From Addiction to Advocacy: Sam Thomas on Living Sober and Recovery

In this episode, Sam Thomas, a writer and campaigner from Brighton, UK, shares his journey of sobriety since November 2019. He discusses overcoming alcohol dependence, including withdrawal and hallucinations. Sam also talks about his unique therapy with exotic pets, which helped him rationalize his fears. He reflects on founding a charity for men with eating disorders and personal sacrifices. Sam candidly discusses the ongoing nature of recovery, self-reflection, and his aspirations for a memoir. This episode explores addiction, mental health, and recovery.

Connect with Sam Thomas!
https://www.instagram.com/samthomas8186/
https://linktr.ee/samthomas8186

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• (00:00) - Welcome Sam Thomas
• (01:11) - Spiders & Alcohol Withdrawal
• (05:17) - Early Drinking Experiences
• (11:21) - Bulimia and Charity Work
• (13:41) - Complex PTSD and Addiction
• (19:03) - Getting Sober Before the Pandemic
• (22:14) - Navigating Sobriety During COVID-19
• (25:12) - Dangers of Abruptly Stopping Alcohol
• (29:26) - Alcohol Withdrawal
• (36:11) - Life After Charity Work & Living Sober
• (45:30) - Understanding Addiction and Homelessness
• (48:24) - Connecting with the Recovery Community

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Creators and Guests

Host

Rachel Casey

Co-founder and host of Sober Banter.

What is Sober Banter?

Sober Banter, a podcast about life without alcohol, is real, relatable, and never boring. Hosts Rachel and Colin share honest conversations about sobriety with humor, heart, and a touch of chaos.

Rachel Casey (00:00:02):
Welcome to Sober Banter.

Rachel Casey (00:00:04):
My name is Rachel.

Rachel Casey (00:00:06):
I am hosting solo.

Rachel Casey (00:00:07):
Colin is at work today.

Rachel Casey (00:00:08):
We have a guest all the way from Frighton,

Rachel Casey (00:00:10):
UK,

Rachel Casey (00:00:11):
and his name is Sam Thomas,

Rachel Casey (00:00:13):
a writer and campaigner.

Rachel Casey (00:00:15):
Welcome, Sam.

Sam Thomas (00:00:16):
Hi there.

Sam Thomas (00:00:17):
Thank you for having me.

Rachel Casey (00:00:18):
Well, you've been sober since 11-10-2019, so congratulations.

Sam Thomas (00:00:22):
Thank you.

Rachel Casey (00:00:23):
Man, November is a good, we're November 22nd of 21st.

Sam Thomas (00:00:27):
No, it's nearly 2,000 days, actually, tomorrow, which only just really lasts today.

Rachel Casey (00:00:31):
Congratulations.

Sam Thomas (00:00:32):
I knew it was coming, but I'd forgotten casually about it.

Sam Thomas (00:00:34):
So, yeah, 2,000 days.

Rachel Casey (00:00:36):
I don't really keep track of,

Rachel Casey (00:00:37):
I kept track of the days in the very beginning,

Rachel Casey (00:00:40):
but do you have like a day tracker on your phone or do you just randomly?

Sam Thomas (00:00:44):
I mean, I'm quite old school.

Sam Thomas (00:00:46):
I'm just looking at how many days since.

Sam Thomas (00:00:50):
No,

Sam Thomas (00:00:50):
I do keep a bit of a track,

Sam Thomas (00:00:51):
but I used to do a weekly tweet,

Sam Thomas (00:00:54):
which I fall out of the habit of.

Sam Thomas (00:00:55):
So now it's just a case of the six month days and the yearly and that's about it in

Sam Thomas (00:01:01):
terms of milestones.

Rachel Casey (00:01:02):
Well, that's pretty cool.

Rachel Casey (00:01:03):
I hope you tweet tomorrow about 2,000 days.

Sam Thomas (00:01:05):
It's really inspirational.

Sam Thomas (00:01:07):
Very, very tweet.

Sam Thomas (00:01:07):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:01:10):
So not only tomorrow, 2,000 days, he has Gecko, a praying mantis, six tarantulas.

Rachel Casey (00:01:18):
Oh, my God.

Rachel Casey (00:01:19):
Two, I don't know what wandering spiders are, but I am terrified, but in a therapy scorpion.

Rachel Casey (00:01:25):
So what?

Rachel Casey (00:01:27):
Did that start after sobriety, in sobriety?

Sam Thomas (00:01:29):
And yes and no.

Sam Thomas (00:01:30):
I mean, there is a link, actually, between alcohol withdrawal and spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:01:35):
So I may as well just jump straight in, I suppose.

Sam Thomas (00:01:37):
Probably about 10 years ago,

Sam Thomas (00:01:38):
when I sort of was beginning to sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:01:41):
not quite 10 years,

Sam Thomas (00:01:42):
probably more than eight years ago,

Sam Thomas (00:01:43):
I'm going to be exact,

Sam Thomas (00:01:44):
I sort of did that classic thing of just abruptly stopping drinking,

Sam Thomas (00:01:47):
not really realising I was alcohol dependent.

Sam Thomas (00:01:50):
I had alcohol withdrawal episodes, which I didn't realize that was alcohol withdrawal either.

Sam Thomas (00:01:55):
So it was a bit of a mystery for a while whilst falling down so unwell on a regular basis.

Sam Thomas (00:02:00):
But sort of when I was sort of in and out of recovery for a period,

Sam Thomas (00:02:05):
I used to start having hallucinations as a result of alcohol withdrawal,

Sam Thomas (00:02:09):
several days in type thing.

Sam Thomas (00:02:10):
It's very scary, and I didn't have a clue.

Sam Thomas (00:02:12):
It's almost like dreaming whilst I was awake.

Sam Thomas (00:02:15):
Very strange.

Sam Thomas (00:02:16):
And,

Sam Thomas (00:02:16):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:02:16):
one of the other symptoms,

Sam Thomas (00:02:17):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:02:18):
of alcohol withdrawal is just full-blown insomnia.

Sam Thomas (00:02:20):
You just do not sleep.

Sam Thomas (00:02:22):
So I was sort of dreaming while I was awake.

Sam Thomas (00:02:24):
And the thing that was reoccurring again and again was spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:02:27):
So...

Sam Thomas (00:02:28):
What I did, I think, must have been about eight years.

Sam Thomas (00:02:30):
I was trying to write this out the other day what year it would have been,

Sam Thomas (00:02:32):
but I think it might have been 2016.

Sam Thomas (00:02:33):
I got my first tarantula, and admittedly, I was completely drunk.

Sam Thomas (00:02:36):
I had already two sort of little geckos at the time.

Sam Thomas (00:02:40):
And so it kind of made sense.

Sam Thomas (00:02:42):
You know, I keep hallucinating spiders, so let's get a tarantula.

Sam Thomas (00:02:44):
That makes sense.

Sam Thomas (00:02:46):
And in about five days, I sort of looked at her.

Sam Thomas (00:02:48):
She was on the kitchen sink.

Sam Thomas (00:02:50):
And she was pretty scaring.

Sam Thomas (00:02:52):
I didn't know anything about tarantulas at all.

Sam Thomas (00:02:56):
I barely knew what species she was.

Sam Thomas (00:02:58):
She was a Mexican Red Rump.

Sam Thomas (00:02:59):
She was concerned with the deep pain sight of tarantulas as well.

Sam Thomas (00:03:02):
So I didn't realize that she's not exactly a beginner's sort of tarantula.

Sam Thomas (00:03:05):
Anyway,

Sam Thomas (00:03:06):
once I sort of had a couple of bowls of wine,

Sam Thomas (00:03:09):
I used to sort of get out in the early hours of the morning.

Sam Thomas (00:03:11):
And actually I was in total awe of her.

Sam Thomas (00:03:14):
She was so sort of spectacular,

Sam Thomas (00:03:15):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:03:15):
doing all the little things with the legs and moving around.

Sam Thomas (00:03:17):
And she was really not that frightening at all.

Sam Thomas (00:03:20):
You know, she was just a ball of fluff.

Sam Thomas (00:03:22):
So from that point onwards, I was just sort of hooked, I suppose.

Sam Thomas (00:03:25):
So it sort of helped me to sort of rationalize the nightmares in a way.

Sam Thomas (00:03:28):
And they didn't, even though, yeah, they were still extremely scary.

Sam Thomas (00:03:31):
I thought, well, I've got a real one at home.

Sam Thomas (00:03:33):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:03:34):
and then over the years,

Sam Thomas (00:03:35):
particularly during lockdowns,

Sam Thomas (00:03:36):
when we had far too much time on our hands,

Sam Thomas (00:03:38):
far too much time to watch YouTube,

Sam Thomas (00:03:40):
I ended up sort of really doing a lot of research into spiders and things and then

Sam Thomas (00:03:43):
I just got a full-blown collection.

Sam Thomas (00:03:46):
I see.

Rachel Casey (00:03:47):
That is crazy.

Sam Thomas (00:03:48):
Yeah, but they're all quite young, even.

Sam Thomas (00:03:51):
Some are older than others, and some of them are pretty scary, like the wandering spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:03:55):
You've got the tiger wandering spider and the red fang wandering spider,

Sam Thomas (00:03:59):
which are as hideous and adorable as they sound.

Sam Thomas (00:04:02):
But yeah, I've got a small collection, a scorpion as well.

Sam Thomas (00:04:07):
So yeah, but at this stage, I'm not frightened by any of them, to be honest.

Rachel Casey (00:04:10):
But originally, so it's almost like an exposure therapy.

Sam Thomas (00:04:13):
Yeah, I suppose I don't, yeah, that's precisely it.

Sam Thomas (00:04:15):
I've been trying to work out for a while, what do you call that?

Sam Thomas (00:04:18):
Exposure therapy.

Sam Thomas (00:04:20):
Yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:04:20):
I suppose it's that,

Sam Thomas (00:04:21):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:04:21):
just sort of after a while you begin to rationalize it and it sort of diminishes

Sam Thomas (00:04:25):
the fear or the anxiety around them as time goes on.

Sam Thomas (00:04:28):
And it turned out I wasn't that frightened by them anyway, really.

Sam Thomas (00:04:30):
I just didn't know what they were.

Sam Thomas (00:04:31):
You know, I didn't really know much about tarantulas eight years ago.

Sam Thomas (00:04:34):
Now I'm

Sam Thomas (00:04:35):
you know a bit of an expert inverted commas but you know it's just they're just

Sam Thomas (00:04:40):
fascinating me and you know I've always been quite drawn to exotic things I think

Sam Thomas (00:04:44):
it's to me a few years to realize where a big interest in plants I've got loads of

Sam Thomas (00:04:48):
plants and I've got like I say geckos where I did have a chameleon up until

Sam Thomas (00:04:52):
recently unfortunately it died and I suppose when I think about it because I grew

Sam Thomas (00:04:55):
up in Liverpool which I'm sure you're familiar with where the Beatles are from

Sam Thomas (00:04:59):
It was very grim, very gray, very windy, very miserable in the north of the UK.

Sam Thomas (00:05:05):
So anything exotic just seemed like the polar opposite of that.

Sam Thomas (00:05:08):
So when I was a kid,

Sam Thomas (00:05:09):
nature programs,

Sam Thomas (00:05:11):
anything with David Attenborough,

Sam Thomas (00:05:12):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:05:12):
I was fascinated.

Sam Thomas (00:05:14):
So because it was just the polar opposite.

Sam Thomas (00:05:16):
And when I when I was in my mid 20s,

Sam Thomas (00:05:17):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:05:18):
I was able to start traveling to different places like the Canary Islands,

Sam Thomas (00:05:21):
Morocco.

Sam Thomas (00:05:22):
And of course,

Sam Thomas (00:05:22):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:05:23):
I realized it was all real and all these things,

Sam Thomas (00:05:25):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:05:25):
the plants and the animals and things.

Sam Thomas (00:05:27):
So I don't have many interests anyway, history as well.

Sam Thomas (00:05:31):
So, yeah, it kind of stems from that, I think.

Rachel Casey (00:05:36):
So if you had, you'd said, starts and stops, like what kind of drinker were you?

Rachel Casey (00:05:40):
Were you the binge drinker, the everyday drinker, or did it kind of develop over time?

Sam Thomas (00:05:45):
Yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:05:45):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:05:45):
I sort of jumped straight into an alcohol withdrawal,

Sam Thomas (00:05:47):
but it would rewind the clock.

Sam Thomas (00:05:49):
I mean, I started drinking.

Sam Thomas (00:05:49):
I drank twice when I was 18.

Sam Thomas (00:05:51):
Sorry, not 18.

Sam Thomas (00:05:52):
Sorry, 16 and 17.

Sam Thomas (00:05:55):
And I was in Liverpool, was on the gay scene.

Sam Thomas (00:05:57):
I absolutely loved it.

