1
00:00:01,260 --> 00:00:04,292
Welcome to The Crucible, Conversations for the Curious.

2
00:00:04,292 --> 00:00:06,073
I am Hamish, your host.

3
00:00:06,173 --> 00:00:10,496
This podcast is for anyone going through awakenings, trying to make sense of life.

4
00:00:10,496 --> 00:00:19,833
Whether dark nights are the soul, needing to make life -changing decisions, struggling
with addiction or critical illness, or simply realizing that their life as they know it is

5
00:00:19,833 --> 00:00:22,024
not aligned to values and purpose.

6
00:00:22,024 --> 00:00:23,025
You are not alone.

7
00:00:23,025 --> 00:00:25,246
You can get through this, promise you.

8
00:00:25,246 --> 00:00:27,868
Life is far more beautiful on the other side.

9
00:00:30,689 --> 00:00:35,571
Afternoon, everybody, and welcome to another episode of The Crucible, Conversations for
the Curious.

10
00:00:35,611 --> 00:00:41,432
Today, we've got Duncan with us, and Duncan is a author, a speaker, and a Morris Dancer.

11
00:00:41,432 --> 00:00:43,923
Duncan, thanks so much for turning up today.

12
00:00:44,409 --> 00:00:45,932
Well, thank you very much.

13
00:00:45,932 --> 00:00:48,016
I'm enjoying, I'm looking forward to it.

14
00:00:48,016 --> 00:00:52,905
know, I'm thinking it might be exciting to pour myself into the Crucible.

15
00:00:53,587 --> 00:00:55,078
It's a good place to be.

16
00:00:55,078 --> 00:00:58,643
can be a bit hot, can be a bit uncomfortable, but it's definitely a good place to be.

17
00:00:58,643 --> 00:00:59,643
Right.

18
00:01:00,244 --> 00:01:01,596
Let's start with the...

19
00:01:01,596 --> 00:01:04,028
I think let's start with the Morris dancer.

20
00:01:04,028 --> 00:01:05,089
Why don't we start there?

21
00:01:05,089 --> 00:01:08,362
Tell me about the Morris dancing and why that is important to you.

22
00:01:09,082 --> 00:01:22,087
So initially I just put it on my business cards kind of almost as a joke because like all
my friends are speakers and they're coaches and they're facilitators and they're MC's and

23
00:01:22,087 --> 00:01:24,038
they've got all these grand titles.

24
00:01:24,038 --> 00:01:28,060
And I just thought, I'm going to like just say Speaker, Author, Morris Dancer.

25
00:01:28,060 --> 00:01:29,140
Cause I thought it was funny.

26
00:01:29,140 --> 00:01:34,222
then it like genuinely does spark conversations and it gets people talking.

27
00:01:34,222 --> 00:01:38,924
And one of the things that I really like to talk about is.

28
00:01:39,154 --> 00:01:43,951
how I very much enjoy Morris dancing, even though I've stopped drinking.

29
00:01:43,951 --> 00:01:46,476
Do they go hand in hand then by any chance?

30
00:01:47,667 --> 00:01:58,548
Yes, I mean, I have to assume that not everybody in the entire world knows everything
there is to know about Morris dancing, but yes, it generally happens in pubs.

31
00:01:58,548 --> 00:02:03,188
If it's not in pubs, then usually they find somewhere else to buy alcohol.

32
00:02:03,188 --> 00:02:10,528
And yeah, I mean, honestly, you know, part of the reason why I started was because you get
to hang around with a bunch of people who don't look at you twice if you're drinking at 10

33
00:02:10,528 --> 00:02:12,709
a So, yeah.

34
00:02:12,709 --> 00:02:14,349
Glad I missed out on that.

35
00:02:14,349 --> 00:02:17,569
There was no Morris dancing in South Africa.

36
00:02:17,929 --> 00:02:20,829
Yeah, no, there definitely wasn't anything like that.

37
00:02:21,749 --> 00:02:22,109
Right.

38
00:02:22,109 --> 00:02:24,389
So let's dive back.

39
00:02:24,389 --> 00:02:30,549
you, for some reason, you found yourself Morris dancing at 10 o 'clock in the morning with
a beer in the other hand.

40
00:02:30,549 --> 00:02:32,089
But why the beer?

41
00:02:32,089 --> 00:02:33,898
Why did that appear in your life?

42
00:02:33,898 --> 00:02:46,045
Well, I think when I was younger, you know, I sort of struggled to find a place in life
where I could excel, where I could get some positive feedback.

43
00:02:46,045 --> 00:02:54,060
There was a lot of negativity at school and, you know, I just didn't feel like I fitted in
anywhere.

44
00:02:54,060 --> 00:03:01,906
And then when it came to going to parties, when you get to that sort of teenage age and
everybody starts going to parties,

45
00:03:01,906 --> 00:03:04,377
Again, I felt nervous, felt uncomfortable.

46
00:03:04,377 --> 00:03:13,221
didn't feel like I fitted in until one day one of my friends handed me a can of something
and I opened it up.

47
00:03:13,221 --> 00:03:15,262
I didn't think too much of it.

48
00:03:15,302 --> 00:03:17,643
First one never really did very much, it?

49
00:03:17,643 --> 00:03:21,735
But then all of a sudden it started to tingle in the toes.

50
00:03:21,735 --> 00:03:26,467
It moved up the legs, hit the stomach, chest, brain.

51
00:03:26,467 --> 00:03:29,640
And all of a sudden, I seem to have the confidence.

52
00:03:29,640 --> 00:03:37,426
I seemed to be the kind of person that would walk casually into the party and start
talking to that pretty girl from Form F.

53
00:03:37,426 --> 00:03:41,968
And, you know, a couple of beers later and yeah, well, the rest is history.

54
00:03:42,009 --> 00:03:46,191
In fact, it's so history, I can't even remember the name of the pretty girl from Form F.

55
00:03:47,172 --> 00:03:52,357
But for me, it seemed to just fill in all the blanks, you know, it seemed to...

56
00:03:52,357 --> 00:03:54,891
Literally fill in the holes in my personality.

57
00:03:54,891 --> 00:03:58,607
What seemed to be missing seemed to be filled in by alcohol.

58
00:03:58,607 --> 00:04:00,629
was like all of my Christmases came at once.

59
00:04:00,629 --> 00:04:03,004
So I was absolutely all in from the start.

60
00:04:03,004 --> 00:04:04,705
Yep, it does, doesn't it?

61
00:04:04,705 --> 00:04:13,900
When you're young, just loosens that tongue a little bit, takes away the, you you can
suddenly dance rather than like a man, like your father, you can dance like a teenager and

62
00:04:13,900 --> 00:04:14,471
things like that.

63
00:04:14,471 --> 00:04:15,361
Yeah, absolutely.

64
00:04:15,361 --> 00:04:20,233
And I think that is one of the reasons why it is such a pervasive drug.

65
00:04:20,734 --> 00:04:28,997
It does a few different things and therefore it appeals to quite a wide range of people.

66
00:04:28,997 --> 00:04:39,712
mean, often people will say, well, what's your sort of like, you know, what's the
personality type of somebody who drinks, which is one step away from just saying, well,

67
00:04:39,712 --> 00:04:41,812
you've got an addictive personality, haven't you Duncan?

68
00:04:41,812 --> 00:04:43,523
And it's like, well, yeah, but

69
00:04:43,803 --> 00:04:52,675
Honestly, you can find people who are very introverted who drink and you can find people
who are very extroverted who drink, you know, and they almost drink for exactly the

70
00:04:52,675 --> 00:04:53,906
opposite reasons.

71
00:04:53,906 --> 00:05:03,968
And I think that is part of the problem with alcohol because it, you know, it has
properties that stimulate you and properties that depress you.

72
00:05:03,968 --> 00:05:10,020
So it seems to do an awful lot for people, which is why people get caught up in it in the
first place.

73
00:05:10,020 --> 00:05:13,671
then, you know, honestly, if you drink enough,

74
00:05:13,831 --> 00:05:19,824
volume over enough time then you end up drinking in an unhealthy way and I certainly did.

75
00:05:19,824 --> 00:05:23,409
So when did you realize it was actually becoming unhealthy?

76
00:05:23,409 --> 00:05:30,517
Certainly for me, as you said, it was the fun, the light of the party, the experience, the
hanging out with people.

77
00:05:30,517 --> 00:05:35,572
But when did it start to be like, hey, Duncan, that kind of thing?

78
00:05:35,866 --> 00:05:36,776
Yeah, do you know what?

79
00:05:36,776 --> 00:05:38,877
I almost didn't realize until I stopped.

80
00:05:38,877 --> 00:05:41,529
It was one of those weird things.

81
00:05:41,529 --> 00:05:43,820
It's like, should have noticed that a lot sooner.

82
00:05:43,820 --> 00:05:44,700
Really, shouldn't I?

83
00:05:44,700 --> 00:05:47,191
Because, like you say, it started off, it was a lot of fun.

84
00:05:47,191 --> 00:05:48,142
It was very social.

85
00:05:48,142 --> 00:05:49,903
I wasn't actually drinking that much.

86
00:05:49,903 --> 00:05:51,874
I wasn't drinking that regularly.

87
00:05:51,874 --> 00:05:58,377
But as time went on, the amount of people I drank with went down and the amount I drank
went up.

88
00:05:58,377 --> 00:06:00,700
And I took it to its logical conclusions.

89
00:06:00,700 --> 00:06:03,912
which is just sat on my own drinking a couple of bottles of wine.

90
00:06:03,912 --> 00:06:07,834
you know, that, is genuinely absolutely no fun.

91
00:06:08,976 --> 00:06:20,944
looking back on it now, I can see the, you know, the, I don't want to call it the carnage
because that's not necessarily the right word because on one level I was quite successful.

92
00:06:20,944 --> 00:06:29,249
You know, I was leading what might be described as a reasonably good adulty kind of life.

93
00:06:29,330 --> 00:06:30,190
And

94
00:06:30,948 --> 00:06:40,385
Yeah, so it didn't look like carnage in the traditional sense, but I look back on what it
did to my relationships, what it did to my mindset, my outlook, my mental health.

