Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - Bryony Gordon on OCD, Overcoming Addiction and Building Mental Resilience #314

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

CAUTION: Contains swearing and themes of an adult nature. Today’s guest has a remarkable life story which includes addiction, mental health struggles, eating disorders, guilt, shame and so much more. Bryony Gordon is a prominent mental health campaigner, a journalist and a bestselling author. Bryony’s latest book, Let Down Your Hair, is a novel about social media, mental health, self-esteem and body image. She’s also recently released a Sunday Times bestseller, No Such Thing As Normal: What My Mental Illness Has Taught Me About Mental Wellness in paperback form.   You may be familiar with Bryony from her Telegraph column, her many books, or her Mad World podcast. Perhaps you’re one of the 206,000 people who follow her updates on Instagram. Or, maybe you know her as the Founder of peer support group Mental Health Mates. Even if you’re new to Bryony and her work, you’re about to get to know her pretty well, thanks to her hallmark honesty and authenticity when it comes to telling her story.   We begin this conversation by talking about Bryony’s experience of obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD. This condition is often misunderstood, with people reducing it to being ‘just’ about excessive tidiness or needing things in order. But Bryony shares the reality of the dark, obsessive thoughts that ruled her life from her early teens. She’s unflinchingly honest about how it led her into alcoholism, drug addiction and bulimia.   We also talk about her surprising relationship with marathon running, her new-found commitment to exercise for how it makes her feel, not how it makes her look and the coping mechanisms she uses to deal with the negative voices inside her head.   Although she would be the first to say she’s a ‘work in progress’ – as all of us are – Bryony passes on some real gems of practical advice and encouragement throughout this conversation which is fun, uplifting and inspiring. Trigger Warning: This episode discusses eating disorders and may not be suitable for everyone. Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/314 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

You can be better. You should be better. You are not enough or you are too much. That is what most women have gone through their whole lives thinking that. Watching their own parents who have watched their parents who have watched their parents. It genuinely is one of the few things in life that makes me really angry. How many women have grown up just it never occurring to us that we could like ourselves. Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More. My long-held belief is that we can learn something from every single person we meet.

And when it comes to our health and happiness, I don't think we just learn through acquiring more information. We also learn through hearing people's stories. And today's guest has a quite remarkable life story, which includes addiction, mental health struggles, eating disorders, guilt, shame, and so much more. Bryony Gordon is a prominent mental health campaigner. She's a journalist and a bestselling author. Her latest book is called Let Down Your Hair. It's a novel about social media, mental health, self-esteem, and body image, which promises to be a brilliant read for young adults. She's also recently released her Sunday Times bestseller, No Such Thing As Normal, What My Mental Illness Has Taught Me About Mental Wellness, in paperback form.

Now, some of you may be familiar with Bryony from her Telegraph column, her seven published books, or even her Mad World podcast. Or perhaps you're one of the 200,000 plus people who follow her updates on Instagram. Or maybe you know her as the founder of peer support group, Mental Health Mates. But even if you're new to Bryony and her work, you're about to get to know her pretty well thanks to her hallmark honesty and authenticity when it comes to telling her story. Now we begin our conversation by talking about Briony's experience of obsessive compulsive disorder, also known as OCD. This condition is often misunderstood with people reducing it to being just about excessive tidiness or needing things in order. But Bryony shares the

reality of the dark, obsessive thoughts that ruled her life for years, and she's unflinchingly honest about how it led her into alcohol addiction, drug addiction, and bulimia. We also talk about her surprising relationship with marathon running, her newfound commitment to exercise for how it makes her feel, not how it makes her look, and the coping mechanisms she uses to deal with the negative voices inside her head. Now, although Bryony would be the first to say that she's a work in progress, as all of us are, of course, she passes on some real gems of practical advice and encouragement throughout our conversation that at its core is funny, uplifting and inspiring. I hope you enjoyed listening. And now my conversation with Bryony Gordon. So Bryony, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to talk to you. That's the Making the Journey Up. Oh my God, it was such a nice journey. I read and I listened to a meditation, like a real cliche. Check you out. I know. What would your younger self have thought that, you know,

when I'm older, I'm going to train out of london to go on a podcast and listen to a meditation as i go she okay my younger self wouldn't have made the train because it was at 10 past eight and i had to leave the house at quarter to seven she wouldn't have woken up but she may not even have gone to bed yet so my younger self would be very proud of me but she'd probably think I was quite boring. You know, she would be like, oh, you really, you're sleeping a full eight hours a night and you're eating well and you're not drinking alcohol

and you're exercising and you're doing all those boring things that are the key to well-being that you, you know, as a 20-something, I just wanted to bypass. Yeah, I think a lot of us know that feeling, that if us in our teenage years or 20s could see us now, we might be thinking, what are you doing? I never thought you'd be doing this, but you know, I love nothing better than an early night. Like, what, there's nothing else to live for. I was in bed at 8.30 last night. I love it. I love it. What a way to start a conversation.

Where I actually did want to start this conversation was not from your latest book, which we're going to talk about, which is for kids. But this one, which I really, really like, No Such Thing As Normal. And in it, you say mental illness has led to some of the worst times of my life but it has also led some of the most brilliant what do you mean by that so oh how much time have you got as long as you want so i have suffered with mental illness since i was a child from the age of about 11 i i have had obsessive compulsive disorder. I didn't know that that was what I had at 11. I just thought I was dying. So obsessive compulsive disorder,

you've probably heard people say to you, oh, I'm a bit OCD. It's very, it's kind of thrown around in a very casual way. And people often say to me, oh, you've got OCD. I've got OCD too. You should see my sock drawer. And I'm like, why is it always the sock drawer? So I don't have a sock drawer. My husband often jokes, I wish you had the good type of OCD, meaning cleanliness, because there is no good type of OCD. It's an obsessive compulsive disorder. So, but I, that if there was any knowledge in the nin 90s when I first got ill of OCD, it was that it was obsessive cleanliness or orderliness. And that wasn't, well, it was kind of, but when I was about 11, I woke up and I became convinced that I was dying of AIDS. And at the time, and I don't know, it depends on what age you are, but at the time there was a huge public health campaign going on, which was don't die of ignorance.

And it was John Hurt delivering it. And there was like a tombstone that fell down. And of course it was incredibly stigmatizing, as we know, for gay men, for all sorts of people, for people who were HIV positive. And it put the fear of God into me as an 11 year old who really didn't have

anything to worry about in terms of, you know, I hadn't kissed a boy, I certainly wasn't an intravenous drug user, I hadn't had blood transfusions or any of those other things. But I woke up and I became convinced that I was dying of AIDS or that I was going to catch it. And I started washing my hands obsessively. I would hide my toothbrush under my pillow because I thought if I've got something, I don't want to infect my family. I couldn't, if I saw, I would go on the tube to school and the tube seats were like those old sort of 1980s orange and red checker and I couldn't sit down on them because I was scared that the red might be blood or that I might there might be a needle hidden underneath it and all this sounds now it's actually really kind of weird talking about it because I didn't expect it. I talk about OCD quite a lot and I didn't expect that to come up, these feelings to come up. Anyway, so I just thought I was dying.

And in time, it became almost impossible for me to leave the house or my room. I saw germs everywhere. I thought I was breathing them in. If I got a tiny cut, I was terrified that they would get infected. And I was washing, I washed my hands until they bled. And then it was kind of weird. Like as soon as it came on, it was about three months, it sort of went away again. But then whatever it was returned a bit in a couple of years later. And I think probably my parents just thought it was a strange childhood phase and but this time I started I was obsessively washing my hands but I also became convinced that I had hurt someone and blanked it out in horror um and that I might have done something terrible to a child to my brother who was 12 years younger than me. I basically thought I was a serial killing paedophile, which is not the type of OCD that people talk about. And I didn't even know it

was OCD. And I had what I now know were huge intrusive thoughts. And I would have to say phrases to try and sort of neutralise them or to keep my family alive. I remember one of them, which still I find going, it's like a record player of my head was I'd rather I died than my family. I'd rather I died than my family. And at the time, this was the late 90s, a movie had just come out called as Good As It Gets, starring Jack Nicholson, someone who suffered from OCD, and he won an Oscar for it. And I remember watching him go up to the stage and he would skip every other step in a sort of hilarious, jokey, you know, gag at OCD. But I remember at the time there was this huge piece in The Guardian about what, you know, it's played for laughs in this film, but OCD is really serious.

And here are some of the different types of them. And it spoke about pure O and about people experiencing intrusive thoughts and worrying that they may be child abusers, murderers. And I thought, oh, my God my God, that's what this is. Can I just say on that, Bryony, what's been the interest of me is, I've heard you in interviews before, I've read your book, and you're so honest, you're so open, raw and honest. There's a real humour to when you talk. And I think sometimes potentially for people like me who've not experienced that, like maybe we just go, yeah, okay, maybe we can't understand it. You know, you've explained some of those things, but I think some of us who haven't experienced it

probably don't really understand the gravity of what that feels like in the moment. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it feels awful, awful. And there's so much shame, you know, because, I mean, it's a shame-based illness and it's torturous, you know, they call it the doubting disease, the what if. So every time you seek reassurance for something, when you know, it's, it's, they call it the doubting disease, the what if. So every time you seek reassurance for something, when you find the reassurance, you can bet your bottom dollar, the OCD will cling on to something else. I describe OCD as like, it's like your brain refusing to,

to believe what your eye can see. So for example, the candle over there, if I was to blow it out, my brain would be like like have you blown it out you know or the door have you are you sure you've locked it even though you can see visibly that you have or that the oven's off you know the gas is off your brain would go yeah but is it did you maybe knock it on the way out um uh some people get it with speed bumps in the road when they're driving. I think, is that a speed bump or was that a child that I've just hurt? And Pure O is a mechanism where, and it sort of stands for pure obsessional. So there aren't any visible compulsions.