Sam Thomas (00:05:59):
I hated drinking.

Sam Thomas (00:06:00):
So I never drank again.

Sam Thomas (00:06:01):
And my first boyfriend, he didn't drink.

Sam Thomas (00:06:02):
He was a bit of a tough, you know, Lord, blah, blah, you know, that sort of thing.

Sam Thomas (00:06:07):
He had Lord's nails and his family and all this sort of stuff.

Sam Thomas (00:06:10):
So it was a part because he didn't drink.

Sam Thomas (00:06:12):
I didn't drink.

Sam Thomas (00:06:13):
And this was in the early 2000s when it was totally unfashionable not to drink.

Sam Thomas (00:06:18):
Not like these days where,

Sam Thomas (00:06:19):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:06:19):
Generation Z sort of really don't drink very much,

Sam Thomas (00:06:22):
if at all.

Sam Thomas (00:06:23):
When I was 23, here's later, I moved to Brighton.

Sam Thomas (00:06:26):
I set up a charity, which I'm sure will speak about later.

Sam Thomas (00:06:29):
And I was doing all these incredible, amazing things.

Sam Thomas (00:06:31):
And my sort of best friend at the time, he was, you know, a bit of a party animal.

Sam Thomas (00:06:35):
I used to tag along with him.

Sam Thomas (00:06:37):
He used to go out on Tuesdays because it was student night and Saturdays.

Sam Thomas (00:06:41):
And then up until that point, up until the age of 23, I didn't drink.

Sam Thomas (00:06:43):
You know,

Sam Thomas (00:06:44):
it was often my sort of job to sort of pick him up off the floor sort of thing or

Sam Thomas (00:06:46):
throw him in a taxi at the end of the night.

Sam Thomas (00:06:48):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:06:49):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:06:50):
and then at some point he just decided on a whim that it'd be fun to sort of put a

Sam Thomas (00:06:54):
little bit of vodka in my Diet Coke.

Sam Thomas (00:06:57):
And of course, I didn't notice.

Sam Thomas (00:06:59):
I thought it tasted a little bit funny, but apart from that, I didn't really notice.

Sam Thomas (00:07:01):
And of course,

Sam Thomas (00:07:02):
within half an hour,

Sam Thomas (00:07:02):
I felt the effects of the vodka,

Sam Thomas (00:07:04):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:07:04):
it's straight in at the deep end.

Sam Thomas (00:07:07):
And from that day onwards, I just continued to drink.

Sam Thomas (00:07:09):
There was no real reason not to drink.

Sam Thomas (00:07:12):
It was my choice to drink from the day onwards, of course.

Sam Thomas (00:07:14):
It was like he spiked me every time.

Sam Thomas (00:07:15):
But the very first occasion was that.

Sam Thomas (00:07:19):
And then I ended up sort of drinking things like Sambuca and Coke because it had my name on it.

Sam Thomas (00:07:25):
And then rosé wine.

Sam Thomas (00:07:27):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:07:27):
So I really go to the deep end shots, of course.

Sam Thomas (00:07:29):
You know, the whole point of shots is to get drunk.

Sam Thomas (00:07:32):
So I kind of felt as though I had a lot of making up to do from all the years that

Sam Thomas (00:07:35):
I didn't drink.

Sam Thomas (00:07:36):
Of course,

Sam Thomas (00:07:36):
if we jump to about the age of 24,

Sam Thomas (00:07:37):
25,

Sam Thomas (00:07:37):
I can't remember exactly how old I was actually now,

Sam Thomas (00:07:40):
but my mother died about 11 years ago,

Sam Thomas (00:07:42):
I think it would have been.

Sam Thomas (00:07:44):
And of course, at that point, I was estranged from my mother.

Sam Thomas (00:07:46):
We didn't speak for seven years.

Sam Thomas (00:07:47):
I had a very complex relationship, almost an only system relationship with my mother.

Sam Thomas (00:07:51):
Her mother was money depressive, addict, as it so happens, in the asylums.

Sam Thomas (00:07:56):
Of course, back in the days, we did have asylums.

Sam Thomas (00:07:59):
She not having a mother sort of meant that she didn't have a role model and that

Sam Thomas (00:08:02):
sort of had a knock on impact on me in a way.

Sam Thomas (00:08:05):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:08:05):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:06):
to explain the sort of the background,

Sam Thomas (00:08:07):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:08:08):
and the reason for sort of non-existent relationship,

Sam Thomas (00:08:11):
she just didn't know how to be a mother as very simple terms.

Sam Thomas (00:08:14):
So she died and then at that point onwards,

Sam Thomas (00:08:16):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:17):
it just sort of became miserable,

Sam Thomas (00:08:19):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:19):
as you would expect.

Sam Thomas (00:08:20):
Not fun to be around.

Sam Thomas (00:08:21):
So I stopped getting the invoice on the Tuesday and Saturday nights like I'd always

Sam Thomas (00:08:24):
get without fail.

Sam Thomas (00:08:25):
So I ended up sort of drinking at home just on a Saturday night.

Sam Thomas (00:08:29):
I used to get the other two little bottles that you got on planes and trains and things.

Sam Thomas (00:08:33):
That was my idea of a binge drink, you know what I mean, a Saturday night.

Sam Thomas (00:08:36):
And then,

Sam Thomas (00:08:36):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:08:37):
over time,

Sam Thomas (00:08:38):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:38):
it became Friday,

Sam Thomas (00:08:39):
Saturday,

Sam Thomas (00:08:39):
Sunday,

Sam Thomas (00:08:40):
then sort of days during the week,

Sam Thomas (00:08:41):
you can see what's going to happen here,

Sam Thomas (00:08:43):
you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:08:43):
It just sort of becomes any excuse to drink.

Sam Thomas (00:08:45):
And because I was doing all these incredible,

Sam Thomas (00:08:47):
amazing things,

Sam Thomas (00:08:47):
speaking at conferences,

Sam Thomas (00:08:48):
doing media appearances,

Sam Thomas (00:08:50):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:51):
all sorts of things with my charity at the time,

Sam Thomas (00:08:52):
very high-profile stuff,

Sam Thomas (00:08:54):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:54):
I sort of had a bit of a high,

Sam Thomas (00:08:56):
but also a bit of a low,

Sam Thomas (00:08:58):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:58):
tail of two extremes.

Sam Thomas (00:08:59):
So the other question,

Rachel Casey (00:09:00):
Like a justification,

Rachel Casey (00:09:01):
kind of like,

Rachel Casey (00:09:02):
well,

Rachel Casey (00:09:02):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:09:03):
if this were failing,

Sam Thomas (00:09:04):
then I would actually have a problem.

Sam Thomas (00:09:06):
Yeah, it's just an excuse for any mood, any situation.

Sam Thomas (00:09:09):
You know, classic textbook, isn't it, really?

Sam Thomas (00:09:11):
Just is a reason to drink.

Sam Thomas (00:09:13):
But it was all in private at home.

Sam Thomas (00:09:15):
I didn't want to drink that much around other people.

Sam Thomas (00:09:17):
And at that point, I was going to the gym.

Sam Thomas (00:09:19):
I only started going to the gym in my mid-20s.

Sam Thomas (00:09:22):
You know,

Sam Thomas (00:09:22):
I put in a lot of muscle quite quickly,

Sam Thomas (00:09:24):
sort of become appealing to other men all of a sudden.

Sam Thomas (00:09:27):
And,

Sam Thomas (00:09:27):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:09:27):
I,

Sam Thomas (00:09:28):
the good thing was that because I went to gym quite late at night,

Sam Thomas (00:09:31):
it sort of acted as a bit of safe,

Sam Thomas (00:09:33):
a bit of a safeguard.

Sam Thomas (00:09:34):
So I mean, I wouldn't drink till after I've been to the gym.

Sam Thomas (00:09:37):
So if I went at nine, 10 o'clock.

Sam Thomas (00:09:39):
So then I would sort of drink till three, four, five in the morning, 20 what time I went to bed.

Sam Thomas (00:09:43):
I only slept a few hours sort of thing, got up, did where I had to do that day.

Sam Thomas (00:09:48):
But of course,

Sam Thomas (00:09:48):
there came a point when I sort of found out the habit of going to the gym and that

Sam Thomas (00:09:51):
sort of safeguard was removed and drinking.

Sam Thomas (00:09:54):
Well, it was just open season, you know, and it wasn't sort of day drinking immediately.

Sam Thomas (00:09:58):
But that is sort of become a thing a bit later, certainly towards the tail end of my 20s.

Sam Thomas (00:10:02):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:10:03):
yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:10:03):
it's sort of a bit sort of hazy at what point,

Sam Thomas (00:10:05):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:10:06):
things progressed because it's very sort of incremental,

Sam Thomas (00:10:08):
isn't it?

Sam Thomas (00:10:08):
Over a period of time.

Sam Thomas (00:10:10):
But it,

Sam Thomas (00:10:10):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:10:10):
I've been,

Sam Thomas (00:10:11):
to put this in very simple terms,

Sam Thomas (00:10:13):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:10:13):
from teetox in my early 20s up into the age of 23,

Sam Thomas (00:10:16):
and then teetox rehab by the age of 31.

Sam Thomas (00:10:18):
So it really is one extreme to the other.

Rachel Casey (00:10:23):
I definitely relate a lot with,

Rachel Casey (00:10:25):
so neither of my parents have passed,

Rachel Casey (00:10:27):
but one of the things that would happen when I would start drinking is I would

Rachel Casey (00:10:32):
start talking about my dad and the childhood,

Rachel Casey (00:10:35):
and then people just didn't want to be around it.

Rachel Casey (00:10:37):
And they were like...

Rachel Casey (00:10:38):
and you get the invitations less and less and so i totally relate to the and it was

Rachel Casey (00:10:44):
just always at a certain point that it just hit me that i just was like i would

Rachel Casey (00:10:48):
spill everything i would be fine for the first like five drinks and then after five

Rachel Casey (00:10:52):
they were like oh there's rachel she's on blackout she's talking about her dad and

Sam Thomas (00:10:56):
yeah and it just becomes more isolating as time goes on and i think that's that

Sam Thomas (00:11:00):
sort of the fuel

Rachel Casey (00:11:01):
Now you're not saying it out loud.

Rachel Casey (00:11:03):
Now you're saying it in your head and you're kind of going alone in this rabbit hole.

Rachel Casey (00:11:07):
And it can be a very, very lonely place.

Rachel Casey (00:11:11):
And I don't think anyone who hasn't done that understands how inner loneliness can feel.

Sam Thomas (00:11:19):
Yeah, and it's just through the fire, isn't it?

Sam Thomas (00:11:20):
You know, it's sort of one of the... Fuel.

Sam Thomas (00:11:23):
A few things,

Sam Thomas (00:11:24):
really,

Sam Thomas (00:11:24):
that's sort of the key ingredients,

Sam Thomas (00:11:25):
if you like,

Sam Thomas (00:11:26):
that sort of enables addiction to thrive.

Sam Thomas (00:11:29):
And, you know, isolation, you know, the more isolated I became, the more I drank, basically.

Sam Thomas (00:11:34):
And, of course, I was very isolated in my work as well because I was sort of a one-man band.

Sam Thomas (00:11:38):
It's a charity.

Sam Thomas (00:11:39):
There were people working with the charity,

Sam Thomas (00:11:40):
but it may as well have been the Sam Thomas Foundation.

Sam Thomas (00:11:43):
I should explain what that charity was, really.

Sam Thomas (00:11:44):
I mean, it was for men with eating disorders.

Sam Thomas (00:11:46):
I mean, I had bulimia throughout my teens from about the age of 13 to 21.

Sam Thomas (00:11:50):
It's a hard movie, too.

Sam Thomas (00:11:53):
And as you can probably see and go with this, I kind of sought one thing for another.

Sam Thomas (00:11:57):
So bulimia in my teens is a period in the early 20s when there wasn't really a

Sam Thomas (00:12:01):
default coping mechanism per se.

Sam Thomas (00:12:02):
But from the age of about 23, you know, it was alcohol.

Sam Thomas (00:12:05):
It just took over.

Sam Thomas (00:12:06):
It literally sought one thing for the other.

Sam Thomas (00:12:08):
And it is sort of quite common.

Sam Thomas (00:12:09):
Of course, Amy Winehouse, I just watched the article Back to Black.

Sam Thomas (00:12:12):
She's one famous example of,

Sam Thomas (00:12:14):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:12:14):
people who swap,

Sam Thomas (00:12:15):
I think it was addiction transference,

Sam Thomas (00:12:17):
I think it's called,

Sam Thomas (00:12:18):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:12:19):
people swap one thing for another.

Sam Thomas (00:12:20):
So I was doing that, reflecting on my experiences of being a man with an eating disorder.

Sam Thomas (00:12:25):
Keep me in mind, this is in the early 2000s, late 90s, early 2000s.

