The Life Of Bryony - Dr. Alex George: I Lost My Brother to Suicide, Then I Lost Myself to Alcohol

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

This week, I’m joined by Dr. Alex George for an incredibly powerful and tender conversation. Alex talks about losing his younger brother, Llŷr, to suicide, the strange expectation that we should ��get over” grief, and what really happens to a family when the worst thing imaginable actually happens. We discuss how alcohol became his way of pushing the pain down, the day he decided he couldn’t drink – or live – like that anymore, and why stopping drinking was the single best decision he has ever made. Alex also opens up about a late diagnosis of OCD, the torture of rumination, and the night a run quite literally saved his life. If you’ve ever felt broken by loss, plagued by your own mind, or unsure you can face another day, this conversation is for you. BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODEAlex’s new book ‘Am I Normal?’ is available to buy now.WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOUGot something to share? Message us on @lifeofbryonypod on Instagram.If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it – it really helps! Bryony xxCREDITS:Host: Bryony GordonGuest: Dr. Alex GeorgeProducer: Laura Elwood-CraigAssistant Producer: Tippi WillardStudio Manager: Sam ChisholmEditor: Luke ShelleyExec Producer: Jamie East  A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we go deep in a really special episode, actually, with Dr Alex George, who's opening up like never before about grief, loneliness and a late diagnosis of OCD. Just a little trigger warning that this episode contains references to suicide. So please be gentle with yourself while listening. When I look at what happened, I was like, I need to look after everyone else. I did the speeches that the funerals, I carried his coffin. It did all these kind of things that needed to be done. and I then tried to like go straight to work.

And all I did is push it down. And in a way, society like encourages this really crazy way that we approach grief because you're trying to do something that's impossible. And what happens when you try and do something impossible? You cause a hell of a lot of pain. My chat with Dr Alex George coming up right after this. Alex George, am I normal? It's the name of your new book.

there are bits of writing in this which are just I was saying this to the producer Laura earlier I think are just kind of extraordinary the chapter about your about grief in particular there is there is just this most incredible writing in it and I was reading it and I just wanted and I don't mean this in like a weird kind of pervy way

I just wanted to clutch you to my bosom and like mother you because there's so much in this book that made me feel, I don't know whether I felt, I felt sort of connect, I've obviously felt connection, but also you've just put a lot of yourself in here. You don't, you don't mince your words. No, it's, thank you. And that means a lot from someone who's such an experienced writer as yourself,

has written many books. And, you know, you've, especially in this area, you've shared a lot. I mean, you've got your experience of how difficult it is to actually share those pieces of yourself. And, you know, I joke, but this book's cost me a lot of money in therapy. Has it? I mean, yeah, I've had to do a lot of therapy writing this.

But, you know, a book like this should probably take you about a year to write. It's taken me well over three years. I've kind of been wanting to write something like this for probably longer, but the process of writing is taking three years. And that is not because I couldn't dedicate enough time, although that I've been busy and so on, but it's just been really hard to do. And there's been times where I've sat down and kind of open Pandora's box

thinking about things, whether it's about grief, but also even stuff like in my childhood, that I look back and think, oh, society really screwed me. And, oh, my God, I was actually really kind of lucky. Because in the end, and the kind of thing that I've realized is that I've had so many situations where there's been left or right where things could have gone very badly and just something has happened or someone's just steered me in the right direction that I am where I am today. So there's moments where I could see how easily I could have ended up in a very different direction. Like I was being pulled out of class a lot in primary school, I was separated from mainstream, not in a way that I was kind of being given

support in any way. It just stuck me in another room. And not actually because I was naughty, I just find it so hard to engage in what they were trying to teach. And there was moments where if it wasn't for my mum stepping in that time. And then later on, situations where, I mean, drink in my 30s, but even at university, even before then at school, so many times I'm like, God, this could have ended up so differently. And many people who are neurodivergent, say, for example, have ADHD, have ended up in very different situations, you know, up to 50% of people with ADHD end up with alcohol, addiction or misuse. The prison populations are like full of people with ADHD, the homeless population, suicide rates in that group as well. And you realize, like,

wow, you know, there's lots of things that were very difficult that happened, but also there's a lot of luck. I'm lucky that I've ended up where I am. And although this book is not necessarily written, it's written through the lens of ADHD and like, am I normal? How do you decide looking at childhood, revealing my life? It's not really a book that's about like neurodivergence. It's kind of about people being able to look at like how much of it is me and how much is the world because, you know, newsflash, the world's crazy. And the world can really really. really trick you into thinking you're the problem when you're not. Like there's so much stuff in society that is insane that we all just accept to be normal.

And it's not normal and it makes you sick. And people die because of it. And that's where I'm like, God, I am not normal. But neither is society. Yeah, well, no, no one is normal. I always remember thinking when I first started speaking about my experience of mental illness, and when people started responding to it and I realized that actually the most normal thing in the world was to feel weird.

And in many ways, the most abnormal people are the people that have never questioned that. And yeah, this book is really about, and what you speak so much about, Alex, is that experience of feeling other, you know, like just a little bit apart and I don't belong. And then, of course, you do belong. And it's been, it's so interesting to see the sort of trajectory of your career of how you sort of A&E Doctor Love Island and now this, and now this incredible sort of life of being a mental health ambassador really and a mental fitness professional, I suppose. And I suppose when I was reading it, I was thinking, you know, there's a lot of the beginning

of the beginning of your sort of life is like, wow, how have I ended up on Love Island? and what am I doing? And then, of course, you have the terrible tragedy of losing your brother in 2019. And I can see how that was another point where you could have lost yourself. And you did, you know, you talk in the book about... I have. I was on the edge. I was right on the edge. As many times in my life I've been on the edge,

not just in terms of things that have happened, but also just like I've been like very suicidal at times in my life. even the last few years, there's been points where I've been like, oh my gosh, I can't be here anymore. Now, me and the rest of my family, after my brother died by suicide five years ago, we all kind of agreed and promised that none of us would ever leave because what that would do to the rest of us would be catastrophic. I mean, the awfulness of suicide really is that people feel that they're taking their pain with them.

They're not. They're compounding it, like a hot potato, adding interest and passing it to everyone else. And I don't mean that against someone that feels that way. It's just the reality. I think people feel that when they die, they're removing a problem from the world. Like, I'm a burden on you all. And actually in reality, like, I mean... The pain is being passed on.

