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| Judy Mitchell today |
As he first told it, Ed Mitchell's fall from grace was simple.
After losing his high-flying job as a presenter for the American CNBC channel, his credit card debts spiralled out of control, putting such pressure on his 25-year marriage that it broke down.
He lost his family, his home, and eventually found himself living in a seafront shelter in Hove.
It was only then, Ed said, that he turned to alcohol to numb the pain.
But as his family are only too aware, alcohol and gambling played a far more fundamental role in his riches to rags tale.
Ed met his wife Judy in Hong Kong in 1975, and in the early days they were blissfully happy together.
"I was madly in love with him," she said. "He had this mop of beautiful, blond curls.
"We had a similar sense of humour and always knew what the other was thinking, and he had this beautiful voice, like honey."
Ed worked as a business journalist, first for the BBC and then ITN, and was a doting father to their children Alexandra and Freddie, now both in their twenties.
It was only when Ed was offered a new job in Zurich in 1990 that his drinking started to escalate.
He has admitted since that he would begin drinking at 8am after his night shifts had ended, and friends dropped away after he became paralytic at parties.
He still managed to maintain a sober facade for the camera, and after the Zurich station folded was able to obtain a job with CNBC in 1995.
However, his drinking continued, and two years later he went into rehab at The Priory.
He stayed dry for ten months - "a magical, wonderful time" said his family. Soon he was back to his old ways, and when CNBC paid him off in 2000 his alcoholism became week-long binges.
Judy discovered he had run up enormous debts on 25 credit cards, much of it on gambling.
At the end of 2003 the family sold their seafront house in Hove and purchased a much smaller property in Portslade.
Judy did all she could to maintain calm in the house, hauling him out of pubs and betting shops, ridding the house of alcohol and throwing away the little bottles of vodka hidden in his jacket pockets.
It was no use. He'd disappear for days at a time, then stagger home drunk and become verbally abusive if she asked where he had been.
Ed would get into accidents, be turfed off trains, pretend he was off to buy a paper but then buy a quarter bottle of vodka and sit in a walled garden at the park to drink it.
The length of time between binges became shorter and shorter, and when he was too sick to drink any more he would get the DTs, curl up on the floor and vomit, suffer hallucinations and stomach cramps.
Eventually "survival instinct" kicked in and Judy sought a divorce last year.
She is aware Ed stayed with his mother in Lancing during this year - who was also forced to kick him out despite her best efforts - but has had little contact with him since.
It was a "bolt from the blue" to see his story in The Argus last week, she said.
She felt his decision to talk publicly - and not at all honestly - about his position showed little thought for the effect it would have on his family.
She said: "One just has to remember that he is very ill and still in denial. He does not accept he has done wrong and no offer of accommodation or job will help him until he gives up alcohol.
"He has fallen in with dubious characters, fellow drinkers who have probably taken advantage of him and encouraged him to spend what was left on his credit cards, but he obviously hasn't sunk low enough to realise this yet.
"No one would be doing him any favour by taking him in. He needs to make that brave decision and face up to life without alcohol.
"He should forget about the book and perhaps consider publishing a weekly diary of his recovery in a newspaper, and with public interest and encouragement behind him, he might actually stick with it and rebuild his life and career. I wish him well."
Since speaking to The Argus last week, Ed has been inundated with offers of help from old friends and strangers touched by his story.
He has also had a great deal of interest from national newspapers, magazines and TV companies - so much so he has engaged a PR consultant.
Last night she told The Argus Ed was staying "with friends" and was considering offers of work - and finally has admitted his wife's version of events is the true one.
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