Sam Thomas (00:12:29):
It was just considered inconceivable for men to have eating disorders.

Sam Thomas (00:12:33):
Nobody was really talking about that.

Sam Thomas (00:12:34):
In fact, you know, anorexia was sort of, sort of known about, but not really understood.

Sam Thomas (00:12:38):
Bellinia, what was that?

Sam Thomas (00:12:40):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:12:41):
It was just not real.

Sam Thomas (00:12:42):
I mean, the only sort of famous example at the time was Princess Diana.

Sam Thomas (00:12:45):
There was a few other people that spoke out about it,

Sam Thomas (00:12:47):
like Jerry Halliwell from the Spice Girls,

Sam Thomas (00:12:49):
Elton John.

Sam Thomas (00:12:51):
But, you know, eating disorders were not on anyone's agenda, as it were.

Sam Thomas (00:12:54):
It wasn't in the mainstream.

Sam Thomas (00:12:55):
So the idea of having a man with an eating disorder was just totally inconceivable, like I say.

Sam Thomas (00:13:02):
So I set up a charity in response to that.

Sam Thomas (00:13:05):
Men get eating disorders too.

Sam Thomas (00:13:07):
Set it up in 2009.

Sam Thomas (00:13:09):
It took over.

Sam Thomas (00:13:09):
It exploded in the media in the UK because,

Sam Thomas (00:13:12):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:13:13):
it was a new thing for the media to jump on.

Sam Thomas (00:13:16):
Manorexia, bulimia, the tabloids.

Sam Thomas (00:13:19):
That's very, very real.

Sam Thomas (00:13:20):
Yeah, it was.

Sam Thomas (00:13:21):
But at the time, you know, it really was sort of surreal for a lot of people, I suppose.

Sam Thomas (00:13:25):
But the point was, you had this sort of big profile as well throughout my 20s.

Sam Thomas (00:13:29):
So it was a lot of different things.

Sam Thomas (00:13:31):
Like I say,

Sam Thomas (00:13:32):
my work being sort of quite,

Sam Thomas (00:13:34):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:13:34):
full on and then sort of behind the scenes with the death of my mother and trying

Sam Thomas (00:13:38):
to sort of understand that.

Sam Thomas (00:13:40):
you know what i mean there's a lot of different things going on and you know like a

Sam Thomas (00:13:44):
lot of people are just too but took too much you know to try beyond stress later on

Sam Thomas (00:13:48):
it would be diagnosed with complex btsd that would mean to my early 30s so yeah i

Sam Thomas (00:13:53):
don't know jumping back quite a bit but just sort of trying to paint a picture of

Sam Thomas (00:13:56):
all the different things going on really

Rachel Casey (00:13:58):
Well, I feel like with addiction, we almost live these different lives, if you will.

Rachel Casey (00:14:03):
Like we have this private,

Rachel Casey (00:14:05):
like what people we want them to see,

Rachel Casey (00:14:07):
like the running the charity,

Rachel Casey (00:14:08):
running a business.

Rachel Casey (00:14:09):
And then there's this whole other of how we're dealing with the life emotions or the trauma or.

Rachel Casey (00:14:15):
So with the PTSD,

Rachel Casey (00:14:18):
I feel like a lot of these start coinciding with each other because people are like,

Rachel Casey (00:14:23):
they don't understand these disorders.

Rachel Casey (00:14:25):
And I think it's so important.

Rachel Casey (00:14:26):
So how do you explain it in when you're talked about men have disorders too?

Sam Thomas (00:14:30):
We travel around the country doing all these training,

Sam Thomas (00:14:33):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:14:33):
workshop tours for training,

Sam Thomas (00:14:35):
training sessions for professionals.

Sam Thomas (00:14:36):
And they sort of give a slightly different answer each time, I think.

Sam Thomas (00:14:40):
But several different things,

Sam Thomas (00:14:41):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:14:41):
there's always this overlap between different sort of disorders,

Sam Thomas (00:14:44):
I suppose,

Sam Thomas (00:14:45):
include addiction and eating disorders.

Sam Thomas (00:14:47):
There is such a thing called trancorexia,

Sam Thomas (00:14:49):
inverted commas,

Sam Thomas (00:14:51):
for lack of a better name,

Sam Thomas (00:14:52):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:14:52):
where people sort of don't eat and just drink instead.

Sam Thomas (00:14:55):
You know, that was super common and quite dangerous as well.

Sam Thomas (00:14:58):
And then, of course, with binge eating and food.

Sam Thomas (00:15:01):
The only big difference,

Sam Thomas (00:15:02):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:15:02):
with food is that you do need to develop a healthy,

Sam Thomas (00:15:04):
positive relationship with food.

Sam Thomas (00:15:06):
You can't abstain from food, obviously, but you can abstain from alcohol.

Sam Thomas (00:15:10):
Doesn't mean to say one's easier than the other,

Sam Thomas (00:15:12):
it's just different approaches to do different sort of distinct sort of illnesses.

Sam Thomas (00:15:16):
But like I say, you've got to deal with them sort of one by one, I suppose.

Sam Thomas (00:15:20):
And I think going,

Sam Thomas (00:15:21):
rewinding the clock to sort of many moons ago when I was sort of recovering from belief,

Sam Thomas (00:15:25):
it was a very conscious decision,

Sam Thomas (00:15:26):
I think,

Sam Thomas (00:15:27):
from about the age of 18 to 21 to really sort of overcome bulimia,

Sam Thomas (00:15:31):
whatever that meant.

Sam Thomas (00:15:33):
Of course, I attempted to go to the doctor twice at 16 and 18.

Sam Thomas (00:15:35):
At 16,

Sam Thomas (00:15:36):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:15:37):
I couldn't progress further because I needed parental consent,

Sam Thomas (00:15:40):
didn't have a relationship with my mother.

Sam Thomas (00:15:41):
As I mentioned, that was sort of quite explosive.

Sam Thomas (00:15:45):
My mother asked me, well, yeah, for the mental health people calling for.

Sam Thomas (00:15:49):
And that was the end of it.

Sam Thomas (00:15:50):
Would you proceed from there?

Sam Thomas (00:15:51):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:15:51):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:15:52):
from 18,

Sam Thomas (00:15:52):
when I moved down south to live near my dad,

Sam Thomas (00:15:54):
I spoke to the family doctor on that side of the family for the first time.

Sam Thomas (00:15:59):
very articulately explained what was going on.

Sam Thomas (00:16:01):
I think I'd even read Jerry Halliwell's book,

Sam Thomas (00:16:03):
I think it was called If Only,

Sam Thomas (00:16:04):
where she sort of quite explicitly talked about her emblema throughout the Spice

Sam Thomas (00:16:08):
Girl days and even before that.

Sam Thomas (00:16:10):
So I had some sort of background knowledge, and the internet was sort of fairly new at the time.

Sam Thomas (00:16:14):
You had to go to the library to sort of look things up, so I'd read a few things.

Sam Thomas (00:16:18):
So very articulately explained to the doctor what was going on,

Sam Thomas (00:16:20):
and she sort of seemed to dismiss the bulimia entirely and just focus specifically

Sam Thomas (00:16:26):
on the depression and anxiety,

Sam Thomas (00:16:28):
as if the bulimia was not really that important,

Sam Thomas (00:16:31):
just irrelevant,

Sam Thomas (00:16:32):
maybe a symptom of the depression and anxiety,

Sam Thomas (00:16:34):
perhaps.

Sam Thomas (00:16:35):
But of course,

Sam Thomas (00:16:35):
years later,

Sam Thomas (00:16:36):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:16:36):
a couple of years later,

Sam Thomas (00:16:37):
when I said,

Sam Thomas (00:16:38):
I think I'd realized pretty quickly that it was just because the idea of being a

Sam Thomas (00:16:41):
man with an eating disorder was just not on anyone's radar,

Sam Thomas (00:16:44):
especially with GPs and things.

Sam Thomas (00:16:46):
And of course, the diagnostic criteria of anorexia at the time was based on female bodies.

Sam Thomas (00:16:51):
So the loss of periods would have been one of the main symptoms of anorexia,

Sam Thomas (00:16:55):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:16:56):
not applicable to men.

Sam Thomas (00:16:57):
So there was a lot of catching up to do over the years and the DSM has changed since then.

Sam Thomas (00:17:01):
But there's sort of the legacy of that sort of still remains,

Sam Thomas (00:17:04):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:17:04):
the old school out of date sort of ideas still still linger as it were.

Sam Thomas (00:17:09):
So yeah, there's a lot of hoops to go through with me.

Sam Thomas (00:17:11):
And I can't remember how we came onto this now,

Sam Thomas (00:17:13):
but you know,

Sam Thomas (00:17:13):
it's just all this sort of gray area and overlaps.

Sam Thomas (00:17:15):
There was loads.

Rachel Casey (00:17:16):
Well,

Rachel Casey (00:17:16):
it's funny that with alcoholism and especially the big book in the AA way,

Rachel Casey (00:17:22):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:17:23):
one of the things,

Rachel Casey (00:17:23):
and I really can't read the chapter is to the wives.

Rachel Casey (00:17:27):
And because alcoholism was only in men and women, you can think of alcoholism.

Rachel Casey (00:17:32):
And they're like,

Rachel Casey (00:17:33):
oh,

Rachel Casey (00:17:33):
you have to,

Rachel Casey (00:17:33):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:17:34):
sit your wife down and,

Rachel Casey (00:17:36):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:17:36):
just playing where you're going.

Rachel Casey (00:17:37):
And I'm like,

Sam Thomas (00:17:38):
It's kind of interesting.

Sam Thomas (00:17:39):
His idea belongs to AA.

Sam Thomas (00:17:40):
It drives me a bit mad, to be honest.

Sam Thomas (00:17:42):
I don't know if I can say that.

Sam Thomas (00:17:43):
It was a men... The book is written to men.

Rachel Casey (00:17:45):
And I think...

Rachel Casey (00:17:52):
Which they've now voted to change it to people instead of even men or women.

Sam Thomas (00:17:57):
And again, it's just these things just haven't really caught up officially, if you like.

Sam Thomas (00:18:00):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:18:01):
And I've dabbled with AA in the past.

Sam Thomas (00:18:03):
And, you know, there's lots of things I sort of find myself in agreement with.

Sam Thomas (00:18:06):
Like, you know, resentment being the seed to all our ills, for instance.

Sam Thomas (00:18:09):
You know, I've said that quite a lot recently to different people.

Sam Thomas (00:18:12):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:18:12):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:18:13):
and holding on to anger and bitterness and all that sort of stuff,

Sam Thomas (00:18:15):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:18:16):
I've got no time for that.

Sam Thomas (00:18:17):
So there's certain things that I sort of agree.

Sam Thomas (00:18:19):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:18:20):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:18:20):
it's like a lot of things that the principle is crap,

Sam Thomas (00:18:22):
but the practice can be sort of quite troublesome.

Sam Thomas (00:18:24):
Sometimes it's not always easier to sort of implement.

Sam Thomas (00:18:27):
And that's what I've found.

Sam Thomas (00:18:28):
And yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:18:29):
I think,

Sam Thomas (00:18:29):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:18:29):
it's about sort of taking these principles and applying those things into the

Sam Thomas (00:18:34):
modern age,

Sam Thomas (00:18:35):
isn't it?

Sam Thomas (00:18:35):
And I think that's,

Sam Thomas (00:18:36):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:18:37):
one of numerous things that I think we're still sort of battling with,

Sam Thomas (00:18:40):
it seems,

Sam Thomas (00:18:40):
sort of the old school meets the new school.

Sam Thomas (00:18:43):
But it's all just the same school, really.

Sam Thomas (00:18:44):
So yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:18:45):
it's just,

Sam Thomas (00:18:45):
again,

Sam Thomas (00:18:46):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:18:46):
it's just about taking the bits that are applicable to you,

Sam Thomas (00:18:49):
that are relevant and working with that.

Sam Thomas (00:18:52):
But the healthy meals are trying to know.

Rachel Casey (00:18:53):
So if AA was not your route, how did you kind of get sober in the beginning years?

Sam Thomas (00:19:00):
I detoxed for the fourth and hopefully final time in November 2019.

Sam Thomas (00:19:03):
And interestingly,

Sam Thomas (00:19:04):
it was the week that apparently the first cases of COVID sort of were unleashed

Sam Thomas (00:19:10):
into Wuhan in China.

Sam Thomas (00:19:12):
And,

Sam Thomas (00:19:13):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:19:13):
the other ironic thing is the fact that one of the very last hallucinations I had

Sam Thomas (00:19:17):
was the bats,

Sam Thomas (00:19:19):
which is actually quite a frequent occurrence,

Sam Thomas (00:19:21):
believe it or not,

Sam Thomas (00:19:21):
the bats.

Sam Thomas (00:19:21):
It was really all spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:19:22):
It was bats.