95
00:06:40,385 --> 00:06:44,177
And that's the kind of carnage that I'm talking about.

96
00:06:44,177 --> 00:06:48,140
yeah, I didn't really see it at the time.

97
00:06:48,140 --> 00:06:54,134
I just had this vague kind of feeling that probably something needed to be done.

98
00:06:54,334 --> 00:06:59,738
And it reached a head when my wife and I, you know,

99
00:07:00,034 --> 00:07:07,456
As we were very, very good adults, we thought we ought to do the most adult thing
possible, which is of course start a family.

100
00:07:07,456 --> 00:07:08,927
And that was quite good fun.

101
00:07:08,927 --> 00:07:12,117
Well, I mean, the trying bit was quite good fun.

102
00:07:12,158 --> 00:07:18,119
And then my wife got pregnant and we were instantly transformed into that really, really
stupid couple.

103
00:07:18,119 --> 00:07:24,121
You know, they're just the naive wandering around smiling all the time, just no idea what
they've let themselves in for.

104
00:07:24,401 --> 00:07:28,324
And it was all amazing until very quickly,

105
00:07:28,324 --> 00:07:33,777
It wasn't amazing and my wife had a miscarriage and it all went horribly wrong.

106
00:07:34,058 --> 00:07:45,385
And of course, you know, that was incredibly hard on her physically, emotionally,
mentally, you know, it took a huge toll, but I look back now and I think, I know what made

107
00:07:45,385 --> 00:07:45,925
it worse.

108
00:07:45,925 --> 00:07:47,946
That was the fact that I wasn't there for her.

109
00:07:47,946 --> 00:07:52,749
You know, my default reaction to stress was just to pour myself into a bottle of wine and

110
00:07:54,466 --> 00:07:56,237
I just wasn't there for her.

111
00:07:56,237 --> 00:08:02,531
And that obviously kind of expressed itself in our relationship and it got very rocky for
a couple of months.

112
00:08:03,032 --> 00:08:10,537
And during that time, I spent a lot of time sort of thinking, know, asking myself, is the
point of Duncan?

113
00:08:10,537 --> 00:08:13,239
know, genuinely Duncan, what are you here for?

114
00:08:13,239 --> 00:08:15,480
What are you supposed to be doing?

115
00:08:15,641 --> 00:08:24,236
And, you know, I never had one of those like beautiful moodily lit moments at 4am in the
bathroom with the music and everything.

116
00:08:24,274 --> 00:08:28,604
But if I had, I know the question that I would have asked myself.

117
00:08:28,604 --> 00:08:34,594
I'd have looked in the mirror with my serious, chiseled, good -look face and said, what do
you want from life, Duncan?

118
00:08:34,594 --> 00:08:38,014
Do you want another drink or do you want to start a family?

119
00:08:38,274 --> 00:08:45,314
And the good news is I took the right decision and almost nine months of the day after I
stopped drinking, our daughter was born.

120
00:08:45,314 --> 00:08:48,484
And that was wonderful for about 10 minutes.

121
00:08:48,484 --> 00:08:53,354
And then I was in a whole other world of problems, but you know, those are good problems,
aren't they?

122
00:08:54,166 --> 00:08:56,047
That is lovely.

123
00:08:56,047 --> 00:09:02,913
mean, congratulations, first of all, for having your come to Jesus moment, not in the
bathroom at four in the morning.

124
00:09:02,913 --> 00:09:04,114
But that's it, isn't it?

125
00:09:04,114 --> 00:09:08,938
It always comes to a point where you have two choices.

126
00:09:08,938 --> 00:09:10,419
We always have more than one choice.

127
00:09:10,419 --> 00:09:14,882
fortunately, like me, you chose the right choice and relationships still going.

128
00:09:14,882 --> 00:09:16,464
Obviously, there's kids involved and stuff.

129
00:09:16,464 --> 00:09:18,985
That is fabulous, but why?

130
00:09:19,126 --> 00:09:23,308
What did you have to deal with when you stopped the drinking?

131
00:09:23,308 --> 00:09:28,833
What was the drinking doing to you, for you, and against you, I suppose?

132
00:09:28,833 --> 00:09:37,399
So what it was doing to me was obviously having quite a bad effect.

133
00:09:37,399 --> 00:09:44,584
So when I stopped, I felt better and I felt better very quickly.

134
00:09:44,584 --> 00:09:52,550
know, when I stopped pouring poison down my front throat, all of a sudden my mood improved
and you know, I felt more energetic.

135
00:09:52,550 --> 00:09:53,370
was better.

136
00:09:53,370 --> 00:09:54,841
You know, I could focus a bit better.

137
00:09:54,841 --> 00:09:56,272
I concentrate a bit harder.

138
00:09:56,272 --> 00:09:57,375
All of those kinds of stuff.

139
00:09:57,375 --> 00:10:06,548
So initially it was quite good, but then of course you kind of have to relearn life, don't
you?

140
00:10:06,548 --> 00:10:17,991
You sort of got to find a way of dealing with stress because up until that point, so much
as a broken fingernail would be a good excuse to open a bottle of wine, wouldn't it?

141
00:10:17,991 --> 00:10:20,852
You know, so I had to find a new way to deal with stress.

142
00:10:20,852 --> 00:10:24,132
I had to find a new way to navigate my relationship.

143
00:10:24,132 --> 00:10:26,721
And you know, I had to do that fairly quickly.

144
00:10:26,721 --> 00:10:29,882
because it was not in the greatest place.

145
00:10:29,882 --> 00:10:34,323
So I had to find a new way of relating to my wife.

146
00:10:34,703 --> 00:10:45,556
I went on and found a new job reasonably soon after I stopped drinking because I realized
the only reason why I'd kept that job for so long was, wow, all right, it was quite close

147
00:10:45,556 --> 00:10:49,417
to Greg's, but it was something I could do with a hangover.

148
00:10:49,417 --> 00:10:53,329
And that was very necessary at the time.

149
00:10:53,329 --> 00:10:55,103
So I had to tackle...

150
00:10:55,103 --> 00:11:05,340
certain sort of procedural issues within my life, like jobs and washing up and all of the
DIY that I've been putting off for, well, most of my life.

151
00:11:05,941 --> 00:11:11,394
So yeah, it kind of brought a big long shopping list of difficult stuff to do.

152
00:11:11,394 --> 00:11:23,953
But looking back on it, you know, I am very, very happy to have, you know, got into that
list and started doing those difficult things.

153
00:11:24,413 --> 00:11:34,421
On balance, it turns out to be a lot better to face the difficult stuff than it is to run
away from it because you never actually get further away from it.

154
00:11:34,421 --> 00:11:35,692
You just do the running bit.

155
00:11:35,692 --> 00:11:36,903
You don't run away from it.

156
00:11:36,903 --> 00:11:41,597
You just run around it and around it and around it and around it and around it.

157
00:11:41,597 --> 00:11:44,669
And that gets tiring.

158
00:11:44,890 --> 00:11:48,733
it was, yeah, in one sense, it was amazing.

159
00:11:48,733 --> 00:11:54,315
You know, improved my life for the better, but it gave me a load of other problems.

160
00:11:54,315 --> 00:12:06,441
But, nine and a half years down the line, having sorted out many of those problems,
although there is still a little bit of DIY I haven't got around to, but no one's perfect.

161
00:12:06,441 --> 00:12:16,637
I am so glad that I managed to get myself in a position that I could deal with those
issues because I love my wife and I love my daughter and they wouldn't be in my life if I

162
00:12:16,637 --> 00:12:17,418
hadn't have changed.

163
00:12:17,418 --> 00:12:19,290
think that's that is the key thing, isn't it?

164
00:12:19,290 --> 00:12:23,153
You've, you've woken up and you've you've taken responsibility.

165
00:12:23,153 --> 00:12:31,911
And yeah, it means you've got a, you've got an adult, which is overrated, but it's better
than just, as you said, standing still and running.

166
00:12:31,911 --> 00:12:35,213
That, that image horrifies me because I remember doing that.

167
00:12:35,454 --> 00:12:36,385
And it is isn't it?

168
00:12:36,385 --> 00:12:37,535
It's not easy.

169
00:12:37,656 --> 00:12:41,960
You're worrying, you're guessing, you're drinking, you're wondering where to get the next
drink from.

170
00:12:41,960 --> 00:12:44,774
You're just wasting so much energy on non -s

171
00:12:44,774 --> 00:12:56,483
one of the succession of dead end jobs that I had, so that I could support my drinking
without actually really working for a living, involved working in a bookmakers, which I

172
00:12:56,483 --> 00:12:59,525
used to refer to myself as a turf accountant, of course.

173
00:13:00,145 --> 00:13:07,321
yeah, and the thing is, when I worked in that bookmakers, I did watch a lot of dog racing
and it is exactly the same thing.

174
00:13:07,321 --> 00:13:09,702
You know, it's like bang, out go the dogs.

175
00:13:09,702 --> 00:13:10,733
They run around the track.

176
00:13:10,733 --> 00:13:12,354
They don't get anywhere.

177
00:13:12,354 --> 00:13:14,976
And the thing is they never even catch the hair, do they?

178
00:13:14,976 --> 00:13:18,838
And the thing on top of that, the hair isn't even real.

179
00:13:19,219 --> 00:13:27,044
Now there's an allegory for drinking that I haven't quite worked out yet, but yes, you
absolutely, you're running around and round and round chasing something you never catch.

180
00:13:27,044 --> 00:13:29,217
And even if you did, it wasn't real in the first place.

181
00:13:29,217 --> 00:13:30,729
Yeah, we must have been stupid, hey.

182
00:13:30,729 --> 00:13:32,070
We must have been.

183
00:13:32,070 --> 00:13:34,611
But, and as you said, it worked for a while.

184
00:13:34,611 --> 00:13:42,034
It helped us make sense of stuff and helped us feel sexy and likable and this, that and
the other.

185
00:13:42,034 --> 00:13:44,015
it didn't, it doesn't solve anything.