It's the same thing, but with thoughts. So we've all had that thought. Uh, I, I mean, I'm, I'm hoping, you know, you're at a party and someone hands you their baby or something. And you think, what if I was just to throw the baby on the floor? Or what if I was to shout something really, really outrageous, you know, and then not realise I've done it. But most people kind of immediately dismiss the thought as the randomness of their brain they don't pay that much attention to it you know we all have tens of thousands of thoughts

every day we are not all of our thoughts but someone suffering from pure o will become so distressed by the thought that they will ruminate on it obsessively to check they are not the thought and then they will, you know, perhaps say things to make the thought. For me, it was like, if I read a newspaper, I couldn't look at words like rape or murder. And if I saw one on the page, I had to find two neutralising words. I still get that if I'm like going through a newspaper website, and there's a terrible story about something awful that's happened, I have to immediately find two stories that are kind of boring and they're about sport or they're about i don't know fashion or something to kind of almost neutralize and and but of course the

problem is is the more that you ruminate the worse the anxiety becomes and you get stuck in it's like being stuck in a permanent sort of doorway not able to get out um it's really awful because it's like my brain is telling me that i might be the worst person in the world you know it's throwing all these intrusive thoughts at me and i guess so bits of my brain are saying that and the other bits of my brain for whatever reason aren't strong enough to go that's stupid of course you're not um but that yeah and i even though i read that piece at the age of like 17 18 and and saw and i felt the relief that it was me. It's been like decades of work, of treatment and of not treating it and treating it in all the wrong ways with alcohol, with drugs, for me to kind of get to a stage where I'm kind of,

I suppose I would describe as being in recovery from it but I'm now 42 so we're talking 30 years yeah it's so interesting hearing that even as a doctor right I haven't heard patient stories before that that sort of graphic account it is really really powerful um what you said at the end there treating it with alcohol there's there's kind of there's much wider broader point there for me around addiction and you know i know we're both fans of dr cabal mate i know you spoke to cabal recently on your show as i did did. And this idea that that's an attempt at the solution, isn't it? That's, you know, the problem may not necessarily be the alcohol.

The alcohol is an attempt to kind of solve the problem, solve the underlying problem. And maybe it's a failed attempt, but at least it might, in the short term, at least work. Yeah, I think it's really interesting because I'm now five years sober. Congratulations. Thank you. And that time, and I would call myself an alcoholic.

Still today. Still today, yeah. I'm an alcoholic. I haven't had a drink for over five years, but I'm still very much an alcoholic. That is because my brain is sort of, I guess, I would say wired that way. Now, obviously, Gabor Marte has different sort of theories on that. Although I agree with him on the kind of that it's a trauma based response. But

what I've realised with the word alcoholism, because there's a lot of stigma around that as well, and a lot of misunderstanding of what it is. I mean, I thought alcoholism was a man on a park bench, sipping from a paper bag. And of course, it is that, but it's lots of I was like, I can't be an alcoholic because I do reformer Pilates, I run marathons, I have a mortgage, a job, a lovely child, a wonderful husband, I get up and I go to work. There were all sorts of reasons I couldn't be an alcoholic. husband. I get up and I go to work. There were all sorts of reasons I couldn't be an alcoholic. But eventually, it was, I would spend a lot of time trying to prove I wasn't one. And eventually, I was like, actually, it's just easier now to accept that I am one. But alcohol, in a way, the alcohol bit of the word alcoholism is, I always think it's a bit, it's a bit of a red

herring, because I could blame everything on the alcohol. when I was about to get sober I was like oh great now I'm putting down alcohol my life will be brilliant you know and I won't suffer from any of these things but of course I suffered from them before I ever picked up a drink and for me it's like I'm lucky enough and I've kind of jumped way ahead here so uh but i'm lucky enough to that because of the way i destructively drank to know that i am i have the ism if that makes sense you know the i self me yeah um but i am still as mad as a hatter even without a drink especially without a drink you know alcohol for me, Ranga, was like a real, you know, I'm grateful for it because I don't know how else I would

have got through life because no one else, there weren't any other options of treatment out there for me. So it played a role. It played a helpful role, potentially. Would you go that far? I would say, yeah. I would say that, I mean, I'm lucky. I sometimes think when I think of where my drinking and drugging took me that I'm lucky to say, yeah. I would say that, I mean, I'm lucky. I sometimes think when I think of where my drinking and drugging took me, that I'm lucky to be alive. But I also think that without it, would I have, would I, you know, what would I have done? Like, I was in a lot of pain.

I thought I might be a serial killing paedophile, you know. I was, I thought I was dying of a terrible illness, or that I had the power somehow to kill people, you know, with my thoughts. So alcohol was like, it was like putting on a sparkly dress, you know, like, oh, thank God for that moment. But even if it was only for five minutes. Do you remember when you started drinking? Yeah, I was 14.

Do you remember when you started drinking? Yeah, I was 14. And I, I mean, from the get go, drank alcoholically. So I remember me and my friend Emma, we went to the off-license and somehow we bought a litre bottle of vodka and a litre bottle of, maybe not a litre, sorry, a litre bottle of cider, so a lot of alcohol, and then like a bottle of vodka, like a, I don't know what the measurement was, but I drank it all, like almost all of it immediately.

And of course it was immediately very unwell, very sick. And my friend's mum had to come and pick me up and put me in a bath. And you would have thought from that experience that i'd be like maybe alcohol's not for me but i was back out the next weekend doing the same thing but maybe it was sort of slight like learning to quote unquote pace myself yeah what's interesting briny as i about that. You've got these intrusive thoughts, right? You're struggling to cope with them. You don't like the way it makes you feel.

And at the age of 14, you start drinking. Now, were you, you know, now on reflection, having done a lot of inner work and therapy, it's clear that alcohol served a role. It was helping, I guess, numb various things that you didn't like experiencing. Did you know that in the moment? Do you know when you became conscious, oh, this is helping me? Because many 14-year-olds, I guess, certainly in the UK, will have experiences of being introduced to alcohol by their friends or their schoolmates

and go to the park at the weekend and start drinking. And I don't know, were you aware it was doing something for you? I don't think I was. I don't think I was. You know, it was a long time before I made the link between. I mean, bear in mind that at 14, I didn't even know I had OCD. I didn't even know it existed as a thing. So these are just things inside your head that you were sort of dealing with yourself.

Yeah. But I just knew that what I knew was, and I think this is a very British thing, is that in the evening, people sat down and went, with a glass of wine. Yeah. And I was like, oh, that's the way we deal with our problems. You know, that's certainly what I'd been modelled. Now, neither of my parents are alcoholics, you know.

They were very much, they'd like a nice glass of red and that was it. But I knew that that was, it was like an escape in a way, if that makes sense, from life. For your parents. Yeah. escape in a way, if that makes sense, from life. For your parents? Yeah, and I think certainly it was, yeah, what I, it was sort of what I'd learnt culturally as well. We'd watch EastEnders, people would go down to the Queen Vic and

have a pint, you know, at the end of the day and they'd talk about their troubles. It was very much how society in the UK certainly is sort of set up. Now, there's nothing per se wrong with that. I am not anti-alcohol. It doesn't work for me. I can't have it. But I don't mind people drinking around me. In fact, it reminds me of why I can't drink because people have like one drink and I'll go,

I cannot think of anything worse than one drink. Like if you said to me, oh, I've discovered this new pill and it's going to make you drink moderately, I'd be like, no thanks, don't want it. Because if I pick up a drink today, I'm on oblivion, you know. But lots of people can drink moderately and they enjoy the taste and it complements. So I'm not, you know, and I think it's important.

We need ways to come together. Although, you know, it's really interesting. I think a lot of people can do that for sure. But if we look back to you in your 20s, let's say, or 30s or, you know, whenever, outwardly, you were managing, right? You had a good job. Yeah're a journalist you're an author you know like you're you're succeeding at life certainly by societal metrics yet you've got this alcohol problem yeah in the background right so i kind of feel a lot of people

just to be clear i have no moral issue with alcohol right i get it some people can drink now and again in for enjoyment maybe to help them bond with their friends or whatever it might be. But I think more people, I think there's a lot more people with a problem with alcohol than they might think. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm not anti-alcohol, but I'm anti us not acknowledging that for some people it is really problematic. Do you know what I mean? most of my 30s, they kept me in alcoholism because I couldn't, because as you say, the metrics of a success. When I ended up in rehab at my absolute lowest ebb, I was the most successful I have ever been in my career. So it was 2017 and I had broken this huge story. Prince Harry had come to, you know, he'd come on my podcast and he'd spoken about having a breakdown after his mother died.

And the effects of ignoring all of that. I had just, I'd run the London Marathon for Heads Together and raised like £60,000. When I was 60 days clean and sober, I had to be allowed out of rehab to go to the Mind Media Awards to receive the Making a Difference Award that was handed to me by like Stephen Fry. Wow. It was complete. And my brain was going, whoa. And, you know, part of that was because I'd been so honest. I'd been so honest about my OCD. I'd been so honest about my OCD.

