As he prepared to bed down for yet another night in a shed in the bottom of his mate's garden Danny Cawley realised he'd hit rock bottom.
But just a couple of years earlier the Manchester artist had been flying high.
Prints of his Blue Moon paintings - created to mark his beloved Man City's 2012 title win following a bet with his pal Damon Gough, AKA Badly Drawn Boy - hung on walls across the North West and he'd sold thousands of tee-shirts bearing the same image.
Hundreds of people would attend his exhibition openings, where the the likes of John Bramwell from I Am Kloot would perform.
Ricky Hatton and former City stars Paul Lake and Andy Morrison were among those who bought his work, and legendary Manchester music photographer Kevin Cummins took his picture for a piece in the City programme.
He even appeared in a short documentary on Sky Sports about his Blue Moon paintings.
For Danny, a football and music-mad former painter and decorator, life was seemingly as good as it gets.
But despite his success he could never quite shake the feeling it could all come crashing down at any moment.
"Being a full-time artist is precarious," Danny told the Manchester Evening News .
"You are baring your soul, you're putting yourself out there to be judged and criticised and at the same time you've got bills to pay."
Then Danny, a recovering alcoholic who began painting after quitting the drink in 2000, discovered cocaine.
And - for a while at least - it took away his insecurities and helped him get through prodigious amounts of work.
With the money rolling in Danny would take the drug at his Ancoats studio and work on his Jackson Pollock-inspired abstract pieces.
"Cocaine takes away your inhibitions," he said.
"It's also a painkiller, it numbs you.
"I'd never taken drugs to paint before, but then one morning in January, I was in the studio in Ancoats and it was freezing and I had a line.
"10 hours later I was still painting. It felt like I discovered something.
"In my addict's brain I was treating it almost like a business. I'd think I took £50 of cocaine but I produced three grand's worth of art.
"And there was also that thing of suffering for your art. The comedowns were like the price I had to pay for producing the work."
But in a short space of time he was hit by several blows in his private life
He broke up with his girlfriend, he had to move out of his home in Chorlton after his landlord sold up and devastatingly, his friend, mentor and fellow artist Charlie Shiels, who'd encouraged Danny to take up painting when they worked together in a call centre, died.
"Charlie's death was a horrible, awful thing," said Danny, who was born and raised in Chorlton.
"I was grieving for him, I was making all this money and I got really, really addicted to cocaine.
"It got to the point where I was using it every day.
"I'd wake up and think I'm not going to use today, but within an hour I'd called up and got some in.
"But because the tee shirts were still selling I thought it was working for me."
At the height of his addiction Danny was getting through about 2g of cocaine a day, at a cost of about £700 a week.
But then the tee shirts stopped selling, the money began to run out and Danny found himself homeless.
In the summer of 2014 he spent 10 weeks living in a shed at the bottom of his mate's garden in Chorlton.
From there he moved into his studio at Vernon Mill in Stockport.
Then one day he went to the Santander branch in Chorlton to check his bank balance.
He had 12p left in his account.
"I was depressed, I was still grieving, I had nowhere to live, my business was going down the pan," said Danny.
"It was a really, really dark time."
But it proved to be the shock to the system Danny needed.
He went back to painting and decorating, slowly saved up enough money to get a house in Stretford, and with the help of his family and friends he began to get help and support for his addiction.
It's been a long and often painful road, but, now 48 and living in Moss Side, he's finally got his life back on track.
There have been several relapses along the way, but he's been clean for the whole of 2019, he's painting again and he's able to look to the future with optimism.
And for the first time in years Danny is also writing music.
One Friday, June 21, his album Let There Be Colour - detailing his battle with addiction, depression, love, loss and grief - is released.
And Danny hopes others fighting the same demons as him can take comfort in his story.
He said: "Throughout it all there's always been hope. I've always managed to get back up again.
"Art and music saved my life. I was so lost, but they gave me a reason to live again.
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"I am someone who has suffered from addiction and depression and there are so many people out there going through the same thing.
"I don't want to be a spokesman, but I want people to know you can get through it. With help and love you can get through it."
Let There Be Colour is available to buy through Danny's Facebook page.
