The Man Who Drank A Litre Of Vodka Every Day: "How I Stopped Drinking!" - Sober Dave

1. 0:00 – 12:16

   Your early years

   1. APAlex Partridge0:00

      [gentle music] Welcome back to another episode of ADHD Chatter. I'm your host, Alex Partridge. This week, we are joined by a man who has drunk alcohol for four decades, to the point where he was drinking a bottle of vodka every single night, and he's recently celebrated his four-and-a-half-year sobriety. He's a huge voice in the sober community. He has a chart-topping podcast and a book called One For The Road. David Wilson, AKA Sober Dave, welcome.

   2. SDSober Dave0:29

      Hello, Alex. That's a lovely intro, thank you very much, and thank you for inviting me on today as well.

   3. APAlex Partridge0:35

      A pleasure to have you, and I've been looking forward to this podcast episode because as someone who, who has a, had a history of problematic drinking myself, um, looking forward to hearing your story. I'm sure there's a lot to relate to. I think for me, I'm always fascinated to f- to unravel the, the journey of, of, of the alcoholic and, and someone in recovery, and to, to look back into their early years and to s- n- and to see if there was anything that happened back then that might have given some clues as to how things were gonna go later on in life. If you, if you look back into your early years, is there anything that ... Any clues do you think that were there?

   4. SDSober Dave1:15

      I think so, Alex. I mean, I, I didn't grow up in a house that, uh, my parents really drank that much. My dad used to make his own wine, and for anyone who's as ancient as I am, they remember the demijohns with the little bubble thing on the top that I just used to obsessively watch this, watch this bubble going around. But I didn't know anything about alcohol. There was never heavy drinking or arguments in the household, so I, I can't sort of pinpoint it on learned behavior like that. Um, but when I was approaching my sort of 13th birthday, uh, I noticed Mom and Dad were arguing quite a lot. Uh, and then we moved area, so I had to start school, uh, in the second year then of, uh, a secondary school, and I was petrified, absolutely petrified, because I didn't know anyone, and there was already cliques in the classroom, and I walked in there. And growing up, I was extremely sensitive, shy. I didn't have a lot of confidence, and, uh, part of that, I think, was, um, it was a very sort of closeted upbringing. I never used to go out a lot. Um, it was almost a routine upbringing of go to school, come home. And I used to love, uh, Meccano back in the day-

   5. APAlex Partridge2:43

      [laughs]

   6. SDSober Dave2:43

      ... and Lego. I was really good at that. I used to really focus on building things. Uh, and then I used to hear my dad clanking around in the garage on a Sunday, and, uh, [clears throat] my mum used to play The Carpenters, and we'd have a good dinner. Um, so it was quite an old-fashioned upbringing. And then when I went to this school, it was a rough area, and I saw these c- like cliquey, what I would say back then is, like, gangs, and I didn't fit into any of them, so I felt quite isolated. Um, and I hated the first three or four months. I didn't really fit in with anyone. I kept myself to myself, and I was actually bullied, uh, by someone who was half the size, and he used to just whack me in the face, and I would never do anything about it. I was too, like, petrified to think of if the others would join in. And then one day, I got up, and there was a letter on the table, uh, from my mum. And, uh, opened it up, and it basically said, "Dear Dave, I've left your father. Um, I don't know when, but I'll be in touch." And that is all it said. "Love, Mum." And I looked at it, and I, I didn't know really what to think of it. So I went to school, come home, my dad had got in from work. He was in bits, 'cause he had received the same kind of letter, you know? And then I had to go through weeks and weeks of my dad being upset. He tried not to show it to me, but I could see he was clearly upset. Um, my schoolwork went out the window. I was, like, just staring out the window, wondering what was going on. But then my dad met someone else, um, and quite soon after that, I felt really, really isolated and lonely, and I used to sit in my bedroom, um, keeping out of their way. Um, I felt insecure, unloved, rejected, all these emotions. And then one day, there was a knock on the door, and it was this, this kid with a load of other kids behind him, and this was the clique in the classroom. And they went, "You coming out?" And I, I, uh, I thought, "Why not?" So I went out with them, and there was an area where I used to live in, in Carshalton called The Circle, where there was this really well-known, like, gangsters pub up there. But we, we used to hang around the off license, and amongst us all, we'd have a bit of loose change, and then give it to the adults to go in the off license and get some beers. And it's, that was the first time I drank, I think, properly, when I was about 14. Uh, and all of a sudden, I had incredible confidence. And I was never a fighter, Alex. I, I was more of the funny guy. So after a couple of drinks, I started, like, making little jokes and that, and they were going, "Oh, [laughs] you're amazing, Dave. You're so funny." And that's where I fitted in. It was a bit like the Usual Suspects, where it was Mr. Pink, Mr. Black, Mr. ... You know? I w- I was this character that was the funny one and not the fighter. But what I realized soon after that was, because I took to alcohol so quickly, it numbed down my emotions- It actually become a coping strategy pretty quickly in my life, you know, because I would go home again and, and my dad was with his partner, and any opportunity I could, I would have a drink. And back then, um, you could go in the pub without ID. There was no such thing. And if you looked a little bit older, you would get served. And there was a pub there, um, called the Skinner's Arms, and that all the older lot used to play darts, pool, have a real old laugh, and I would get drunk on three or four pints, and then the, the adults would just buy you a drink. "Here, come on, boy, have a beer." You know? So I think it was the, that period of time that I went through with my mum leaving, my dad meeting someone else, that it was a real jolt to my nervous system and I, and I realized that alcohol actually did a job, which was to help me with my emotions. It blocked them out. Um, it made me feel accepted. Um, I was funny. I was one of the lads, and I think it was a real love affair immediately with drink from the off.

   7. APAlex Partridge7:13

      It's such a unique story to you, but the, the details of it and bits of it are very relatable. Uh, the, the alcohol almost fills a void. There's something missing that maybe you're not even sure what that is, but then when you have that drink, I think you said it, it calmed your mind. Did you ... You mentioned rejection a little. Did you react quite strongly to rejection when you were younger?