186
00:13:44,015 --> 00:13:47,237
You still got to, yeah, you still got to do that work and make sense of it.

187
00:13:47,237 --> 00:13:52,719
And then you empower yourself and life becomes fun.

188
00:13:52,719 --> 00:13:53,499
Yeah.

189
00:13:54,077 --> 00:13:58,041
I'm not even sure it really worked for a while to be honest.

190
00:13:58,667 --> 00:13:59,752
I think it...

191
00:13:59,752 --> 00:14:04,832
it prevented me from actually doing the stuff that would have made my life work.

192
00:14:04,832 --> 00:14:06,482
I still had to do it.

193
00:14:06,482 --> 00:14:12,492
just, rather than becoming self -aware at 16, I decided to become self -aware at 36.

194
00:14:12,492 --> 00:14:16,452
It just delayed the inevitable, didn't it?

195
00:14:19,312 --> 00:14:23,172
It made everything harder, I think.

196
00:14:23,632 --> 00:14:28,134
It seemed like it was doing positive things, but that is

197
00:14:28,134 --> 00:14:32,667
the very nature of a maladaptive coping mechanism, isn't it?

198
00:14:32,667 --> 00:14:35,999
You know, it makes you think it's working, but actually it's not.

199
00:14:35,999 --> 00:14:37,249
It's not helping you.

200
00:14:37,249 --> 00:14:39,000
It's not benefiting you.

201
00:14:40,431 --> 00:14:49,416
yeah, no, I mean, I'd love to be able to sort of fondly reminisce and say, well, yeah, you
know, I had some amazing times due to alcohol.

202
00:14:49,416 --> 00:14:50,807
I absolutely did not.

203
00:14:50,807 --> 00:14:55,890
I had some amazing times due to the people that I spent it with that was

204
00:14:55,890 --> 00:15:02,372
hampered by alcohol because if I hadn't been drinking so much I might have remembered a
bit more of it.

205
00:15:03,022 --> 00:15:05,577
Yeah, again, another tragedy, isn't it?

206
00:15:05,577 --> 00:15:05,890
Yeah.

207
00:15:05,890 --> 00:15:09,802
I think it's interesting about the jobs.

208
00:15:09,802 --> 00:15:15,475
We often find that another reason we're drinking is the job is not particularly
fulfilling.

209
00:15:15,475 --> 00:15:22,838
mean, certainly as you said, watching dogs run around in circles, that's probably not the
most stimulating fun you can have in a job.

210
00:15:23,259 --> 00:15:28,151
Did that impact your willingness to sober up?

211
00:15:28,151 --> 00:15:29,893
Just the fact that the job's what you were doing?

212
00:15:29,893 --> 00:15:31,014
Yes and no.

213
00:15:31,014 --> 00:15:43,300
mean, one of the things that I've come across a lot speaking to other people who've gone
on a similar journey to me is that for their meaning and purpose is enormously important.

214
00:15:43,301 --> 00:15:50,254
And I think I was kind of unlucky in as far as I was very involved in my local community.

215
00:15:50,254 --> 00:15:53,446
So not just the Morris dancing, I was involved in local government.

216
00:15:53,446 --> 00:15:55,627
was involved in a number of trustee.

217
00:15:55,627 --> 00:15:57,749
I was a trustee on a number of charities.

218
00:15:57,749 --> 00:15:58,619
You know, I was...

219
00:15:58,619 --> 00:16:00,780
very much involved in my local community.

220
00:16:00,780 --> 00:16:07,914
So on one level, I was fulfilling that kind of purpose and meaning sort of piece.

221
00:16:07,914 --> 00:16:20,211
So it sort of seemed like I was doing that, but actually, know, a few years down the line,
what I realized was I was kind of living the expectations of other people.

222
00:16:20,211 --> 00:16:25,904
wasn't really doing what I wanted to do, what me as a...

223
00:16:26,629 --> 00:16:29,271
a true and fully realized human being.

224
00:16:29,271 --> 00:16:31,292
I wasn't following my purpose.

225
00:16:31,292 --> 00:16:33,734
I wasn't doing my sort of stuff.

226
00:16:33,734 --> 00:16:42,840
So it kind of tricked me a little bit by having, you know, ready access to things like
meaning and purpose.

227
00:16:42,840 --> 00:16:46,003
It sort of kept me in the rut a little bit longer.

228
00:16:46,003 --> 00:16:54,028
Whereas if I did, you know, not had that, I think I probably would have realized I was in
trouble a lot, a lot quicker.

229
00:16:54,028 --> 00:16:55,693
And do you know what?

230
00:16:55,693 --> 00:16:57,684
Well, I don't think that that's true of many people.

231
00:16:57,684 --> 00:16:59,266
I know that that's true of many people.

232
00:16:59,266 --> 00:17:07,822
So if you look at the statistics, so people who earn more drink more, that's a direct
correlation.

233
00:17:07,822 --> 00:17:14,506
You can draw a very straight line upward graph on that income versus the amount you drink.

234
00:17:14,506 --> 00:17:16,607
So the more you earn, the more you drink.

235
00:17:17,108 --> 00:17:24,153
However, many of the health problems and social problems manifest themselves most
seriously

236
00:17:24,153 --> 00:17:28,015
in people who are in the poorer end of things.

237
00:17:28,015 --> 00:17:37,442
They don't actually drink as much as the people who are rich, but they have more problems
because they have less what might be termed as recovery capital, but they just have less

238
00:17:37,442 --> 00:17:40,074
stuff that mitigates against that.

239
00:17:40,074 --> 00:17:41,685
So their diet's not going to be as good.

240
00:17:41,685 --> 00:17:44,087
Their access to healthcare is not going to be as good.

241
00:17:44,087 --> 00:17:46,979
They're going to have less things like meaning and purpose.

242
00:17:46,979 --> 00:17:48,780
They're going to have less social support.

243
00:17:48,780 --> 00:17:52,753
They're going to have less family support.

244
00:17:53,135 --> 00:18:03,494
All of those other factors that people who are affluent have, they offset the harm done by
alcohol.

245
00:18:03,494 --> 00:18:07,038
So we don't notice the harm as much.

246
00:18:07,038 --> 00:18:11,311
We think, well, it's all right because I'm doing okay.

247
00:18:11,311 --> 00:18:12,092
I'm coping.

248
00:18:12,092 --> 00:18:12,883
Yeah.

249
00:18:12,883 --> 00:18:16,596
But that is only because you have all of these massive positives here.

250
00:18:16,596 --> 00:18:20,439
If you actually took away the big negative, then you really would see what...

251
00:18:20,780 --> 00:18:23,684
thriving rather than surviving looks like.

252
00:18:23,684 --> 00:18:25,926
Yeah, very scary, isn't it?

253
00:18:25,926 --> 00:18:32,691
The more I think about things like that, the more support you have, the easier it is to be
supported while you fall.

254
00:18:32,691 --> 00:18:38,365
Yeah, people, situations, money.

255
00:18:38,365 --> 00:18:41,148
Yeah, go to rehab, come back again, carry on.

256
00:18:41,148 --> 00:18:42,549
That's really scary though, isn't it?

257
00:18:42,549 --> 00:18:46,712
I mean, that's coming back to the, I'll start that again.

258
00:18:47,134 --> 00:18:53,370
But coming back to value and purpose, that plays such a huge part.

259
00:18:53,771 --> 00:18:58,286
And in many conversations I've had, that seems to be one of the most powerful things.

260
00:18:58,286 --> 00:19:08,629
When you've found your purpose, you found what's important to you, that need for self
-medicating, whatever you want to call it, sort of disappears.

261
00:19:08,629 --> 00:19:12,270
Yes, I think that is true.

262
00:19:12,270 --> 00:19:20,712
However, my experience is that I couldn't really find it until I'd stopped self
-medicating.

263
00:19:20,712 --> 00:19:35,286
And I know that is always a bit of a debate and I can see it from both sides because I
know people who have done an awful lot of work with therapists and, you know, found a much

264
00:19:35,286 --> 00:19:37,997
more fulfilled version of themselves.

265
00:19:37,997 --> 00:19:40,799
and then discovered that they don't really need to drink.

266
00:19:40,799 --> 00:19:43,891
So they did the work and then the alcohol fell away.

267
00:19:43,891 --> 00:19:46,223
So it is possible to do it that way around.

268
00:19:46,223 --> 00:19:59,432
Having said that, I have found many more people who have stopped drinking and then gone on
to do the things like, you know, engage with therapy in the broadest sense of the word and

269
00:19:59,432 --> 00:20:06,361
go on to find the things like meaning and purpose and go on and create some amazing
things, you know.

270
00:20:06,361 --> 00:20:18,918
whether that's art or literature or businesses or music or adventures or just families,
you know, I think certainly for my money.

271
00:20:18,918 --> 00:20:22,601
If you'd asked me when I was drinking, I would have told you what my purpose in life was.

272
00:20:22,601 --> 00:20:28,296
I would have told you, I would have outlined it nicely and neatly because I talk a good
game.

273
00:20:28,296 --> 00:20:33,991
And I was doing stuff that I still, you know, I stand by, I still consider what I did when
I was drinking.

274
00:20:33,991 --> 00:20:41,096
I consider a lot of it to be meaningful and important, but it wasn't really what I was put
on this earth to do.

275
00:20:41,687 --> 00:20:47,852
you know, so yeah, it is is a tough one, but I personally,

276
00:20:47,876 --> 00:20:57,550
I think it is much easier to do the work after you've stopped drinking, rather than find
the purpose and then use that as a springboard to stop drinking.

277
00:20:57,816 --> 00:21:01,580
Okay, yep, that does make a lot of sense, doesn't it?

278
00:21:01,921 --> 00:21:04,155
Does that not make it harder to stop drinking?

279
00:21:04,155 --> 00:21:06,646
No, I don't think it's hard to stop drinking.

280
00:21:07,606 --> 00:21:18,631
I mean, I know that is pretty flip and pretty quick and I genuinely don't want to do down
any of the struggles that anybody has had because I know a lot of people do struggle.

