Alan Jones and his wife hadn't been abroad for years – for fear that his snoring would ruin other people's holidays.
The dream-shattering volume of his nightly rumbles would wake up the next-door neighbours and put his marriage under strain.
For decades, he and his wife of 46 years Jean scowled at each other over the breakfast table after yet another disrupted night's sleep.
"It affected our whole lives," said Alan, 67, a distribution company chairman.
"We would wake up in the morning and be less friendly.
"It stopped us going on holiday because there would be the chance I would keep people awake.
"My snoring had been keeping my wife and I up for years but I suppose when we first got married and were working hard to earn a living Jean didn't notice it; we were both so tired when we went to bed.
"But then the bumping and the knocking started when she started to notice it.
"She got so fed up with getting up in the middle of the night that I got up and went somewhere else. Next door would even know when I was asleep and so would those down the road, too."
Seeking relief, Alan went to his doctor who recommended he visit the Sleep Disorder Centre, at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, where specialists monitored his sleep for a night.
"There I was hooked up to various machines which traced my heart rate, my blood pressure and other various things," he said.
That study in November 2011 revealed that because Alan had a small lower jaw, his tongue was too big for his mouth which was causing a reduced air flow, forcing him to involuntarily snore.
He was offered surgery, but one month later pinned his hopes on a revolutionary device called a Somnowell.
The metal brace-like contraption works by holding a snorer's lower jaw in a neutral position, giving the tongue more space to move and ensuring a well-maintained airway.
Alan, from Warlingham, Surrey, said he was unsure if the technique would prove successful, but he was at his wits' end after years of restless nights.
He added: "I suppose I was sceptical at first, but needs must. One of the options was to have an operation on my throat but I didn't want to go down that road.
"Another was to use a gum shield, but because of my tongue that was unlikely to work. I eventually decided the Somnowell was the best option.
"I have lived with this all my life and that is why I was snoring. I think it must have got worse as I have got older because you don't sleep as well."
Now he and Jean are sleeping peacefully again. Alan has avoided being sent to the spare room, and the pair have been able to return to foreign shores.
Wife Jean, 66, said their lives had been transformed by the treatment, adding that they had been abroad three times since using the device.
"Before the treatment I was murderous; I could have killed him," she joked.
"We would have to tell fibs to family members about why we couldn't stay with them, it was that bad. I could never look forward to trips away.
"But now all of that has changed, it's brilliant.
"We no longer have to sleep in different parts of the house."