And it was only really in being honest about my OCD the year before in my book Mad Girl, which also that year had gone to number one in the Sunday Times bestsellers chart. And I sound like I'm sort of like, oh, look at me, look at me. But the truth was behind it was I couldn't deal with it. And in a way, I think I had to get that successful to kind of realize it was like, you're going to lose all of this. Because these two, these two things, well, maybe they are only compatible. Maybe I can only live like that, which is

desperately trying to be the best. And for people to, you know, please like me, please like me. I'm, you know, buy my books, do all of this. Um, when I'm, when I was drinking and drugging I don't know like but yeah outwardly I was I was killing it you know but actually inwardly I was on the verge of dying I guess if we think about people in the public eye it's actually not that uncommon like it's it's it's actually not that uncommon like it's it's you know we were sharing over a coffee just before we started you know your experience as a journalist for many years and having met many successful people right you've learned a lot yeah I mean the thing I mean one doesn't want to generalize too much but let me generalize almost every every super, quite unquote, successful person I've interviewed, that success comes from a desperate need to fill a hole.

And I don't know what caused that hole in their soul. You know, the hole in the soul, that's what we call it. It's about validating because they don't have the sort of self-esteem in themselves to be that person. And there's all sorts of perfectly, and that isn't to do it down, invalidating because they don't have the sort of self-esteem in themselves to be that person. And there's all sorts of perfectly, and that isn't to do it down, you know, most people who are happy in themselves don't need to work kind of like 14 hour days, not sleep. You know, like, and I think this is a really important conversation to have about what we deem success, you know, because if

you think of like, okay, so a massive metric for success is wealth, right? So like the richest man on the planet, Elon Musk, but I don't know if anyone's watched the Elon Musk show on the BBC, in which you learn that this is a deeply unhappy man who never sees his family. He gives up, you know, he gets rid of one wife, replaces her with another, barely sees them, doesn't see the kids, you know, has a really unhappy childhood. And to me, and, you know, I thought to myself, when does Elon Musk get to enjoy this? For him, the enjoyment is, I suppose, the process of conquering the world in itself, you know. Or is it? I don't know how happy he is is because there's also all this footage

of him saying i don't think you'd want to be me yeah but there's a much wider point there for me which i think is i think it's so so important brian like addictions right okay you you know you talk about the kind of conventional view of the alcoholic, the man on the park bench, can't get their life together. And you just demonstrated how clearly that's a very one-sided view of addiction. But there's also this kind of wider point in society today in the 21st century, now in 2022, where I think that most of us have an addiction to something of some sort. And then there's actually this thing where some addictions are actually sanctioned, legally sanctioned, that's okay, but also celebrated by society and I think work.

Work addiction. Work addiction is a big one. It's, you know, oh, they've got a great work ethic. Yeah. But wait a minute, wait a minute. Let's just take a step back. At what cost is that work ethic coming?

And I think, I mean, I touched on this in my last book on happiness, but I'm writing my next one at the moment and I'm really going to expand this whole idea because I think we're worshipping

the wrong people in society and I think social media makes us worse. We look up to these people, we think we want their life, but we don't know their life. We don't know the cost that they're paying. We might see someone on social who's posting three times a day and they're killing it with content. I think, oh man, you know, I want to be that successful. But you don't know that. You don't know what are their relationships like? Do they see their children? Do they have a partner? Do they want a partner? You know, do they get any time off? Like, I think it's a real problem. I guess I'm passionate about it because I feel I've fallen into that trap before. And I feel very much now that the people I want to look up to and people that I want to look up to as role models

are people who, oh, you know, they've got a great relationship with a partner and their kids and they're doing something great at work. You know, do you know what I mean? I don't know. The problem with social media is that, I mean, there's so many things there, right? So addiction, we are, and also I think a lot of society runs off addictive processes.

So work, food, but also the phones that we are all hooked on. Like they are designed specific, and so are social media apps. They are designed specifically to addict you. I mean, that's how they work, right? And we know that the likes and the shares and the clicks, they work on the same dopamine receptors that cocaine does. Okay. So like I have genuinely, and I was, I don't know if I've said this before. I don't think I've said this before, but I think the first few years of my sobriety, what kept me sober was an addiction to validation. I was so addicted. I was so used. People were telling me, you're amazing. Well done. You've

been so honest. We love you. Look, you've run a marathon in your pants. Aren't you amazing? You're helping us all. And obviously that makes me feel good right and that's great when it's happening but like you can't live life like that the whole time and i found myself about a year ago um when you get a blue tick blue ticks are sort of in the news at the moment aren't they a lot um when you get a blue tick on instagram you can sort of really see your sort of data, you know, how many people are following you, how many people are unfollowing you, right? And I, I start to really obsessively look at that, like several times a day, I was like, Oh, my God, my following counts gone down, or my follow accounts gone up, or, oh, my God, people clearly don't like what I've said. Because that's gone,

you know, like, I have, I was basically living my life according to the algorithm, right? And then I get told, you need to do reels. You need to do reels. Reels are the thing, you know? And I'm like, I'll do a reel. And then I hemorrhage followers every time I do reels, because I've realized the people that are following me, they don't want to watch reels, okay? They're not interested in it. That's not why they were there. But I found myself, I got to this like, They're not interested in it. That's not why they were there. But I found myself, I got to this like, bottoming out point earlier this year, for various reasons, where I was like, oh, my God, I am literally letting an algorithm dictate my life and dictate what I do. And I was what my brain was doing in that very addict-y way was like, you get followers, you good. You lose followers, you bad. And that was it. You know, you're over.

Your career's done. And I was like, I can't live like this. Also, as someone who calls themselves a mental health campaigner, I had to look back and go, I had to step back and go, is it morally responsible for me to use Instagram or social media generally to convey messages about mental health when the platforms in themselves are capable, I can see this, of like screwing around, you know, they are designed to screw around with our mental health, essentially. And I've had to really step back from it. And I, you know, I deleted my Twitter account long ago. And, you know, I'm still on Instagram, but I've kind of had to go, whoa, it does, you know, this isn't you,

you are not your Instagram account, you know? Yeah. This whole idea of living your life by an algorithm is really interesting, because I observe what's been said in the public conversation around this. A lot of people say this is what's great about these platforms, you can test what works. You see what works, you can give it more of it. I'm like, no, no, no, why is that a good thing? What you're effectively saying is, i am prepared to change who i am and what i put out in the world to feed this algorithm absolutely that is a problem when i have found just in my day-to-day using of social media and sometimes i think oh is this a is this a bit of a like a privileged problem but i do think you're right in that we all have social media

and we all have followings and followers and we all follow people. And I realise that the more I look at people, what they're doing, my brain naturally clicks into this. Oh, I should, why aren't you doing that, Bryony? Why aren't you? And that can be, why aren't you on holiday to why aren't you professionally writing this book or whatever? You know, it can be anything. It can be, you know, why don't you do that? Why don't you parent like that? Or why don't you cook those meals every night? You know, it's all comparison, comparison, comparison, comparison. And the more I do that, the less I tune into what I can actually do and that's you know again it is

the people pleasing but also the algorithm reminds me a bit of this like really abusive boyfriend I had in my early 20s which was like if I did what he wanted he was nice to me But if I didn't and went my own way, I was ghosted. Yeah. And that's kind of, you know, and that's sometimes you hit it that you happen to be in tune with the algorithm, you know, and that's great. And then, you know, and you're getting thousands of followers a day or whatever, and everyone's going, woohoo, you're great.

And then, but everything changes. I think this is beyond social media it's like when are you changing who you are for the validation of other people right someone may listen to this and go i don't have that problem on instagram okay fine but they may have it in another part of their life yeah yeah you know what i mean they might have it at the school gate they might have it they probably do in their volunteer group do you know what i mean exactly so or in the office or just you know in the house and there's there's actually a really powerful bit in in your book where i think you you spoke about this author you described her as a this beautiful author

that you follow on instagram and normally usually the content makes you feel good. But if you're not in the best place that you could be, suddenly that same content is making you feel really, really bad. Well, it's all about me. You know, it's never to do with the person that I'm comparing to. That's the other thing I've learned is like, if I'm feeling discomfort inside me, you know, the easiest thing is to go, it's their fault. But it's something in me, you know, and it's like, are you okay? Because when I'm in a good place, I'm just like, wow,

isn't that great? They're doing this thing, you know, or I'm so happy for that person. But when I'm not in a good place, I can get into sort of seething resentment, because I'm a human being. Yeah. Tell me about that moment that I've heard you say once before, when you had this realization that I think, and please tell it in your own words, I think that you felt you were okay with alcohol or you could balance it in your life. felt you were okay with alcohol or you could balance it in your life. And I've never forgotten this as I heard you say it. You said, I used to say that my daughter was the most important thing in my life. And then I realized it was actually alcohol. Yeah, that's quite hard to, yeah. Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show.