Just like, you know, adding interest and passing it to everyone else. And so, and that's not their intention, but that's the reality of what is actually experienced. But yeah, there's been times I've really been, you know... And I look at my career, I think a lot of things have happened largely by accident. I mean, I would say I wanted to be a doctor from young age. I love the idea of combining, you know, the science stuff and helping people. And I think sometimes people are embarrassed to say that they want to help others. Like, there's something to be ashamed of.

I genuinely have always felt good, being kind to others. I would say it's one of the best ways to be happy is just to be nice to other people, say hello to just help out to where you can be a positive person in people's lives. You know, I've enjoyed that side of things. So medicine was deliberate, but a lot of the other stuff was an accent. I never meant to go in Love Island. And they asked me to go on via a dating app. I told my consultant and said, oh, this is funny.

I'd never do it. I got asked you this show. Consultant pulls out a bottle with a Love Island thing on it and said, you'll go into the interview. Next thing you know, I'm on the show. Then this thing called the pandemic hits when I've got these kind of followers and I'd gone back to A&E and I was kind of, I enjoy educating. I love it.

I do enjoy doing that stuff. So I'm sharing stuff on the front line. Next thing you know, all the television outlet, let's want me to talk about what's going on in A&E, because I've got the biggest following of any doctrine in the UK at the time and I'm well placed to talk about it. And then this tragedy happens. My brother takes his own life literally a week before we're able to see each other.

And everything changes. And the thing that was really difficult with that, for example, is that not just the fact, obviously that I got a phone call from my dad saying, your brother's died and I found out a few hours later it was by suicide. But I'd actually postponed us seeing each other by a week because my friend was staying with me and his dad was actively dying and I said, look, clear, can I see you a week later? He's supposed to come to London. I see you a week later.

I need to look after Tom. And so I stopped him coming up. He said, how is Tom's dad doing? And that was it. It's the last conversation we ever had. So that was a terrible thing. Because then you've got to live with this thing for your rest of your life and you're going to accept that.

And then I got this question. What do I do now? Do I let grief completely destroy me or do I try and use this for something positive? And that's what I tried to do. The irony is I did kind of use of something positive, but it was kind of destroying me. The drink. Alcohol was just either worked myself to death or drank myself to death and to the point where I was 21 stone overweight and crippled with illness, sat in front of the mirror in the chair of my barbers saying, what the hell has gone on here? I can't do this anymore.

and you know that day was just over three years ago in December and I stopped drinking and it did change my life and it's been the most painful thing and the best thing I've ever done that's the single best decision I've ever made I would say to stop drinking there's no decision in my entire life that I would say that there's been a better decision best one of everything I've ever done is stopping drinking you say that it wasn't about you didn't choose to stop drinking

you chose to meet yourself as we as life on life's terms which is what we say in the 12-step fellowship. Exactly. And your brother, you know, you speak, is it, like I don't want to do an injunct. Clear is the thing. It's very clear.

It's very difficult pronunciation. It's a beautiful name. People call him Cleo, because he's clear. So clear means God of the Sea. And when I was 10 years old, my parents wanted, so it's Alex Elliot and Clare. So they asked the 10-year-old, what should we call your new little brother?

And I named him Cleo. That was my name. choice here. Ten years and four days between us and I chose his name. Wow. It means God of the sea in Welsh, which is why I had my first tattoo as a wave. And actually, the theater that I've got written on my wrist, that is 10-year-old clear of the handwriting on his school book. Oh my gosh. So that says handwriting. That's so beautiful. It's a beautiful word, isn't it? Have you shown that before? I'm assuming that. Yeah, I have, yeah. It's a beautiful, that is literally's handwriting, as was as a 10-year-old. That's amazing. What a lovely, that is

So beautiful. I actually, I never used to be tattooed person. I was not anti them. I just never was interested. But now my God, like words. How many have you got now? Oh, God, like 20 or something like that. A lot of them are words and quotes. And like the recent one I've got is from the Dauda Chang, which is by letting go, it all gets done. I think quite helpful for OCD. I, well, we're going to, can we talk about OCD later? Like, I really want to talk to you about it. But the, the chapter in particularly about grief and your brother. Your honesty about suicide and the effect it has on families, I thought was, I've written like it's quite refreshing,

but that's not the right word. Refreshing is not the right word. It's like it's needed because people don't speak starkly about the kind of, people don't speak about suicide. Let's just face it, people don't talk about suicide, right? and it is a silent killer, as you've said many times in your social media. And you alluded to earlier, a person's pain may end, but that of their loved ones only grows. It's not an easy thing to admit, but many people who have lost a loved one to suicide will know that anger is part of your grief.

And I just felt in that chapter it was like it's, you know, and then you say he's suffered deeply, but in taking his life, his suffering has been multiplied and passed on. He did not seek to cause pain in taking his life, but it has made for a painful thing. And I thought that was a really beautiful moving sentence. It's not a question. It's just a statement. Thank you.

Yeah. And it is. And I look at what it did to my, was done to my parents. My mum, when my brother died, my parents became children. And I don't mean that in any kind of patronising or mean or condescending way.

they became children. And it's the scariest thing ever as a child to see your parents in a state where they're no longer the parents. They need saving. And I remember when I went back. So I was in London. I found out that he died. I sat in a restaurant at the time. The phone started buzzing, picked up the phone.

I found out that he died. My friend Nathan, who was going to dinner with, took me back to the house. And basically my other. brother Elliot came to fetch me. Then we had to drive five hours back to Wales. Longest journey in my life. And I genuinely, it's so strange. That was like two years of driving. It was, went into this strange thing, no music, where's the lifetime of time? And I couldn't ask my parents, like, where is he? And I didn't know what was coming home to. I just couldn't face it. Well, also, you couldn't. I didn't like, I just was like, so arrived home and my parents were children.

and I was in bed. I don't know if there's too much detail, but I was in bed that night. I just lay there. I didn't sleep for three days, like not a second. I lay there and my dad was hoovering the house at three in the morning. And my mum was just walking around the house. And that sounds very eerie and imagine what it was like for me lying in bed.

And I could hear my dad hoovering at three in the morning. And I think I realized in that moment, like this is painful. I've lost my brother. It's horrendous. I was making videos about mental health at the time. through the pandemic, he even watched one of them and talked to me about it, and this has happened. I'm clearly suffering, but if I don't step up here, like, no one will survive. So I had to, like, bring everyone together in that time.