   8. SDSober Dave7:43

      Yeah. I mean, there's another layer of that as well. I mean, my mum and dad were amazing. Um, we never had any money. Like, literally I would go to school in secondhand clothes. Uh, I remember playing football against the teachers, and they all had football boots, and I had plimsolls, and I was flying all over the pitch. I felt humiliated. But it, you know, on the other side of the coin, my mum or my dad never put their arm around me, told me they love me or they were proud of me. So I, I grew up quite needy, I think, and I was really sensitive as well. And I think by the time I met these lads, and because they accepted me, I kind of grew up three years. So the, my mum when she left, I felt rejected, but then when my dad met his partner, I felt there was a kind of feeling of rejection there. So when these lads took me in, I felt accepted, and with that was the coping mechanism as well. So it was almost like I trampolined into a young adult really quickly from being this kid sitting in his bedroom with his bloody Meccano and Lego to someone hanging around the shops o- over the road from the gangster pub, the St. Helier Arms. And it, it was like the, I'd grown up. In my mind I was one of the boys. Do you know what I mean?

   9. APAlex Partridge9:14

      Mm-hmm.

   10. SDSober Dave9:14

       But the rejection kind of carried on throughout my life at different stages. So we all know that alcohol stunts your emotional growth, and I think it was only leading up to when I stopped I realized that. I went into, like, a bit of a time warp of, of not knowing who I was as an individual, 'cause I, I'd stunted all my emotions for four decades.

   11. APAlex Partridge9:41

       I suppose alcohol is, is never gonna reject you. It's, it's always there. It's always accessible. It's ... You can rely on it to turn you into the person that you want to be or, uh, you know, back, back then. Is that ... Did you, did you feel that way? Like, you, you might have had a rejection elsewhere, but you knew that you could count on alcohol.

   12. SDSober Dave10:04

       Yeah. It accepts you, doesn't it? It, it, it lures you in. The, the way I look at alcohol when it's a problem, it's, it's very crafty, very devious, that it lures you in. It knows what to say to you. And this is why when people try to take a break from it, uh, the first couple of three days they might be okay, and they're white-knuckling, "Yeah, I can do it. I can not drink," and that, and then you get the, the lovely warm voice coming in. It's, "Come on, you know you miss me." You know, it entices you in. So when I say I cope with it, uh, you know, the relation of the re- the, the rejection or whatever, I, I paused it because it stopped me thinking about the rejection, right? So I went through my teens. I was a good footballer. Uh, I played most sports. Um, and I kind of carried on through my teens and 20s like a normal teen, 20-year-old, like, up until I was about 28, and I bought my own flat and, um, there was a guy next door, and I always used to hear him stumbling in. And one day I was coming in the same time as him, and he went, "Hello, mate." He said, "Yeah, I'm your neighbor." He said, "Do you wanna come down the local tomorrow and meet all the boys and that?" And I did, and it was a Young's pub in Sutton, and it was, it was one of the only pubs left that had a saloon bar and a public bar. They were split. So one was like the spit and sawdust, and the other's where all the suits went. So because I was in the carpet game, I was obviously in the public bar, and I, I soon got nicknamed Glugs because I could glug the beer back. You know, I would have ... And a, a lot of it, Alex, was nerves. You know, going in and meeting these people, so I'd drink really quickly. And I, I'll tell you about that later on. I didn't realize at the time why I drank so quickly. But, you know, I would go in there, and I've had, uh, light and lagers, and that was, like, a weird drink 'cause everyone was on lagers. But I've realized that if you had a half a lager and a, and a bottle of light ale, they'd normally pour you three-quarters of a pint of lager, so you was always [laughs] getting more.

   13. APAlex Partridge12:14

       [laughs]

   14. SDSober Dave12:15

       That's how greedy I was.

2. 12:16 – 16:01

   Drinking on your own

   1. SDSober Dave12:16

      And I could do six, seven pints in, in an hour, hour and a half. You know? And I got a reputation down the pub until someone mentioned to me on one day, he said, "Come on, mate, you're, you're really, you're really caning it a lot. There's a lot of people worried about you, the amount you're drinking." And being, like, really hypersensitive, I really... I heard that, you know, oh my God, am I an alcoholic? What's going on? And this is where it changed, because I then limited my drinking in public, and I used to go over the off license over the road and get some for the, for indoors. And that's when it changed from social drinking to drinking indoors, and that just changed everything for me. Because then I would just go and have a couple of beers in the pub, and then I started off with four cans of Diamond White, then it would be eight cans of Diamond White. And I don't know if you remember them, but they were 8.2%-

   2. APAlex Partridge13:16

      Mm

   3. SDSober Dave13:17

      ... like battery acid. And, and I would just go home and drink them and pass out. But then I was an accountable 21, so it, it was safe for me. There wasn't gonna be any more judgment than it would be, "Actually, he's turned his life around. He's never drunk anymore." But they didn't know what I was doing indoors, you know? And then I moved. I was... So I went through my 30s, um, failed with relationships. I went through this theme of failure because of my drinking, and I took that as rejection. And when I was 40, I bought a cottage that was, like, two, three miles away. And this is, anyone that knows my story have heard this is where it really changed. It's that I, I stopped going out altogether. And it's really important people hear this, going from the transition of the pub to the drinking indoors, to then the isolation, which I've heard a lot of people say. 'Cause alcohol's a cumulative, right? So when... You know, I started to think, "Well, actually, if I buy three bottles of wine for 10 quid," there was an offer then back in the day, "that's like three beers in the pub, so I can have three bottles of wine for that." So I started negotiating the price difference of staying in compared to going out. So I started drinking, say, two bottles of wine, but then I started getting stuck into the third bottle, right? And I, I wasn't concerned about the content or the amount I was drinking, I was concerned about the weight I was putting on, so I ballooned, Alex. Like, I was literally stacking on the weight. Poor food choices, laziness, lethargy, staying in all weekend just drinking, watching the football. So then I did the, the terrible thing. I googled what alcohol has the least amount of a- uh, calories. Well, up popped vodka. And 10 years of that, uh, I was, towards the end, drinking a litre a night of vodka. Passing out, waking up. And I was holding down a job as well. Like, I had my own business, but I, I kind of weaved it in and out, you know? So it, it was just a road of destruction. Uh, and I've said in my book, I, I barely remember my 40s because of my drunken stupor throughout. Um, so I blocked everything out then. I mean, talk about blocking some of the feelings out in the beginning. I literally... It was like being in a Pink Floyd video or something. I w- I was just away with the fairies constantly, you know?

