Cat Sims got blackout drunk at 13 and her parents thought it was funny. She'd been drinking that way ever since, mostly with people who drank that way too. By her thirties she'd figured out she could mix vodka with coke and Xanax and stay personable instead of sloppy. She thought she'd solved the riddle of life.

There was no movie-grade rock bottom. There were car wrecks and missed bedtimes and 4am anxiety attacks from over-drinking. There was a marriage that nearly broke. There was a mother she loved who'd fallen asleep face-down in her dinner in front of Kat's school friends, and a shame Kat had been numbing ever since.

At 100 days sober, this is Kat as honest as she's been about any of it. No spin. No "I've never been better." Just: this is hard, this is necessary, and this is the work.

If you enjoy One For The Road, then click follow to be notified of the release of our next episode.

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice, and links for Cat.

https://www.notsosmugnow.com/

https://www.instagram.com/notsosmugnow/https://alcoholchange.org.uk/https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

https://www.grownuphustle.com/

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

@GrownupHustle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

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Thanks for joining me for this bonus sober spring special of One For The Road.

Today’s episode is with Richard Piper, CEO of Alcohol Change UK.

We discuss Stigma, Sober shaming and the start of Sober Spring, and of course my 24 hour Liveathon on the 26th of March.

Alcohol Change UK work to end the harm caused by alcohol. Helping tens of thousands of people take control of their drinking and provide vital advice for families desperate to help a loved one. They are not anti-alcohol; they are for a future in which people drink as a conscious choice, not by default. They want those who drink too much, and their loved ones, to have access to high-quality support whenever it’s needed, without shame or stigma.

They help people to find alcohol services in their area and support tens of thousands of people and their families online via our peer support groups and advice hub. Over 200,000 people used their Try Dry app to monitor their drinking this year alone, and many of them were able to successfully reduce or stop drinking. 

 Through their Blue Light programme they work with some of the UK's most vulnerable people, who are too often considered to be ‘beyond help’. They train local services to support them, saving the NHS and other frontline services money, and more importantly changing and saving lives.

If you enjoy One For The Road, then click follow to be notified of the release of our next episode.

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice, and links for Alcohol Change UK.

https://www.facebook.com/AlcoholChangeUK

https://www.instagram.com/alcoholchangeuk/

https://twitter.com/AlcoholChangeUK

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

https://www.grownuphustle.com/

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

@GrownupHustle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

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Content note: this conversation discusses childhood abuse and domestic violence.

Johnny Lawrence called alcohol his best friend of 20 years. He met it at 16, alone in a council flat after leaving home to keep his mother safe.

Born in Islington to a Nigerian father and a white British mother, Johnny grew up in 80s Hertfordshire as a survivor of physical child abuse. He worked four jobs as a teenager, came close to giving up, then found 20 quid on the pavement.

The drinking carried on into fatherhood, where holding his newborn son cracked something open he couldn't put back. Lockdown forced it. A therapist named Maliki named it: if you want to know why you drink, stop drinking.

Now sober and working as a self-development coach in Cornwall, Johnny talks to Dave about trauma, fatherhood, and turning a curse into a superpower.

If you enjoy One For The Road, then click follow to be notified of the release of our next episode.

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice, and links for Johnny.

Instagram @Theselfdevelopmentcoach

Facebook-The self development coach

YouTube-Theself development coach

Website-www.schoolofselfdevelopment.com

https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

https://www.grownuphustle.com/

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

@GrownupHustle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

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Jamie Klingler was drinking two bottles of wine a day, sometimes more, working the London bar circuit six or seven nights a week. By the end she was buying five-litre wine boxes. Two at a time. The party girl who cried in the corner.

She quit on Easter weekend, April 2020. Then she lost 100 pounds. Then a woman named Sarah Everard was murdered by a serving Met officer, and Jamie co-founded Reclaim These Streets, sued the police, and ended up debating policing at Cambridge Union.

None of it would have happened if she was still drinking. She is brutally clear about that.

This is what it sounds like when a woman stops numbing, starts running, and uses every minute alcohol stole back from her. For anyone wondering whether their drinking is theirs to question.

If you enjoy One For The Road, then click follow to be notified of the release of our next episode.

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice, and links for Jaime.

https://twitter.com/jamieklingler

https://www.instagram.com/photogirluk/

https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

https://www.grownuphustle.com/

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

@GrownupHustle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

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Claire Pooley drank a bottle of wine a night for years and nobody knew. Three kids, a husband, a working life. The wine witch in her head from the moment she woke up. A whole life functioning, just about, around it.

Then one morning after her own birthday party, she poured the last two inches of wine from a bottle into a mug so the kids wouldn't see. The mug said World's Best Mum. That was her last drink.

In this conversation Claire and Dave talk about gray area drinking, the lie of rock bottom, the wine witch, getting a breast cancer diagnosis eight months sober, and why she wrote The Sober Diaries to answer the questions nobody else would.

For anyone wondering if their wine habit has quietly become something else.

If you enjoy One For The Road, then click follow to be notified of the release of our next episode.

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice, and links for Clare.

https://www.instagram.com/clare_pooley/

https://twitter.com/cpooleywriter

https://www.facebook.com/clare.pooley.58

https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

https://www.grownuphustle.com/

Instagram - @GrownupHustle`

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

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Michelle Heaton was a Liberty X singer with a husband, two kids, and a two-litre vodka bottle on repeat order from Amazon. By the end she was drinking neat vodka at seven in the morning, being sick, then drinking again. Her liver readings were so high doctors couldn't understand how she was still alive.