And I've never seen suffering like it in my parents and how bad it was for them. You know, like my mom said something that just, like, really captures the pain. She said, you know, that this is, like, you know this is a horrendous, awful thing when your nightmares are actually better than the reality of what you're facing. She was like, the nightmares were almost better because it wasn't waking up to it. And I hated going to sleep because every morning, for the first couple of months, I'd wake up. And for a second, I forget he was dead. Yeah.

And then it would come back again. Eventually, obviously now it's just in my cognition. Like, I know it, but I was waking up every, like, day. And I was just like, something isn't, I was like, oh, it would come back into my head. Yeah. And you were there. So obviously it's still during the pandemic. Yeah.

Back end of it. It's very kind of hot, bright summer. It was a beautiful day. It was a gorgeous day, like some of the worst things that happened. So the odd comfort I found, even at that moment, was that the birds kept tweeting. the sun was shining and i remember thinking god someone's having a wedding day today someone's having the best day of their life while we have our worst i went to the beach with my um friend like two or three days later because he was like removed me from the house basically and we

went to the beach and you know people obviously recognized me and it was strange we went on to the beach and everyone was playing the kids in the sand the castle everyone just kind of went quiet like a parting of the seas was it strange i think especially in the local area became very much news quickly everyone knew what had happened what had happened And but it was just like on awareness of, oh, life, life goes on. Life just continues. And I mean, on this arm, I've got written, the sun will always rise on New Gale Beach. And my childhood, my whole kind of childhood was on New Gale Beach. And it's where I feel at most at peace and at home. And my mum always said it, you know, life goes on. Like no matter. Like, so if you're in a bad day, don't worry, the sun will always rise. The tide will come in and wipe the sand clean. Tomorrow, you know, there's a day. You know, a new day. So that feeling of like the world carries on, as cruel as it kind of was, it also was the greatest comfort. Do you think your training as an A&E doctor? Because you also write about, you talk a lot about the A being very good in a crisis, which is something that a lot of people

with ADHD and neurodivergence recognized. But you had, you know, you write about what it takes to be an A&E doctor and you are having to see lives change. very suddenly, unexpectedly, and you are spending time with people often who are dying, you know, and you're learning from that. And that to some may be extraordinarily bleak, but actually, as you say, it gives you the strength to carry on and to kind of, almost not right size, but see the kind of grand scope of the world and life. Yeah, I mean, it sounds terrible, but sometimes when you see everything people are going

through, you realize that your problems are not as great as they might feel, or at least that that is not the only experience that is currently happening. Everyone else is going, like the word sonder, you know, the awareness that other people are living rich and complex lives, but you're not aware of those lives. They're just going on. Like, you're both going to go home, you've got your own stuff going on. Not everything's going to be rosy in your lives. And it's sometimes when you're in A&E, you almost get a visual reminder that it's not just me. Like everyone has stuff going on. But yeah, when you see life and death, I mean, when you see, you know, people get up in the morning. And something that I really noticed and I really would say to people is just be aware of this automatic normality.

And this is a normal thing that all humans do is they get up assuming that they'll have every day. You go to bed each night thinking you're going to have tomorrow. If you say to people, are you going to live forever? They laugh for you and say, of course not. I'm going to die. But it's almost laughable that we actually do live lives as if we are living together. And I don't mean there's a knock on anyone. We all do it. Everyone kind of lives like life is forever. Most people that come into A&E did not expect that morning. They were coming into A&E for many situations.

It's one of those things that I found really incredible. And I did find a lot of comfort, although when I went back to A&E, although pretty much the first case that I saw when I went back to A&E, when a blue light came in, red phone call, Alex can you go to read it to see the next patient. And then they grabbed me. as the patient was coming in because it was a suicide. Right. And it was pretty much one of the first cases. I think it was almost the very first case, as if it was like, welcome back. Yeah. And that is actually, it was again to me, I remember, I was just like, bloody hell. How did you deal with that moment?

When you're in work, you're in, you're a different person. You're in a different role. You become a different person. And also, when you're surrounded by this stuff enough, you do become desensitized. I remember when I realized that, oh my God, this job desensitize you. And by desensitized, what I don't mean is you don't care. Your ability to manage your feelings within a confine become stronger. I remember there was a cardiac arrest and we were running the cardiac arrest and had two med students there.

And I said, look, help out with the CPR, rotate round on the CPR. It was the first time doing it. And they were doing the CPR and then we called it the paper. didn't survive. And afterwards said, right, come on, we're going to go and speak to the family now. This is a really important part of it. To speak to the family to help them understand what has happened. It's going to be very upsetting.

And both of them started crying as we were about to walk. And I had this moment where I looked and thought, why are you crying? And then I caught myself. I was like, oh, they're crying because this is probably the first person they've seen. And I like, it was like, oh, my God, I'm really desensit. Because I had a moment of genuine, like, someone's like, one burst into tears randomly. I was like, why are they crying? I was like, no, they've just seen someone like die. So obviously I took them aside and we spent some time and then afterwards

we went for coffee and stuff like that. But you know, you do become desensitized. And in a way, I was almost trained for what happened, although you never can be in terms of looking after my parents. I think that training did help because I could recognize like I need to deal with this. This is emergency that I need to deal with. The pain came later. So you could look after the others. You could look after your parents. You could look after those. students in the A&E. But as you as you talk about you I mean you literally you're you lost your brother to suicide and then you lost yourself to alcohol. And it's crazy. I mean the when I look at what happened I was like I need to look after everyone else. I did the speeches that the funerals

carried his coffin. It did all these kind of things that needed to be done. And I then tried to like go straight to work and all I did is push it down. And in a way society like encourages this really crazy way that we approach grief because, you know, when he died, people sent flowers in unbelievable numbers to the house, messages, all these kind of things. Then the flowers keep coming. Then a funeral happens. And after the funeral happens, the flower stop and the messages for a week of there, but then they stop. And then there's this unwritten expectation. It's like, right, a couple of months, they'll be better. You're going to get over it. And this is where the problem started, because all of a sudden, I'd done the emergency stuff. It now became the kind of reality

of things, but I was still trying to push it down. And I was encouraged to do so in a way by society because we all expect to get over it. And I think the biggest, and this is a norm, a normal thing, which is, by the way, not normal is that it is not normal to get over someone dying. Like, when would I ever want to wake up and think, I'm okay, that Cleo died? Even if whatever way he died, I'm cool, I'm over it now. Or if you lost your mother, wake up and go, I'm okay, they're not here anymore and I never get to see them again. I'm cool with that. You're trying to do something that's impossible.