3. 16:01 – 23:13

   Why did you drink?

   1. APAlex Partridge16:01

      This is a huge question, um, and it's so individualistic for everyone. But what do you think you were trying to escape from with the booze?

   2. SDSober Dave16:09

      It's a good question, and it would be easy to say, um, what happened when I was 14. But I think because I had, I would pretty much say, a dysfunctional relationship with alcohol pretty much from the beginning, I made a series of bad choices. I had no ambition. Um, and as I say to you, I had my own business, but it was barely running. I mean, I made some horrendous decisions. I lost thousands of pounds off the back of not doing quotes because I'd rather get drunk, not turning up for work. And I think it was, you know, a, a, a history of failed relationships, and I think it was extreme low self-esteem, lack of self-worth. I ended up hating myself, loathing who I'd become. Coming from quite a handsome young lad playing football at a high standard, to this fat old man sitting at home, waking up and then drinking again. Waking up, drinking again. And I think I lost all my self-respect, my self-worth, and I was on that hamster wheel of doom, of continuous, "I can't escape this, so I might as well carry on," 'cause it, it temporarily makes me feel better when I do carry on. And the thought of stopping feels too miserable for me that I'm, I'm gonna carry on. And at, there were certain points that I didn't care if it took me. Like, I would drink and go, "Go on then. Is this the last one then, is it?" Uh, that's a terrible thing to say, but it's the truth.

   3. APAlex Partridge17:59

      Thanks for being so honest. Uh, when, wh- when you woke up after a big session, and you were on your own, I, I assume, in your flat, and, you know, when you wake up, y- you're sober. You got a cracking hangover, I imagine. H- how did you feel in that moment before you cracked on again for that day?

   4. SDSober Dave18:20

      Well, the thing with me was I w- I've always been someone that roll up his sleeves, you know? So I, I remember once I had this huge contract in a, in a block of offices, and we had to start at 6:00 in the morning. And I said to my mate the night before, "I'm not going out. I'm not going out." He said, "Just have one." And I ended up getting in at 4:00 in the morning, and it was horrific, mate, honestly. Turning up this job, meeting the MD, and I knew I was probably still drunk, stinking of booze, looking awful, and I got through the day. And it was a weird sort of, um, [lip smacks] self-defense thing for me. It's almost a justification. And it, it didn't do me any favors, because when you said waking up with a, a hangover, I didn't really get hangovers because I think I was constantly f- filled with alcohol in my system that it, I never allowed myself to come down off of it. Do you know what I mean?

   5. APAlex Partridge19:22

      Mm.

   6. SDSober Dave19:22

      And I, I would never drink in the day if I was at work or anything like that, but I think I'd had so much from the night before, by the time I was withdrawing in the evening, I could start drinking again. So I just carried on and on and on. It was, it was like a, a mad film that you would watch and think, "God, how is this bloke still alive?" You know? And I'd, I just couldn't see a way out of it. But I suppose what they, how they name someone a functioning alcoholic is when on the outside it might look like they're coping, but on the inside you're just about winging every hour of the day. And I think I lived like that for-

   7. APAlex Partridge20:05

      Yeah

   8. SDSober Dave20:05

      ... ever while I was drinking.

   9. APAlex Partridge20:08

      You mentioned the come down earlier and, uh, from, you know, I'm s- I'm, I'm someone who's had a, a problematic alcohol relationship in the past, and I've been on a three-day binge, and I, I can feel that, the shakes and the come down, and that's often what, uh, that what gives me the urge to drink again, 'cause you desperately want to stop the shakes. You wanna stop that anxiety. Do you think that's perhaps what made you drink sometimes, that, the physical urge, that physical craving to stop the shakes?

   10. SDSober Dave20:39

       I, I never, ever thought of it that way. Um, I, I wasn't... I remember I had to sign for something in the post office and I couldn't sign my name because my hand was shaking that much.

   11. APAlex Partridge20:49

       Mm.

   12. SDSober Dave20:49

       And she just looked at me and she said, "That's not your signature." I remember that, but I, I, there was never a point I thought, "I need to drink to stop the shakes." It was more of the emotional state that I was in of, "I wanna have a drink." And there were times I didn't even feel like I needed it. It was just something I did, and I loved it as well. It was a real love-hate relationship. I hated it in the morning with all my heart. I hated it. I hated what it'd done to me. But the usual thing of by the afternoon you start to feel a little bit better and you might have had something to eat, and then that luring voice comes in and starts charming you again. "Come on, Dave. You know tonight's gonna be boring without a drink. Go on, just have the one." And, "Oh, go on then." You know, anyone could twist my arm. I twisted me own arm. So it was more, I think it was more the emotional side, that it turned the volume down on so many things. I'm a naturally a huge overthinker, um, hyper-focusing literally everything I do. And I will say, since I've stopped drinking, that's eased quite a bit, although I still am. But it was the overthinking. So the only way I could describe it to you is, is if you walked in and you heard the worst song in the world really loud on the radio, that was my head by the time I got in. And I used to pour a massive vodka with a tiny bit of tonic, neck it in one, and it's like turning that radio down to zero so the noise had gone. And, and that was what was my driver for the drinking. And also it was like, what else is there to do? It's actually makes me feel really good in the beginning. Uh, and I didn't worry about the middle bit and the end bit where I'd wake up at 3:00 in the morning. I, it was just the beginning bit that I strived towards every single day. And there was a part I also didn't think I could go a day as well. It, it, I was on that rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat every single day. And there was a part of it, Alex, which not a lot of people in the sober community admit to is that there's a part I didn't actually wanted to give up either, 'cause I, it, it did its job on me, and that was good enough for me. Whatever it meant, it was good enough 'cause it, it did its job.

