When North Carolina shut down bars and dining establishments because of to the coronavirus pandemic, longtime Durham bartender David Cunningham felt adrift.

Devoid of his occupation at West Finish Billiards, where by he invested most nights of the 7 days serving beverages, and rising cases of COVID-19, Cunningham identified himself hardly ever leaving his couch, allow by yourself his property.

He felt by yourself and thought he had very little to seem ahead to — a dim and perilous mixture, he admits.

“Mental health and fitness-wise, I wasn’t in a very good location,” stated Cunningham, a 43-12 months-previous Ohio indigenous who sports activities a bushy beard and bald head. “(I was) laying about performing almost nothing but placing on excess weight, getting unfortunate and depressing. Swallowing my individual distress and not performing nearly anything to get out of it.”

But when a good friend requested him to canine sit