And what happens when you're trying to do something impossible? You cause a hell of a lot of pain. You're going to implode yourself. But that's what we do in the UK. Instead, you know, the best piece of advice I ever had? And this came about six months in. And luckily for me, I didn't quite absorb it at that point. But they said to me, when things will get lighter for you and with less friction,

is when you move from trying to get over it to learning to live with it. Because I kept trying, I was like, please, one day I'm going to wake up and this is going to be okay. I'm going to be accepting of this. I'm going to reach acceptance. There's the worst thing to try and ever do. And obviously when I couldn't reach acceptance, more pain, more drinking, more numbing, more trying to force the issue. It's not the goal. The goal is to learn to live with their memory, live with the pain, feel the emotions of sadness that you're going to have.

When I'm 70 years old, I'll probably cry. every now and then when I think of clear and what happened. I'm happy about that. What I don't want to be as stuck in an emotional stay. I want to be able to be fluid, but I want to experience that. And so many people suffer because of grief because they think that there's something wrong with them. It's like, no, grief is normal. And we need to in this country, stop trying to get over it. And my friend is Cypriot. The person dies and then that sets about a calendar of dates, like a certain number of weeks, months and years, and then annualized, they all come together.

The first few times a lot of tears and shock and as time goes on yeah there's a lot of tears but there's a lot of joy and memory and the annualized memorial

of the death is a celebration a barbecue my friend the Cypriots my friend love to barbecue in the summer

so if it's a they're having a barbecue and they're having fun they play the favourite songs and that is a much better way in the UK we're like no don't speak about again

don't mention it even now no one tells me about my brother only in this situation I want to ask you about your brother because you say that you, when they speak to you about him, you ask what it was like to lose him,

but you would like to talk about the things he loved. So can we talk a bit about what he was like? Because he was about to start being... Well, he had a place at Stampton Medical School. So he's about to start studying. And he was excited to study. I think we were very similar. Cleo loved cars.

He loved motorbikes. He loved sport. He loved football. He loved basketball. Like, he idolized many of the basketball players. and I think he just was someone that really enjoyed. He loved life, but he also was someone who was, I think also very much near a divergent. And he also found there was a lot of struggles.

Like he really struggled to, I think, be away from home to be in new situations. And I think that caused him friction. But deep down, he just was someone that was genuinely really kind, very intelligent, very funny. Like he was very sarcastic, very witty. Like, in our family, we always quite enjoy, like, taking the Mickey out of each other. And, like, it's quite fun because I think everyone's pretty sharp and it was running jokes. But my, we'd always wind up my dad, for example, and clear with someone who's always on it. But never in a mean way.

He was always very kind. And I think what I loved about him was that he was very thoughtful. Like, if he ever said something that upset anyone or whatever, he would really think about it. And you go back to them or if someone was just sad for a reason in the family, he was there to comfort. You know, and he was very generous. You know, when we were little, he would save up his pocket money each week to buy us our birthday presents, which is the sweetest little thing. You know, a lot of the time you're going to buy birthday presents for siblings.

You wait for your parents to give you the money to buy the presents. He'd save up his pocket money and buy the presents for the other ones of us. And that's who he is. That's who he was. That was the level of kindness, I think. As a very young boy, he did that. And how do you like to, do you have any kind of rituals to remember him now? Well, he loved his cars and, you know, whenever I'm out driving, I always kind of think of him when I go to New Gale Beach in Wales, you know, that's kind of a time where you think of him.

I think when I'm on the road, always when I'm on the road for those kind of reasons. You know, my granddad used to race go-carts and my dad used to kind of tune the car. So I think the racing heritage is kind of in there. So I think whenever I'm watching that stuff, but the shame is whenever something happens in life that he was interested in, I always want to pick up the phone and call. call him. And even now, sometimes I'll kind of forget. And I think, oh, I'm going to call Lear. It's like, oh, I can't, I can't call him, which is, which is tricky. But ultimately, like, he was a human being with a rich life ahead of him. And the strange thing is to kind of think about is that he would have probably going to have children. So there's children now

that won't be born because he's not alive. He was going to be a doctor and he's very smart, very, very good moral compass. He would have been a fantastic doctor for those reasons. Great combination, funny enough to be, have a good moral compass and kindness and empathy. and be clever, good combination. He would have been a great doctor. So there's many lives that he would have saved. And all of that is lost. And also think, like, he could have gone on hopefully and had a relationship.

There's a whole story that kind of was ended. And I think that is really hard. I mean, we sit here now and what's the day? It's the second week in Jan. So as we record this, about 45,000 people have already taken their lives in 2026. So you think about the stats of the total year numbers of loss to suicide. So those of, as 2026 starts, 40,000 plus people, as stories have ended. In fact, New Year's Day and in the day after, like already I've had 30 or 40 messages

from people who have lost people at the start of this year to suicide. And so those stories end. And the shame and awful thing is, and the reason what you were talking about is that we have to talk about is that every loss of life to suicide is preventable. It's an entirely preventable loss of life because those stories, they don't have to end. can, these feelings, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And even when it's so dark, because I've been there, it's so dark and it's so awful, I know you relate to this, so awful, the sun comes up another day, or that there's light ahead of you in your life that

you have no idea about. But in that moment, you can't imagine it, can you? You're just like, it can't happen. So can, would you feel comfortable to talk about the moments where you've felt? Yeah. Because that's clearly, you're very candid in the book about how you, you, you're say last year was the loneliest of your life? So running up to last Christmas, I was, the OCD was really bad. I didn't know it was OCD at the time. It was really bad. Like I was really, really struggling with it. How is it manifesting for you?

For me, I mean, you obviously talk about it a lot, but I didn't necessarily, I understood what OCD was, but I didn't understand the OCD could be entirely in your own mind. So I guess in OCD, you have an obsession or several things often that you think about and obsess over and worry about, you know, morality, past mistakes, real event, stuff. It could be anything, all sorts of things you can worry about. And then your compulsion can either be external or internal, right? My compulsion is all rumination, fact checking, reassurance, rumination, ruminating for months, years on end.