   13. APAlex Partridge23:12

       You hear so

4. 23:13 – 29:49

   When did you experience 'rock bottom'?

   1. APAlex Partridge23:13

      often the, the phrase rock bottom and a drinker's darkest moment, and that, that's often what really prompted them to go into recovery and, and to s- and to not pick up again. Does, does the phrase rock bottom resonate with you? And, and was, was there a particular dark moment with your drinking?

   2. SDSober Dave23:32

      Several, mate. Absolutely several. I mean, the one that sticks out is, uh, Eastbourne. I'd, uh, I was with someone then, and there was an argument indoors. The doctor had double dosed my antidepressants, didn't even really ask me about my drinking, so I went up to double, uh, 100 milligram on sertraline. Um, I was on four different medications for blood pressure, um, cholesterol, reflux. Um, I was 20 stone in weight, and I ended up driving down to Eastbourne, down the coast, and I just dumped the van in a side road and I went straight to the Wetherspoons there. Uh, and I drunk there for 10 hours, uh, made a load of fake friends. And, and it was Easter, and there was just nowhere to stay, but I didn't really care 'cause I romanticized sleeping on the beach that night. And I, I bought, uh, a, a bottle of vodka and I sat on the beach. And I don't remember a lot apart from waking up about 3:00 in the morning, frozen, like literally frozen solid. With blood running all down my head where I must have tried to get up and just fallen onto the pebbles. And I, I did that for four days. So I was basically, I made myself kind of homeless for four days. Uh, I don't know how I survived that because I've been there since, and it's pretty rough there at night. Um, you know, gangs of people around and that, so I don't know how I didn't get mugged or, or the al- the alcohol didn't kill me. Do you know what I mean? I still carried on after that, Alex. So I, I, I got home and I went to the doctor's, and I think they realized I'd made a massive mistake, and I was in there for nearly an hour, and I come out of there and I thought, "I've, I've got to do it." And within a week, I was drinking again. There was several other incidents that I don't wanna take all the time up on this podcast, but probably 10, 20 rock bottoms where really it was enough to make most people stop. But I just wasn't in the head space for it. It ju- I, I just wasn't ready. There was just... But although I say that, I kept saying to myself inwardly, "I've got to do something about this. I've got to do something about this." You know? Um, and that went on for months. I mean, I remember one night, I, I was that drunk and I remember looking for paracetamol to take my life because I thought I, I'm, I'm no good to anyone. And I was lit- literally chucking stuff out of drawers to try and find it. And then I gave up, and I woke up face down on the floor with my coat on in the morning, and it's like, it kind of, it took a while for me to remember, but it was like, "Oh, what am I doing?" You know. And if that's not a rock bottom, you know. A- and again, carried on, carried on, carried on.

   3. APAlex Partridge26:26

      Thanks for sharing that. It's, um, it's, it's, it's a very vulnerable thing to do, to share such a personal story like that. And that to me sounds like a, a session that would make the hardest drinker look in the mirror and, and say, "This is enough. This, this has got to stop now. If I carry on like this, I'm either gonna drink myself to death, I'm gonna have an accident which will take me, or," as you alluded to, "I'm gonna take myself." Um, it's, it's brutal. It, it, when you get in that spiral of just not being able to stop. And funnily enough, you said Eastbourne. You know, that's, um, that's my hometown. And, uh, I don't live there anymore, but I'm, I'm in Brighton. But I went out in Eastbourne once and I was similar. I didn't... Not on the beach, but in a, in a park, you know, um, in the morning and not sure how I got there. So it's, it's, uh, funny. You know, I, I was looking forward to having you on this podcast and, and, and, and then such a relatable... Our paths have crossed in a way, even though different, different times, but-

   4. SDSober Dave27:36

      Yeah

   5. APAlex Partridge27:37

      ... you know.

   6. SDSober Dave27:37

      And I know the park I think you mean. And do you know what, Alex? What, what I do often is I go back to Eastbourne and I visit the pub, which I think was The Duke of Wellington.

   7. APAlex Partridge27:50

      Mm.

   8. SDSober Dave27:50

      Is that there?

   9. APAlex Partridge27:51

      Yeah, yeah.

   10. SDSober Dave27:51

       Right. And I, and I, I would, I've gone back there and sat where I used to sit. I've gone and sat on the bit of the beach that that happened. I've gone to the bar on the end of the beach, on the pier-

   11. APAlex Partridge28:04

       Mm

   12. SDSober Dave28:04

       ... where I would get a drink early doors. Just so it keeps me grounded where I am now, 'cause I never wanna move away from those experiences, because it keeps me level to where I am in my life now. Um, it's really important for me. A lot of people wouldn't be able to do that, but for me, I find it important for me. And I must have gone back a few times, and then I go for a big walk on the Seven Sisters there just to bro- blow the cobwebs away. And it helps me moving forward because it helps me help others. Because when people come to me and they tell me of their problems, I can really relate to it emotionally rather than, "Well, actually, that was five years ago now, and that memory's fading." I really wanna stay with it, but in a more healthy way rather than go back and it's, "Oh my God." A- and it also g- gives me a measure of each time I go back there where I am now, which is really useful for me as well.

   13. APAlex Partridge29:06

       I think it's so important, like you said, to have, to really stay connected with that memory of why you stopped drinking, because that, that devil on your shoulder, that, that, I suppose, denial you could call it, is, is pretty strong and can be a loud voice sometimes and it, it can, you know, can maybe convince you that enough time has passed, so maybe you can have a drink-

   14. SDSober Dave29:29

       Yeah

   15. APAlex Partridge29:29

       ... now and you can drink in moderation. Um, and as we know, it's, it's seldom the case that anyone can, can, you know, drink like a normal person, quote unquote, once you have that horrendous condition of alcoholism. Um, super interesting. Um,

5. 29:49 – 51:30

   What made you stop drinking?

   1. APAlex Partridge29:49

      what made you stop? What, what was the catalyst that, that, that made you start your sobriety?