(00:19:24):
Wow.

Sam Thomas (00:19:24):
So it's quite sort of weird, isn't it?

Sam Thomas (00:19:25):
When you think of this bat disease sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:19:28):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:19:28):
happening unknown to everybody at the time.

Sam Thomas (00:19:31):
And then the hallucination was bad.

Sam Thomas (00:19:33):
So beautifully poetic and ironic.

Rachel Casey (00:19:36):
It is really poetic.

Sam Thomas (00:19:37):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:19:38):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:19:38):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:19:39):
but the thing,

Sam Thomas (00:19:39):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:19:40):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:19:40):
nobody knew that there'd be a pandemic around the corner.

Sam Thomas (00:19:42):
So this sort of period for about...

Sam Thomas (00:19:45):
four months where the honeymoon period if you like of sobriety so i can put things

Sam Thomas (00:19:50):
to you know really into practice i went to grand canaria which is in the canary

Sam Thomas (00:19:56):
islands a month after my detox which in itself is extremely risky because of course

Sam Thomas (00:20:01):
grand canaria is an lgbt sort of friendly island i call it devil's island

Sam Thomas (00:20:06):
very good reason and what happens on the island stays on the island and of course

Sam Thomas (00:20:11):
it's party central kind of sex crazed if I have to be honest you know anything goes

Sam Thomas (00:20:16):
So here's me going to sort of Devil's Island,

Sam Thomas (00:20:18):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:20:18):
sort of the island of temptation a month in.

Sam Thomas (00:20:22):
So I kind of realized if I could survive that week, then I'm probably in it for the long haul.

Sam Thomas (00:20:27):
And I did, you know, even though I kind of isolated myself quite a bit during that week.

Sam Thomas (00:20:31):
And of course,

Sam Thomas (00:20:32):
I've been there many times,

Sam Thomas (00:20:33):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:20:33):
I've been there 10 times,

Sam Thomas (00:20:34):
I think it is now,

Sam Thomas (00:20:35):
I think.

Sam Thomas (00:20:37):
eight times and um every 10 years i mean so you know i've been there knew it was

Sam Thomas (00:20:42):
kind of home away from home so in a way i was able to do that and then four months

Sam Thomas (00:20:46):
no three months later when just before the first lockdown was announced here in the

Sam Thomas (00:20:51):
uk sort of the end of you know the the the voluntary lockdown and then it became

Sam Thomas (00:20:56):
mandatory and anyway i've been to grand canary for the second time in my

Sam Thomas (00:21:01):
sobriety sort of journey.

Sam Thomas (00:21:02):
And then I kind of realized, you know, I was definitely in it for the wrong haul.

Sam Thomas (00:21:05):
You know, I didn't feel triggered.

Sam Thomas (00:21:06):
You know, there was people drinking all around me, but I didn't really think about it.

Sam Thomas (00:21:10):
That was the weird thing.

Sam Thomas (00:21:11):
And of course,

Sam Thomas (00:21:11):
for me,

Sam Thomas (00:21:12):
because I'd been sober in a previous life when everybody else was drinking,

Sam Thomas (00:21:16):
it wasn't that difficult.

Sam Thomas (00:21:18):
You know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:19):
I'd done,

Sam Thomas (00:21:19):
I've been there before,

Sam Thomas (00:21:20):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:20):
it wasn't like I'd always drank from year dot and I didn't know life without a drink.

Sam Thomas (00:21:25):
So in a way, it's probably just a bit easier.

Sam Thomas (00:21:27):
And actually,

Sam Thomas (00:21:29):
I found that even though it's the expectation to drink,

Sam Thomas (00:21:32):
when I said that I couldn't drink for X,

Sam Thomas (00:21:33):
Y,

Sam Thomas (00:21:33):
Z reasons,

Sam Thomas (00:21:34):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:34):
people were just quite respectful of that.

Sam Thomas (00:21:37):
And that's the case ever since.

Sam Thomas (00:21:38):
I've been to Grand Canary numerous times.

Sam Thomas (00:21:39):
And, you know, people seem to be, like I say, just very, yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:21:43):
Okay.

Sam Thomas (00:21:44):
Congratulate.

Rachel Casey (00:21:45):
Isn't that weird?

Rachel Casey (00:21:46):
Like, I always thought people cared, but it's like, they don't care.

Sam Thomas (00:21:48):
Yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:21:49):
it is a little bit,

Sam Thomas (00:21:49):
but I think,

Sam Thomas (00:21:50):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:50):
I think there's been a bit of a shift in recent times to sort of people going,

Sam Thomas (00:21:53):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:54):
choosing to be sober as well.

Sam Thomas (00:21:55):
So I think 10 years ago,

Sam Thomas (00:21:56):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:56):
yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:21:57):
it was still a bit weird,

Sam Thomas (00:21:58):
but I think now that,

Sam Thomas (00:21:58):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:59):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:21:59):
there's a growing sort of sober community within the LGBT umbrella.

Sam Thomas (00:22:05):
You know, I've written a couple of articles even.

Sam Thomas (00:22:07):
So it's definitely sort of growing and more sort of prominent.

Sam Thomas (00:22:10):
So I think, yeah, it's not quite as taboo as it would have been at one time.

Sam Thomas (00:22:14):
But no,

Sam Thomas (00:22:15):
going back to that sort of period for four months,

Sam Thomas (00:22:17):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:22:17):
I got back from Grand Canary the second time,

Sam Thomas (00:22:20):
just as when everybody was sort of panicked buying loo roll and things like that here,

Sam Thomas (00:22:25):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:22:25):
it was quite weird.

Sam Thomas (00:22:26):
And because I just,

Sam Thomas (00:22:28):
in those days,

Sam Thomas (00:22:28):
I didn't really pay that much attention to the news,

Sam Thomas (00:22:30):
to be honest.

Sam Thomas (00:22:31):
In fact,

Sam Thomas (00:22:32):
in the height of the drinking days,

Sam Thomas (00:22:33):
there was major world events that I didn't even know about.

Sam Thomas (00:22:36):
So, you know, totally oblivious to a lot of things.

Sam Thomas (00:22:39):
So all I had heard, all this sort of panic buying of a blue roll and silly things.

Sam Thomas (00:22:43):
And then I got back and then all of a sudden everybody's wearing masks in the airport.

Sam Thomas (00:22:48):
There was a few people before I left, you know, a few Chinese people and things like that.

Sam Thomas (00:22:51):
But when I came back, in the space of a week, it felt like the UK had changed.

Sam Thomas (00:22:56):
It went from sort of this sort of concern around sort of something around something

Sam Thomas (00:23:00):
called COVID-19 that nobody knew anything about to suddenly it sort of being on the

Sam Thomas (00:23:05):
first thing on everyone's lips,

Sam Thomas (00:23:06):
literally.

Sam Thomas (00:23:08):
So there's been a shift.

Sam Thomas (00:23:09):
And of course, a week later, we went into voluntary lockdown, if I remember right.

Sam Thomas (00:23:12):
And then a week later, I think we went into mandatory lockdown.

Sam Thomas (00:23:16):
Something like that.

Sam Thomas (00:23:17):
And then for the next, God knows how long.

Sam Thomas (00:23:18):
And you were sober.

Sam Thomas (00:23:19):
Yeah, that's what I mean.

Sam Thomas (00:23:21):
So for the next two years, we're in and out of lockdown.

Sam Thomas (00:23:24):
You know, our government was just chaotic.

Sam Thomas (00:23:26):
We had Boris Johnson.

Sam Thomas (00:23:27):
I know you had Trump at the time.

Sam Thomas (00:23:30):
And you've got him again, unfortunately.

Sam Thomas (00:23:32):
But you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:23:32):
It's sort of, so it was pretty chaotic.

Sam Thomas (00:23:35):
And it kind of, the only hope is that there'll be a vaccine.

Sam Thomas (00:23:37):
Do you remember?

Sam Thomas (00:23:38):
So it was sort of like life would resume once we have vaccines.

Sam Thomas (00:23:41):
I even took part in trials, you know.

Sam Thomas (00:23:43):
So, you know, I did a lot of things.

Sam Thomas (00:23:45):
I started writing a book in the lockdowns, you know, which I'm hopefully going to publish soon.

Sam Thomas (00:23:50):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:23:51):
yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:23:51):
I do lots of different things,

Sam Thomas (00:23:52):
but I suppose,

Sam Thomas (00:23:53):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:23:53):
life was on hold for the two years,

Sam Thomas (00:23:55):
it felt like.

Sam Thomas (00:23:56):
So it felt very prolonged.

Sam Thomas (00:23:58):
A lot of things I didn't really sort of begin to expose myself to even until I was

Sam Thomas (00:24:03):
much later on in recovery because of this two-year pause.

Sam Thomas (00:24:07):
You know, I was back to the gym for a few weeks, then we were back in lockdown again.

Sam Thomas (00:24:11):
You know, that was the one where they kept me going.

Sam Thomas (00:24:13):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:24:14):
yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:24:15):
it was just,

Sam Thomas (00:24:15):
I don't know what the original question was now,

Sam Thomas (00:24:17):
but,

Sam Thomas (00:24:17):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:24:17):
it's just for a period,

Sam Thomas (00:24:19):
it was just very chaotic.

Rachel Casey (00:24:21):
Just getting sober in the beginning is, yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:24:23):
And you said it was 2019.

Rachel Casey (00:24:24):
It was right before the COVID lockdown.

Rachel Casey (00:24:27):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:24:28):
There was a really important point I was going to mention, actually.

Sam Thomas (00:24:30):
I think if it'd been, I think because of the timings, it was four months before COVID really.

Sam Thomas (00:24:35):
Right.

Sam Thomas (00:24:36):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:24:36):
It was kind of good.

Sam Thomas (00:24:37):
It would have been retrospectively.

Sam Thomas (00:24:38):
I look back and think, yeah, would I have coped?

Sam Thomas (00:24:40):
It would have been very soon after that first detox.

Sam Thomas (00:24:43):
Yeah, I would have probably made it through, I think.

Sam Thomas (00:24:45):
I was very committed to it.

Sam Thomas (00:24:46):
But it would have been a lot different journey.

Sam Thomas (00:24:48):
I wouldn't have had...

Sam Thomas (00:24:49):
I may not have gone to Grand Canaria.

Sam Thomas (00:24:51):
It's sort of a major anxiety about it,

Sam Thomas (00:24:53):
thinking that,

Sam Thomas (00:24:54):
oh,

Sam Thomas (00:24:54):
if I go back there,

Sam Thomas (00:24:55):
that's where I'm going to renapse.

Sam Thomas (00:24:56):
Because I did that 30 early on, you know, it was quite sort of well rehearsed.

Sam Thomas (00:25:00):
You know, I've been there twice in very recent times, still not triggered.

Sam Thomas (00:25:04):
So in a way, it's quite good the way things worked out.

Sam Thomas (00:25:07):
But you can't plan for these things.

Sam Thomas (00:25:09):
It's just, you know, mishaps and consequences, really.

Rachel Casey (00:25:13):
So did you ever try like the dry January thing?

Rachel Casey (00:25:17):
Because I know that's more popular in the UK.

Sam Thomas (00:25:19):
No, I mean, it's a UK thing.

Sam Thomas (00:25:21):
I've written numerous articles about it, actually.

Sam Thomas (00:25:23):
And I'm always sort of very active during that period, it seems.

Sam Thomas (00:25:26):
No, I mean, I didn't really.

Sam Thomas (00:25:28):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:25:29):
funny enough,

Sam Thomas (00:25:29):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:25:30):
the articles that I've written is about that,

Sam Thomas (00:25:31):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:25:32):
it's actually probably quite dangerous for people to stop drinking abruptly on

Sam Thomas (00:25:36):
genuine first.

Sam Thomas (00:25:37):
You know, that was the point of my articles.

Sam Thomas (00:25:39):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:25:39):
to be fair,

Sam Thomas (00:25:39):
the most seriously alcohol dependent people probably wouldn't engage with it anyway,

Sam Thomas (00:25:42):
to be fair.

Sam Thomas (00:25:43):
It's really for people that just,

Sam Thomas (00:25:45):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:25:45):
have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol,

Sam Thomas (00:25:47):
want to save a few quid over January,

Sam Thomas (00:25:49):
especially post-Christmas and New Year.

Sam Thomas (00:25:51):
And then he got, you know, all sorts of bills during January as well.

Rachel Casey (00:25:55):
So, yeah, I mean... I don't think we talk about that enough either.

Rachel Casey (00:25:59):
And I get hesitant, like, for my dad.

Rachel Casey (00:26:04):
He is, like, alcohol dependent.

Rachel Casey (00:26:06):
He couldn't... If he were to stop, he would withdraw.

Rachel Casey (00:26:10):
It's a seizure.

Rachel Casey (00:26:11):
Like, I mean, the whole nine yards...