Things that had happened in the past. Things that could happen in the future. Like, often there's lots of things that I kind of worry about in. different kind of themes, even not so much health so much for me, but like, for example, my brother situation was obviously one of those, but actually there's lots of other things, there's nothing to do with that. And basically I would like ruminates to death almost. And this just before Christmas, the rumination and the fear and the level of anxiety was so bad that it was like agitation. I couldn't, you know, that feeling of like I can't hold this.

The one just gone or the one before. No, the one before. Yeah, yeah. Like last year has been a big change and big improvement for me. I'm not saying things are perfect, but my God, I've shifted a long way, I was a long way, I'm a long way away from where it was. And it was so bad that I kind of, one evening, I was at home and it was absolutely awful. And I was like really, really feeling suicidal. And I was like, either going to like die or go for a run. And I went for a run instead. And when I came back from the run, I felt that tiny bit better. And I called a friend. And that was the starting point of turning everything around. I mean, I wouldn't have, I couldn't and wouldn't have because of a promise I made. But I can tell you, like, I was fighting that. That was hard. Yeah. But luckily,

I went for a run and I felt that little bit better. That's when I say running saved my life. I'm like, I ain't joking. I ain't joking. I know you relate to this. Well, yeah. I'm not joking. I was literally like, that run was like, and it was weird because of running around the park and people will be running past me. They have no idea the level of suicidality of inner like combustion that was that was there. And just luckily I got home and I caught my fanasm and that was the starting point. I was really bad for a good couple of months after that, to be honest. But I, you know, I then had to start getting help and things started taking place then. OCD is, I think one of, well, it's the most awful, awful, awful mental illness.

You can swear as much as you want. And I think we should give it the name that it requires, you know. I think we should call it the things that it requires because I still, I've been writing about obsessive-compulsive disorder for over 10 years now. And I still have people say to me, oh, yeah, I'm a bit OCD. You can see my sock drawl and I'm like, fuck off about your sock draw. Do you know what? I don't even feel, there's no sense of nonsense.

I think everyone just, it's like the people say committed suicide. People understood the word committed suicide came from the fact it was illegal. It was a crime until 19601. Yeah, until 19661 to take your own life. And that's still, word is still used top down in every situation almost, unfortunately. I don't judge the person. It's just really frustrating, isn't it? It's like, yeah, a bit OCD.

It's like, oh my God. Like, I felt so bad that night that I was desperate to be not here. So even if you're like, I was like, if there was a way for me to have optioned out at that point of just like delete my entire existence, I would have done it happily. I'd be like, oh my God, button pressed. Like, that's how bad OCD makes people feel. It makes you feel, I don't know about you, but for me, it was like, you are the worst person in the world. In the world, yeah.

You are the worst person in the world, and no one has thought, no one thinks the horrible thoughts that you think. You know, like, you are an awful person. And that thing of, like, morality is really interesting. I always find OCD can be very shape-shifting, you know, and I have to catch it. It will find itself in like, you're a bad person because you, I don't know, you know, are you behaving well enough, you know, by this kind of impossible moral code. The lines in the road become so thin that it's, you're always going to kind of veer off it. And for me, the biggest thing about OCD has been to accept that, yeah, I am sometimes bad and I am sometimes an asshole. And that is absolutely fine.

Yeah, I mean, it plays on a lot of so like real events, false memory, but also like just, yeah, the grey areas of life where you're kind of like, oh, yeah, probably wouldn't do that again, probably would deal with that situation and do this differently. But like the, and I think modern life has made it worse because there's, there's like the level of perfection that everyone's expecting of themselves and others is also, you know, quite extreme to some extent. Or at least the lack of ability to recognize humanity and mistakes and growing and all those kind of things. So that's really hard for like young people as well. Like you basically got to get it right first time now. How do you deal with OCD when you have over 2 million followers on Instagram? I don't know. Throughout the time of like the OCD, which I've had, I've had OCD, I think so, since I was about 12 or 13.

My mum had OCD but didn't realize until recently when we've kind of historically looked back to work it out. So OCD is very genetically followed as near a divergence. I've got like neurodivergence on my dad's side, OCD and my mom's side. And so I have had it since I was very young. My brother has it as well. And so it's like picked all sorts of different things throughout its life and things that I worry about. When it comes to having a following, obviously that like amplifies a lot of it for obvious reasons. Like it becomes a bigger thing.

And especially when people are like, oh, you're this like really good person. You're like, oh my God, but am I? And all this kind of stuff. It makes it almost worse. Like in reality, I'm just a person. I'm not perfect. Doing my best. I'm not perfect.

And in reality, neither is anyone else. Obviously, there's bad people out there, like genuinely bad people. But most people are, most people, 95%, or maybe I'm optimist, I know, I like to think like 95%, 98% of people are in the grey. There are not many people out there who have not made a mistake. Like, most people would do things differently. You know, I think there's a very small percentage of people who are really, a genuinely evil people.

Like there are only a small percentage of like walking angels who have never made any sort of a mistake or done something they regret. In reality, we're all in the gray. We're in the middle doing our best. I do think that it is a lot harder when you're trying to compare yourself to a moral standard that is impossible, actually, largely impossible. Well, it's, and it's, it's created. And I also think even the people that are evil are the products of, you know, hurt people, hurt people. Yeah, you never know what people have experienced in their lives. And that's why I think judgment and withholding judgment, we're very, very quick to judge now, like in general,

like people are very, very quick to judge and voice our judgment. And I think sometimes it's important to catch yourself and try and hold some of that back because you don't really know what's going on in people's lives and what has happened. But, you know, OCD, you know, it is something that is affecting a lot of people

and I think a lot of people don't know they have it because the thing about OCD is really clever because it always, it tells you that, No, no, no, there's nothing wrong with you in terms of illness. There's something that you need to work out. You've got to figure this thing out or you're the problem. That's why it's really hard. When you're depressed, I think of you feel depression.

And eventually, like, you know, you either get asked for help or a lot of people don't. But I think you do recognize that there's something that you're experiencing that's not, that's bad. Whereas with OCD, it's kind of like, no, there's a problem that I need to fix or I've done this and therefore I need to work out. And if I can just, if I can just think myself out of the situation. I can just, exactly, whereas you can't fix OCD by fixing the thing. No. You can't. Well, the more that you engage with OCD, so the thought comes in.