   2. SDSober Dave29:57

      There was a guy where I used to live, and he was a fascinating man, and, uh, we'd gone out a few months before that and, uh, we were just sitting there and he said, "Do you know what?" He was very, um, godly. He had this instinct that he could meet you, Alex, and tell you something about your past, and you would go, "How the hell does he know that?" He had the most incredible gift, and he said to me, "You're on the cusp of something absolutely incredible, but I have no idea what it is, but it's coming soon." And I had no idea what he was. I was drinking then. And it was Christmas 2018, was a car crash, and there was a picture of me, and I look... It was like one of those OK! magazines with a celebrity on the front [laughs] and they, they're at their worst posed. You know what I mean?

   3. APAlex Partridge30:47

      [laughs]

   4. SDSober Dave30:48

      And I looked at it and I thought, "Oh my God, you look hideous." And, um- I did the whole new year thing, get drunk, and then carried on into January, and I had no intention of doing Dry Jan or anything like that. And one day, it was a Monday morning, uh, I'm sure it was a Monday, um, on the 7th of Jan, and I got a text from Piers, my friend, and, uh, it said, "How do you fancy joining me for three months to take a break for alcohol to see where you are in your life and your health and..." You know, and I looked at it and I burst out laughing. I was like, "Oh my God, you don't even know what... Uh, you don't know. I can't even have three days without it, you know? What are you doing to me?" And I threw my phone across the van, like, in disgust.

   5. APAlex Partridge31:35

      [laughs]

   6. SDSober Dave31:36

      And, uh, but something happened that day. It was like a seed was planted, right? And I started to think about the way he phrased it to me. It wasn't, "Dave, mate, you look a right mess. You need to stop drinking." It was, "Why don't you join me and to see how you are in three months?" So, I started visualizing that version of me in three months without alcohol, and I saw a happier person, a fitter person, a more productive person, and it kind of set something off inside me. So, I remember I was in Colliers Wood just heading towards, um, where I lived at the time, and I pulled over in this layby and I just text him, "Are you in?" And he said, "Yep." He's never in, by the way, Alex. So, this is serendipity, honestly.

   7. APAlex Partridge32:28

      [laughs]

   8. SDSober Dave32:29

      I said, "I'm coming to see you." And he's a big man. He looks like Foxy out of, um, SAS: Who Dares Wins. He's an absolute ringer, right?

   9. APAlex Partridge32:36

      [laughs]

   10. SDSober Dave32:36

       And I walked in, and he's standing there, and I looked at him, and it was almost like there was some spell he put on me, like, "Ah." And I looked at him and I went, "Let's do it." And that was it. I hadn't drank since that moment. That was four and a half... I just, that was it. I was done. And it was like I dumped the narcissist, like, uh, the narcissistic relationship I'd been in for 40 years. I ended it right there and then on the spot and said, "I'm not doing this anymore." And, and [laughs] uh, when I say it's as simple as that, it wasn't. Trust me. But on paper, it was. But there's a thing called spontaneous sobriety, and it might look like that, that I just stopped. But do you remember what I said in the beginning when I said, I kept saying to myself, "I've got to do something about it. I've got to do something about it." And I think that just mentally prepared me for that day, that this is when I'm gonna do something about it. And that was what was so powerful about that self-talk to myself, of it wasn't you're never gonna be able to do it. It was you've got to do something about it. And that was that day, mate. And, and, uh, you know, when I say I haven't looked back since, I haven't. Uh, I just haven't. It's the best thing I've ever done for myself ever in my whole life.

   11. APAlex Partridge34:01

       Have you had any... Congratulations, by the way. I saw you recently. I mentioned at the beginning, I saw you've just recently celebrated, like you said, four and a half years sobriety.

   12. SDSober Dave34:09

       Yeah.

   13. APAlex Partridge34:09

       So, you know, in- incredible. And, um, congratulations.

   14. SDSober Dave34:13

       Thank you.

   15. APAlex Partridge34:13

       I, I know how... Uh, uh, ha- are you, do you use any, any, uh, systems? Are there... There's obviously the 12-step program and, and s- various others. Are you, are you involved in anything like that?

   16. SDSober Dave34:27

       I tried AA in the beginning, and I, I love churches, so that helped, right? I went in and it felt wonderful, and I was greeted, but after six or seven, um, I just felt I was hearing the same thing. And I will caveat that by saying that I should have tried other meetings. So, I don't want people here that do attend AA to be put off or think I'm one of them, because I'm not. But I just felt it wasn't working for me. And in hindsight, I should have maybe tried different meetings, meet different people. But there was something that felt, like, difficult for me to keep going back, and, and it's the repetitive, "I'm an alcoholic" thing. I don't like that label. Um, I like to look at it that, yeah, I know that if I have one drink, I'm screwed, but I'm not gonna have that one drink. So, I, I look at as my recovery as discovery, because I like to move forward. I like to be more positive about it, and I like to view life as what's ahead rather than keep being in that, "I'm an alcoholic" in 30 years' time. But I, I do also know that helps people as well, which is fantastic. So, after that, I left there, and I was a little bit snookered, but I, I, I didn't start drinking then. Um, and then I'd created my, uh, Instagram and I saw there was an event online, um, in Dalston. And, uh, there was a couple of guys there, um, the Rock Sober Brothers, Janey Lee Grace, William Porter, a few, Claire Pooley, big names in the sobriety, um, field. And I thought, "Do you know what? I'm gonna go." Now, you know, Alex, if you're going out and you're nervous, what do you have pre-drinks or you might have, you know, meet a couple of mates first in the pub and that. So, I was going all the way to East London on my own, cold, blown sober after six weeks of not drinking after 40 years. And I was on the train, and I got there to the event and that, and I was watching people going in. I thought, "I can't go in. I'm- I just can't go in." And then half an hour later, I thought, "This is stupid. I've got to go in." And if I hadn't have got in, the story could've been quite different. But I plucked up the courage, went in. It was packed in there, and I saw one seat on this sofa, and I headed for that. And as I sat down, I slumped in, and this bloke leapt up in the air and his drink went all over him. It was like a Carry On film, you know. What an entrance I made.