Rachel Casey (00:26:13):
And people,

Rachel Casey (00:26:15):
when you think of that heavy drinker,

Rachel Casey (00:26:16):
yeah,

Rachel Casey (00:26:16):
you can't just say,

Rachel Casey (00:26:17):
oh,

Rachel Casey (00:26:17):
just stop and give it up.

Rachel Casey (00:26:18):
Like, I mean, it would require a doctor.

Rachel Casey (00:26:23):
It would either hospitalization because it would take time to wean off of it.

Sam Thomas (00:26:26):
Yeah, no, completely.

Sam Thomas (00:26:27):
And I think, you know, that is not said enough.

Sam Thomas (00:26:29):
I think that's why I get sort of a bit uptight about Judge Henry's entitled.

Sam Thomas (00:26:32):
But the point is,

Sam Thomas (00:26:33):
it's really not meant to be for those people that are seriously alcohol dependent.

Rachel Casey (00:26:38):
I don't think that's talked about enough is that,

Rachel Casey (00:26:39):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:26:40):
there are people you can't just tell someone to stop drinking,

Rachel Casey (00:26:43):
especially if you have a family member that is in that deep.

Rachel Casey (00:26:46):
It is not that simple at that point.

Rachel Casey (00:26:48):
And maybe people do think it's like, oh, well, they just stop drinking.

Rachel Casey (00:26:52):
But there does come a point where stopping drinking can kill you.

Sam Thomas (00:26:55):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:26:55):
And I'll tell you about my experience,

Sam Thomas (00:26:57):
actually,

Sam Thomas (00:26:57):
because I've told this story many times,

Sam Thomas (00:26:59):
actually,

Sam Thomas (00:26:59):
that I.

Sam Thomas (00:27:00):
I had fallen out of the habit of going to the gym.

Sam Thomas (00:27:02):
And it was, I think it was in very early July 2016, I think, if I remember right.

Sam Thomas (00:27:07):
I had done my way to a meeting in London at one of the men's groups at the charity.

Sam Thomas (00:27:10):
We ran sort of support groups in different places.

Sam Thomas (00:27:13):
And I was used to sort of consult with the group members about funding, I think it was.

Sam Thomas (00:27:17):
Anyway,

Sam Thomas (00:27:17):
about 24 hours after the last drink,

Sam Thomas (00:27:21):
which was quite,

Sam Thomas (00:27:22):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:27:22):
the first time I'd gone...

Sam Thomas (00:27:24):
for, you know, more than a day without a drink for a long time.

Sam Thomas (00:27:27):
Anyway, I didn't get to the meeting.

Sam Thomas (00:27:28):
About 36 hours or so in, you know, I ended up in hospital instead, basically.

Sam Thomas (00:27:34):
Sort of on the tube,

Sam Thomas (00:27:35):
falling down,

Sam Thomas (00:27:36):
seriously unwell,

Sam Thomas (00:27:36):
and it was sort of the most strangest feeling of illness,

Sam Thomas (00:27:39):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:27:39):
the shades and the sweats,

Sam Thomas (00:27:40):
and it was really hot,

Sam Thomas (00:27:41):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:27:41):
a bit like it is now,

Sam Thomas (00:27:42):
I suppose,

Sam Thomas (00:27:43):
here in the UK.

Sam Thomas (00:27:44):
Really, really hot in the tube as well, so it's even hotter.

Sam Thomas (00:27:47):
And managed to find a sanctuary in a sort of a coffee shop,

Sam Thomas (00:27:51):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:27:51):
above ground,

Sam Thomas (00:27:52):
over the road.

Sam Thomas (00:27:53):
It was really unbelievably quiet as well for central London.

Sam Thomas (00:27:56):
And there was one person that was sitting in a table opposite,

Sam Thomas (00:27:59):
keep looking at me,

Sam Thomas (00:28:00):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:28:00):
shaking,

Sam Thomas (00:28:01):
trying to pour water into a jug,

Sam Thomas (00:28:02):
getting water everywhere.

Sam Thomas (00:28:04):
No idea what was wrong with me.

Sam Thomas (00:28:05):
Of course, I really didn't know anything about having to see that, let alone alcohol withdrawal.

Sam Thomas (00:28:09):
So I thought, you know, I was having some sort of allergic reaction.

Rachel Casey (00:28:13):
Cold, flu.

Sam Thomas (00:28:14):
Yeah, fever, you know, all those sort of usual scenarios type thing.

Sam Thomas (00:28:18):
I know that the lady came over and it turned out she was an off-duty nurse from St.

Sam Thomas (00:28:23):
Mary's Hospital, which was a short distance away from where I was.

Sam Thomas (00:28:26):
she asked me what was wrong i said no idea anyway next minute you know another

Sam Thomas (00:28:30):
person sort of attending to me breathing into a paper bag so i couldn't breathe

Sam Thomas (00:28:33):
properly and all this sort of stuff don't really remember too much really in terms

Sam Thomas (00:28:36):
of the sequence of events because i kept phasing in and out as well and next minute

Sam Thomas (00:28:40):
was an ambulance next minute was in saint mary's and me being me sort of being more

Sam Thomas (00:28:44):
worried about get you know not getting to my meeting i sort of self-discharged

Sam Thomas (00:28:49):
would you believe

Sam Thomas (00:28:50):
And in those days,

Sam Thomas (00:28:51):
work took precedence over absolutely everything else,

Sam Thomas (00:28:54):
no matter what sort of thing.

Sam Thomas (00:28:55):
Very self-sacrificing looking back on it now.

Sam Thomas (00:28:58):
So, of course, you know, I had another episode a month later.

Sam Thomas (00:29:00):
It was Brighton Pride here where I'm based.

Sam Thomas (00:29:03):
It's one of the biggest Pride events, you know, in Europe.

Sam Thomas (00:29:06):
And of course, I'm slap bang in the middle of it.

Sam Thomas (00:29:08):
I'm sort of a short distance away from where a street party sort of held.

Sam Thomas (00:29:12):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:29:12):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:29:13):
I'd got back from a little conference late on a Friday,

Sam Thomas (00:29:15):
had forgotten that it was Pride,

Sam Thomas (00:29:17):
had no wine,

Sam Thomas (00:29:17):
no food,

Sam Thomas (00:29:18):
no nothing in the fridge.

Sam Thomas (00:29:20):
So the entire weekend, I just sort of attempted to sleep, and I sort of did sort of sleep.

Sam Thomas (00:29:23):
Of course, by the bando, I was in our cover drawer again.

Sam Thomas (00:29:26):
Of course, this is a month after the first episode, which at the time wasn't diagnosed.

Sam Thomas (00:29:31):
Again, ended up in hospital.

Sam Thomas (00:29:33):
My friend sort of insists you go to hospital because there's something seriously wrong with you.

Sam Thomas (00:29:36):
And then, of course, the doctor sort of suggested, you know, do you think it might be HIV?

Sam Thomas (00:29:40):
You know,

Sam Thomas (00:29:40):
being a gay man,

Sam Thomas (00:29:41):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:29:41):
I sort of felt that,

Sam Thomas (00:29:42):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:29:42):
looking back on it,

Sam Thomas (00:29:43):
whilst I understand the need to ask the question,

Sam Thomas (00:29:45):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:29:45):
it kind of felt a bit sumptuous,

Sam Thomas (00:29:47):
really.

Sam Thomas (00:29:48):
But of course,

Sam Thomas (00:29:49):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:29:49):
a lot of people here in Brighton,

Sam Thomas (00:29:50):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:29:50):
but one third,

Sam Thomas (00:29:51):
I think,

Sam Thomas (00:29:51):
of gay men or men who have sex with men have HIV.

Sam Thomas (00:29:54):
So it wasn't totally out of the question.

Sam Thomas (00:29:56):
Anyway, it turned out it wasn't.

Sam Thomas (00:29:58):
And then in November of that year, given him on the first admissions in July,

Sam Thomas (00:30:02):
Second mission, sort of, say mission, sort of visit to an accident and emergency.

Sam Thomas (00:30:06):
The second one was in the lowest,

Sam Thomas (00:30:07):
and then in November of that year,

Sam Thomas (00:30:09):
yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:30:10):
I was back in hospital again,

Sam Thomas (00:30:11):
and,

Sam Thomas (00:30:11):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:30:12):
it was sort of confirmed that,

Sam Thomas (00:30:13):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:30:13):
it was our car withdrawal.

Sam Thomas (00:30:14):
So it took about five months.

Rachel Casey (00:30:16):
Yeah,

Rachel Casey (00:30:17):
and I think every time with the doctor that my panels would come back something off,

Rachel Casey (00:30:23):
and any suggestion that it could be alcohol,

Rachel Casey (00:30:25):
it's like,

Rachel Casey (00:30:25):
oh,

Rachel Casey (00:30:25):
no,

Rachel Casey (00:30:26):
it's probably not the drink.

Sam Thomas (00:30:26):
Yeah, yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:30:27):
Well,

Sam Thomas (00:30:27):
funny enough,

Sam Thomas (00:30:28):
I've just been,

Sam Thomas (00:30:29):
because I'm rewriting a memoir that was just published a couple of years ago,

Sam Thomas (00:30:31):
and actually I've just been writing about that whole secrets of events just very,

Sam Thomas (00:30:35):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:30:35):
I'm in the middle of it now,

Sam Thomas (00:30:36):
actually.

Sam Thomas (00:30:37):
One of the things that I think I realized when I was rewriting it is the fact that

Sam Thomas (00:30:41):
lots of questions were asked...

Sam Thomas (00:30:43):
through all these different things, you know, blood tests, you know, everything was ruled out.

Sam Thomas (00:30:47):
But at no point along the line did anyone say to me, do you drink and how much do you drink?

Sam Thomas (00:30:52):
And that was the weird thing.

Sam Thomas (00:30:54):
And, you know, and it is a common question to be asked.

Sam Thomas (00:30:57):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:30:58):
I've been in hospital far too many times during the rock and roll years when I was

Sam Thomas (00:31:01):
in and out of hospital on a regular basis.

Sam Thomas (00:31:03):
So you used to sort of hear doctors say to other patients, you know, do you smoke?

Sam Thomas (00:31:07):
Do you drink?

Sam Thomas (00:31:07):
Do you do drugs?

Sam Thomas (00:31:08):
Will they use your question?

Sam Thomas (00:31:09):
But for some unknown reason, it was just never asked.

Sam Thomas (00:31:12):
And I think at one point,

Sam Thomas (00:31:13):
I think I sort of minimized it a bit and said,

Sam Thomas (00:31:16):
oh,

Sam Thomas (00:31:16):
I don't drink too much and favorite question of that.

Sam Thomas (00:31:19):
But it was sort of, you know, I don't really recall when that was in the timeline, to be honest.

Sam Thomas (00:31:23):
But no, it was just never really fully as full.

Sam Thomas (00:31:25):
If it was asked, you know, there was no sort of probing questions just to check.

Rachel Casey (00:31:29):
that things that those have definitely enhanced though over the years like as

Rachel Casey (00:31:33):
people have found alcohol to be more dangerous and like even at least in the u.s

Rachel Casey (00:31:39):
just this year the surgeon general for the first time said there is no amount of

Rachel Casey (00:31:43):
alcohol it's safe because it's been well up until last year it was one alcohol

Rachel Casey (00:31:49):
drink a day it was considered safe and now it's none and i think that

Sam Thomas (00:31:55):
Yeah, I always lied about the drug.

Sam Thomas (00:31:56):
Yeah, everybody does.

Sam Thomas (00:31:57):
I don't think that was a really common thing.

Sam Thomas (00:31:59):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:31:59):
I think they say that usually so many sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:32:02):
I think usually doctors,

Sam Thomas (00:32:03):
I read somewhere,

Sam Thomas (00:32:05):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:32:05):
usually it's treble,

Sam Thomas (00:32:06):
what people say normally.

Sam Thomas (00:32:08):
You know what I mean?

Rachel Casey (00:32:09):
I mean, I wasn't very honest about the binge eating either.

Rachel Casey (00:32:12):
Like that was my little secret too of like just – and I usually – and it was never

Rachel Casey (00:32:17):
around people.

Rachel Casey (00:32:17):
It was always – it seemed to be sweets was my thing.

Rachel Casey (00:32:20):
And I don't – that's where it's like I have to buy like all the chocolate.

Rachel Casey (00:32:25):
And it's the same with my alcoholism.

Rachel Casey (00:32:28):
But I'm more open about that today because, I don't know, I guess I used to be ashamed of it.

Rachel Casey (00:32:31):
Now I'm like, yeah, it's part of the history and I can watch out for it.

Rachel Casey (00:32:35):
But it is –

Rachel Casey (00:32:36):
What's the metaphor is they talk about the tiger in the cage is,

Rachel Casey (00:32:39):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:32:40):
like with alcohol,

Rachel Casey (00:32:40):
you can just put a tiger in a cage and that's fine.