281
00:21:18,631 --> 00:21:26,314
I think, unfortunately, many people go about it in the wrong way, which makes it harder
rather than easier to stop drinking.

282
00:21:26,314 --> 00:21:33,617
But even putting all of that aside, you know, actually getting to the point where, you
know, you

283
00:21:33,917 --> 00:21:40,979
You've gone through detox, you've gone through those initial withdrawal stages and you are
what might be termed sober.

284
00:21:40,979 --> 00:21:42,359
That is relatively straightforward.

285
00:21:42,359 --> 00:21:44,060
Most people actually achieve that.

286
00:21:44,060 --> 00:21:48,221
You know, they go to rehab and you know, they get sober.

287
00:21:48,221 --> 00:21:52,542
The problem most people have is not that bit, it's staying sober.

288
00:21:52,542 --> 00:21:54,623
That's the hard bit.

289
00:21:54,623 --> 00:22:03,389
And that's the real shame that we talk very heavily about that kind of bit where you stop
drinking the immediate bit.

290
00:22:03,389 --> 00:22:12,353
you know, the first few weeks, we don't talk an awful lot about those next two or three
years, which are, you know, enormously important.

291
00:22:12,353 --> 00:22:20,276
And, you know, so yes, I genuinely think it is easy for anybody to stop drinking.

292
00:22:20,276 --> 00:22:24,278
I've certainly never met anybody who drinks heavily, who really enjoys it.

293
00:22:24,278 --> 00:22:29,880
And if you don't enjoy doing something, all you need is, you know, a little bit of help
and support.

294
00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:31,135
need your hand held.

295
00:22:31,135 --> 00:22:32,636
You need a little bit of information.

296
00:22:32,636 --> 00:22:40,210
need to, in my opinion, need to get to grips with your beliefs because you believe that
you're getting something out of alcohol.

297
00:22:40,210 --> 00:22:42,751
And again, the research supports that.

298
00:22:42,791 --> 00:22:46,433
Your beliefs about alcohol are very heavily correlated to the amount you drink.

299
00:22:46,433 --> 00:22:48,094
So you need to get to grips with your beliefs.

300
00:22:48,094 --> 00:22:51,056
You need a little bit in terms of craving management.

301
00:22:51,056 --> 00:22:58,159
You need other skills like emotional intelligence and finding a new way to relax, finding
a new way to be with people.

302
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:01,053
You need to change your situation.

303
00:23:01,053 --> 00:23:03,555
around other people.

304
00:23:04,236 --> 00:23:10,872
Literally, if you spend all your time hanging around in bars, you probably do need to
change the way you've structured your life.

305
00:23:10,872 --> 00:23:15,766
But in essence, getting sober a bit is really, really easy.

306
00:23:16,768 --> 00:23:27,117
do absolutely, I believe we need to offer people much more support in those three months
to three years where it goes wrong for so many people.

307
00:23:27,918 --> 00:23:30,840
Yeah.

308
00:23:31,141 --> 00:23:31,651
I agree.

309
00:23:31,651 --> 00:23:38,978
And it's not a perverse thing to say the getting sober is the easy bit because it is
tough, but it's just the first step, isn't it?

310
00:23:38,978 --> 00:23:40,570
It's like buying a house.

311
00:23:40,570 --> 00:23:46,335
You just buy a house, then you've got to pay for it, the upkeep, the support, living in
it, everything else.

312
00:23:46,335 --> 00:23:46,815
Yeah.

313
00:23:46,815 --> 00:23:49,207
So I guess that leads on to relapse, doesn't it?

314
00:23:49,207 --> 00:23:51,319
Because that's kind of the next stage.

315
00:23:51,371 --> 00:23:54,573
One has sobered up.

316
00:23:54,573 --> 00:24:03,399
One has got all that determination, got that grit, and then something happens.

317
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:10,504
Because you've got to change that structure underneath, haven't you, to not just bounce
back as soon as something goes wrong to those old habits.

318
00:24:10,504 --> 00:24:20,291
How would you start changing your structure, your underlying structure, so you become more
resistant to relapse and more resilient?

319
00:24:21,191 --> 00:24:31,235
Well, I mean, partly I'm tempted to just say, think we kind of need to redefine relapse
because I think there are three different things.

320
00:24:31,235 --> 00:24:41,709
If you look classically what a relapse would be, that is when you start drinking and you
continue to drink, then some people would define a lapse as just having a drink, but not

321
00:24:41,709 --> 00:24:45,221
then going back to drinking the way you were.

322
00:24:45,221 --> 00:24:50,873
And then I would say there is another thing which you might call new facts because it sort
of rhymes with relapse.

323
00:24:50,873 --> 00:24:51,943
doesn't it?

324
00:24:52,144 --> 00:24:58,649
And that would be when you have a drink and you actually learn something from it.

325
00:24:58,649 --> 00:25:00,390
Because that's not a bad thing.

326
00:25:00,390 --> 00:25:02,552
That's actually a really good thing.

327
00:25:02,552 --> 00:25:06,154
You made a mistake, maybe, but you learned something from it.

328
00:25:06,154 --> 00:25:07,335
Well, congratulations.

329
00:25:07,335 --> 00:25:09,797
Welcome to the human race, my friend.

330
00:25:09,917 --> 00:25:12,389
That is exactly how we learn stuff.

331
00:25:12,389 --> 00:25:15,371
I think starting off, we need to do that.

332
00:25:15,371 --> 00:25:17,142
I mean, in the broader sense,

333
00:25:18,076 --> 00:25:24,117
we've identified four main areas that people focus on.

334
00:25:24,338 --> 00:25:33,720
So from the research that we've done around asking people what they're struggling with in
early sobriety and interviewing the sober superstars who are making a big success of

335
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:38,721
sobriety, the things that we found are, could call it recovery capital.

336
00:25:38,721 --> 00:25:47,919
That's your kind of physical, your nuts and bolts, your job, your house, money, the access
to healthcare.

337
00:25:47,919 --> 00:25:51,520
and also a little bit of your physical health.

338
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:53,841
Do you have any illnesses?

339
00:25:53,841 --> 00:25:56,101
I gave myself gout drinking.

340
00:25:56,381 --> 00:26:04,023
So those kinds of things would bracket into recovery capital, which is often the stuff
people take for granted.

341
00:26:04,324 --> 00:26:07,324
Everybody says, yeah, well, I found it really easy to get sober.

342
00:26:07,324 --> 00:26:08,725
Well, of course I did.

343
00:26:08,725 --> 00:26:14,906
I had a house and I had a job and I had money and I had access to healthcare and I had so
much going for me.

344
00:26:15,107 --> 00:26:16,317
Then you can look at,

345
00:26:16,317 --> 00:26:25,593
Trigger management, in the short term, a month, maybe two or three months is what you
really need to focus on trigger management.

346
00:26:25,593 --> 00:26:30,316
In my humble, some methods are very focused on that.

347
00:26:30,316 --> 00:26:35,279
So if you use cognitive realignment, then it will be totally and utterly focused on
trigger management.

348
00:26:35,360 --> 00:26:40,283
But if you use a lot of other methods, they are focused much more on willpower.

349
00:26:41,124 --> 00:26:44,396
that is, willpower is not a very good trigger management strategy.

350
00:26:44,396 --> 00:26:46,307
There are many better out there.

351
00:26:46,355 --> 00:26:49,785
So that's an enormously important piece of work.

352
00:26:49,785 --> 00:26:56,295
And then once you've got your recovery capital, industry management under control, then
you need to start thinking about two things.

353
00:26:56,295 --> 00:26:58,495
One is emotional intelligence.

354
00:26:58,735 --> 00:27:05,655
They say that you don't grow when you're drinking, which I use as an excuse to claim I'm
still in my twenties.

355
00:27:05,975 --> 00:27:13,055
Well, I started drinking when I was 14 and I've only been sober nine and a half years.

356
00:27:13,055 --> 00:27:15,211
That makes me 24 and a half, doesn't it?

357
00:27:15,961 --> 00:27:17,044
Congratulations.

358
00:27:17,044 --> 00:27:18,280
I love that.

359
00:27:18,936 --> 00:27:20,787
think they probably mean emotionally.

360
00:27:20,787 --> 00:27:30,451
yeah, mean, that like genuinely, most people believe that alcohol numbs your emotions and
that's part of the reason why they drink it.

361
00:27:30,451 --> 00:27:31,561
I don't think it does.

362
00:27:31,561 --> 00:27:36,583
I think it sort of pushes them around a little bit and ends up making you uncomfortable in
different places.

363
00:27:36,583 --> 00:27:46,403
But yeah, learning to engage with your own emotions and how that relates to other people's
emotions, which you might call emotional intelligence.

364
00:27:46,403 --> 00:27:47,764
is a massive piece.

365
00:27:47,764 --> 00:27:49,545
And then finally, connection.

366
00:27:49,725 --> 00:27:55,489
You everybody knows that famous phrase from Johann Hari, the opposite of addiction is
connection.

367
00:27:55,489 --> 00:27:59,692
And yeah, that's something that's massively borne out in our research.

368
00:27:59,692 --> 00:28:03,074
You know, connection to other people first and foremost.

369
00:28:03,074 --> 00:28:04,996
Yes, that's absolutely massive.

370
00:28:04,996 --> 00:28:15,803
Finding, you know, meaningful connection, whether that's relationships of an intimate
nature or just friendships or just socializing.

371
00:28:15,803 --> 00:28:24,429
or even just networking, finding a way through the work environment, the connection part
of that work environment.

372
00:28:24,429 --> 00:28:26,210
That is such a huge thing.

373
00:28:26,210 --> 00:28:37,649
So those are the four things that I help people work on and the things that we really tend
to talk about a lot, recovery capital, trigger management, emotional intelligence and

374
00:28:37,649 --> 00:28:38,020
connections.

375
00:28:38,020 --> 00:28:42,438
It's a really nice collection of tools and resources.

376
00:28:42,438 --> 00:28:47,026
I've not met them in that context, but it makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

377
00:28:47,026 --> 00:28:50,306
Well, I'm glad you've not met them in that context because I thought I'd made it up.