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And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. I would tell myself, you know, alcoholism, addiction, it's an illness of denial, you know. I think this in general with most mental illnesses, and I do class addiction as a kind of a mental illness is that they kind of they're they're the only illnesses that tell you you don't have them

you know that's one of the symptoms they sort of you gaslight yourself right and and that's how they thrive you know the the the thing all mental illnesses have in common is that they lie to you and they tell you you're a freak and they tell you that you're alone and they tell you that no one's going to understand what you're going through and we know that's not true um but i i told myself i couldn't be an alcoholic and i told myself that alcohol was like it made me fun it allowed me i mean i was a party girl in my 20s and 30s well that's what i called myself i was an alcoholic in my 20s and 30s. Well, that's what I called myself. I was an alcoholic in my 20s and 30s. But I could tell myself by cultural norms, I was a party girl. I was a fun time girl. I surrounded myself with people that drank much like me. people that drank much like me. And when I got pregnant, it didn't, it genuinely, genuinely wrong and didn't occur to me that at the end of the pregnancy, I would do anything other than sip a sophisticated glass of red wine once in a while. Do you know what I mean? Like,

I just thought, oh, this is this pregnancy. This is going to do for know what I mean like I just thought oh this is this pregnancy this is going to do for me what I guess rehab and the 12 steps do for lots of other people you know it's going to force you to stop yeah yeah I just thought that's going to force me to stop um it just didn't even cross my mind while I was pregnant I had no yearning for alcohol um probably because I was eating so much food, you know. It was like I'd replaced one addiction with another. But I remember two weeks after my daughter was born, I went to the pub and I was like blackout drunk. And six weeks after she was born, I was scrabbling around scoring cocaine. And I remember like,

it was like, there was this kind of split in my body from my brain all the way down of like, it was like a shock. I was like, oh, wow. Wow wow this is exactly what you were like before your daughter was before you got pregnant this does this beautiful beautiful little thing at home asleep being looked after by her dad and you can't stop behaving like this, even for her. And that was like, it was like a rupture. It was horrific. You know, like, how do you how do you square that with yourself? The shame was huge. And so I think, you know, brain goes into like denial in a way is like a protective mechanism, isn't it? And I was like, oh, well, oh well I need so these were like some of the lies I told myself I need to be you know I happy you know if I go out and have the odd drink and maybe the odd line once

every three months or whatever um I'll be uh you know I'll be a happy go lucky relaxed mom and and happy mum, happy baby. You know, I told myself all this bullshit. And, you know, I could also, I could also sort of, I could also tell myself because I didn't drink every day, I had all these rules around my drinking. So I didn't drink every day. I drank every other day. I would wait till my daughter was asleep. You know, when I woke up in the morning, I was always full of shame. And I was like, I'm never going to drink again.

I'm never going to drink again, again and again and again until it got to like 4pm. And then I'd be like, maybe I'll have a drink tonight. But I was like, alcoholics don't wake up in the morning and not want to drink. Alcoholics wake up and pick up a drink. And I'd never done that, right? And I always remember someone when I turned up at rehab saying, not yet. Not yet, Briony. But give it time.

If you carry on like this, you will be picking up a drink. It's a progressive illness, right? But anyway, I had all these rules. And I thought because I had all these rules, I was in control of my alcohol, my drinking, but really, it was in control of me. Because even though I wasn't drinking every day, I was thinking about drinking every day. It ruled my life. So like, if I had a work meeting on a Tuesday morning, that meant I couldn't drink on the Monday night. So obviously, if I had a work meeting on a Tuesday morning, that meant I couldn't drink on the Monday night. So obviously I would have to drink on the Sunday night. It didn't mean I didn't drink on the Monday night, but so it was like, it controlled everything. And yeah, to my

shame, I spent a lot more time thinking about alcohol than my daughter. You mentioned that moment when your daughter was maybe six weeks old or you know in the first few months of her life where you had to drink and you had to go and score a line of coke now for people who are listening or watching this who have got no experience with addiction no experience or or knowledge of cocaine addiction and who might be judging you yeah right now what would you say to them oh that's totally cool they can judge me you know um i i hope that they never have to get any knowledge of addiction or cocaine addiction like that's so cool if they're judging me that's you know that's their stuff not mine um i would sort of lovingly explain that um i think that if

we don't talk honestly about this stuff we can't ever hope to help people who suffer from it so when i talk when i talk openly about this i i've you know i get a lot of you this, I get a lot of, I see a lot of feedback that's like, why are you doing this? You're an absolute mess. Your daughter might one day read this. Because I was graphic about the way that I ended up having to get sober. you know, bad shit happened. You know, it was really dark, really, really dark, you know? And all I could say to that is that like, there are, I know now from going into recovery, I used to think I was the worst mum in the world. I used to think I was the only mum in the world that behaved like that. Well, parent, you know, because let's not, the world that behave like that or parent you know because let's not let's not let's not keep it to to to women but um it was I was so ashamed and I remember going into rehab I was so lucky to be able to go into rehab and the first person I met was this other woman who's like the same age

as me and she had a kid the same age as me. And she lived like a mile down the road. And we had the same sobriety date, August the 27th, August the 26th, 2017. And I was like, oh my God, you were there all along. I wasn't the only one behaving like this. And the relief, I wasn't the only one behaving like this. And the relief, Holly and I are best friends to this day, you know. And I meet women all the time, you know, who are desperately trying to fight this illness because they love their kids, you know. And that's the thing about addiction is that it's like it's so powerful.

It's so powerful that it will destroy love. You know, it really will. And so the reason that I have been so honest about what happened in those last days, years of my drinking and using is because I know that there are people out there. We know, we know there are people out there who use drugs, some addictively, some recreationally. We know there are people out there that get into trouble. There's a lot, you know, a lot of antisocial behavior. Our prisons are full of people who are there basically because they're traumatized and, you know, they took the wrong path, right? And there might be someone listening who's like,

oh, that's a load of woke bullshit in which case i don't really know why you're listening to this podcast anyway but you know like go and listen to something else but you know i do believe if we want to we want a better world and a healthier happier world not just for the people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol but to everyone around them their children you know who themselves deserve a better deserve better than that you know um we know often it you know addiction is it's passed down from generation to generation like so i talk about this because it's out there and it's quite common yeah you know and and so and cocaine i think is a really know, and so, and cocaine, I think,

is a really interesting one and we don't talk about that enough. Yeah. And cocaine use goes hand in hand with drinking and binge drinking. I, when I got sober, when I came in, I was quite ashamed to call myself an alcoholic

because I didn't think that was cool. I mean, that is the ridiculousness, right? And I was like, oh, I'm a drug addict. You know, like alcohol as well. I was like, well, that's like legal. Like it was a bit embarrassing, isn't it? That you can't handle that. Do you know what I mean? But for some reason I could accept that I was a cocaine addict. And I actually realized that cocaine was like, I only used the cocaine so I could drink more because what cocaine does is it sobers you up. It does a lot of other things as well.

It makes you, I would say, sexually quite risky. It allows you to shed all your inhibitions so in a way I'm really grateful for the cocaine and I say that because I think it brought me into recovery a lot quicker because when I took cocaine my behavior sometimes ended up it so dark, it was so seedy. I couldn't square what was happening with who I was. It didn't fit with me inside, if that makes sense. It got that bad that it kind of forced the change? Yeah, and I think that like yeah i mean and i think that if i

if it like if i hadn't discovered cocaine i think god would i still be sitting in my back garden drinking now you know because the consequence there were consequences don't get me wrong every day i would wake up if i just you know and most times I was just drinking right in the back garden by myself um but the consequences were like I was like I'd have to check oh Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook what have I done who have I sent a message who did I call I still have nightmares where I go you know I've called someone in blackout and don't know still to this day yeah yeah yeah totally i mean bringing it right back just for a moment i think it's really powerful the way you share because i absolutely i think you know these things thrive in secrecy yeah um but i think many people who who who listen to this show will probably have a recollection of some point in

their life maybe at uni maybe in their 20s where they drank a bit too much alcohol and they woke up the next day oh what have i done yeah how did i behave last night yeah that's not uncommon right no it's not so it was just on a completely maybe different scale. Blackout. I mean, it was like every time I drank, I blacked out because I drink so much. So cocaine sort of brought me back and allowed me to not black out. Like I wouldn't lose control, you know. I mean, some people sensibly would have gone,

well, just don't drink that much, probably. But I, you know, I was an addict and alcoholic. Were there other things? Like if you look back to your childhood, you know know it's striking that when you were 14 you didn't just have a pint of cider you did the whole bottle yeah can you see before that there were other things where this kind of extreme type behavior played out yeah really interesting i do now i remember as really little things and it's going

to sound like really ridiculous but i remember like really liking the taste of benelin which now sounds like a lot like cow pole was too sweet I liked the sort of slightly you know I liked when I got ill because I could I could have that you know um and I remember when I was I remember when I was about 10, maybe, I couldn't sleep without, this is going to sound so mad, without having Synex, which was like a kind of Vicks thing. Because I thought my nose was blocked and it became like this kind of anxiety thing that I wouldn't be able to sleep because I think I'd had a cold. And so I used to use it every, and it was just like, I remember thinking that the other day, but it was like this kind of anxiety thing that I wouldn't be able to sleep because I think I'd had a cold and so I used to use it every and it was just like I remember I was thinking that the other day but it was like I couldn't yeah I couldn't let myself to settle night time was always I was really scared you know and I still find myself I have to fall asleep with the light on and I don't know why it's like is it is it surrendering do you know what I mean is it is it that or is it I don't know why it's like is it is it surrendering do you know what I mean is it is

it that or is it I don't know you know I don't know I don't have like massive memories of my childhood and it was again it was like all you know it was pretty normal and middle class you know yeah um it was fascinating in in your conversation with gabble because obviously gabble talks a lot about how these things have their roots in some form of childhood trauma not always necessarily you know super bad things happening but not enough of the good things happening or not getting enough love or whatever it might have been enough of the good things happening or not getting enough love or whatever it might have been. And you posed a question to him, which I found fascinating, that if you went in and healed your childhood trauma, you sometimes wonder, well, could I go back to drinking, but it would be

much more responsible. Is that something you think about? Well, the very fact that my brain went there, I think it's a sign that I can never drink again. What was interesting was he said, actually, a lot of people I know who are sober and in recovery said to me, I'm really glad you asked that question, because that was what came into my head when I heard him saying, you know, it's like our brains always looking for the out. But his response to that was, well, if you healed all your trauma, why would you want to drink? Which I thought was pretty, which is true, you know. But do I think about drinking still?