Rachel Casey (00:32:43):
But with eating,

Rachel Casey (00:32:44):
you have to go in that cage and learn how to accept the tiger and kind of pet the

Rachel Casey (00:32:49):
tiger because you have to have food in your life.

Sam Thomas (00:32:52):
My trench is in Scorpion.

Sam Thomas (00:32:54):
Yeah, yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:32:55):
Oh my God, I still can't.

Rachel Casey (00:32:59):
Although you're really justifying,

Rachel Casey (00:33:01):
like I've thought about signing up for exposure therapy because I am so scared of

Rachel Casey (00:33:05):
spiders and I don't know what it is.

Rachel Casey (00:33:07):
Well, I have a theory that

Rachel Casey (00:33:11):
There was one night heavily drunk and there were drugs involved.

Rachel Casey (00:33:14):
And I saw a spider and it like tripped me out.

Rachel Casey (00:33:17):
And I think it was like, I think it turned into hallucination.

Rachel Casey (00:33:22):
And I ever since then, I haven't been able to handle it.

Rachel Casey (00:33:24):
And I think the drugs definitely enhanced my fear.

Rachel Casey (00:33:28):
But man, maybe I need to look at exposure therapy.

Sam Thomas (00:33:31):
Yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:33:32):
and I was a little bit nervous of them at first because,

Sam Thomas (00:33:34):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:33:35):
I've actually got a couple of medically significant ones,

Sam Thomas (00:33:39):
which in the grand scheme of things are still very mild venom,

Sam Thomas (00:33:42):
but I've handled them.

Sam Thomas (00:33:43):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:33:44):
And it sounds crazy.

Sam Thomas (00:33:45):
And the reason why is just in case they run up my arm, then I'm like, you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:33:49):
So I've handled them.

Sam Thomas (00:33:50):
I think,

Sam Thomas (00:33:50):
well,

Sam Thomas (00:33:51):
if they sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:33:51):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:33:52):
they never do this,

Sam Thomas (00:33:52):
to be fair,

Sam Thomas (00:33:53):
but they do run up my arm for any reason.

Sam Thomas (00:33:54):
Well, I've handled it before, so it's fine.

Sam Thomas (00:33:57):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:33:57):
and they're very reluctant to bite anyways,

Sam Thomas (00:33:59):
only a handful of species that are prolific biters,

Sam Thomas (00:34:02):
really.

Sam Thomas (00:34:02):
So, yeah, I think it's very true.

Sam Thomas (00:34:04):
And I think,

Sam Thomas (00:34:04):
I suppose what it comes back to is,

Sam Thomas (00:34:05):
like I said earlier,

Sam Thomas (00:34:06):
it's just rationalizing what the fear,

Sam Thomas (00:34:07):
what the danger actually is,

Sam Thomas (00:34:09):
if anything.

Rachel Casey (00:34:10):
What does your recovery look like to,

Rachel Casey (00:34:12):
like,

Rachel Casey (00:34:12):
for,

Rachel Casey (00:34:13):
I guess,

Rachel Casey (00:34:14):
do you just feel that you're past the point?

Rachel Casey (00:34:15):
Like,

Rachel Casey (00:34:16):
I know you said,

Rachel Casey (00:34:17):
like,

Rachel Casey (00:34:17):
you talked about,

Rachel Casey (00:34:18):
I can't remember the name of,

Rachel Casey (00:34:19):
you said the,

Rachel Casey (00:34:21):
where you went for treatment and it's like the island,

Rachel Casey (00:34:23):
the party island.

Sam Thomas (00:34:25):
Oh, yeah, Green Canary.

Sam Thomas (00:34:26):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:34:27):
Grand Canary.

Rachel Casey (00:34:28):
So we go to Vegas and I used to get just blackout in Vegas,

Rachel Casey (00:34:32):
but we've gone probably seven times sober and I don't think about a drink.

Rachel Casey (00:34:36):
And it is just crazy that it's just not I don't think about the alcohol.

Rachel Casey (00:34:42):
I just I really don't.

Rachel Casey (00:34:43):
And if I do see it, it's usually like, oh, I'm glad I don't do that.

Sam Thomas (00:34:46):
Yeah, exactly.

Sam Thomas (00:34:47):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:34:47):
I mean, it's more like I feel badly.

Sam Thomas (00:34:49):
Yeah, you sort of dissociate yourself from it anyway.

Sam Thomas (00:34:51):
So I remember when I was there last, I think, when was it?

Sam Thomas (00:34:54):
September.

Sam Thomas (00:34:54):
And I think, you know, I sat by the pool and just observed.

Sam Thomas (00:34:57):
And I said,

Sam Thomas (00:34:58):
oh,

Sam Thomas (00:34:58):
I'm so glad that I don't live that lifestyle anymore,

Sam Thomas (00:35:01):
just from watching other people.

Sam Thomas (00:35:02):
And it's fascinating.

Rachel Casey (00:35:03):
Like, what is weird?

Sam Thomas (00:35:05):
Yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:35:05):
it's quite sad in a way because you kind of think people,

Sam Thomas (00:35:07):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:07):
they think they're having the time of their lives,

Sam Thomas (00:35:09):
but are they really?

Sam Thomas (00:35:09):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:35:10):
But it's not my job to sort of make an intervention and,

Sam Thomas (00:35:14):
you know what I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:35:14):
tell them,

Sam Thomas (00:35:15):
well,

Sam Thomas (00:35:15):
haven't you tried not drinking?

Sam Thomas (00:35:16):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:35:17):
I just don't go there because I just don't really see the point.

Sam Thomas (00:35:20):
But, you know, yeah, you do sort of just associate myself.

Sam Thomas (00:35:22):
And I do see the amusement as well.

Sam Thomas (00:35:23):
You know, it's just sort of looking at it from that perspective, not taking it seriously.

Rachel Casey (00:35:28):
That used to be me.

Rachel Casey (00:35:29):
That was me at one point.

Rachel Casey (00:35:30):
And I'm just like, yep.

Rachel Casey (00:35:31):
And there was probably someone sober watching me saying, that used to be me.

Sam Thomas (00:35:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:35:37):
And also, you don't know.

Sam Thomas (00:35:39):
And also,

Sam Thomas (00:35:39):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:35:39):
unfortunately,

Sam Thomas (00:35:41):
it does come out quite a lot,

Sam Thomas (00:35:42):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:42):
why do you not drink,

Sam Thomas (00:35:43):
blah,

Sam Thomas (00:35:43):
blah,

Sam Thomas (00:35:43):
blah,

Sam Thomas (00:35:43):
blah,

Sam Thomas (00:35:43):
blah.

Sam Thomas (00:35:44):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:35:44):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:44):
it usually sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:35:45):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:45):
it starts conversations and it usually sort of might even just plant a seed in

Sam Thomas (00:35:49):
someone's brain.

Sam Thomas (00:35:50):
Again,

Sam Thomas (00:35:50):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:50):
I haven't got time to sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:35:52):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:52):
go around and,

Sam Thomas (00:35:54):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:56):
sort of ideas about drink.

Sam Thomas (00:35:56):
I haven't got time for that.

Sam Thomas (00:35:57):
But you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:35:58):
I think when you do sort of have the normal everyday sort of conversations,

Sam Thomas (00:36:01):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:36:02):
it can plant that seed.

Sam Thomas (00:36:04):
And I think it also sort of says to people that it is possible to live a different

Sam Thomas (00:36:07):
lifestyle to what is the status quo,

Sam Thomas (00:36:09):
what's the norm,

Sam Thomas (00:36:11):
inverted commas.

Rachel Casey (00:36:12):
So what does your day-to-day look like?

Rachel Casey (00:36:13):
Like how do you do anything to practice?

Rachel Casey (00:36:17):
I mean, if you're writing a book, you're also having a eating store charity.

Rachel Casey (00:36:20):
I feel like you have quite a bit of check-ins.

Sam Thomas (00:36:22):
Yes.

Sam Thomas (00:36:23):
I mean, I left the charity, you should have said, about six years ago or seven years ago.

Sam Thomas (00:36:26):
I can't remember.

Sam Thomas (00:36:28):
2018.

Sam Thomas (00:36:28):
Seven years ago.

Sam Thomas (00:36:30):
So now I left the charity course some time ago in quite abrupt circumstances, actually.

Sam Thomas (00:36:34):
I sort of left the band, did what Jerry Halliwell did back in the day, like the Spice Girls.

Sam Thomas (00:36:40):
And it turned out I was the band.

Sam Thomas (00:36:41):
So the charities have also just disbanded eventually.

Sam Thomas (00:36:44):
And,

Sam Thomas (00:36:44):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:36:45):
I sort of been writing and doing bits and pieces,

Sam Thomas (00:36:48):
really sort of trying to sort of

Sam Thomas (00:36:50):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:36:50):
focusing on my recovery,

Sam Thomas (00:36:51):
really,

Sam Thomas (00:36:51):
when I think about it,

Sam Thomas (00:36:52):
but,

Sam Thomas (00:36:52):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:36:53):
sort of thinking of what sort of solo career might look like in the future.

Sam Thomas (00:36:57):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:36:57):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:36:57):
it did come at a significant cost and it was self-sacrifice,

Sam Thomas (00:37:01):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:37:01):
giving service and all this sort of stuff,

Sam Thomas (00:37:04):
helping others and do good.

Sam Thomas (00:37:06):
Shouldn't come at the cost of self-sacrifice.

Sam Thomas (00:37:08):
So that was the massive lesson I learned from the charity.

Sam Thomas (00:37:10):
So I'm not doing that again.

Sam Thomas (00:37:12):
But going back to day-to-day,

Sam Thomas (00:37:13):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:37:13):
I think I strive to sort of keep things relatively simple.

Sam Thomas (00:37:16):
You know, I did go away occasionally.

Sam Thomas (00:37:18):
I've been to Morocco back in January.

Sam Thomas (00:37:19):
I've been meaning to go back to Morocco for a while.

Sam Thomas (00:37:21):
I was there in 2016.

Sam Thomas (00:37:22):
For about eight years, I've been threatening to go, and I finally did.

Sam Thomas (00:37:27):
So I get to do a little bit of that.

Sam Thomas (00:37:28):
Not often, though.

Sam Thomas (00:37:29):
And then, you know, I've been writing occasional articles.

Sam Thomas (00:37:33):
You know, the book, you know, I wasn't going to rewrite this book.

Sam Thomas (00:37:35):
You know, I sort of shelved it two years ago, two months before it was due to be published.

Sam Thomas (00:37:39):
So it doesn't look like a very good track record, does it?

Sam Thomas (00:37:41):
Leave the charity, shelve a book.

Sam Thomas (00:37:43):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:37:43):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:37:43):
I think,

Sam Thomas (00:37:43):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:37:43):
I've had to sort of make decisions along the way that sort of puts recovery first.

Sam Thomas (00:37:48):
And actually,

Sam Thomas (00:37:48):
it's the first time in a long time that I sort of feel as though a lot of things

Sam Thomas (00:37:52):
are sort of mostly in place now.

Sam Thomas (00:37:54):
Keeping in mind,

Sam Thomas (00:37:55):
it felt like a lot of things were on pause for a while as I mentioned earlier with

Sam Thomas (00:37:58):
lockdowns and things.

Sam Thomas (00:38:00):
So, and it's also just doing things for the right reasons, I suppose, as well.

Sam Thomas (00:38:03):
Not feeling that everything has to be for show.

Sam Thomas (00:38:06):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:38:07):
going back to the book,

Sam Thomas (00:38:07):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:38:08):
I kind of realized that I was doing it for the wrong reasons because I wanted to

Sam Thomas (00:38:11):
sort of find my place in the world,

Sam Thomas (00:38:13):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:38:14):
because I have this sort of position,

Sam Thomas (00:38:15):
bit of influence and things like that.

Sam Thomas (00:38:18):
But actually,

Sam Thomas (00:38:18):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:38:18):
I kind of felt that actually you can't just do something for those reasons.

Sam Thomas (00:38:21):
It's very superficial in a way.

Sam Thomas (00:38:23):
So, you know, I just sort of go away and think about, you know, why am I doing this?

Sam Thomas (00:38:28):
And it's actually because I think the story has value.

Sam Thomas (00:38:30):
You know, it's just I think, you know, it could inspire people, I suppose.

Sam Thomas (00:38:35):
So rather than sort of making some statement about it, just sort of say, hey, look at me.

Sam Thomas (00:38:40):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:38:41):
It's real.

Sam Thomas (00:38:42):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:38:42):
I mean, you see, I even went through my Instagram yesterday and just sort of tidied things up.

Sam Thomas (00:38:48):
You know, there were certain, you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:38:49):
You look back and you think, well, actually, I think I posted that again for the wrong reasons.

Sam Thomas (00:38:53):
And then other posts that are just sort of more relaxed, more sort of off the cuff, if you like.