Her friend Katie Price showed up and asked one question: do you want what I've got? Forty eight hours later Michelle was in the Priory. She had a seizure on the way in.

In this conversation Michelle and Dave talk about drinking against your will, the Priory detox ward with bars on the windows, the four months of psychosis before she asked for help, and what nine months of sobriety has given back.

For anyone who can't stop and is too scared to say it out loud.

If you enjoy One For The Road, then click follow to be notified of the release of our next episode.

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice, and links for Michelle.

https://www.instagram.com/wonderwomanshel/

https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

https://www.grownuphustle.com/

Instagram - @GrownupHustle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In April 2013, Matt Pink's four and a half month old son Rocco died in his sleep. Someone told Matt that time is a healer. So Matt decided he'd drink his way through two years and come out the other side fine. He didn't.

Five years went by. The drinking got heavier. The grief stayed where it was. His marriage ended. The house went. He was sofa surfing through the West End with a bag of his life when a stranger walked up outside a pub and told him to stop.

He stopped. He met Kirsty. He went sober in April 2020. Now he runs Better Life and writes about what actually works.

For anyone using alcohol to outrun something it can't outrun.

If you enjoy One For The Road, then click follow to be notified of the release of our next episode.

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice, and links for Matt.

Instagram @better_life_guy

Facebook better life guy 

www.betterlifeguy.com 

https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

https://www.grownuphustle.com/

Instagram - @GrownupHustle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

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Kortney Olsen is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu champion, an Australian arm wrestling champion, a bestselling author, a TV personality, and the woman who crushes watermelons between her thighs.

She's also 12 years clean and sober from meth, oxy, pills, and alcohol.

In this conversation with Sober Dave, Kortney walks back through the whole story. The mum who was an alcoholic in active addiction. The Kate Moss ad that lit her body image obsession. The bullying that made her a doormat. The 17-year-old straight-A student who got introduced to a "mentor" boxing coach by a drug counsellor, and what happened in his house that she spent years blaming herself for. The alter ego she built to survive it. The blackouts. The car crash. The rock bottoms that kept not being enough.

And then, eventually, the work. The steps. The marriage four months sober. The clothing brand built around one pledge: I am an equal amongst my peers.

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice, and links for Kourtney.

instagram.com/kortney_olson

TikTok.com/kortneyolson

facebook.com/konfidencebykortney

www.kortneyolson.com

twitter.com/kortneyolson

https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

https://www.grownuphustle.com/

Instagram - @GrownupHustle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

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Jack Fowldry was a functioning alcoholic at eighteen. He was drinking a crate of beer and a bottle of Bailey's a night and convincing himself it was just what musicians did. By the time he stopped at twenty-six, he had been drunk every day for forty-eight days straight.

This is the recovery story of the lead singer of UK alt-rock band Tova. Jack tells Sober Dave about being a functioning alcoholic in his teens, the drinking schedule he built around going on stage, the moment a friend casually said "yeah, it's because you're an alcoholic," and the day he sat in a pub garden and cried instead of finishing his pint.

You'll hear about: drinking culture in the music industry; the anger and grief that hit when you stop; what four years sober actually looks like; building a band sober from scratch; ADHD, mental health, and addiction; and why his EP is called Happy Music for Sad People.

If you've been wondering whether you can be sober and still rock, this one's for you.

If you enjoy One For The Road, then click follow to be notified of the release of our next episode.

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice, and links for Jack.

https://tovaband.com/about/

https://www.instagram.com/tovamusic_/

https://www.facebook.com/tova2020

https://twitter.com/tova_music

https://www.youtube.com/tovamusic

https://www.tiktok.com/@tovaband

https://snd.click/HappyMusicForSadPeople

https://www.ticketweb.uk/event/tova-support-o2-academy-islington-tickets/11315535?pl=hotvox

https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

https://www.grownuphustle.com/

Instagram - @GrownupHustle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ollie Ollerton was 10 years old when a 50-pound chimpanzee pinned him to the floor of a circus enclosure and tried to kill him. He fought it off. Nearly lost his arm to gangrene. Then spent the next thirty-something years chasing danger to feel something close to that adrenaline again.

Royal Marines. Special Forces. Iraq, where he drove drunk through Baghdad on his own with an AK-47 in the back of an armoured Mercedes. Steroids. Valium. A bottle most nights to muffle whatever was underneath. He was the life and soul of every party. He was also barely keeping it together.

Ollie is now sober, runs his company Breakpoint, hosts SAS Who Dares Wins, and uses his platform to talk honestly about what alcohol actually cost him.

You'll hear about: the chimp attack that shaped 30 years of his life; "personality rental" and why none of it was ever really him; the moment in Baghdad when he realised he was knocking on death's door; why he had to dip back into drinking to be sure; what it actually means to choose short-term discomfort for long-term gain.

If you've been telling yourself you've got it under control, this one's for you.

If you enjoy One For The Road, then click follow to be notified of the release of our next episode.

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice, and links for Ollie.

https://ollieollerton.com/

https://www.instagram.com/ollie.ollerton/

https://twitter.com/ollie_ollerton

https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

https://www.grownuphustle.com/

Instagram - @GrownupHustle

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soberdaveonefortheroad

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.