I mean, it's about, you have to bring it into awareness, right? And so the moment that I start trying to outthink myself, that I start engaging with the intrusive thought is when it's like I spiral. I spiral. So I have to be really strong with myself and not engage with the intrusive thought. But OCD, yeah, I think it is without doubt one of the cruelest, cruelest, most horrible. Praise on the people that ultimately have morality.

So if you didn't care, it wouldn't affect you. If you were genuinely purely evil, if we were to play on that idea, then you really wouldn't care. Yeah. You're not going to care about your, because it requires empathy, right? OCD requires, you need to have empathy, an awareness of oneself, one's behave in one's place in the world.

If you lack that level of introspection and you truly are just like narcissistically just going out there and wrecking people's lives and all these kind of things, then, you know, you're not really going to spend much time. Like that's what the therapist said to me. It's like the fact that you're sat here says quite a lot because you come, do you know what I mean? It's kind of what those things. But it just pray on, it preys on the people that are most likely to feel it. I think also just working on being a little bit less, just a little bit more. I think as a woman, as I get older, I do give less of a shit, do you know what? I'm a bit like, so what?

If someone thinks I'm a bad person, so what, so what? You know, like I find all of that has really helped. Because you can be a really good, there's been people who are really good people in history who have people have thought they're really bad people until later on, we've looked back and said, oh, actually they were fighting for women's rights or whatever it was, right? Just because someone says that someone's a bad person doesn't mean that they are a bad person. That's the point, right? It's like there's certain groups of people who are demonized, but it turns out they were fighting for good or they were actually, you know what I mean? They were

ahead of their times, for example, you know, and, you know, I don't, I think lots of things become politically charged, so I'm not going to think of a specific example, but I just think that, you know, the end of the day, you've got to go to bed with yourself. And if you go to bed with yourself and think actually like doing my best here, you know, I think it's acceptable to be imperfect but do my best. And that's kind of where I feel. Or that's where I get a lot more comfort. I'm like, doing my best. I really am. I think the thing of you're doing your best is so important. And the kindness I feel to myself, I think is really crucial, you know, like I don't want to, I'm not, waking up every morning and taking the whip to myself in the way that I was 10 years ago, you know.

And that and being sober helps that, you know, like I'm not harming myself every day. Jesus. I mean, look at alcohol. Another big thing that I talk about in the book is that how we're sold alcohol is like the ideal dream. It's like if we're going to have fun, it's alcohol always involved and it's the perfect thing. You know, you're auto enrolled into drinking. Like how many people actually decide, oh, I'd like to do this thing or not?

You're kind of as a teenager just like enrolled into drinking. It's nuts. And there is a brilliant use. make this brilliant point that you're introduced to it as a teenager and you write that you're handed a potentially destructive substance that ruins millions of lives worldwide and told, learn to control this as if that was a normal gift for a society to bestow on a 15-year-old. And if you can't control it, you're the problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not.

But I mean, it's just one of the biggest things, it's like I always find now is that you sit and watch, I love my football, right? Watch my football. What is Manchester United for my sins? It's not going well. Sorry about that. It's just an unfortunate truth. You know, you sit there now and you watch the football adverts and you see advertisements of alcohol brands

who now are only advertising their zero versions, but they're advertising their alcohol, right, obviously. So you've got them advertising. Then in the middle you've got back-to-back betting ads. Also one of the biggest issues facing young men, particularly at the moment. They're drinking less, but they're gambling more. Huge issue. And suicide rates and gambling, massively.

high financial issues in gambling, relationship issues as a result of gambling and spending and all these things, huge issues. These companies are making billions a year and people are suffering. And yet it's completely normal. So when children are sat there, 10 year old, like a white, blank piece of paper, a page of paper, ready to write their own life and what the things they want to do and enjoy, they sat there aspiring, looking to their, you know, the dream players, you know, Mbapapé, through to whoever. They're watching these dream players. And at the same time, we're going, here, drink booze and gamble. You know, sport is supposed to be about, like, health, physical health, community, bringing

cultures together. And yet we're like, drink and gamble. We're selling to children. So before they're even 18, we're ingraining this idea that part of sport is that you drink and that you gamble, you bet on the football, you bet on the matches. And that, to me, is that, boom, when you see it, you're like, this is crazy. It is madness. When is the highest rates of domestic violence?

calls to domestic violence helplines when England lose at football, especially if England lose at football later on in competitions, the heroes when they lost, I think I'm thinking I'm probably saying it was a record number of calls to emergency domestic violence lines. And why? Because pouring loads of booze into people that are really then angry and whatever. I mean, it's obviously complex, there's a lot more to it.

I'm just playing the booze. The blokes are clearly the issue there. But would it be the same issue without the alcohol? does alcohol propagate these issues probably people do stuff when they're drunk that they would never do sober does I make it right? No but it's still a reality we have to face

yeah it's to give it up is a wonderful thing so you're three years sober so you'd say that in particular the last year has been the year of kind of growth mental growth as you were because I didn't know that I mean not that I but 21 stone when you got

when you were in the barber's chair, which is when you decided, I need to get, I need to like. Probably need to look at this. Yeah. And did you, and did you, did you just go, did you just cut it out? Did you have any help or did you? No, so I didn't, I didn't struggle with like chemical addiction to it. I do think the word addiction is, is tricky.

I know you'll have an opinion on it because, like, how do you decide whether something is, whether, you know, alcohol addiction? Like, I mean, is it when someone's using it habitually to prop up their life? Is it that you, when you stop, you have to reach for the glass? I don't know. But I didn't have the issue where I was like, I'm like needing to grab a drink. I wasn't fighting that. And I'm very great because I know a lot of people have to.

I'm grateful for that because I don't know, that might have been won battle too many. But what I did have was that when I stopped drinking this thing that I was trying to suppress, everything just came up, like everything was coming up. And so the alcohol for me, I was using it medicinally to push stuff down. But before that, throughout my teenage years, I was doing it to round the edges to feel normal. Because I am neurodivergent. And there's very many layers to that. I mean, I've been going through as we've talked about assessment for autism.