378
00:28:50,982 --> 00:28:54,015
Then, well then you've made it up and it's working.

379
00:28:54,015 --> 00:28:55,005
So that's brilliant.

380
00:28:55,005 --> 00:28:56,526
No, that's really interesting, isn't it?

381
00:28:56,526 --> 00:28:58,688
But I can honestly relate to that.

382
00:28:58,688 --> 00:29:01,650
If you've got that support, everything is easier.

383
00:29:01,650 --> 00:29:03,341
If you haven't, but that's the problem, isn't it?

384
00:29:03,341 --> 00:29:13,210
When you slip through the gaps and you don't have the support, you don't have the house,
you don't have the money, you don't have that emotional support you need, that's when it's

385
00:29:13,210 --> 00:29:13,911
dangerous, isn't it?

386
00:29:13,911 --> 00:29:15,952
That's when there is problems.

387
00:29:15,971 --> 00:29:16,751
absolutely.

388
00:29:16,751 --> 00:29:17,632
Absolutely.

389
00:29:17,632 --> 00:29:18,993
I've seen it.

390
00:29:18,993 --> 00:29:24,586
I've seen people who, I kind of like, I look at them and I think, you know what?

391
00:29:24,586 --> 00:29:30,460
I really wish we were doing this two years ago because two years ago you had a stable job.

392
00:29:30,460 --> 00:29:34,963
You had enough money to take care of your bills.

393
00:29:34,963 --> 00:29:36,644
You were still living with your partner.

394
00:29:36,644 --> 00:29:39,806
I know he's an idiot, but you were still living with him.

395
00:29:40,062 --> 00:29:46,846
and you know, you still had regular contact with your children and, I know they're
annoying, but you know, there's something in that.

396
00:29:46,946 --> 00:29:54,701
and you know, you had a house to live in and all of those kinds of things would make what
we were doing so much easier.

397
00:29:54,701 --> 00:30:03,406
And that's one of the reasons why these days I want to talk more to people who aren't
drinking heavily.

398
00:30:03,406 --> 00:30:06,717
I want to talk to the people who are drinking.

399
00:30:07,308 --> 00:30:08,328
moderately.

400
00:30:08,328 --> 00:30:09,500
love the word moderation.

401
00:30:09,500 --> 00:30:10,560
What does that actually mean?

402
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:21,247
But the people who are drinking in that kind of medium to severe risk zone, you know, they
haven't got, they might not be drinking every day.

403
00:30:21,728 --> 00:30:26,521
You know, they might not even really be drinking that heavily, but they're on that road.

404
00:30:26,521 --> 00:30:33,856
They are going down that path and either it's just a matter of time or it's a matter of
something happening.

405
00:30:33,856 --> 00:30:36,048
That's one of the things that we see all of the time.

406
00:30:36,048 --> 00:30:36,602
Those

407
00:30:36,602 --> 00:30:42,166
kind of adult traumas taking people from drinking at that kind of mid to severe risk
range.

408
00:30:43,247 --> 00:30:48,681
get a divorce, losing your job, losing your business, crashing your car, any of those
kinds of things.

409
00:30:48,681 --> 00:30:50,532
And it just pushes you over the edge.

410
00:30:50,532 --> 00:30:58,798
And that's what spirals you down into that kind of like very severe, very heavy drinking,
real problem drinking area.

411
00:30:58,798 --> 00:31:01,820
What most people would consider to be problem drinking.

412
00:31:01,820 --> 00:31:04,910
I think if we can talk to those people,

413
00:31:04,910 --> 00:31:13,116
in that mid to severe range and help them rebalance their relationship with alcohol, get
back into the low risk drinking area.

414
00:31:13,116 --> 00:31:16,468
Or maybe, I don't know, here's a crazy idea.

415
00:31:16,468 --> 00:31:18,019
Maybe you could just stop drinking.

416
00:31:18,019 --> 00:31:22,562
But that is a decision for them, not a decision for me.

417
00:31:22,843 --> 00:31:33,810
But helping them to rebalance their relationship, think that is the way to stop people
getting to that point where it just becomes...

418
00:31:33,810 --> 00:31:37,313
so much harder because they've lost all of the support.

419
00:31:37,313 --> 00:31:41,216
it's not, honestly, you don't even have to be altruistic about it.

420
00:31:41,216 --> 00:31:50,864
If you don't care about people, just care about the money, because those people that have
gone all the way around the other side, they are an incredible drain on society.

421
00:31:50,864 --> 00:31:59,931
You know, they are the ones that make up the bulk of the money that gets spent on
policing, on social care and on healthcare, around alcohol.

422
00:31:59,931 --> 00:32:03,670
And they all started out as

423
00:32:03,670 --> 00:32:07,115
moderate drinkers.

424
00:32:07,115 --> 00:32:08,636
And there we go.

425
00:32:08,636 --> 00:32:10,068
That's another point.

426
00:32:10,068 --> 00:32:14,233
Do want me to rant about the alcohol industry and money and how much it costs the economy?

427
00:32:14,233 --> 00:32:16,468
Because that I think is where I'm going.

428
00:32:16,468 --> 00:32:20,040
Yeah, it's, it's quite incredible, isn't it?

429
00:32:20,101 --> 00:32:26,435
You know, if somebody brought a new street drug out, let's call it alcohol, you can buy it
in a can, you know, it just wouldn't be.

430
00:32:26,435 --> 00:32:28,066
Yeah.

431
00:32:28,112 --> 00:32:29,433
Do want to know the really funny thing?

432
00:32:29,433 --> 00:32:37,931
If you bought out a food supplement, like a food additive, like if alcohol was an E
number, right?

433
00:32:38,252 --> 00:32:45,008
If alcohol, you wanted to put it in food now, you'd have to put it through the European
Union Food Standard tests.

434
00:32:45,008 --> 00:32:51,984
I know we have left the august European Union, but I believe we still live by those
standards.

435
00:32:51,984 --> 00:32:53,990
Any who's.

436
00:32:53,990 --> 00:33:01,912
Some scientists actually put it through that just for a laugh and they discovered that the
maximum safe dose of alcohol is two units.

437
00:33:01,912 --> 00:33:05,803
And when I explained to people that, they go, yeah, well two units a day.

438
00:33:05,803 --> 00:33:07,924
That's basically what the government tells you to drink, isn't it?

439
00:33:07,924 --> 00:33:11,555
It's like, no, it's not two units a day, two units a week.

440
00:33:11,555 --> 00:33:13,715
It's not two units a week, two units a month.

441
00:33:13,715 --> 00:33:15,276
Nope, two units a year.

442
00:33:15,276 --> 00:33:23,844
That is the amount of alcohol you could put into food and the European Union would
consider it to be safe.

443
00:33:23,844 --> 00:33:33,978
So what's that work out as if you want to stick it in your trifle, you're putting like a
couple of drops of alcohol in your tiramisu.

444
00:33:34,860 --> 00:33:35,965
That is scary, isn't it?

445
00:33:35,965 --> 00:33:39,470
So you'd end up just buying bananas, overripe bananas and eating them.

446
00:33:39,470 --> 00:33:40,420
yeah, yeah, yeah.

447
00:33:40,420 --> 00:33:48,370
Well, I mean, that's the old discussion about, no, you can't drink 0 .5 % alcohol because
you're sober.

448
00:33:48,370 --> 00:33:51,030
And if you do, you won't remain sober.

449
00:33:51,030 --> 00:33:54,064
It's like, you've to check out your fruit bowl, my friend, because...

450
00:33:54,064 --> 00:33:56,856
Yeah.

451
00:33:56,896 --> 00:34:03,141
Now, I'm gonna say, we'll try and keep away from the food and the government and the tax
on it.

452
00:34:03,141 --> 00:34:04,432
Is it which way is that going?

453
00:34:04,432 --> 00:34:08,184
Because it's, it's a minefield and I don't know what the answer is.

454
00:34:08,842 --> 00:34:10,002
I do.

455
00:34:10,202 --> 00:34:13,142
I mean, I'd like you very happy to tell you.

456
00:34:13,142 --> 00:34:25,102
And the thing is, there is so much research on what the answer is, which is incredibly
well understood in alcohol policy research circles, but largely ignored by most

457
00:34:25,102 --> 00:34:26,222
governments.

458
00:34:26,222 --> 00:34:29,862
So increased tax, that will make a huge difference.

459
00:34:29,862 --> 00:34:31,902
And people go, but alcohol is really expensive.

460
00:34:31,902 --> 00:34:33,742
It's genuinely not.

461
00:34:33,742 --> 00:34:37,822
Over the last 10 years in the UK, alcohol has not had a tax increase

462
00:34:37,822 --> 00:34:39,862
for nine of them.

463
00:34:40,183 --> 00:34:43,744
everything else has gone up apart from alcohol.

464
00:34:43,744 --> 00:34:46,984
So alcohol duty is also taxed in a very weird way.

465
00:34:46,984 --> 00:34:55,507
So there is a levy on a barrel of beer and that levy on the barrel of beer doesn't really
change very much, even if the government do put it up.

466
00:34:55,507 --> 00:35:02,709
But of course, as everything else gets more expensive, that bit of tax as a percentage of
the price goes down and down and down.

467
00:35:02,709 --> 00:35:07,722
So actually the percentage tax keeps going down, which is why

468
00:35:07,722 --> 00:35:16,522
Over the last 30 years, alcohol has become like 87 % cheaper in terms of the cost of
living.

469
00:35:16,522 --> 00:35:17,982
So it's just ridiculous.

470
00:35:17,982 --> 00:35:20,722
yes, increased tax, reduced availability.

471
00:35:20,722 --> 00:35:28,082
is ridiculous that you can get Uber Eats to deliver you some wine at four in the morning.

472
00:35:28,422 --> 00:35:30,492
That's immoral in my opinion.

473
00:35:30,492 --> 00:35:33,222
That is feeding people with problems.

474
00:35:33,438 --> 00:35:36,160
Yeah, so massively reduce availability.