Is that, you know, yeah, of course I do. In the same way that I think sometimes about, like, wouldn't it be nice to be married to Brad Pitt, you know. You know, like, because I'm a human again we have thoughts you know what I've learned about since I got sober is to accept all of me like I used to be have it you know I'd label thoughts bad and I would think that I was bad just for having them, you know, and there were all, there were many different parts of me, you know, like life is not the Marvel universe, more's the pity, you know, there aren't goodies and baddies. And it's like, I can have bad thoughts. I can have irresponsible thoughts. God, I'd love to get, I'd love to go to the pub and get pissed or whatever that doesn't make me a bad person do you know what i mean it's like um it's accepting myself

and stepping back and going would that be a good idea briny you know and sometimes i've had to realize that it's like my brain is wired slightly wrong so it's like if i want to do something i probably shouldn't so drink drugs you know staying up a bit later you know eating crap or whatever and if I don't want to do something I should probably do it so a run getting up you know going to work picking up the phone calling someone yeah we're definitely going to get to some of the practical things you've done because you seem to be in a really good place these days certainly to me um i'm sure people would love to hear how you got to that place one thing we've never really spoken about uh on the podcast before is eating disorders yeah and i do hope next year to cover it in more detail. I know you have experienced bulimia

in the past. Again, a lot of people who haven't suffered don't really know what that means. Right. They can, I don't think mean, I don't think they do it on purpose, but it can almost, I don't think people understand it unless you've been through it yeah and what if you could paint a picture of what what it is and what does it actually look like day to day okay so bulimia i mean god it's so it's addiction really it's just addiction but with food you know that's what i see it as um you know it's a cycle of binging and purging um i mean i'm only really beginning to understand the food stuff myself now so i you know haven't purged food for a very long time you know and i thought because i hadn't purged food for a long time that that was good. Can you just be really explicit? Purge is vomiting or, you know, or using laxatives to

remove it the other way. I didn't use that, but some people do. And, but I realised, I've certainly realised over lockdown that I would still binge on food. You know, in fact, it became like a coping mechanism in itself. You know, I've only just really discovered what binge eating disorder is. And in fact, it's the most common eating disorder out there, you know. And I do have a theory that obesity is kind of as much a mental illness as it is a physical one. And I think we are so, you know, you can't cure a mental illness with shame, you know. So I think it's eating disorders, disordered eating, again, are far more common than we think.

And so we can go, oh, I'm, you know, anorexia, bulimia, that seems very alien. When in fact, a lot of us get stuck in these disordered eating patterns. And, you know, again, you spoke earlier about, you know, worshipping the wrong things. And we have a tendency, don't we, to kind of worship people who, you know, there's the term of orthorexia, isn't there, which is, you know, the clean eating stuff. Again, it's sort of disordered eating dressed up as health.

I, you know, I think food for me was probably one of my first addictions you know i remember as a child i would like sneak raw frankfurters out of the fridge and like eat them behind a curtain and you know and my body has been such a sort of like, I've treated it like such a, you know, like a sort of theme park, I suppose, as opposed to a temple. And I can still slip into that binge, binge eating you know it's hard again society is set up to kind of like push uh you know junk food and stuff on us yeah what you say about you know these terms anorexia bulimia they can seem quite distant to many people but actually if we ask ourselves honestly how many of us can sometimes have a disordered relationship with foods yeah i think it's probably more people than we might think and i'm thinking now you know as we

record this at the start of november we're now you know about to come into the christmas best of season right so temptations for alcohol yeah that well let me be more explicit temptations for alcohol. Yeah. Well, let me be more explicit. Temptations to drink more alcohol than you might usually do. Temptations to eat more than you might ordinarily do. Do you think this time of the year is particularly toxic? Is it, you know, in the olden days for you, is this a time of year that would make you slip down even more? Have you got any advice for people? What was so interesting was that December, I'd call it Amateur's Month.

I can believe that. Because I'd be like, where were you in January when I needed you? It's like the status inside it. It's like, that's not real yeah and people will be like oh come on braddy it's christmas let's go on a night out with you and i'll be like i'm knackered by this point you know actually there's an interesting conversation though here about this because we are very like you know we are creatures of habit right so christmas and then we go into this thing of like dry january we've just had sober October. I've been thinking about this because I was thinking

of sort of writing about it is that I could never do dry January. Like it was, and I always felt such shame about that. You know, we, again, we kind of make it like Christmas is the time where you have fun. January is the time where you're healthy, you know, and humans are just so much more complex than that. You know, I could get to like day January the third without drinking. And then I would, it would all collapse like a deck of cards and I would be full of shame because why was I not this human who could, who could keep their resolutions in January? You know, life is just endlessly more complex and complicated than that. And I wanted to kind of write something to say to people who can't do dry January or can't do sober October or actually want to kind of crawl under a duvet for Christmas because Christmas is hard because, I don't know, they're estranged from their families

or their parents are dead. You know, who knows? There's any number of reasons, you know, or they don't celebrate Christmas. You know, again, it's that binary thinking, isn't it? they don't celebrate christmas you know again it's that binary thinking isn't it yeah i don't find christmas particularly triggering or anything like that you know i've i've come to sort of um i don't i just don't go to parties and things anymore yeah and that's fine because i went to a lifetime's worth of parties by the age of 37. Yeah. I don't need to do that anymore. It's interesting that one of the things that I've always liked doing with patients is when appropriate, when they're ready, is to try and get them off their medication.

If that's what they want, if that's what the situation calls for. get them off their medication if that's what they want if that's what the situation calls for and if i think about some of my patients with mental health um complaints and symptoms if someone wanted to wean down on a medication you know they're doing well if it was december or january i'd often say look i wonder if we should just wait until it gets a bit warmer until it's a bit lighter i would always um and of, I would never get in the way of when someone feels ready to make a change. But I always found coming into March here in the UK, as it starts to get a bit brighter, spring's coming, there's a bit more hope and optimism. For me, I felt that's the time. January is dark. People are often depressed.

The weather's bad. They've had Christmas. They're liking their tedium of life. It's just certainly my experience. Well, also, I think that notion of like, I will make this change on that date certainly doesn't work for me as an addict because then the date rolls around and I'm like, maybe I'll do it on this date.

You know, like if you want to make the, you know, change happens when you need it to. And sometimes, and change often happens due to great, great pain. You know, and certainly for me, that's usually how change happens. Yeah, people are ready to change when they're ready and not a moment sooner yeah i often get people saying to me oh my you know i've got a friend who's really unwell they drink too much what should i you know how do i how do i help and i'm like just let them know you love them yeah but you't. You can't lead a horse to water. Or you can.

Or, I mean, in the case of an alcoholic, you know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Yeah. So far, Bryony, we've spoken about OCD, alcohol addiction, cocaine addiction, bulimia. Yeah. We've not mentioned depression yet,

which you've experienced. Yeah. We've not mentioned depression yet, which you've experienced. Yeah. But as I read off those different diagnoses and thought of a better term, labels, given everything you know and that you've studied and you've experienced, the people you've spoken to, is there a common unifying cause of all of them? Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can break free from the habits

that are holding you back and make meaningful changes in your life that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health, and together we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits that are holding you

back in your life, and I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour, and I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision-making, and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long-term habits,

and improve our relationships. There are, of course, many different ways to journal. And as with most things, it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three-question journal. In it, you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening. Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes, but the practice of

answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel. Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app. What I've come to see, I used to, at the beginning of this this journey I was very keen to be like listen mental

health issue depression you know it can be just a chemical imbalance it can happen to anyone you know you don't have to have anything bad happen to you or whatever but like increasingly I've realized and I and I and this sort of light bulb moment happened to me in January of this year when I realized I was really, I was clinically depressed. You know, I couldn't get out of bed. And what was interesting about it was usually when I experience a depressive episode, I feel like I'm the only one in the world who is experiencing it. But what was so interesting about this one was that I felt like everyone was clinically depressed because we were coming out or we were in the pandemic. And actually what I realised was, and what gave me great sort of solace and comfort during that time was that the way my brain was responding

was absolutely appropriate to the circumstances. Right. And, and that enabled me to kind of look at when I've had them before and when, you know, and what obsessive compulsive disorder is. I always remember going away on this retreat, this great woman called Donna Lancaster, who you must have on this programme if you haven't already. And I remember her saying to me, you can let your OCD go now if you want, Bryony. It's protected you up until now, but you don't need it. And I thought, what? What? And I realise now that OCD, all of this addiction,

all of these things are our brains trying to deal I essentially with a human being in a in a living their lives in a way that isn't true to themselves yeah and that's it really that's the common thread, I would say. And that, of course, makes it sound really fucking simple. It's not, you know, because often that... And so, but that was what I could see. I was like, of course I'm depressed. We've all been locked in our houses for two years, you know.

And I think that's the great link between poor between all yeah examples of poor mental health your brain's trying to protect you trying to protect you and if you listen if you listen and if you're you know again donna she says that you know anxiety and depression are often the cure yeah you know they're your brain going this isn't this isn't good for you now of course like one could look at say generalized anxiety disorder and say but i can't but how can i you know but this is making me anxious about little things like getting on a train and you can go well i can't just not get on the train and of course it's but it's bigger than that. You know, it's like the train isn't the problem. There's something else probably going on in your life. And it's,

it's manifesting itself in that. I mean, this is certainly where, where I'm ending up, you know, 21 years, you know, in, I've seen tens of thousands of patients, right. I'm also coming to, of seeing tens of thousands of patients, right? I'm also coming to, and have been coming to this conclusion more and more that, you know, for all the great things that we do in modern medicine, I do think one of the more damaging consequences, and I would say unintended consequences a lot of the time is that we label things as separate. And I personally am moving away from labels because I find that people can often then start to identify with those labels. I appreciate sometimes that can be helpful. A lot of the time I found it's, oh no, that's why I've got this. My mum had this, I've got X or I've got Y, I've got Z. And sure, that might be great in the short term to go, oh, you know, I'm not making this up. This is something. But it can also be

hard, particularly if the language we use around it makes your identity, you know, it makes it very hard to then break free. But a lot of the time, these symptoms are, you know, if we pay attention, they're telling us something, right? But modern life is so quick and fast-paced, and we don't need to sit with our thoughts and listen to these signals anymore, do we? We can just numb them with whatever, alcohol, food. Deliveroo. Deliveroo. Social media.