And not really going to talk so much about that at the moment. But like, I've been very different all my life. I've known that. And when you drink, you feel more rounded. You become, everyone just becomes the same when they drink in a way. Like we all just start becoming loud and you just start mixing and everything's easier and the inhibition goes and all this kind of stuff. So the drink I'd use medicinally for years, but for this time it was for grief.

And when I stopped, all of a sudden I had to face the stuff I'd been pushing down. And people go, well, my God, it sounds terrible. Like suddenly you had to face the stuff. But I was otherwise like a bank loan, right? If you don't pay it, the interests keep adding up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the best thing I could have done was face the stuff at the time. but I can't go back and change things, and I have to face it now.

And it was the hardest, was best thing I've ever done. It took time. I mean, the weight loss, even the physical changes took time and the exercise and fitness. But, you know, ultimately, if I hadn't have done that, I don't think I'd be here today. If I hadn't have stopped drinking then, that was another left or right. That was a moment of like, you know, I was really at rock bottom. You know, I don't know how the hell I was holding my professional career together by a thread, probably. certainly my personal life was not in that situation.

It was like left or right. You either carry on down this path into oblivion or you change. And that's a powerful motivator. Yes, yeah. So talk to me about the things that we should normalize that help you to live a mentally fit life. So you talk about sleep, exercise, diet.

These are the things that we should be focusing on. to kind of, if we want to talk about, if we want to talk about normalising anything, it should be those things. I think the premise of what I've kind of tried to talk about and written, I guess, is that you have to, first of all, understand yourself. And that's what, you know, people say, like, the labels, things. Like, you know, you're 34, do you need labels? It's like, well, whether you label or not,

if you've got ADHD or ADHD or CD, you've got it. So not labeling it is not, you're already not, like, benefiting yourself by not understanding. The whole point of a label, for example, is the understanding and tools that gives you. I don't give a crap about the label itself. It's only useful if it helps you feel better. And much wider than that, if you step back and look at just normality and self-acceptance, regardless of neurodivergence, just forget about that for a moment.

The whole point of understanding yourself is that when you understand yourself and the ways in which you are normal, in which ways you're not, and the ways that society is normal or not, that understanding is the only lens and way that you can then go and start building a life that you actually enjoy because so many people feel friction. I suspect a lot of people watching this and who listen to this podcast. You feel friction in your life. That's kind of like why you turn and ask the question, you know, how do I feel better looking

at the tools, looking at things that might help me? It's because you feel friction. And I think before you apply the right tool, you need to understand what's going on. It's kind of like the lens of alcohol. It's like if I'd have just gone for a walk every day and gone to the gym but carried on boozing like hell, like that wouldn't have fixed anything, would it? Like I had to first understand what was going on. Stop doing the stuff that was making life worse before I started doing stuff that makes it better. So by understanding, it gives you acceptance.

It lets you look at the world and say actually the way society looks at grief, the way we push like gambling, the way that we treat women, for example, the way that we, you know, the way the education system is, they're not normal. Those are just a few examples of things where the world is screwed, right? So we as a society and you think, right, these are not, education system doesn't serve anyone. Our current system is not serving anyone. It's not helping. Everyone's getting sicker. People are leaving with worse education.

They're not leaving with any financial knowledge. They're not leaving with the skills for social media. They don't have any of the stuff, right? So we can look at things that we need to change. But then there's other areas who go, okay, fine. There's this part of my life where, okay, maybe I'm not someone that's that good at recognize my own feelings and being able to label them and being able to see what I need right now. And that is causing friction in my relationship. Or I'm not

very good at understanding how my partner feels. And perhaps this is something I need to work on. Because if I learn to listen better, to understand, my relationship gets better. So what I'm trying to say is understanding unlocks acceptance. And acceptance isn't going about, like, okay, it's how it is. Just laugh and carry on. Some things you accept and don't change. And some things you accept and change. And that is what the part. There's not me saying, look, do this, this is a solution to everything. I just want people to learn to look at things through the correct lens, not beating yourself up with a stick or whipping yourself with a whip. Look at things, see things as they are, and then ask yourself the question, is it me or is it them? And depending on the answer to that,

you'll find out the next steps of what you're going to do. Have you thought about going into politics, Alex? I would never go into politics. I feel confident to say that. I did four years as mental health ambassador, I saw how crazy that world is, and I saw how I just don't want any part of it. I don't want any further part of politics or government. Not because I don't think there's good people doing things. Just the system does not allow change in any sort of like meaningful speed or way that sees genuine results. Like there's good people that go in and they want to do good things and the system stops them.

And I, for me, I just don't want part of it anymore. Did you feel disappointed when the Labour government came in? and didn't, you know, there is no, that suddenly there's no need for a mental health ambassador. Well, I mean, I sat down with, with Kirstama a few months before, and we spoke about the hubs. If you notice and go to the manifesto, like they took the idea of the early support hubs, which is obviously what I was working on with the young minds. They put in the manifest. I was like, that's brilliant. Don't care if you, I don't want, just don't even mention me or young minds.

I didn't say that for young minds, maybe they want to have more mention of it. I was like, I don't care, just please do it. Just fund the hubs. We've done the legwork. that was the plan to fund them. They're not funding them. They've changed it to something that it's not, which means it's not doing what it should be doing. I don't even know if they're funding that. But yeah, I mean, that was the promise, my understanding that he wanted to carry on working with me. They came in and they decided, I didn't hear from them for six months. And then they said,

we don't want to continue the role. So that's absolutely fine. I don't feel anything from it. Luckily for me, I mean, luckily for me, I always went into it and said, I all, if I make a difference. I don't care. I don't want anything from it in that sense. I've never been paid. I don't get paid from the government, I mean. Obviously, I work with brands and stuff. I don't live on water, but I don't get paid for my role. I wasn't paid for my role. It costs me quite a lot of money in kind of physically costs of things I ended up paying for, but also my time. Okay, so I did all those things. But knowing that I just wanted no one to turn around and say, like, well, you didn't do this or the other. If I did one minute of help, it was free.