475
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:48,206
The countries that have off -license monopolies like Scandinavia, they have far less
problems because you can't buy beer after six o 'clock.

476
00:35:48,206 --> 00:35:50,788
yeah, of course they have a lot less problems.

477
00:35:51,148 --> 00:35:55,330
Increased education in schools, that would make a big difference, wouldn't it?

478
00:35:55,330 --> 00:36:02,000
So there's no real evidence that suggests that putting health warnings on alcohol

479
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:04,571
actually reduces the amount that people drink.

480
00:36:05,012 --> 00:36:14,259
Certainly there's no evidence that it reduces the amount that people smoke, but there is
some interesting evidence about how it reduces the way it influences the way people think

481
00:36:14,259 --> 00:36:15,700
about the product.

482
00:36:15,700 --> 00:36:25,597
So at the moment you go into the supermarket and you buy a bottle of beer and you think
bottle of beer, cabbage, some pasta, tins of beans.

483
00:36:25,597 --> 00:36:29,866
You just think of it as a normal kind of piece of your shopping and

484
00:36:29,866 --> 00:36:33,036
20 years ago, that was the way people thought about cigarettes.

485
00:36:33,036 --> 00:36:36,936
They thought, I'll go into the shops, I'll get a few groceries and a packet of cigarettes.

486
00:36:36,936 --> 00:36:38,796
And they thought about them all in the same way.

487
00:36:38,796 --> 00:36:46,446
But now because of the way cigarettes are packaged, people think of them as something very
different because they are.

488
00:36:46,446 --> 00:36:57,126
know, much as I dislike crisps and Haribo and junk food in general, know, cigarettes and
alcohol are very different from them.

489
00:36:57,126 --> 00:37:00,049
So they should be sold in a very different way.

490
00:37:00,049 --> 00:37:03,463
And I think that would help to change the way people perceive them.

491
00:37:03,463 --> 00:37:12,443
And it certainly has changed the way young people perceive smoking, which probably leads
me into ranting about vaping, but that's an entirely different podcast, isn't it?

492
00:37:12,443 --> 00:37:14,175
That is really, really interesting.

493
00:37:14,175 --> 00:37:22,381
mean, the whole thing about the small amount of tax on your alcohol, people still buy it.

494
00:37:22,381 --> 00:37:23,433
They really do, don't they?

495
00:37:23,433 --> 00:37:24,045
Yeah.

496
00:37:24,045 --> 00:37:27,358
So this research, obviously this is a thing that it fascinates you.

497
00:37:27,358 --> 00:37:36,005
This is part of your, I guess it's part of your writing and your speaking is just bringing
the awareness to the darker sides of it, if you want to call it.

498
00:37:36,005 --> 00:37:39,007
Tell me a bit about that and why it's so important to you.

499
00:37:39,783 --> 00:37:52,163
So I'm not saying that if somebody had pointed out to me that alcohol causes cancer or
that as a white British man, if I start drinking, I have around a 30 % chance of

500
00:37:52,163 --> 00:37:53,863
developing a problem with drinking.

501
00:37:53,863 --> 00:37:59,443
And I'm not saying if somebody had told me that before I started drinking, I wouldn't have
got a problem.

502
00:37:59,563 --> 00:38:02,003
But I would have thought about it differently.

503
00:38:02,003 --> 00:38:05,943
Even just a little bit, I would have thought about it differently.

504
00:38:06,103 --> 00:38:07,263
Because...

505
00:38:07,571 --> 00:38:11,035
When I started smoking, I knew that smoking was bad for me.

506
00:38:11,035 --> 00:38:15,118
And therefore, I never really thought I was going to smoke for the whole of my life.

507
00:38:15,118 --> 00:38:21,303
I thought at some point, and usually sooner rather than later, I was going to stop
smoking.

508
00:38:21,303 --> 00:38:25,187
However, nobody told me that alcohol was bad for me.

509
00:38:25,187 --> 00:38:29,670
Nobody told me that there was a high likelihood of me developing a problem with it.

510
00:38:30,474 --> 00:38:33,196
So I never thought that I would ever stop drinking.

511
00:38:33,196 --> 00:38:34,897
I just thought, that's it, I'm going to drink for life.

512
00:38:34,897 --> 00:38:35,668
I thought it was great.

513
00:38:35,668 --> 00:38:36,868
I thought it was perfectly safe.

514
00:38:36,868 --> 00:38:38,840
I thought it was completely normal.

515
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:41,482
I didn't think that way about smoking.

516
00:38:41,482 --> 00:38:52,950
And that's one of the things that I really would like people to know and understand and to
start, you know, the conversation and to start talking about alcohol in a different way.

517
00:38:52,950 --> 00:38:54,280
Cause we do talk about alcohol.

518
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:55,621
We talk about it all the time.

519
00:38:55,621 --> 00:38:59,824
I mean, all you have to do is go into a birthday card shop.

520
00:38:59,830 --> 00:39:08,236
You will see all of those cards which basically says, know, what the amounts are saying
is, I hope you get drunk and fall over for your birthday.

521
00:39:08,236 --> 00:39:12,519
Which is actually quite a weird thing to wish somebody as a birthday wish, isn't it?

522
00:39:12,519 --> 00:39:16,210
But, you know, that's the way we talk about alcohol.

523
00:39:16,210 --> 00:39:19,984
yeah, of course you can have a gin and tonic on Tuesday at half past three.

524
00:39:19,984 --> 00:39:21,004
Nothing wrong with that.

525
00:39:21,004 --> 00:39:22,105
It's wine o 'clock.

526
00:39:22,105 --> 00:39:24,507
Yeah, I deserve this bottle of wine.

527
00:39:24,507 --> 00:39:29,810
All of that kind of stuff we talk about all of the time, but we don't actually talk about.

528
00:39:30,338 --> 00:39:32,169
the real problem that is alcohol.

529
00:39:32,169 --> 00:39:34,922
We just kind of ignore it and sweep it under the carpet.

530
00:39:34,922 --> 00:39:36,252
And that's all I want to do.

531
00:39:36,252 --> 00:39:37,754
I want to start the conversation.

532
00:39:37,754 --> 00:39:39,395
I want to get people thinking about it.

533
00:39:39,395 --> 00:39:43,748
I want people to understand what low risk drinking actually is.

534
00:39:43,748 --> 00:39:47,150
And the, you know, like I am not an advocate for alcohol.

535
00:39:47,150 --> 00:39:51,754
I don't think anybody should drink alcohol, but you know, people want to drink alcohol.

536
00:39:51,754 --> 00:39:52,394
That's fine.

537
00:39:52,394 --> 00:39:57,578
If you're going to drink alcohol, I would love you to understand what low risk drinking
looks like.

538
00:39:57,578 --> 00:40:05,439
And I would love you to understand that actually, if you drink in a low risk way, it's far
more enjoyable.

539
00:40:05,439 --> 00:40:06,211
Yeah, it is.

540
00:40:06,211 --> 00:40:10,054
I think that that conversation would be so powerful, wouldn't it?

541
00:40:10,054 --> 00:40:19,736
Right down at kid level, at school level, just about that time that we're finding that
it's making us feel sexy and stronger about ourselves.

542
00:40:19,936 --> 00:40:23,097
All that wisdom just goes out the way because I feel good.

543
00:40:23,557 --> 00:40:26,968
So it's complete re -education, isn't it?

544
00:40:26,968 --> 00:40:28,369
It can't be anything more simple than that.

545
00:40:28,369 --> 00:40:29,641
Yeah.

546
00:40:29,641 --> 00:40:29,981
Yeah.

547
00:40:29,981 --> 00:40:34,812
And look, mean, number one, thank you very much for letting me have this conversation on
your podcast.

548
00:40:34,812 --> 00:40:38,934
That's like, you are clearly part of the solution and not part of the problem.

549
00:40:38,934 --> 00:40:39,404
great.

550
00:40:39,404 --> 00:40:47,896
And on that note, everybody who's listening, go and give him five stars on Apple to help
him get the message out there because he's clearly doing the good work, isn't he?

551
00:40:48,136 --> 00:40:49,817
But yeah, absolutely.

552
00:40:49,817 --> 00:40:58,800
We, we need to change the conversation that happens in schools, you know, help young
people to understand, but ultimately,

553
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:02,573
My daughter is always asking me for a unicorn, right?

554
00:41:02,573 --> 00:41:06,937
And I can't give her a unicorn because I don't have a unicorn.

555
00:41:06,937 --> 00:41:10,019
And that is one of the central problems with being a parent.

556
00:41:10,019 --> 00:41:14,322
You cannot give your children something that you do not have.

557
00:41:14,463 --> 00:41:22,048
So if you do not have a good relationship with alcohol, then it is very hard for you to
give your children a good relationship with alcohol.

558
00:41:22,069 --> 00:41:28,740
So yes, we absolutely need to do more education, but what the evidence shows

559
00:41:28,740 --> 00:41:33,493
is that education just for young people is not enormously effective.

560
00:41:33,493 --> 00:41:41,938
Actually, it's much more effective if it's holistic and it's at more of a community level
and it engages both parents and children.

561
00:41:41,938 --> 00:41:44,459
So yes, I do work in schools.

562
00:41:44,459 --> 00:41:56,105
I'm always happy to come and share my bad jokes, obscure 90s references that they all just
like look at you funny when you start talking about pulp.

563
00:41:57,000 --> 00:41:59,332
Common people, how can you not know that song?

564
00:41:59,332 --> 00:41:59,942
It's great.

565
00:41:59,942 --> 00:42:01,913
I mean, seriously, anyway.

566
00:42:02,194 --> 00:42:10,989
But mostly, you know, all of my knowledge and expertise and take on alcohol, you know, I'm
always happy to share that with young people.

567
00:42:10,989 --> 00:42:15,003
But yeah, I think, you know, it's something that we've all got to do together.

568
00:42:15,003 --> 00:42:23,449
The bit that gave me chills is if you don't have a good relationship with alcohol, you're
not going to be able to pass that good relationship on to children.

569
00:42:23,449 --> 00:42:27,251
You'd have thought that was page one, but again, I guess the parents aren't aware of that.

