The Life Of Bryony - The Traitors' Harriet: I Couldn’t Ever Have Just One Drink!

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

This week, I’m joined by Harriet Tyce – former criminal barrister, million‑copy bestselling author, and the breakout star of The Traitors – for a raw, funny and gloriously honest conversation about booze, burnout and beginning again. We talk about how a high‑functioning drinking habit crept into blackouts, anxiety and shame, and why giving up alcohol in her late forties became the greatest gift she’s ever given herself (after her husband). Harriet shares how leaving the bar, and feeling creatively unchallenged in early motherhood, eventually pushed her towards writing – and to the smash‑hit novel Blood Orange. We also get into female friendship, brutal schoolgirl politics, and her electrifying new thriller, Witch Trial. If you’ve ever thought “I can’t change, it’s too late,” this episode might just prove you wrong. BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODEHarriet’s new gripping thriller, Witch Trial, is available to buy from 26th February 2026.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: Harriet TyceProducer: Laura Elwood-CraigAssistant Producer: Sam RhodesStudio Manager: Sam ChisholmEditor: Luke ShelleyExec Producer: Jamie East  A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, gorgeous people. Now, are you like me obsessed with the Tracers? And were you like me particularly obsessed with Harriet, the clued up faithful who sacrificed herself in one of the most dramatic moments of the hit BBC series? If so, you're going to love today's episode because Harriet herself is here to speak to us about the journey through alcoholism and inter-sobriety that led her straight to the traitor's castle. Don't put limits on yourself. The only person who's keeping you a prisoner is yourself. We are all capable of far more than we think we are.

Just do it. Fuck what people think. Just do what you want to do anyway. My chat with Harriet Tice coming up right after this. Tice, welcome to the life of Brienne. Now, I've seen you in lots of sort of studios recently. Obviously, you were part of the traitors. Yes, yes, I was. Okay, I want to know, so you're a former barrister.

That's right. Turned hugely successful, like million copy selling author. What made you want to apply to go on the traitors? Well, I love the show. I've watched it from the beginning. It's mental. It's a deeply immersive, murder. essentially in a castle, Scotland, Agatha vibes, you know, it has every component of something that I would

be interested in, you know, as a crime writer and also, you know, as a criminal barrister, a former, very long time ago, criminal barrister in terms of the whole sort of vibes of the jury and what each person brings, you know, quite literally to the table. So, you know, I made the application. And as the process went through, and believe me, you know, it's an intensive process. There's many, many stages. The closer I got, the more I thought, you know what, I'd like to do this. You know, it's a sort of, because it was a throwaway kind of speculative puns at the beginning because you know how many people apply.

It's like hundreds of thousands. So where were you? You were at home and you were watching the end of the last series? It wasn't. It was around the end of 2024. and I just sort of went in and did it. And, you know, when I was actually chosen to take part, my editor was very much like, you know, really?

You know, she was obviously very pleased on one hand, but on the other hand, you know, if you have vast exposure to the public, they can go off you. And if you go on and you're disastrous, it could be quite destructive to, you know, what we hope my books are, which is, you know, hopefully thought-provoking,

reasonably intelligent and twisty. And if you go on and you're thick as too short, planks. It might not necessarily get you very far. But yeah, I got on and I did this. And I suppose, you know, you saw yourself how I performed. You just left me wanting to know more. That was that was what. I, you were the kind of like, for anyone that hasn't watched the latest season of the traitors, like, what have you been doing? That's firstly what I want to ask you. It's a good series. It's so good. And I was sort of thinking about this is that, Most reality television shows, the format start to get a bit tired after the second season

because people taking part cotton on and they start to know and they start to know how to play it and it loses its sort of natural magic. But the joy of the traitors is that the format is such that every time you bring fresh people into it and it's something completely different. And you can't kind of predict what you're going to get out of it. And I don't want to spoiler it for anyone who hasn't watched the latest season. But again, it was the best season yet, I would say. And you were one of the best things in it.

There's so much about you, the little tit bits that were coming through that I wanted to know kind of more about. So can we go back to the beginning? So you were a criminal barrister. Yeah, I was. Yeah, I mean, I did a degree in English back in, and I graduated in 94, and I didn't really know what to do with that degree because I didn't really want to be a journalist.

