.

"I just said, 'God, there has to be something more to life than what I lived, there has to be something that has some meaning,'" he said.

After three days in hospital, Harbison was discharged in early January 2021 to recover at home. He spent the year rebuilding his health, and thinking about what is important to him in life.

While out walking one day in early 2022, he stopped to feed some dogs in the jungle. He came back the next day to feed them again — and soon it was a daily ritual, feeding more and more dogs as weeks turned into months.

Continues with photos and video

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/niall-harbison-thailand-street-dogs-1.7074526