570
00:42:27,251 --> 00:42:33,645
I suppose it's a bit like these oil companies pillaging from their children and what are
their grandchildren going to have left?

571
00:42:33,645 --> 00:42:34,976
They don't care.

572
00:42:35,016 --> 00:42:37,919
So how would you inform

573
00:42:37,919 --> 00:42:44,517
somebody in their thirties, twenties, thirties, who's about to have kids and doesn't have
a very healthy attitude with alcohol.

574
00:42:44,517 --> 00:42:51,656
How would you encourage them to change their mindset before they have the children and
need a drink because of the children?

575
00:42:51,656 --> 00:42:54,196
I mean, honestly, it's just a matter of talking it through.

576
00:42:54,196 --> 00:43:05,016
I've had many conversations with many people and starting a family or raising a family is
often a huge motivator.

577
00:43:05,016 --> 00:43:17,036
And that is one of the reasons why the sort of peak time to stop drinking and indeed to
stop taking drugs is sort of about 30, between about 30 and 40.

578
00:43:17,036 --> 00:43:21,670
I mean, it's not like if you're older than that, it's not like give up, but

579
00:43:21,670 --> 00:43:32,283
that is one of the peak times and it's often around either you're going to have kids and
you've got this vague nagging doubt that, hold on a minute, how am going to do midnight

580
00:43:32,283 --> 00:43:34,604
bottles if I'm drunk?

581
00:43:34,604 --> 00:43:37,804
It's just like, how is that going to work out?

582
00:43:38,104 --> 00:43:49,648
So that is a big motivator, but also I can give you so many stories around children and
how that's motivated parents to stop.

583
00:43:49,648 --> 00:43:51,028
I one guy,

584
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:56,704
You know, he said, it was the point when I realized I was actually scaring my children.

585
00:43:56,704 --> 00:43:59,226
When I did that, I had to stop.

586
00:43:59,226 --> 00:44:07,201
Another guy said to me, you know, I decided to come and see Duncan because my son said to
me, daddy, when I grow up, do I have to drink?

587
00:44:07,201 --> 00:44:13,735
And it was just like, brr, that's like a, that's a spear through the heart, isn't it?

588
00:44:13,735 --> 00:44:20,913
Or these days they just phone you, they video you, don't They video you on your phone.

589
00:44:20,913 --> 00:44:29,467
on their phone and then they show you what an idiot you are when you were drunk and you
just go, yeah, maybe it's time to knock it on there.

590
00:44:29,467 --> 00:44:30,218
Yeah.

591
00:44:30,218 --> 00:44:33,170
And I guess that leads us onto shame, doesn't it?

592
00:44:33,170 --> 00:44:37,083
Because that is a big problem with alcohol as well, isn't it?

593
00:44:37,083 --> 00:44:39,865
We hide because of that.

594
00:44:40,245 --> 00:44:46,108
And I guess if, know, Johnny turns up with, hey, daddy, this is what you looked last
night, you know, you are...

595
00:44:46,430 --> 00:44:47,511
There's a lot of shame there.

596
00:44:47,511 --> 00:44:50,843
I mean, it's a powerful motivator to stop, isn't it?

597
00:44:50,965 --> 00:44:51,876
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

598
00:44:51,876 --> 00:44:57,249
mean, it's, it is one of those things that I expect is going to go one of two ways.

599
00:44:58,971 --> 00:45:12,800
Shame is not necessarily a good tool, but if you can go beyond the shame and actually have
that realization and see yourself as other people see you, I think that's enormously

600
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:13,861
powerful.

601
00:45:13,861 --> 00:45:19,937
think one of the mistakes that successive governments have made with

602
00:45:19,937 --> 00:45:24,640
health campaigns is they have actually tried to shame people into changing and it doesn't
really work.

603
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:27,992
I mean, they did it with smoking for years and years and years.

604
00:45:27,992 --> 00:45:29,023
Smoking is killing you.

605
00:45:29,023 --> 00:45:33,247
In fact, they still written on the packet in big letters, smoking kills you, right?

606
00:45:33,247 --> 00:45:36,790
If somebody tells you that you're going to die, what does that make you feel?

607
00:45:36,790 --> 00:45:38,890
Makes you feel afraid, doesn't it?

608
00:45:39,091 --> 00:45:39,831
Yeah?

609
00:45:39,831 --> 00:45:42,411
What do most smokers do when they're afraid?

610
00:45:43,672 --> 00:45:44,832
They smoke!

611
00:45:44,832 --> 00:45:49,314
Which is why the tobacco industry actually loves those health warnings.

612
00:45:49,314 --> 00:45:52,634
Because they just scare smokers into smoking more.

613
00:45:53,955 --> 00:46:01,007
So I think, you know, if I got to write the things on the packet, I would write, you are
enough.

614
00:46:01,007 --> 00:46:04,578
You are a complete human being and you do not need these cigarettes.

615
00:46:05,058 --> 00:46:09,268
Quitting is easy and you will feel a lot better and I don't mean in 20 years time.

616
00:46:09,268 --> 00:46:10,598
I mean like tomorrow.

617
00:46:10,598 --> 00:46:14,386
You will wake up tomorrow feeling so much better.

618
00:46:15,122 --> 00:46:17,314
Yeah, absolutely.

619
00:46:17,314 --> 00:46:18,005
I love that.

620
00:46:18,005 --> 00:46:22,889
Tell me about your writing because you've talked about the speaking and obviously that's
what you do.

621
00:46:22,889 --> 00:46:28,493
But tell me about the books that you've written as well because that's another message
that you another way you get your message across.

622
00:46:29,121 --> 00:46:31,893
Yeah, I I've always been a writer.

623
00:46:31,893 --> 00:46:33,343
I've always loved writing.

624
00:46:33,343 --> 00:46:35,764
It's always been really, really important to me.

625
00:46:36,545 --> 00:46:47,671
When I was drinking, I wrote an awful lot and all of that is still in some dusty drawer,
in some dusty desk, in some long forgotten warehouse somewhere.

626
00:46:47,671 --> 00:46:50,793
I never ever did anything with my writing until I stopped drinking.

627
00:46:50,793 --> 00:46:53,394
And since I've stopped drinking, I've published three books.

628
00:46:53,855 --> 00:46:57,496
So the most recent of them is called Real Men Quit.

629
00:46:57,496 --> 00:46:58,877
That is...

630
00:46:59,095 --> 00:47:09,011
Because what I've noticed is that there are lot of amazing women doing a lot of amazing
work around sobriety and stopping drinking and all of that sort of stuff.

631
00:47:09,011 --> 00:47:10,832
I think they're fantastic.

632
00:47:10,832 --> 00:47:11,562
I love them.

633
00:47:11,562 --> 00:47:14,094
Their work really, really resonates with me.

634
00:47:14,094 --> 00:47:15,775
Unfortunately, it resonates with me now.

635
00:47:15,775 --> 00:47:18,836
It wouldn't so much have resonated with me when I was drinking.

636
00:47:18,836 --> 00:47:27,353
If your stories revolve around Chardonnay and the school run, it wasn't really going to
kind of like...

637
00:47:27,353 --> 00:47:28,793
vibe with me as such.

638
00:47:28,793 --> 00:47:39,793
So what I wanted to do was write something that was specifically aimed at men because
actually we do outperform women quite significantly when it comes to drinking.

639
00:47:39,793 --> 00:47:46,573
The World Health Organization found that around 75 % of the alcohol consumed worldwide was
consumed by men.

640
00:47:46,573 --> 00:47:52,353
So man and a woman go into a bar, you've got to drink three of them as a guy, the girl's
only got to drink one.

641
00:47:52,353 --> 00:47:56,151
So unsurprisingly, men end up with two to three times more.

642
00:47:56,151 --> 00:47:59,502
rates of alcohol issues than women do.

643
00:48:00,022 --> 00:48:01,612
But of course we're not talking about it.

644
00:48:01,612 --> 00:48:03,623
It's the women that are talking about it.

645
00:48:03,623 --> 00:48:13,486
I, you know, as my attempt to be part of the solution, I wrote a book called Real Men
Quit, which is, well, it's for men.

646
00:48:13,486 --> 00:48:15,756
So it's got a lot of sports references in it.

647
00:48:15,756 --> 00:48:17,837
It's got a lot of James Bond.

648
00:48:17,837 --> 00:48:19,768
It's got a lot of Star Wars.

649
00:48:19,768 --> 00:48:22,668
It's got a of really bad jokes.

650
00:48:23,068 --> 00:48:25,449
Some of which are slightly rude.

651
00:48:25,729 --> 00:48:32,317
Yeah, it's a book for men about alcohol and maybe rethinking what you're doing with it.

652
00:48:33,087 --> 00:48:33,523
Brilliant.

653
00:48:33,523 --> 00:48:35,207
Yeah, I will I will have to look at that.

654
00:48:35,207 --> 00:48:42,123
mean, I think it's, it's really important, is it because, you know, and men aren't the
first people to talk about any problems and things like that.

655
00:48:42,123 --> 00:48:43,324
So yeah.

656
00:48:43,691 --> 00:48:44,565
of the first.

657
00:48:44,565 --> 00:48:48,632
think I'm sure sometimes I don't think we're even the last.

658
00:48:49,234 --> 00:48:50,308
We've just forgotten, yeah.

659
00:48:50,308 --> 00:48:50,459
No.

660
00:48:50,459 --> 00:49:01,636
again, mean, that's, I think, I think that's part of the problem with alcohol is it makes
everything very much on a surface level.

661
00:49:01,636 --> 00:49:10,541
You know, we'll talk about, we'll talk about football because we can safely express our
emotions and get angry and all of that sort of stuff.

662
00:49:10,541 --> 00:49:14,833
But we won't talk about anything really deep and meaningful and serious.

663
00:49:14,833 --> 00:49:17,797
And I'm sorry to the football fans out there, you know.

664
00:49:17,797 --> 00:49:21,619
It isn't actually a matter of life and death and it's not more important than that either.

665
00:49:21,619 --> 00:49:32,604
know, we don't talk very often about, you know, being parents or being husbands or, you
know, how we feel like our mental health.