Sam Thomas (00:38:58):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:38:58):
I think those sort of more authentic.

Sam Thomas (00:39:01):
So it's just,

Sam Thomas (00:39:01):
I don't know,

Sam Thomas (00:39:01):
really,

Sam Thomas (00:39:02):
it's just that shift between,

Sam Thomas (00:39:03):
I don't know what I'm really saying,

Sam Thomas (00:39:04):
but it's just the shift from being,

Sam Thomas (00:39:05):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:39:06):
doing things in one place,

Sam Thomas (00:39:06):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:39:06):
security is sort of doing things in one place,

Sam Thomas (00:39:08):
it's self-assurance,

Sam Thomas (00:39:09):
I think that's what it is.

Rachel Casey (00:39:10):
Well, I think in sobriety, too, is you get another level of, you can feel, you know, it doesn't,

Rachel Casey (00:39:17):
In the beginning,

Rachel Casey (00:39:18):
I was terrified of my feelings when I got sober and I was like,

Rachel Casey (00:39:21):
how can I keep busy to keep that still?

Rachel Casey (00:39:23):
I don't want to drink now and I can't shut them down.

Rachel Casey (00:39:27):
So it takes time to be like,

Rachel Casey (00:39:28):
okay,

Rachel Casey (00:39:29):
so now I'm getting like my values and what I want to do with them and how I want to

Rachel Casey (00:39:34):
share them.

Rachel Casey (00:39:34):
And knowing that you have something that a lot of people are struggling with to help them.

Rachel Casey (00:39:39):
And you're like, how can I put those into words to help?

Rachel Casey (00:39:42):
Because it's a very hard feeling to describe.

Rachel Casey (00:39:44):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:39:44):
Yeah, exactly.

Sam Thomas (00:39:45):
You know, I often feel too many different things all at the same time.

Sam Thomas (00:39:48):
I feel very conflicted about how I feel about most things, to be honest.

Sam Thomas (00:39:51):
So I think it's just sort of not being driven by feelings and,

Sam Thomas (00:39:55):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:39:55):
not acting out on them impulsively,

Sam Thomas (00:39:58):
I suppose.

Sam Thomas (00:39:58):
I don't really do that.

Sam Thomas (00:39:59):
I'm still effing blind at this, that and the other day to day.

Sam Thomas (00:40:03):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:40:03):
Things that get on my nose.

Sam Thomas (00:40:04):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:40:04):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:40:05):
I don't sort of have these sort of massive sort of meltdowns in the way that I used to.

Rachel Casey (00:40:08):
Oh no, I don't either.

Rachel Casey (00:40:09):
And I think that there's a part of getting sober and it doesn't,

Rachel Casey (00:40:13):
again,

Rachel Casey (00:40:13):
and for anyone listening who's new in sobriety,

Rachel Casey (00:40:16):
it doesn't come instantly.

Rachel Casey (00:40:17):
I thought everything was like instant.

Rachel Casey (00:40:19):
As soon as I stopped drinking, like everything would be solved.

Rachel Casey (00:40:22):
And I find each year there's like a new level or a new,

Rachel Casey (00:40:26):
like a new feeling internally of sobriety like you've reached this whole and i

Rachel Casey (00:40:33):
think the ego drops a little bit more in in the beginning yeah it's very easy i

Rachel Casey (00:40:38):
don't i and i don't even know that it's i i just i don't know that i did it for ego

Rachel Casey (00:40:43):
or i just was so amazed i didn't know i would ever be sober i was one of those

Sam Thomas (00:40:48):
people yeah i think everyone just thought i'd be dead and so

Rachel Casey (00:40:51):
So then I was like, guy, this is crazy that you can feel this way without alcohol.

Rachel Casey (00:40:57):
And then it's kind of rounded to I don't think about it as much anymore.

Rachel Casey (00:41:01):
And now it's like,

Rachel Casey (00:41:03):
well,

Rachel Casey (00:41:03):
I spend a lot of time talking about it,

Rachel Casey (00:41:05):
but I'm hoping that it's helping someone who was once like me.

Rachel Casey (00:41:09):
That's my husband now says he'll never say never.

Rachel Casey (00:41:12):
And he'll never say he won't ever like never drink again because he's like,

Rachel Casey (00:41:15):
I never thought I'd stop drinking,

Rachel Casey (00:41:16):
to be honest.

Rachel Casey (00:41:17):
So.

Rachel Casey (00:41:18):
He's like, that's something you can't say never anymore.

Rachel Casey (00:41:22):
He really did.

Sam Thomas (00:41:23):
He never thought he'd stop.

Sam Thomas (00:41:24):
Yeah, exactly.

Sam Thomas (00:41:25):
If I say I'm not going to do something, then inevitably I will say.

Sam Thomas (00:41:30):
So I don't say that anymore.

Sam Thomas (00:41:31):
I just say, yeah, I may do this.

Sam Thomas (00:41:34):
I may not.

Sam Thomas (00:41:35):
I suppose going back to ego, I think that's a good point.

Sam Thomas (00:41:37):
I think a lot of things,

Sam Thomas (00:41:38):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:41:38):
because I,

Sam Thomas (00:41:40):
again,

Sam Thomas (00:41:40):
I achieved all these incredible,

Sam Thomas (00:41:41):
amazing things.

Sam Thomas (00:41:42):
You know,

Sam Thomas (00:41:42):
I did have a bit of an ego problem when I think about it throughout my 20s and

Sam Thomas (00:41:45):
early 30s.

Sam Thomas (00:41:46):
Maybe up until recent times even.

Sam Thomas (00:41:48):
But I think the shift now is that things are not sort of, again, it's not really about ego.

Sam Thomas (00:41:53):
It's more about instinct.

Sam Thomas (00:41:54):
You know, I trust my instinct a lot more about things.

Sam Thomas (00:41:57):
You know, and sometimes those two things can be a conflict.

Sam Thomas (00:42:00):
You know,

Sam Thomas (00:42:00):
ego says one thing,

Sam Thomas (00:42:01):
but instinctive,

Sam Thomas (00:42:02):
your instinct even says something completely different.

Sam Thomas (00:42:06):
So, you know, rewriting the book, you know, my ego said, oh, can I really be bothered?

Sam Thomas (00:42:11):
You know, why am I doing this?

Sam Thomas (00:42:12):
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Sam Thomas (00:42:14):
But then my instinct goes, actually, no, this is what you've got to do.

Sam Thomas (00:42:17):
It won't be my career defining work necessarily, but you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:42:20):
It'll be a stepping stone onto other things, hopefully.

Sam Thomas (00:42:23):
So just trusting that and not sort of, again, not everything has to be to make a statement.

Sam Thomas (00:42:28):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:42:29):
Again, I was sort of very prone to doing that.

Sam Thomas (00:42:32):
And like I said earlier,

Sam Thomas (00:42:33):
it's about,

Sam Thomas (00:42:34):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:42:34):
I think ego and insecurity,

Sam Thomas (00:42:36):
I think,

Sam Thomas (00:42:36):
often come hand in hand.

Sam Thomas (00:42:38):
Instinct and self-assurance also, I think, come hand in hand.

Sam Thomas (00:42:41):
So I think that's the shift, I think.

Rachel Casey (00:42:44):
I think it's the, you know, it's the faith and fear.

Rachel Casey (00:42:47):
You know, there's that balance between yin and yang.

Sam Thomas (00:42:50):
Yeah, no, it's all, yeah, it's all those.

Sam Thomas (00:42:52):
But I think,

Sam Thomas (00:42:52):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:42:53):
I think it's good to have experienced both,

Sam Thomas (00:42:55):
all those different extremes,

Sam Thomas (00:42:56):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:42:57):
because then you can rationalize it.

Sam Thomas (00:42:59):
So, no, I think it's all quite good.

Sam Thomas (00:43:01):
And yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:43:01):
like you say,

Sam Thomas (00:43:02):
that I think each year that passes,

Sam Thomas (00:43:04):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:43:04):
I think there is this new layer of understanding and awareness and all this sort of stuff.

Sam Thomas (00:43:08):
So that's why we say recovering rather than recovered.

Sam Thomas (00:43:12):
Yeah, you know, I'm always in recovery.

Sam Thomas (00:43:13):
Yeah, it's a process.

Sam Thomas (00:43:14):
And I used to sort of question that at the beginning.

Sam Thomas (00:43:16):
Why do we not say recovered?

Sam Thomas (00:43:17):
But it's for that reason, because, you know, it's just ongoing forever and always.

Sam Thomas (00:43:22):
And, you know, I've forgotten his name all of a sudden.

Sam Thomas (00:43:25):
Who's the guy?

Sam Thomas (00:43:26):
Anthony Hopkins.

Sam Thomas (00:43:27):
Yeah, I mean, he's in recovery.

Sam Thomas (00:43:29):
He's in sober a long time.

Sam Thomas (00:43:30):
He's been in recovery for about 300 years, I think.

Sam Thomas (00:43:32):
You know what I mean?

Rachel Casey (00:43:34):
I think he's almost 40 years, or maybe 40, yeah, for a long time.

Sam Thomas (00:43:37):
Yeah, and actually the interesting thing is as well, this is a really important point,

Sam Thomas (00:43:41):
A lot of people that I noticed,

Sam Thomas (00:43:42):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:43:42):
I was sort of at 33 years age,

Sam Thomas (00:43:44):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:43:45):
of age,

Sam Thomas (00:43:45):
I think.

Sam Thomas (00:43:46):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:43:47):
Was I 31?

Sam Thomas (00:43:47):
No, 33.

Sam Thomas (00:43:47):
Yeah, I was right.

Sam Thomas (00:43:48):
When I did my fourth and final detox,

Sam Thomas (00:43:51):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:43:51):
I was old enough to notice the pattern,

Sam Thomas (00:43:53):
but still young enough to make the changes.

Sam Thomas (00:43:56):
And it's not to say that anyone's too old to change,

Sam Thomas (00:43:58):
but it's just,

Sam Thomas (00:43:59):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:43:59):
it's a good sort of age,

Sam Thomas (00:44:00):
isn't it?

Sam Thomas (00:44:00):
Where you've got the incentive to change.

Sam Thomas (00:44:01):
Because in theory, you know, you're just short of halfway through your life sort of thing.

Sam Thomas (00:44:06):
You know, a lot of, you know, look at a lot of majors and 11s beside Anthony Hopkins.

Sam Thomas (00:44:10):
If I remember right, I'm pretty sure he did.

Sam Thomas (00:44:12):
He detoxed around early 30s again.

Sam Thomas (00:44:15):
I know Eminem did and maybe a couple of others.

Sam Thomas (00:44:18):
I mean, I was going to say Russell Brandt.

Rachel Casey (00:44:19):
Oh, there's a lot of people.

Sam Thomas (00:44:20):
I was going to say Russell Brandt, but yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:44:23):
I still love Russell Brandt.

Rachel Casey (00:44:26):
I don't know.

Rachel Casey (00:44:27):
I still love him.

Sam Thomas (00:44:28):
Yeah, I know.

Sam Thomas (00:44:28):
Like I say, we've got to be cautious because we don't know.

Sam Thomas (00:44:30):
Yeah, we don't know what's.

Rachel Casey (00:44:32):
We don't know what we don't know.

Rachel Casey (00:44:33):
I do like the recovery stuff.

Sam Thomas (00:44:35):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:44:36):
So the point is, you know, there's a few sort of examples just picking up famous people.

Sam Thomas (00:44:39):
But you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:44:40):
Just a few examples of people that sort of had a very wild sort of teens and 20s

Sam Thomas (00:44:46):
and then,

Sam Thomas (00:44:47):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:44:47):
around about,

Sam Thomas (00:44:48):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:44:48):
early to midday sort of implemented changes sort of thing,

Sam Thomas (00:44:51):
went through this sort of transition.

Sam Thomas (00:44:53):
But like I say, I can't trust enough that you can do it at any age.

Sam Thomas (00:44:55):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:44:56):
There's no sort of time limit.

Sam Thomas (00:44:58):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:44:58):
Well,

Rachel Casey (00:44:58):
I mean,

Rachel Casey (00:44:58):
everyone there are you could find any age of and I think there are celebrities even

Rachel Casey (00:45:03):
that are just recently getting sober that are in their 50s,

Rachel Casey (00:45:05):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:45:06):
and or there's people now as I was in my 20s and my husband was in his 30s.

Rachel Casey (00:45:11):
And I mean,

Rachel Casey (00:45:12):
yeah,

Rachel Casey (00:45:12):
I don't think any age is a great age to get sober,

Rachel Casey (00:45:16):
to be honest,

Rachel Casey (00:45:16):
because you'll you're only enhancing the remaining years you have left.

Rachel Casey (00:45:21):
You know, I know that I wouldn't have lived as long had I not got sober.