   17. APAlex Partridge37:03

       [laughs]

   18. SDSober Dave37:03

       But it was a really wonderful event. And then afterwards, we all mingled and I met the, the Rock Sober brother, their tw- uh, like, uh, brothers Lee and Sean, William Porter who wrote Alco Explained and whatnot. And, and I, I left there, Alex, and I was like, "Oh my God, these people are normal. These are like builders and architects." And you know, there was a real array of people there, and I felt kind of accepted, and it wasn't the constraints of, "You're an alcoholic," and, and this. It was like a, a normal social thing, you know? And I went home, and I got up the next day, and a few people had sent me messages and that. And, um, it was not long after that I grew my Instagram account. I'd done a lot of, um, cycling events to get fit. I've cycled London to Paris with peers. Uh, London to Portsmouth, London to Brighton, all within six months. And bearing in mind I was 20 stone, so me on a bike was like Shrek. All these other people were, like, whizzing past me up the hill.

   19. APAlex Partridge38:06

       [laughs]

   20. SDSober Dave38:06

       And I was like, "Ugh." But anyway, I did it. And then I had my own event in the September, and, uh, there was 85 people came. Someone flew from Germany, and it was like really spurred me on to build a community because I, I think communities are so important, right? And then one day, I just had this brainwave. It's like I've always been th- uh, fascinated in, like, the therapeutic world, you know, like helping and listening and ... And I thought prob- maybe like you, Alex, I'm gonna do a podcast. I had no idea whatsoever about how to do a podcast or anything, you know? Um, and I got the stuff, and I sat down and invited my first guest on, and it went to number two in the Apple charts, and it was like, "What the hell?" I could not believe it. And I realized there was such a niche in this field of people silently struggling because of the shame wrapped around having a problem with alcohol and the stigma. And I realized that actually this holds a space for someone to tell their story, and for others to hear it and feel they could hook onto it. Like your podcast yourself, you know, and people get such a lot from it. And by that, I started to look for guests and that, and then I, I realized that actually there are so many thousands and thousands of people just in the UK stopping drinking, but over the world it's massive. So there's got to be a space for people to, to go for, for support that isn't just AA. Because AA's been around since the '50s, and it's like the first thing you think about is, "I must go to AA." But there, you know, it's like going shopping. You might like this brand, I might like that brand, and that, that's fine, you know? And gradually throughout my sobriety, I started to get more and more people involved with me, my life. I would go to their events. So we would do some lives. Lockdown came along and, uh, I become part of this thing called The Sober Sessions, which was a group of us that would just go online, and people could ask us questions and... And it just grew, mate. And then one of my catchphrases back in the day of drinking was, [laughs] you know, when you all flash, "Well, I could write a book about this one day."

   21. APAlex Partridge40:39

       [laughs]

   22. SDSober Dave40:41

       So I thought, "Hello." [laughs]

   23. APAlex Partridge40:42

       [laughs]

   24. SDSober Dave40:43

       So I did. Um, and I write, I wrote my book, and I trained to be a gray... Now, the irony here, Alex, is I trained to be a gray area drinking coach. I certainly didn't fit in that criteria. Uh, I don't know if you did, but that, that means that you're not drinking every single day, or you might be but it's just a couple of glasses, or you might go a week without a drink, yet you might binge at the weekends. You're basically not a take it or leave it drinker like at Christmas. Oh, I'll have a nice sherry at Christmas. But you don't hit the rock bottom, so there's a big space in the middle. And a lot of people now are identifying into that model of their drinking, you know, gray area drinking. And, um, it kind of helps take the stigma out of it as well because when people think of you have a drinking problem, they do think of that stereotypical sitting on a bench with a brown bag. But there's a lot of people that are in this void of gray area drinking that, you know, is quite different from that.

   25. APAlex Partridge41:47

       Mm. 100%. I mean, you think of alcoholic or, you know, you can think of, I suppose, you s- your, your mind jumps to the stereotype, which is potentially someone, you know, 8:00 a.m. in the morning staggering around Central London with a bottle in their hand, when in fact it's, a lot of it can happen behind closed doors. There can be huge gaps between the sessions. They could potentially drink normally in social situations, but then behind closed doors they could be binging themselves into a, you know, a violent shake three days later. So-

   26. SDSober Dave42:18

       100%, yeah.

   27. APAlex Partridge42:20

       What's the biggest... The sobriety coach is fascinating. What's the, what's the b- biggest q- question someone comes to you with, one of your clients?

   28. SDSober Dave42:32

       Well, that's, that's a whole other podcast in itself, but a lot of people don't know how to be with their partners. There's, that's a big question because if you stop drinking, if you've been with a partner that still drinks, or your relationship was based around drinking and then one turns into a puritan where they're eating healthy, they're going out exercising, they're losing a bit of weight, they- they're getting more glow to their skin, they're sleeping better, and the other one's carrying on, it's how do you negotiate around that, the change in the relationship? You know, that, that's quite a big question. Um, how do I socialize without alcohol? You know, that, that's a big one. Um, how do I go on holiday? There's all these things, right, that, that, that are the things that put people off from stopping. And what I say is, like, if you do take a 30-day break, right, you can explore all these different things. Like, what do I say to my friends? And, you know, a lot of lads out there are like, "My mates will literally rip the piss out of me if I don't, don't have a beer tonight." So I say to them, "Well, then don't go. Make an excuse." You've got to give yourself the opportunity of how you'd feel after 30 days. And I've just brought out a, a course which is, it covers romanticizing alcohol, how that when you take the break, after a few days you start to romanticize it. And you might have, um, felt that, Alex. If you're going a few days, few weeks and you're feeling all chipper and you think, "Do you know what? I've got more energy." But then you think, "It's Friday tomorrow and my mates are all going out, and the sun's out, and I could just have the, the odd pint, like a pint." And you imagine the condensation running down the, the glass or the bottle, and that's the romanticizing. And I always say to people, "How are you gonna feel the next day? H- how's that gonna affect the whole of your weekend? How will you feel if you've already done two weeks off and then you, you're back to square one with it, you know?" Um, I... Moderation myths, if you've just said earlier in the podcast, it's like that myth of, "Again, I could just have one because I've gone a month without drinking." Uh, and, and 95% of people that develop an issue with their drinking cannot moderate. That's fact, right? So you have one. A l- a lot of people come to me and they say, uh, "Oh yeah, I had half a bottle of wine last night and I put the lid back on, put it in the fridge, so that's all right. I've, I've learnt how to moderate." And, and I'm like, "Okay, let's check in in a week's time where, and see where you are." And they go, "Oh, I'm back to normal now. In fact, I think it's a bit worse," because they really go for it. So it's such a can of worms, Alex, but this is why I say you've got to rely on a lot of mental strength, support, uh, find the right community, educate yourself. You know, education is key. And I think learning about your body, how, how you are, you know, eating the right foods, doing the right exercise. If you said to me, "Actually, Dave, I'm down in Eastbourne next Saturday," and I am, "Let's go for a 5K and we can chat." I was like, "Oh my God, I couldn't think of anything worse." But if you said, "Let's go for a 20K cycle ride" or something, I'd be, "Oh, I'd love that, mate. Let's, let's go," you know? So you have to find out what works for you, but I think the, the key element is to actually want to explore that change. It's like, get to a place where you think, "Do you know what? I want to see what my life is like when I remove alcohol. I just want to find out the evidence of it." And then you're halfway there.