666
00:49:32,604 --> 00:49:34,885
We just don't talk about all of that sort of stuff.

667
00:49:34,885 --> 00:49:39,646
And I think one of the reasons is because we don't listen.

668
00:49:39,807 --> 00:49:43,908
You know, we just want to have a beer and watch the football.

669
00:49:43,908 --> 00:49:45,331
We don't actually want to...

670
00:49:45,331 --> 00:49:48,003
putting the time to listen to each other.

671
00:49:49,125 --> 00:49:52,908
that's another thing I'd change about the world.

672
00:49:53,529 --> 00:49:55,481
Guys, you've got to listen to each other.

673
00:49:55,481 --> 00:49:58,554
You've got to ask the questions, shut up and let them answer it.

674
00:49:58,554 --> 00:50:00,235
Rather than just like, how are you?

675
00:50:00,235 --> 00:50:00,956
I'm fine.

676
00:50:00,956 --> 00:50:02,647
You've got to dig a bit deeper.

677
00:50:03,278 --> 00:50:04,158
Yep.

678
00:50:04,999 --> 00:50:05,730
Sad but true.

679
00:50:05,730 --> 00:50:07,981
Yeah.

680
00:50:08,883 --> 00:50:16,208
It took me to, I know I've got a problem and a moment of clarity before I actually said,
hey, I think I'm struggling.

681
00:50:17,090 --> 00:50:19,391
Because again, it goes back to that shame, doesn't it?

682
00:50:19,391 --> 00:50:21,763
You know, it's a man I should provide.

683
00:50:21,763 --> 00:50:22,514
I should do this.

684
00:50:22,514 --> 00:50:23,305
I should do that.

685
00:50:23,305 --> 00:50:27,869
And I'm actually dying here because of alcohol and everything else.

686
00:50:27,869 --> 00:50:29,890
And I don't know what to do.

687
00:50:29,890 --> 00:50:30,741
Yeah.

688
00:50:30,909 --> 00:50:36,385
Yeah, it's almost like we've been told from the moment that we were born that boys don't
cry.

689
00:50:36,385 --> 00:50:37,567
You've just got to suck it up.

690
00:50:37,567 --> 00:50:38,308
You've got a man up.

691
00:50:38,308 --> 00:50:40,190
You've just got to push through your problems.

692
00:50:40,190 --> 00:50:41,111
Stop complaining.

693
00:50:41,111 --> 00:50:41,882
Stop whinging.

694
00:50:41,882 --> 00:50:44,064
Stop being a bit girls blouse and just get on with it.

695
00:50:44,064 --> 00:50:46,698
Almost like we've been told that our whole lives, isn't it?

696
00:50:46,698 --> 00:50:50,312
Yeah.

697
00:50:50,312 --> 00:50:52,023
many narratives to change.

698
00:50:52,565 --> 00:50:54,127
So many stories to change.

699
00:50:54,127 --> 00:50:55,548
Duncan, this has been fabulous.

700
00:50:55,548 --> 00:50:56,559
I've enjoyed this.

701
00:50:56,559 --> 00:50:57,560
We will do this again.

702
00:50:57,560 --> 00:51:02,095
I was about to say we should do this with a glass of no alcohol beer somewhere.

703
00:51:03,225 --> 00:51:08,835
Yes, we definitely should and we will definitely do this again, both online and offline,
I'm sure.

704
00:51:08,835 --> 00:51:09,656
yeah, I think so.

705
00:51:09,656 --> 00:51:10,496
Yeah.

706
00:51:10,496 --> 00:51:19,802
Where can people find out about you, about what you do, why you do it, listen to your
slightly dirty jokes and find out about your books and things?

707
00:51:19,822 --> 00:51:21,213
Because I think you've got a

708
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:28,623
if you want to find a copy of Real Men Quit, just fire up Amazon and put Real Men and Quit
into it.

709
00:51:28,623 --> 00:51:31,524
I mean, it's so simple, even men can do it.

710
00:51:32,225 --> 00:51:36,907
you know, so I wrote it for guys.

711
00:51:36,907 --> 00:51:41,769
So if you're a guy and you think you might have a bit of an issue with drinking, then go
and grab a copy.

712
00:51:41,790 --> 00:51:43,451
You know, what's the worst that can happen?

713
00:51:43,451 --> 00:51:45,311
You might read a few jokes.

714
00:51:46,732 --> 00:51:50,735
likewise, if you happen to know a man who drinks a bit too much, like...

715
00:51:50,735 --> 00:51:53,556
we all do, then go and grab them a copy.

716
00:51:53,556 --> 00:51:58,408
Make a kind of interesting Christmas present, but you know, you'll see.

717
00:51:58,408 --> 00:52:00,059
Anyway, so that's Real Men Queer.

718
00:52:00,059 --> 00:52:05,611
If you'd like to read my second book, Get Over Indulgence, you know, I'd love to offer
your listeners a copy.

719
00:52:05,611 --> 00:52:12,224
If they just put getover .uk into their search engine of choice, that's getover .uk.

720
00:52:12,264 --> 00:52:16,746
That'll take you to a bit of my website where you can download a PDF or Kindle version and
you can have a look at that.

721
00:52:16,746 --> 00:52:18,875
That one's shorter.

722
00:52:18,875 --> 00:52:22,267
and the jokes are all incredibly family friendly.

723
00:52:22,267 --> 00:52:28,141
I'm not saying they're any good, but they are at least family friendly.

724
00:52:28,141 --> 00:52:32,734
So that's getover .uk, which will take you to a bit of my website, but you can have a look
around.

725
00:52:32,734 --> 00:52:36,686
You can see more about all of the stuff that we do.

726
00:52:36,686 --> 00:52:41,169
We're pretty busy on the socials, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.

727
00:52:41,169 --> 00:52:43,170
And honestly, if you've got a question.

728
00:52:43,993 --> 00:52:47,421
I hope it comes across, but I do like talking about this sort of stuff.

729
00:52:47,421 --> 00:52:49,817
So if you've got a question, please get in touch.

730
00:52:49,817 --> 00:52:50,509
Please ask me.

731
00:52:50,509 --> 00:52:54,357
If I can't help you, I guarantee you I will know someone who can.

732
00:52:54,753 --> 00:52:55,174
Brilliant.

733
00:52:55,174 --> 00:52:58,467
Well, we'll make sure all of that information is in the show notes for people.

734
00:52:58,969 --> 00:53:03,746
And I guess most importantly, what is your superpower?

735
00:53:03,746 --> 00:53:11,348
What have you realised about life that becoming sober has allowed you to understand?

736
00:53:11,348 --> 00:53:27,234
I think one of the things that I realized when I was writing recently was that it has
taken me a lot of time and a lot of effort to get back to where I was when I was first in

737
00:53:27,234 --> 00:53:28,025
school.

738
00:53:28,025 --> 00:53:37,028
I wrote in a particular style when I first wrote in school and they didn't like it.

739
00:53:38,149 --> 00:53:40,910
It did not go down well with the teachers.

740
00:53:41,356 --> 00:53:52,946
To be fair to them, what I have realized is that you actually need to really understand
the mechanics of grammar and punctuation and sentence construction before you can write in

741
00:53:52,946 --> 00:53:53,897
that style.

742
00:53:53,897 --> 00:54:01,203
It sounds very easy and jovial, but it is actually quite complicated to get there.

743
00:54:01,203 --> 00:54:10,110
And I think that is a roundabout way of saying, think what I do really well is make
difficult

744
00:54:10,444 --> 00:54:20,021
hard stuff sound casual and easier and maybe a little bit more accessible because you you
can joke about it.

745
00:54:20,021 --> 00:54:23,663
You can have a bit of a laugh with it.

746
00:54:24,544 --> 00:54:32,810
that, I think that comes across as sounding really, easy, but honestly, it's a superpower.

747
00:54:32,810 --> 00:54:34,071
It's quite hard work.

748
00:54:34,071 --> 00:54:38,095
It's taken me lot of time and effort to get to the point where I can be casual.

749
00:54:38,095 --> 00:54:38,686
Brilliant.

750
00:54:38,686 --> 00:54:39,687
love that.

751
00:54:39,687 --> 00:54:42,792
It's getting, Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

752
00:54:42,792 --> 00:54:54,227
Finding your, finding who you were before it all got tainted, before things like that and
just getting back to being creative, getting back to being peaceful and having fun.

753
00:54:54,227 --> 00:54:54,977
Yeah.

754
00:54:55,827 --> 00:55:05,371
Yeah, I I spent a lot of my 20s sort of worrying about my artistic voice and trying to
find my artistic voice.

755
00:55:05,371 --> 00:55:14,896
And what I realized was if you just stop doing personality surveys and actually write
something, then you'll find it.

756
00:55:14,896 --> 00:55:15,618
Brilliant.

757
00:55:15,618 --> 00:55:17,571
Well, Duncan, thank you ever so much for today.

758
00:55:17,571 --> 00:55:22,521
This has been entertaining and really full of information, all sorts of things.

759
00:55:22,521 --> 00:55:24,305
So I really appreciate your time today.

760
00:55:24,305 --> 00:55:25,236
Thank you.

761
00:55:25,282 --> 00:55:26,566
It's been an absolute pleasure.

762
00:55:26,566 --> 00:55:32,726
I have loved it and I feel tempered now I've come out the other side of the crucible.

763
00:55:33,452 --> 00:55:37,812
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Crucible: Conversations for the Curious.

764
00:55:37,812 --> 00:55:46,452
If these powerful stories of transformation resonated with you, be sure to like, subscribe
and share this show with anyone who you think could do with a dose of inspiration for

765
00:55:46,452 --> 00:55:47,392
their own journey.

766
00:55:47,392 --> 00:55:53,972
I would really appreciate it if you could make any comments on your favourite podcast
platform as well, that helps me reach more people.

767
00:55:53,972 --> 00:55:57,432
All the important links and information are in the show notes below.

768
00:55:57,432 --> 00:56:00,516
Thank you very much for listening and catch up with you soon.