Rachel Casey (00:45:25):
I mean, I guess I don't technically know because I don't know the future.

Rachel Casey (00:45:28):
But yeah, it's I've never met anyone that's regretted getting sober and I've never regretted.

Rachel Casey (00:45:35):
There's never been one day that's passed that I've regretted getting sober.

Sam Thomas (00:45:39):
Where I live, you know, I live near a high street and it's just full of homeless people.

Sam Thomas (00:45:44):
Clearly a lot of people, a lot of issues, mental health issues, addiction especially.

Sam Thomas (00:45:48):
Constantly reminded all the time, it feels like, of what could have been.

Sam Thomas (00:45:52):
You know what I mean?

Rachel Casey (00:45:54):
And I think that's inch too in my...

Rachel Casey (00:45:55):
I don't know for you how it feels,

Rachel Casey (00:45:57):
but with homeless...

Rachel Casey (00:45:58):
In the beginning,

Rachel Casey (00:46:00):
when I was newly sober,

Rachel Casey (00:46:01):
I was like,

Rachel Casey (00:46:02):
that person could go get help.

Rachel Casey (00:46:03):
I'm getting help.

Rachel Casey (00:46:04):
I'm only a few days, few months sober.

Rachel Casey (00:46:07):
And now as I've developed my recovery, I've worked with a lot of people in sobriety.

Rachel Casey (00:46:14):
I'm like...

Rachel Casey (00:46:15):
They just haven't hit their point yet.

Rachel Casey (00:46:17):
You know, like I feel badly.

Rachel Casey (00:46:18):
It's more like I understand how they got there versus looking at in the beginning.

Rachel Casey (00:46:24):
I think I was like, you can do it, too.

Rachel Casey (00:46:25):
You know, and like, come on, get to this meeting, like come in the meeting with me.

Rachel Casey (00:46:29):
And now I'm like even trying to do that, like it's that's not their journey, you know, and.

Rachel Casey (00:46:35):
It's just, it feels different.

Rachel Casey (00:46:36):
I don't know.

Rachel Casey (00:46:37):
I look at people different as my,

Rachel Casey (00:46:39):
and not in a judgment way,

Rachel Casey (00:46:40):
just like I understand way,

Rachel Casey (00:46:44):
if that makes any sense.

Sam Thomas (00:46:45):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:46:45):
And it's like,

Sam Thomas (00:46:45):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:46:45):
I still get very frustrated,

Sam Thomas (00:46:47):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:46:47):
sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:46:48):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:46:49):
the things,

Sam Thomas (00:46:49):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:46:49):
the antisocial behavior and the noise and everything else you see in the high strength.

Sam Thomas (00:46:53):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:46:53):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:46:53):
I think I realized that actually these are people that clearly are addicts,

Sam Thomas (00:46:57):
that their lifestyle,

Sam Thomas (00:46:58):
not necessarily chosen lifestyle,

Sam Thomas (00:46:59):
but it's the one that they're fallen prey to.

Sam Thomas (00:47:02):
And that's all they know.

Sam Thomas (00:47:03):
They don't necessarily know that there's this thing called recovery and that life

Sam Thomas (00:47:07):
can be different.

Sam Thomas (00:47:08):
So I have to sort of challenge myself,

Sam Thomas (00:47:10):
I suppose,

Sam Thomas (00:47:11):
on a daily basis,

Sam Thomas (00:47:12):
which is easier said than done because I do get seriously irritated.

Rachel Casey (00:47:16):
Because you can't say anything.

Rachel Casey (00:47:17):
There's nothing you could really do or say, you know.

Sam Thomas (00:47:20):
It's actually,

Sam Thomas (00:47:20):
and that's the other thing,

Sam Thomas (00:47:21):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:47:21):
there's no point,

Sam Thomas (00:47:22):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:47:22):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:47:23):
quite a few months ago,

Sam Thomas (00:47:25):
there was a person just lying on the street,

Sam Thomas (00:47:27):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:47:28):
unconscious.

Sam Thomas (00:47:28):
And of course I walked past, you know, and did that thing until I turned around.

Sam Thomas (00:47:31):
Of course I did.

Sam Thomas (00:47:33):
He was totally pissed, as you can imagine.

Sam Thomas (00:47:36):
And this is not a normal thing around here where I live.

Sam Thomas (00:47:39):
So I sat there and said, do you need any help?

Sam Thomas (00:47:41):
No, F off.

Sam Thomas (00:47:43):
Isolation.

Sam Thomas (00:47:45):
I just said to him,

Sam Thomas (00:47:46):
look,

Sam Thomas (00:47:46):
I'm going to have to call in Ambers because I just can't leave you there.

Sam Thomas (00:47:49):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:47:49):
You'll have a conscience now.

Sam Thomas (00:47:51):
There are certain things I can sort of override sometimes when it's just silly

Sam Thomas (00:47:56):
things and people just have to,

Sam Thomas (00:47:57):
yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:47:58):
But when it's things like that, just lying unconscious on the floor.

Sam Thomas (00:48:00):
So anyway, the unfortunate thing was I sat there.

Sam Thomas (00:48:03):
It was at the, I literally short distance away from the hospital.

Sam Thomas (00:48:05):
So the ambulance came within minutes.

Sam Thomas (00:48:07):
Of course,

Sam Thomas (00:48:07):
the ambulance people looked at me with that sort of look as if they'd say,

Sam Thomas (00:48:10):
did you really need to call us?

Sam Thomas (00:48:11):
Do you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:48:12):
Because they're so used to sort of just picking the right thing to do.

Sam Thomas (00:48:15):
That's all they do.

Sam Thomas (00:48:16):
They're just the cleanup team, really, that sort of suites people up.

Sam Thomas (00:48:18):
Of course,

Sam Thomas (00:48:19):
you were taken to A&E,

Sam Thomas (00:48:20):
probably gave A&E a load of grief and probably self-discharled,

Sam Thomas (00:48:23):
I imagine.

Sam Thomas (00:48:24):
But you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:48:24):
It's just,

Sam Thomas (00:48:25):
it's difficult to sort of know at what point can you just choose to occur or what

Sam Thomas (00:48:29):
point you need to act.

Sam Thomas (00:48:31):
But, you know, yeah, I think it is difficult when you're sort of so exposed.

Sam Thomas (00:48:36):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:48:37):
if I lived in the middle of the country and,

Sam Thomas (00:48:38):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:48:39):
I've been to a few places near where I live and just realised how civilised it

Sam Thomas (00:48:42):
seems by comparison to Brighton.

Sam Thomas (00:48:44):
I went to Lewis,

Sam Thomas (00:48:45):
which is up the road,

Sam Thomas (00:48:46):
a real sort of old sort of typical English town,

Sam Thomas (00:48:49):
you know what I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:48:49):
Roman,

Sam Thomas (00:48:50):
with a castle and all this sort of stuff.

Sam Thomas (00:48:52):
And I was thinking how sort of civilised it all was by comparison.

Sam Thomas (00:48:56):
There's no sort of street chaos, you know what I mean.

Sam Thomas (00:48:59):
So...

Rachel Casey (00:48:59):
So if people want to follow you and if your book's coming out,

Rachel Casey (00:49:05):
how can people stay in contact with you and where are you talking about your

Rachel Casey (00:49:10):
recovery the most or how do they follow if you were to put out an article soon?

Sam Thomas (00:49:13):
Yeah, it's a good question because it's full chat.

Sam Thomas (00:49:15):
I mean, I was on Twitter, but I think we all agree it's on a life support machine now.

Rachel Casey (00:49:19):
Is Blue Sky now the thing?

Sam Thomas (00:49:20):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:49:21):
So I dabble at the other two.

Sam Thomas (00:49:22):
Is it Threads and Blue Sky?

Sam Thomas (00:49:24):
But I'm not ready.

Rachel Casey (00:49:25):
I have like 10 people.

Sam Thomas (00:49:26):
I am sort of a lot more active now on Instagram.

Sam Thomas (00:49:29):
You know, sort of.

Sam Thomas (00:49:30):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:49:30):
It's SamThomas8186, I think, if I remember rightly.

Sam Thomas (00:49:34):
And on there, I've got links to all my articles and things, which I've done a lot of now.

Sam Thomas (00:49:39):
Yeah, that's the main one.

Sam Thomas (00:49:41):
I mean, I was made part-time with it until fairly recently.

Sam Thomas (00:49:43):
So yeah, I'm sort of getting to grips with it finally.

Sam Thomas (00:49:46):
And in terms of the book, I mean, I'm working on it.

Sam Thomas (00:49:48):
I've no idea what's happening with the book.

Sam Thomas (00:49:49):
It's too early just yet, but it will happen, hopefully.

Sam Thomas (00:49:53):
So yeah, but if you follow me on Instagram, there'll be updates in time.

Rachel Casey (00:49:57):
And I'll put a link to your Instagram on there.

Rachel Casey (00:50:00):
Or even if you want to send me a few articles,

Rachel Casey (00:50:02):
we can put some links to your previous articles that if people would like to read,

Rachel Casey (00:50:05):
I would like to read them anyway.

Rachel Casey (00:50:07):
So thank you for coming on Sober Banter and sharing some of your...

Rachel Casey (00:50:13):
your story and who you are and that we do get to recover.

Rachel Casey (00:50:17):
That's the coolest part about all of this is it doesn't matter where we are.

Rachel Casey (00:50:21):
We have like friends literally everywhere in recovery of all types.

Rachel Casey (00:50:25):
It's not even just alcohol.

Rachel Casey (00:50:26):
It can be lots of different recoveries.

Rachel Casey (00:50:29):
You might have inspired me to try and do some exposure therapy because isn't that

Rachel Casey (00:50:33):
the weird thing that

Rachel Casey (00:50:34):
from addiction or from trauma.

Rachel Casey (00:50:37):
It's like me hearing that someone, it worked for you and you're a real person talking to me.

Rachel Casey (00:50:42):
You know, it's not just this hypothetical of exposure therapist supposed to work.

Rachel Casey (00:50:46):
It's like I hear it from someone and it's authentic and it's,

Rachel Casey (00:50:50):
I can tell that you really were scared.

Rachel Casey (00:50:52):
Now you talk about it like it's just like a pet cat.

Rachel Casey (00:50:55):
a cat or a dog and I can hear it and I'm like wow that is change and that's

Rachel Casey (00:50:59):
something I want and I want to not be scared of spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:51:03):
Let me know how many tarantulas you've got in six months time.

Rachel Casey (00:51:06):
If my husband hears this and gets it oh my god.

Rachel Casey (00:51:09):
I said I think there are places that I could go or people that would be with me and but it is

Rachel Casey (00:51:14):
If I would have woke up today and thought I'd say that sentence,

Rachel Casey (00:51:18):
I did not think it,

Rachel Casey (00:51:19):
but it is the connection,

Rachel Casey (00:51:20):
the authentic.

Rachel Casey (00:51:22):
I believe you.

Rachel Casey (00:51:22):
I can tell you're being real and that there is a possibility that maybe I won't be

Rachel Casey (00:51:28):
scared of spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:51:28):
I'll tell you what it could go.

Sam Thomas (00:51:29):
I've got a little praying mantis on my desk.

Sam Thomas (00:51:32):
I could show you, but I don't know if it will show up on the camera.

Sam Thomas (00:51:34):
I can try.

Rachel Casey (00:51:36):
Can you see it?

Rachel Casey (00:51:37):
No, where?

Rachel Casey (00:51:38):
Oh, I do see it.

Rachel Casey (00:51:39):
Yeah, I do.

Rachel Casey (00:51:40):
I don't think I've ever even seen it.

Rachel Casey (00:51:41):
Well, yes, I have.

Sam Thomas (00:51:42):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:51:44):
they're not scary at all,

Sam Thomas (00:51:45):
but they're quite good,

Sam Thomas (00:51:46):
sort of low-maintenance,

Sam Thomas (00:51:47):
sort of short-lived thing.

Sam Thomas (00:51:49):
And actually, I didn't know any of praying mantises, so I've got a few different things.

Sam Thomas (00:51:53):
And I had little crabs.

Rachel Casey (00:51:54):
It's an inspiration to learn more.

Sam Thomas (00:51:55):
Yeah, so you can try.

Sam Thomas (00:51:57):
Start with praying mantises and work your way up to spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:52:00):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:52:01):
That that that will be quite elegant and graceful because we're praying much less

Rachel Casey (00:52:09):
than a tarantula.

Rachel Casey (00:52:10):
So again, thank you for coming on.

Rachel Casey (00:52:13):
And I will put all the links in the bio in below so that way people can get in

Rachel Casey (00:52:16):
contact or follow you and read some of your articles.

Rachel Casey (00:52:19):
So thank you again for your time.

Rachel Casey (00:52:21):
I appreciate it.

Sam Thomas (00:52:22):
Thank you.

Sam Thomas (00:52:22):
Thanks for having me.