   29. APAlex Partridge46:35

       Do you think sometimes it's the, the thought of the damage and the consequence and the effect that your drinking is having on the people around you, your friends, your loved ones, that can sometimes be a motivating factor to stop?

   30. SDSober Dave46:52

       Yeah, I do. I do. You know, and, and that was part for me when I wanted to take those tablets. It was like, I, I'm better off. I'm too, too much of a burden in people's lives, you know? But I also work with partners as well, and the devastation that goes on in their lives. Um, and I recently did a talk in Suffolk and I met this woman there called Lucy, and she won't mind me saying her story, that she lost her husband at 41 years old to liver failure, and he just turned yellow and, and dropped dead, and left her and her two kids. Um, and you know, kids growing up as well in, in that toxic environment of, um, excessive drinking, how that affects them and, you know. It's not just having a beer with a, with a lad. It's, the catastrophic effect it has on people around you is enormous.
6. 51:30 – 55:30

   Are you happy?

   1. APAlex Partridge51:30

      and I feel like you are probably happier now than you've ever been. Is that a, a, an accurate description?

   2. SDSober Dave51:40

      Yeah, absolutely. And that doesn't... You know, what I said in that post as well, it wasn't about having a Rolex on your wrist or, or a nice car, which is of course nice, but it was about the inner contentment. Feeling content within myself is like, actually, I'm really happy with who I am now. You know, I'm happy with the decisions I make, the life I've chosen to live. And that's what I mean about happiness rather than the external factors that we look for. A- and that's come from a lot of self-development, a lot of sitting with my feelings where I haven't sat with them for 40 years. And I've had to prioritize how I deal with those. So I've had therapy. You know, I invested in a fantastic therapist who's helped me unpack them and has helped me put them in order so I can move forward. You know? So it's, it's more about the waking up in the morning feeling content with who I am and what my life represents, you know? It's that, that was what I meant.

   3. APAlex Partridge52:54

      It's so true. You, you've, when you're not shackled by booze, by alcohol and, and you can live life on your own terms, and you can remember your days, and you're, you get that control back, and you're not a prisoner to-

   4. SDSober Dave53:14

      Yeah

   5. APAlex Partridge53:14

      ... to, to the bottle.

   6. SDSober Dave53:15

      It is. It's like poison ivy. It wraps itself around your toe, and then it goes up your shins, up your thighs, and then it's round. Before you know it, it's round your neck, and you feel completely suffocated. I don't know if you've felt like that but once you break free, it... You know, I'm a very visual person, so it just reminds me of getting out of a really toxic relationship. And you move on, and you look back at it. And, and I'm mindful it's still there. I don't take it for granted, the power it's got. I'm mindful of it, but I've got my life back, and I've got the control back now. And I'm comfortable with that control as well because I, I'm managing without it quite fine. And I think that's what I mean about that label alcoholic. It's that, that doesn't work for me because I, I'm constantly moving forwards, and that feels quite restrictive to me, so I don't use it on myself anyway. And you know, I've just come back from Morocco and climbed Mount Toubkal. I could just about climb the escalators if they're broken down.

   7. APAlex Partridge54:20

      [laughs]

   8. SDSober Dave54:21

      You know? And, and, uh, I'm going to Nepal for 17 days in the end of September to do the Annapurna Circuit, and that's sleeping in tiny little tea houses. And it's really spiritual in the mountains there. And it's like, I cannot wait. But when I was drinking, my life was so small. All I used to do is look at the floor, like in, in a dark space. And it's like, I've taken the blinkers off now, and I've looked up, and I've seen what's available there. And you know, I'm a lot older than you, but for me, I, I think what I'm doing now is I'm making up for the four decades of where I've wasted my life. And to be honest, Alex, I could say, yeah, I've had some blinding times. I have. You know, it's not all been miserable. You know, I, I've had some really good fun times. But my drinking become, as you say, my prison. It, I was in, in my own prison. And that day on the 7th of January 2019, I found the key, and I unlocked it, and I walked out, and I ain't gone back since.

7. 55:30 – 1:05:02

   ADHD

   1. APAlex Partridge55:30

      Do you think that you might have ADHD?

   2. SDSober Dave55:35

      Well, [sighs] I think a couple of years ago there was th- it, it was almost like one of the, the buzzwords, right? "Oh, I think I've got ADHD." But since then, a lot of people I know that have had issues with alcohol have been tested, and they've all been tested as having ADHD. Um, I haven't yet been tested, but I did have a genetic test done where they found out I've got a faulty dopamine receptor. Um, I'm very low in serotonin, I'm low in vitamin D, low in B12, which means that, what I said to you, I'll, I'll go on to tell you why I drank so quick, is because I'm, it, I'm very all or nothing. Um, I'm very impulsive. So I could say to you, "I'm not drinking," like when I was drinking, "I'm not drinking tonight." And you go, "Oh, go and have one." Bit like that night when I said I'm only having one, and ended up getting home at 4:00 in the morning. Um, but it's the obsessive behavior I've got. I will focus on something and I will just continually focus. Like I said to you before about the eBay purchase.