Social media, you know, WhatsApp message, whatever it might be. You don't have to sit with your thoughts anymore. You don't have to pay attention, but our bodies are speaking to us. They're trying to tell us something, you know. Can we listen? Can we hear it? You know, yes, on one hand, it sounds simple. No, it's simple at its core, but it's not easy.

It's not easy because the world is not set up for us to live healthy, happy lives, I don't think. You know, in what we value as success, I'm going really woo-woo here now, okay? But I feel that what we are experiencing right now globally on a sort of, you know, all of the stuff of, you know, cost of living crisis, gas shortage, you know, like all of this stuff, turmoil in political systems,

all of this stuff to me is like if you listen, what are we being told? This way we're living our lives does not work. It just doesn't. You know, we can't, you know, great, you look back at the, I don't know, the 90s and go, wow, all that, you know, that boom and no bust. But it's not really sustainable. And I don't think we're designed as humans. You know, convenience feels great, but I don't think it's the kind of, it isn't of the defining qualities of my addiction or of addiction generally is wanting to go from A to Z without going through B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K. It's like, just get me to Z. But I don't want to do any of the work to get there. So that manifested my addiction of like, I just want to feel good. You know, I just need to feel good. So give me a drink, give me a line, give me a, you know, or food or, you know, I don't want to feel

this feeling. So I'm going to play Candy Crush or whatever, you know, there's a million ways, you know, but the feelings are there for a reason. You know, you go through them, you tend to feel a lot better at the end of them. But all of us, I kind of feel we're kind of loads of bodies sort of suppressing yeah so much because we've been taught that that's the right thing to do and in fact it's it's wrong no wonder we're all ill it starts early I think you know it's very hard to pinpoint exact moments but that inauthenticity that you spoke about I won't I won't labour this because I've mentioned this on the show before, but as things stand, I can pinpoint it for me to maybe when I was six or seven when

I developed the impression, I'm not blaming my parents for this to be really clear, I think they were just trying to help me and support me and me to be the best that I could be. But I really developed the impression that I'm only loved and worth something if I'm top of the class or I've got full marks. Again, I've unpicked this before in the show, so I'm not going to go into all the detail, but essentially, I think that was a key moment for me where I realized, not even consciously, that I have to change who I am in order to be accepted. And I think I can pretty much relate every problematic pattern in my life. On some level, I can relate it back to who you are is not enough. You have to change who you are in order to be enough. Yeah, yeah.

And I don't think it's that dissimilar for most people. No. Do you know any, can you think of any of those pinpoint moments? Yeah, well, I also think it's like, again, I don't blame my parents at all. Do you know what I mean? They're like lovely people. And that thing of like, well, they were literally doing their best.

Yeah, just as we are with our kids. Just as I am. But I do, yeah, definitely that thing of, if you're, you know, you need to be successful, you need to do well at this. But also I was thinking it's those little things that I catch myself doing and I have to stop myself doing,

which is like when my daughter cries I'm like don't cry or you know she gets angry about or someone gets angry about something or you know a child gets angry about something we tend to go don't be silly and and we're you know it I certainly think that my quest for happy has sort of made me fundamentally really unhappy because what happy obviously is brilliant it's great you know but it's not realistic all the time and yet we've been taught that it's like the only valid emotion you know and and so when we feel anything else we feel like we're failing in some way it's just not true you know what have you learned in recovery

that has fundamentally changed the way you parent that children are not extensions of us i think that you know i think in society we're like oh our children they're like mini me know, they're like little versions of us. And we always ask that question, don't we? You know, how does how does your child, oh, you know, take after the mom and how do they take after the dad or whatever? And what I'm more interested is how my daughter is just herself. Yeah. You know?

is how my daughter is just herself. Yeah. You know? But recovery has also taught me that I can't control anything. You know, I can't control anything. I can do my best and I can be there. But I don't know what the future is going to hold. I've only got now. I've only got now.

We've only got now, you know. And so just enjoy it. Make the most of it. I think it sounds really cheesy, and that's okay. Cheese is good, right? Cheese and cliches are always good. You get older, you you're like there's a lot of truth to this cliche that's why it's a cliche um so i think that's probably the main and to allow my daughter to feel her feelings yeah it's hard though isn't it sometimes because

you fall into that pattern or you think that's what my mom said to me and before you know it you've repeated it yeah But I think even, I certainly think we shouldn't be beating ourselves up about it. Just even having that awareness to go, okay, next time that happens, I'm going to try not to respond in that way. Yeah. That I think is one of the most helpful things for me as a parent

is not beating myself up and just going, yeah, you know what? You could have handled that better. Next time I will try to. And also maybe it yeah totally I'm telling them yeah yeah yeah because then they're like oh look my parents made mistakes and it was fine and we move on you know we go again you're well known for running marathons, right? And you really are. Like imagine someone told you that at 20, you'd be a...

But what I find fascinating about that is, and maybe this fits in with this kind of extreme nature, it's like, I don't know how physically active you were prior to running marathons. Maybe you could elaborate on that. Not at all. So again, there's a pattern, isn't there? To go from not being physically active to going all in to doing 26.1, 26.2, I should know by now.

26.2. 26.2 miles. It seems quite a big leap. Yeah. I'd love to hear about your experiences. Why did you start running a marathon? Why did you do it in your underwear? Yeah.

And having personally had my own life changed from being challenged to do a marathon, the London Marathon, I actually think pretty much anyone can probably do it, even though they don't think that well yeah I mean if we were I remember someone saying to me if we were to say um you know our child is 26.2 miles away right now in need of help we'd get up and we'd go and get you know if we had to walk or run there we would um I ended up the story of how I ended up signing up to do a marathon is like, I'd like to

say it was kind of out of the goodness of my heart and to better myself. But I got invited along to the launch of Heads Together, which was the Duke, sorry, the Prince and Princess of Wales's mental health thing, campaign, which they did with Prince Harry.ry and it was 2016 and i was invited along to the launch of it as someone who was talking in the press about them you know mental health and i got introduced to the princess of wales then the duchess of cambridge and um like your name dropping here yeah yeah, yeah. I'm good. Very impressive. I'm good at lying about it. And she said, she was talking about how Heads Together were going to be the official charity of the London Marathon in 2017. And I said to her, are you going to do the marathon?

And she said, oh, no, I can't, you know, security and all that, because it's quite difficult to secure 26.2 miles, right? And I went well if I can do a marathon you can and I was like I don't know why I've said that because I like I've never done a marathon I can't I've like eaten a marathon that was it you know before they got changed to their name to Snickers and and then the guy standing next to her from Heads Together was like you're gonna do the marathon then I was like I'm gonna do the marathon I guess so I signed up and I guess also part of me was like if if I do this marathon, maybe I'll stop drinking so much.

So just paint us a picture. Where were you at that time in your life? You know, you're successful, you're an author, you're a journalist, but you are a full on alcoholic at that time. Yeah, I mean, but like, you know, the word functioning alcoholic. I mean, I wasn't drinking that morning. But I remember I'd had to take a diazepam to get myself on the train to Stratford to this event. Yeah. So before you know it, people are talking about you doing the marathon

and what you just say. Yeah, okay then. Yeah, okay. Because I like a challenge. Yeah. And then I thought, also I thought, oh, maybe this will help you cut down your drinking, you know.

And it didn't. Actually, it was quite kind of shocking because I remember I'd go out and do like a 10 mile training run on a Sunday and then I'd like drink 10 pints, you know. To celebrate after. Yeah, it was like total. And I, you know, I loved that, that first marathon I did, I think, because I knew at the finish line, there was a bender waiting for me, not a medal, a bender, you know, which I duly went on. But actually, what that marathon did, and what running did for me was it taught me a couple of things.

First of all, that my body was capable of way more than I've ever given it credit for, right? It could do amazing things. And every weekend, it could do a little more than I thought it could the weekend before. But also, there was this, like, totally different way of living my life. There was another option. I was like, oh, my God. living my life there was another another option I was like oh my god I remember um I was like look at all these people like getting up on a Sunday morning and running you know I could I couldn't believe it wow and I really loved it I felt so good and so I don't think there's it's not there's

no mistake that I finished the London Marathon went on a bender and literally crashed into rehab quite soon afterwards. But then the funny thing was, I then did my next London Marathon in 2018 and I was like coming up, maybe I was just over six months sober, I can't remember. And that was the one in the underwear, which was the kind of, because I discovered, you know, I was like, wow, I'm, you know, I'm a curvy lady and I can run a marathon, you know, because I just, it hadn't occurred to me that I could. So I wanted to show to other curvy ladies, look, look what's possible, hence running in my pants. And anyway, hands down, that was the worst. I thought it was going to be,

I thought it was going to be so much easier because I was sober. You know, I'm like, I'm healthier. It was absolutely appalling. I hated every moment of it. And I realised that was the power of alcohol in my life, that I had literally, it had fired me through 26.2 miles with a smile on my face because I knew there was beer at the end of it. And without it there, I was like, what am I doing?