Okay. So I went in and I did some good things. I feel happy with the things I did. I don't care if people know about them. To be honest, as a know about that I was involved, I don't care. And so what's really good is that the way that I was treated doesn't matter because I don't care. I'm not bothered. I don't want a pen or a letter to say thank you. I did receive a letter. I did receive a letter for the mental health ministers to say thank you for all your work and things. So I did receive that. But I don't need any more to be honest. I just, but I just look at the system and spend I work really, really hard. I still couldn't get the obvious done. Funding the hubs was an obvious thing to do. 200 million quid, it would save hundreds and hundreds of millions in a very quick time, okay, which I know money is a weird way to start, but trust me, that's how you have to talk in politics. I learned that very quickly. Don't bother talking about feelings, waste of time, or talk about money. Talk in terms of investment. Everyone just understood. I learned that very quickly in politics. Just talk about investment. Stick to that. So, you know, it would have made a huge difference. It was an absolute no-brainer that everyone wanted to.

it. Very rare that you have a whole coalition of people going, this is a good idea. Cross-party agreement by lots of MPs going, good idea, we wish we should do this. Does it happen? No. Five years down the line, we still haven't done it. It's tragic, isn't it? I definitely feel in the 12 or 13 years that I've been talking about mental health, astonishingly, in terms of political support, it's gone backwards. We went forward a little bit when it was kind of popular, which is crazy to say. 2018, 2018. And then...

And then now everyone's like, no one wants to talk about it anymore. It's overdiagnosis. The health secretary himself is saying we're going to launch an inquiry into overdiagnosis. Now, the kind of aim of that, I think, is to genuinely try and sort out the kind of the system. However, it's all kind of... But is it not just pointing to the people? So there's quite a common thing I see, I've seen in politics. And you'll know more about this than me.

But when there's a problem, for example, the junior doctors, right? So there's a problem at the moment where junior doctors are leaving. They're burnt out. They're sick. They're training and can't get jobs. And the system is falling apart. So what does the government do? I'm not talking necessarily about this government.

I'm talking about all governments always. But it's all governments always. I'm not even talking about this government necessarily. It's just all governments always go there's a problem. Let's turn it on the people. that the problem are about. It's like the ADHD thing, right? Rather than go, like, it is unacceptable

that clinics are completely closing their doors. Not on the clinics, because they're struggling, but they're closing the doors to all new ADHD assessments that people are waiting for seven years to be diagnosed. Rather than go, there's a problem here, let's solve it. It's like, ah, we must be over-diagnosing. It doesn't need to do a study. The Lancet did a study released in, I think it was March.

But anyway, you can look it up. The Lancet did a really big study into this. They looked at 9 million GP records, okay? And this is a great way to look at who is diagnosed. Everyone's coded, right? Diagnosis are coded. You pull it up and they extrapolated that. Nine million people is a lot of people.

You know, only 0.32% of 9 million people had a diagnosis of ADHD. The true prevalence, that means the number of people that actually have is between 4% and 5%. So we're at least 10 times under-diagnosing ADHD than the true prevalence. We have one of the lowest rates of diagnosis in Europe. There are many people who have it or walk around that don't have it. The reason that the rate of diagnosis has gone up in the last few years is awareness equals assessments. The more the people know what it is, the more they go and get assessed. 30, 40, 50, 60 year olds are going, oh, I've been shafted through life.

I should have been diagnosed at the age of whatever, 7. I'm going to go and get diagnosed now and it's overwhelming in the clinic. So don't blame the people that are suffering. Bearing a mind, by the way, people go, does it matter? the average life expectancy of a woman with ADHD is eight years less than a neurotypical woman and six years less for a man immediately. Okay? So if you told it's a 10% shorter life expectancy. If people have the diagnosis and the right guidance, most of its guidance, not even medication, you can nullify most of that.

You can turn that around. Look at prisons, the rates, it's like 30% of female prisoners are believed to have ADHD. True prevalence is 4 to 5%. what I said about that substance misuse, 50% of ADHD is. You know, people call, yeah, but loads of people are successful. Look at what you do. Yeah, it's one end of the spectrum of the other. That's the reality of it.

So stop saying that we're over-diagnosing, because it's not true. You don't need, I can save the government a lot of money. By the way, they'll spend like 10, 20, 30, 40, 40 million on this thing. I can save you the money. You're not over-diagnosing ADHD. Don't worry. So let's instead put the money into services. Let's make sure people can get.

Is it reasonable to wait five years to be assessed for anything? No, I love that you're talking about this stuff because it will only change with voices like yours, Dr. Alex. And I love, can I just say, the more passionate you've got, the more Welsh you sound. Everyone says that. And the other thing I want to say, and the other thing I want to say is that the first time I met you properly was about two years ago. But you feel to me like a much, you feel much lighter. I don't mean that in a physical sense. It's just your, you're, that too, but yeah.

You're, you're, you're kind of, you just seem to me much more content. Yeah. And, and that's a really wonderful thing. And I think that's because of all of the labels that you've been able. to get, you know what I mean? Like you were talking about earlier. I'm in a different place. Because you understand yourself more, right? And you don't feel so lost. And I really hope that this year, you know, you don't feel the loneliness that you have felt in prior years. I really feel that's 2026 for me. And you never know, I never know

it's on the corner. But that's life as acceptance. The best thing, worst thing can happen is around the corner. But I really feel there's an opportunity for this year for me to do something that I haven't done for several years, and that's to live. I just want to live and enjoy life. And I'm going to do things. Another reason I wouldn't go back to politics is because I can't give more to them what I've already given in some of these spaces. I need to do other things. I'm starting an alcohol free brand called Dead Clear. Yeah. Starting an alcohol free brand called Dead Clear, which I'm really excited. But a lot of the stuff I've done the last few years is very heavy. So we're going into fun, Alex. I just want to do, it's not that I've been still going to do

all the work that I'm doing. I just not going to be, I'm just taking. I'm just taking. a break, for example, I'm taking a break from the campaigning. I'm taking a break from a lot of the very heavy stuff on that end. And instead, I just want to focus on like living a bit. And I spent the last five years in heaviness. And I just want to be a little lighter. So thank, I'm very pleased about that. That I'm coming across a little lighter because I do feel that way. Fantastic. Dr. Alex. Thank you so much for coming on the life. Thank you for having me. Massive thank you to Alex for speaking so candidly about everything he's gone through. If you were listening and thinking this might

be me, know that you're not alone. And if you want to know more about Alex's journey, his book, Am I Normal, is out now. He'll be back on Friday to share the three things that have helped him stay grounded. And if this episode made you feel a tiny bit more understood, it would mean the world if you could follow, subscribe, rate or share it with someone who might need to hear it too. But most importantly, keep being you and I'll see you on Friday.