   3. APAlex Partridge56:47

      Mm.

   4. SDSober Dave56:47

      It's when I was drunk, I'd wake up to an email, and as I don't even remember buying something for 600 quid, you know-

   5. APAlex Partridge56:54

      [laughs]

   6. SDSober Dave56:54

      ... I would just obsess over it. Um, but the fact I've got a faulty dopamine receptor means that, um, I could have something good happen, and within five minutes I feel quite low again. So I have to work at that. Um, and I think that's what creates binge drinking in people, you know. People that binge drink are always looking for that, that dopamine hit, and I believe one of the signs of, uh, having ADHD is low dopamine, right?

   7. APAlex Partridge57:21

      Yeah. For su- I mean, it, it's, it's, and other things, but yeah, definitely that plays a big part. And I think the im- im- the impulsivity with, combined with the option to drink, it's that it's, it's linked to a lot of things. Im- impulse spending, impulse drinking, and then once you get that kind of, that rush, that, that feel-good feeling, then-

   8. SDSober Dave57:41

      Well, and the overthinking as well, right? Because, um, a lot of pe- me including, are huge overthinkers, right? When you drink, it stops, it slows it down. It's a bit like that radio thing I said, you know, it just turns it down, the volume. Um, my overthinking's ridiculous, and I've had to really manage it since I've stopped drinking, because you can't just stop drinking and it all goes away. It, sometimes it ramps up twice the volume, you know. But there's mindfulness, that I take, um, a vitamin D spray, a B12 spray, magnesium, to try and help me manage these symptoms rather than just turn into alcohol. 'Cause you can't just take it out and expect it all to fit into place, as you know. You have to fill the void with things. You have to revisit hobbies. You need to find other dopamine hits outside taking a drug. Do you know what I mean? So it could be exercise, it could be something else, you know. Um, climbing a mountain. [laughs]

   9. APAlex Partridge58:40

      Yeah. [laughs]

   10. SDSober Dave58:41

       But, you know, you, you can't just expect to take that huge part of your life and expect everything to be all right. So, but finding out things, and it's something I'm gonna explore soon, I think, is to maybe get tested to see, um, if I have got that. Because, as I say, a lot of people I know have. And I, and I think there's such a link between excessive drinking and ADHD. It, it's coming to light more and more now.

   11. APAlex Partridge59:10

       There definitely seems to be. I've spoken to a lot of people with ADHD, and there's a trend that al- problematic drinking is something that crops up time and time again. And even in support groups for problematic drinking, ADHD crops up time and time again. So I don't know the science, but there's a clear link, and I think it's down to that impulsivity. It's that overthinking. You need something to quiet your mind.

   12. SDSober Dave59:42

       Yeah.

   13. APAlex Partridge59:43

       Alcohol does that. Certainly does for me. And then when you get that, it's such a nice feeling that then the im- impulsivity kicks in and you wanna get some more, and then you want some more, and then you want some more, and then it goes from there. That's kind of the, the trend I've seen.

   14. SDSober Dave59:58

       Well, there's another one as well, right, is when, when I was drinking, I could never read 'cause I was too drunk. So I thought, "Oh, that's good. I'll stop drinking. I'll be able to read now." And I still can't, because it's the lack of focus I've got as well of, like, my concentration. I, I, I ... And I've written a book. [laughs]

   15. APAlex Partridge1:00:17

       [laughs]

   16. SDSober Dave1:00:17

       But it, you know, I'll read a line or two, and, and it will be, not take a line, read a line. And, um-

   17. APAlex Partridge1:00:25

       [laughs]

   18. SDSober Dave1:00:25

       ... I, I just keep going over the same lines, and this is why I'm gonna record an audiobook, because more and more people have been asking for the audiobook version, right? Because they can't read. I, I don't mean they can't read, they can't read more than a paragraph or a few lines of text. And I, and I think that's, is that, that's part of, uh, ADHD, isn't it? Lack of concentration?

   19. APAlex Partridge1:00:51

       Uh, broadly, yes. Reading, for me, I can't, I can't read. I can read, obviously. I can't read more than a couple of paragraphs before I lose interest and I'm thinking about something else.

   20. SDSober Dave1:01:03

       Yeah. That's exactly it. So would you be more of an audio person, like listen to a book, or does that affect you as well?

   21. APAlex Partridge1:01:10

       I run a lot, and I like to consume things all through my ears, to listen to in headphones when I'm running. That's my sweet-

   22. SDSober Dave1:01:17

       Yeah

   23. APAlex Partridge1:01:17

       ... spot of, like, content consumption. Podcasts, music, audiobooks. It's when I'm running. When my, when my body is preoccupied with something else, something physical, exercise, then that's enough to keep my mind engaged just enough with worrying about-

   24. SDSober Dave1:01:32

       Yeah

   25. APAlex Partridge1:01:33

       ... the running, that my brain can then calm down a little bit and actually take in what is coming through the headphones.

   26. SDSober Dave1:01:39

       And, and I also think, Alex, that there's a real problem these days as well. There's a book by Johann Hari called Stolen Focus, and he talks about that, is nowadays where we scroll and we lose interest within how many seconds it is, I think we're all in that nowadays of, like, our threshold for taking in knowledge is so low that this is why a lot of people, I think, are struggling with reading a book. But I've bought myself a Kindle, and I'm gonna try and practice to see [laughs]

   27. APAlex Partridge1:02:11

       [laughs]

   28. SDSober Dave1:02:11

       How I get on with it.

   29. APAlex Partridge1:02:13

       Yeah.

   30. SDSober Dave1:02:13

       And it's already gone flat, so I think that's an answer there. [laughs]

Episode duration: 1:05:02