It was also like, do you ever have those dreams where you're being made to redo your GCSEs, your A-levels, but you haven't revised? I don't have those ones. I have other ones, but not those ones. Oh, I have that. And I'm like, but why are you making, but hang on, why am I doing this? I'm like 42.

And it was like that because the year before had been so much fun. And I was like, why am I doing this again? So yes, that was an interesting lesson you said that one of the big lessons you learned after the in the first one was that wow my body is capable of doing so much more than I thought why is that such an important lesson to learn? Well, because our bodies are our homes, you know. I often get asked, like one of the things that people say to me a lot on Instagram, I do a lot of posts of like on the beach in my bikinis and I'm like a size 18 to 20 or whatever. I jump in the pool, you know, I jump in the sea in the winter or whatever. And people say to me, God, I wish I had your confidence. Right. And I'm like, I don't have

confidence. Confidence is a trick. Yeah, it's a total trick. Like no one really has confidence. But what I don't, what I do have is a desire not to hate on my body anymore because it's just a waste of time. It's a waste of my time. It's a waste of my energy. It's a waste of everybody else's energy. It genuinely is one of the few things in life that makes me really angry is diet culture, I guess, and how many women have been sort of, I guess, you know, how many of us have been, it's like a cult almost, you know, have grown up just it never occurring to us that we could like ourselves. Like the default position was you can be better. You should be better. You are not enough or you are too much. That is what most women grow up with. Most women my age, and I can only speak,

have gone through their whole lives thinking that. Watching their own parents who have watched their parents who have watched their parents, you know, trying to shrink themselves to be a better, or, you know, just change themselves to be better. And that's just, it's mad. It's totally mad. And I, you know, I don't really care what size someone is anymore.

You know, I think we've veered from one point to another. It was, you know, there's been a big thing going all around social media, which was the New York Post had put a piece up with a headline that said heroin chic is back, yeah? And people getting furious about it, which is, you know, again, I don't really have the energy to do it, you know. Again, actually, if you read the piece, it was a little bit more nuanced than that, but it was irresponsible, the headline, right? But, you know, that idea that women's bodies are somehow trendy, you know, people will say to me,

oh, my God, you know, but curves are amazing. They're so in trend. And I'm like, me, I'm just, this is me. This is what I look like. This is just what I look like. Like I'm not, you know, I don't, you know, and I had a bit of a reminder of it this morning. I was at Houston station and I was having my coffee and a guy came up to me and he said to me, and it was quite shocked. And he said to me, how much will it cost me to take, to have you? It was, and it was quite shocked, and he said to me, how much will it cost me to have you? And it was like 7.30 in the morning as well. Do you know what I mean? He just came up to you and said that?

Yeah, he was like out of it. He was clearly, you know, he was, and I was like, I just went, mate. He was obviously really unwell. And I'm not just saying that because he, but I thought, my God, but I suddenly was jolted because I used to get shit like that all the time.

When I was in my teens and my twenties, like before I was even, when I was like 12, 13, I used to get men coming up to me and seeing me as like, you know, like my body as public property or whatever. And that is, that's not unusual. Do you know what i mean like the things like men who are you know now we would be like that's out of that's insane oh that goes with the heebie-jeebies my daughter's about to be 10 and you're saying that at 12 like that literally sitting my mum i remember my mum popping in to the bank one day and i was sitting in the passenger seat waiting for her and a ticket uh ticket inspector like a uh what are they called like a road traffic he came up and I thought oh he's gonna issue us parking attendant parking attendant he's gonna issue us with a parking ticket and I better oh I was like mom mom and I was like 12 and he was like can I have your

number I mean that is shocking but that's but that was like that was like the 80s the 90s and it was probably the 70s the 60s the 50s you know and I so like and I I played along with it, like for so long, you know, I had to shrink myself. I was like, I, you know, I will be worthy if this person finds me attractive, if this man finds me attractive, you know, I've got massive boobs, you know, I was, I have sexualized myself from the moment I knew how to, you know, and it was like, I willingly played a part in that. And then what happened was, you know, and I started to stop paying that part in it, definitely when I got pregnant, you know.

So we can look in binary again of like, well, I was really unwell. I was full blown alcoholic. But I had definitely got this awareness that this was not right. And I was not going to kind of like, play this part anymore. Because I, suddenly my body as well had done this amazing thing. And I have this other, you know, so it was, it was like, I don't want my daughter to grow up in that world where that's the case. We say you were willingly playing a role in that. But I don't know, from the outside, and this kind of fits with other themes that we've been talking about today,

you're just a kid when this sort of stuff is starting to happen. So just as with a lot of things that happened in our childhoods, these things start off as defensive mechanisms to help us get through and survive in a very toxic culture and a toxic environment so you know is it fair to say you're playing a part yeah I guess technically you're playing a part but it's but it's probably your subconscious trying to go I need to yeah this is a way to insulate myself I don't judge myself or um or shame myself for that what I mean to say is that it is so insidious this shit do you know what i mean that like we don't even know that we're doing you know that it's we we we think that we want to be part of it a lot of the time do you think men like me right um do you think do you think well number one

we've just got no idea about this stuff because we're men. So potentially we haven't experienced it. And then I'm interested as to, you know, do you think this is changing? Is it getting better? Like when you do this, when you did the marathon in your underwear. I'm guessing there was a lot of positivity. It was most, it was 99. Well, the only thing, the only thing, the only negative thing that we encountered, I mean, I, you know, I like,

was someone, a newspaper columnist, wrote a column about how it was sad that we were sexualizing ourselves and i was like you've missed the point entirely of this you know it was like this it was not set you know it was like this is my body you know and this is what my body looks like you know um and i know women in the public i get this way more than men but the sort of things people will say publicly or on DMs. Oh my God. I mean, I get a lot of DMs from men who are like,

they say things that I can't repeat on your podcast. How do you deal with that? What does that do to your psyche, given where you are these days? I tend to sort of, like, roll my eyes now. But sometimes, like, earlier this year, I had someone set up an account, which was like, I love Bryony Gordon's fat tits. And it was just pictures. They'd taken pictures from my um from my Instagram and it was like I it upset me because I was like that isn't what this is about

and it's not this isn't your space you know I get really annoyed on Instagram when men send me messages propositioning me or telling me that they think I'm really good looking or whatever. I'm like, that is not the point. And this is not for you. There are plenty of places on the internet that are for you and that cater to this. This is not one of them. This is for other women like me, who because of those places on the internet feel, you know, who because of those places on the internet feel, you know, insecure and insignificant and not enough or too much again, you know, that's what my want my Instagram to be is like, and that is actually what my entire career has been and all the books I've written is like, I felt really bad and ashamed about this. And, and I know I can't be the only one who feels it but I haven't met

anyone who's admitted to doing it so if I put my hand up and I say this is how I feel and this is how my brain works and if you uh also feel this way come and we can hang out and it's like and we can realize we're not mad or we are mad but we're not bad well i think what you've what you've done really is incredible brian because i think your honesty your vulnerability the way you share i think you know brings people towards you and i think other women or even other men who feel or have felt those kinds of emotions, I think it helps them feel less alone. It's like, oh, wow. And a lot of people won't have the courage or what they perceive as the courage to share like you share. They just don't. And certainly one of the things I've massively

learned from years of seeing patients is that when a patient knows that there's other people like them, like when I say to someone in the afternoon, oh, you're the fourth person today I've seen with symptoms like that, the relief. Yeah, shoulders go down. It's like, yeah, oh, I'm not the only one. Oh, there's other people who also feel this way. You know, so I think it's very, very powerful. The other thing you said about the marathon there, which was really interesting for me, is that by training for the marathon, you suddenly start to experience a parallel world that was going on the entire time where you were partying and boozing that you weren't aware of. And it's almost as if you needed that

jolt to maybe doing the local park run, the 5k wouldn't have been enough. Maybe you had to go all in to 26.2 miles to sort of get that jolt. So what I'm interested in, Bryony, I know many people heard my chat with you from the London Marathon and have entered the ballot, got a place. I know some people have done it on the back of getting inspired by hearing the stories of people doing the marathon. But some people will also think, oh, it's not for me. What do they say? You will have heard this as well. Oh, I could never do that. You know that's untrue.

I know that's untrue. You could absolutely do that. You know that's untrue. I know that's untrue. You could absolutely do that. So for someone who's sort of semi-inspired by hearing what you have done, Bryony, and wants to think, well, maybe I should do a challenge. Maybe I should move my body more. Why would you encourage them to sign up, let's say, for something like a marathon? Okay. So for me, it's all about the reasons why you're doing it, right? If you're signing up to do a marathon and you think you have to be the fastest or the thinnest or the strongest or, you know, whatever, then you're more likely to fail at it or to not, you know,

like those were the reasons. I don't know, growing up in Britain, that was what exercise was about. It was about punishing yourself, you know. There was this notion, it was about, as a woman, it was about shrinking myself, right? And when I started exercising for the growth, rather than the shrinking properties of it, that was when it kind of turned on its head for me. So it wasn't about making myself smaller. It was about the clarity it gave me, the space, the endorphins, you know, the time outside. I also think people get obsessed about timing and things like that with marathons.

After I did my first marathon, people would come up to me and be like, what was your time? And I'd be like, well, what was your time? And they'd say, oh, I haven't done a marathon. And I'd say, okay, well, shut up then. Do you know what I mean? Like, it doesn't matter. You know, it really doesn't matter. I did a triathlon a couple of years ago and I came second to last, you know, who cares? I did it, you know? And so for me, it's like, why are you doing this? Because exercise for me is, it's not about making myself look better. It's about making myself feel better. So, and I think once you start doing that,

it changes everything. The other thing I would say is, I had this notion that like, whenever I saw someone exercising, I'd be like, they all woke up and went, yay, woohoo, I really want to go for a run today. And what I would say is nobody wakes up wanting to go for a run, but nobody regrets going for one. And that's what gets me out of bed most days to do some form of exercise, if not running, jumping in my local Lido, which I started doing. Strength training, that kind of thing. So I'm

probably, that's the other ironic thing is I'm a size 18 to 20. You know, by all popular metrics, I'm unhealthy, I'm obese, whatever. And yet I am the healthiest I've ever been in my life. You know, I run three times a week. I swim in an ice cold lido three times a week i strength train twice a week you know and it's all it's all for my head yeah very very powerful do you ever think about weight and losing weight anymore is that yeah no i do you do yeah no i have to be honest about that i do yeah that's really interesting to me what do you mean you have to be honest i well because i think people think they look at me and they think i'm like totally cool in my own body and stuff like that and as i've said that's not the case i i have issues with it the whole time but i need to take a stand with it you know and i'm like i'm

not going to shrink myself that won't make me feel better in the long run. I mean, I eat pretty healthily now. I exercise, do you know what I mean? I occasionally binge, nothing like I used to. And when you do binge now... Yeah, I'm really mindful of it. Yeah, you're aware of it. And what's the voice in your head like the day after?

It's like, why are you doing that to yourself, babes? And what did it used to be? Oh, you awful, awful piece of shit. Look how disgusting you are. Yeah, this is really important because it's not, again, it's not binary black or white. You're either doing it all the time or you're never doing it. Well, no, there's kind of a continuum here.

And some days when life's not going well we're tired we've not slept we've taken on too much that's often when our kind of underlying tendencies or patterns start to come out again don't they yeah yeah yeah so it's a jolt back to but i definitely i sort of have to assume that this is broadly speaking the weight that i'm supposed to be do you know what i mean and and i have been like when i've been my thinnest or healthiest bmi let me tell you wrong and i have not been healthy that has been cocaine alcohol living on a diet of fucking quavers do you know what i mean yeah um so i have my vices still do you know what mean? I like a little cigarette every now and then. I shouldn't say that. Hey, you're just telling the truth, aren't you? But broadly speaking,

I try to look after myself because this is all I've got. On the subject of looking after ourselves to sort of bring this conversation to a close, in terms of practical things, I know that the books outline loads of them, plenty of stuff in there we've not even touched on um but you have been in the public domain talking about mental health and well-being for many years now from what you've learned with your own life from hearing the stories of other people what are kind of some of these things that you and other people have found helpful when trying to improve their mental well-being? Definitely don't isolate. Our brains want us to isolate.

And if you are suffering from a mental health issue, that's how the mental health issue gets its purchase on you, so to speak. So do the thing that you don't want to do that's go out pick up the phone call someone um be around people uh I think that for me is is the biggest thing is the constant battle I have still and you know sometimes it's just all the time of like motivating myself to leave my bed you know that's that's the baseline truth is that that is sometimes like my my brain feels like a kind of it's like there's a war going on in it you know and i think that's what it's like when you tend have a tendency towards depression so but what i have found is that the more that i force myself out and do the opposite of what my brain asks me to do the better i feel for that person who's listening right now Bryony who was

saying that that's me I am struggling it's getting darker it's getting colder I'm not good in winter the morning comes I'm stuck in my bedroom I don't want to get out of bed I hear what you're saying Bryony but I just I just want to pull the covers up and stay here. Is there anything else you'd say to that person? Okay, I'd say, okay then, babe, stay there. Don't be hard on yourself, though, because I bet you, if you stay there, you're going to be hard on yourself for staying there. So if you're going to do it, do it, and do it, and do it like, and just go for it, like get the Netflix on, look after yourselves,

start nourishing, you know, see it as a nourishing thing. But if you're going to spend time in that bed beating yourself up for why you're not out doing all the other things scrolling through instagram then mate just get out get out just try it just try it go downstairs open the front door you don't have to go far and let me tell you your bed will still be there when you come back your bed is always there if you're lucky you have your bed will still be there when you come back. Your bed is always there. If you're lucky, you have a bed, right? And so that would be what I'd say. Just try it for me. Please just try it for me and see if you feel a little bit different. Not like massively, you know, you're not going to be cured by going outside, but just take a deep breath and walk around the block yeah one of the bits I loved in the book was the part about small acts of service yeah and in particular when you wrote

and when you are picking up your flatmate's dirty clothes and putting them in the washing basket thinking what is the point of life you can acknowledge that this is the point of life I thought that was really really powerful can you elaborate on what exactly you can acknowledge that this is the point of life. I thought that was really, really powerful. Can you elaborate on what exactly you meant by that? So I don't know about you, but I can often get really resentful as I'm going around the house, picking up my husband's clothes or cleaning up after my daughter or when people ask me to do things. I'm like, oh God, I'm really busy. Can't you see how busy I am? I'm a really important, busy person. I don't want to, I don't want to,

I just want to be in my bed. I just want to be in my bed. And actually when I turn it around and go, oh, how lucky am I that this is, that these people are in my life, that they're asking me things, I feel a lot better. The other thing, someone told me this once, Kate, I went on this amazing place called the Body Camp in Ibiza, which is really fun exercise for your head, not your body kind of thing, not your, you know, for the way it makes you feel, not the way it makes you look. And I went on this place and there was someone there who completely spent the whole time telling me that there was another person on the retreat. They spent the whole time telling me that my squats were wrong, that my lunges were wrong.

They were like, oh, no, you've got it slightly, you know, your hips too turned out there, Bryony. And I was like, fuck off. But I didn't want to say it. So I just seethed with resentment. And I eventually let this out to another woman who was on the retreat. And she said, Briony, just see it as doing service. And I said, what? This person obviously always needs someone to be patronising and condescending.

Today, this week, you're that person. Just be it for them. Just smile and wave and see it as doing service to them. And I was like, that completely through. So now if someone I work with or someone in my family is calling me up and whinging and doing the thing, you know, trying to press the buttons, I just smile and I'm like, I am doing service here. This person obviously, you know, it's like if you go into a, I don't know,

you go, you're on a train station and someone is rude you know someone budges past you was rude to you and you're like how fucking dare they or you're driving and someone cuts you up and you're like that person's just not just that person is in a rush and they're really difficult you know and they're probably not having that good a time just let it be it is so powerful that it really is it's just changing our perspective and knowing that we get to choose our perspective yeah right you can say well why should I why what's that going to do for you it does nothing it just causes resentment frustration but you literally can choose to be a different person in those moments. I know it sounds really,

oh yeah, sounds all nice, but it genuinely works. It makes life so much easier. You don't have to do it. You don't have to do it. Try it. I would challenge some of you. Just see it. Seven days, try it.

I don't know, one day. Just try it all day for one day and just see how you feel. Because I kind of, I also realise I've spent a lot of my time addicted to my own drama, you know, to this need for there to be chaos in my life. And I can sort of try and find ways to kind of, you know,

seek that out on a daily basis. But yeah, one of the acts of service, that's one of the things, you know, I, as an alcoholic, I use the 12 steps and I love it and it has helped me so much. But one of the key tenets of that is service. You only keep, I mean, there's all sort of anonymity. I probably shouldn't be saying all of this, but you only keep what you have by giving it away. And that's really powerful to me. And I always remember hearing someone who was a drug addict in recovery. And I always remember them saying to me that, and I put this in the book, that they found it really, really hard to feel useless when they were being useful. and being useful doesn't have to be a massive thing it's not handing over a check for a million pounds to a charity you know it can be literally turning to your flatmate and saying do you want

a cup of tea or you know asking someone how they are or just smiling at someone at the supermarket checkout you know yeah i love that you keep what you have by giving it away. So, so powerful. It's not mine. It's a 12-step thing. But it's a really, really powerful line. It's what you're doing here with this podcast. I never thought about it like that before. It's an act of service surface think of all the people that listen to like you've helped me so much with your podcasts like this is stuff that when you're in

when you're in this working environment you can kind of think that it must be sort of really intuitive to people but it's not no it wasn't intuitive to me, you know, even five years ago. And you've mentioned your curiosity, and curiosity is the best thing because we learn things all the time. And one thing, the biggest thing I've learned from being in recovery and doing all of this mental health work, the biggest thing I've learned is that I know very little and I don't know what's going to happen on the train back today or tomorrow. I have no control over it. I don't know what life is going to throw at us. You know, I don't know. And everything I think, like I used to, I guess I'll sort of, you know, finishing up. But like, my thing used to be that I always used to think I was going to feel the way I felt at that time forever. And the way I felt was usually shit or depressed.

And I couldn't see a way past it. And what I've realized is that the way I'm feeling right now can change massively. This afternoon, tomorrow, something, a fixed view I have on something political, something in the news could be completely different in three weeks time. And there will be something I'm doing right now that is massively unhealthy, that in two years time, I'll look back and go, I can't believe I used to do that. Yeah. If I'm lucky. Yeah lucky yeah Brian it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you thank you for coming to the studio this is a wonderful book for people no such thing as normal a practical guide to mental health and uh a safe and uneventful trip back to London thank you

really hope you enjoyed that conversation as always do think about one thing that you can take away and start applying into your own life now before you go just wanted to let you know about friday five it's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness in that that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I've been consuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect. And I have to say, in a world of endless emails, it really is delightful that many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly emails

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