I didn't want to be a teacher. And the idea of being a writer was at that point decades away for me. I mean, I'd done some bad poetry at school, but that was it. And so I did a law conversion course. And the more that I did law, the more I realized I was only interested in crime. I was only interested in the human stories that went into it. So, yeah, I went to the criminal bar and I worked in legal aid defence for about, well, I sort of say nearly a decade. About nine years I was doing it.

And it was never very glamorous. It wouldn't be anyway because it's crime. But I was schlepping across the southeast with a wheelie bag going from magistrate's court to magistrate's court dealing with a lot of shoplifting offenses and a phrase. And, you know, it's a petty crime. But petty crime that's obviously very serious to the people. you know, either who are victims of it or who are accused of it, because every time anyone's in court it's quite high stakes. So I did that until I was 31 was when I had my first child.

And then I tried going back and I tried doing it part-time. But the problem about the criminal bar is it is just not a part-time profession. Being a barrister isn't a part-time profession. You really need to be able to give yourself, entirely to it so that you're always available for when cases come in, particularly with something like crime where there's a huge amount of unpredictability, a huge amount of shifting around. You know, people plead guilty, witnesses don't turn up, people don't get brought

from prison, cases come in, cases come out. You have to be able to pivot on a dime. And if you are the primary carer for kids, that's not something that you can do. So I gave it a bit of a go, but it didn't work. And so I left. And then, yeah, I was stay at home mum for a while for about four years. And that was, yeah, quite difficult. Okay, in what way was it difficult?

I think just being, I felt, shall we say, unfulfilled creatively and unfulfilled professionally. And I felt very resentful about the fact that I was, you know, know, all of these qualifications, and yet I was really the only expert and where the pants were in the house. It was that kind of, it was, I mean, it was lovely and it was fulfilling, but it was also boring as hell, you know, and it was just a different kind of routine. And I think at that point, I hadn't been used to routine either. So being thrust into it from having had this very high octane, unpredictable, sometimes dull, but generally quite exciting, high adrenaline career. I mean, yes, it was just the magistrates court, but also it was sort of exciting,

because you didn't know almost what each day would bring. And suddenly it was like, yes, this is what we do. We do not, we do it. We get up at seven. We do the feed. We do. And it, yeah, it was, that was quite tough. And I think I possibly had, well, not I think I probably did have postnatal depression, but just not of a high functioning level that meant that I was getting through each day. But I was really quite gross. And, and, you know, I was probably And it was not, no, it wasn't a great deal of fun. You were cross that you'd worked hard, you'd got all these qualifications, and suddenly it was just gone.

And it was gone and it was just a different, it was a different way of living which I wasn't particularly keen on because I just, I think I found it boring, which is very, very unfair to my children. I think, you know, to be fair, I'm sure they, if they were putting the care of babies and toddlers, they would say themselves, they might not be the most interesting of conversation of this.

You know, that I find sort of having older children far more interesting because, you know, there's much better chat and you learn more. Isn't it good? I so agree. Isn't it good? I thought that having older children would be much more stressful the teen years. And look, I'm at the beginning of it, so that's all to come. But generally speaking, I much prefer having a child I can have conversations with,

that I can hang out with and I don't have to play with. Yeah, I think that's it. The playing, the playing, I don't know that I'm that playful, not in that kind of a way. It just, it's a bit like no. And, you know, like learning to read, it just, I don't, I'm not very patient. I'm really not a very good teacher.

And it's like, what do you mean? You don't know what that word is. It's perfectly obvious. And you're thinking, well, it isn't actually that obvious. I mean, put it this way, I will not be doing any driving practice with them. when they learned to drive. I think that we would all be better if that was, if that didn't happen.

But no, it was difficult. It was difficult. And I mean, that's entirely on me. I think if I were to do it all again now, I would bring a much different perspective. But at the time, I'd sort of gone from, you know, being, growing up in the 80s and 90s and, you know, slightly Ladec culture. And it was all quite. supper was four pints of stella and a packet of grisps and suddenly you're having to sort of trot around doing organic puree and it was just a it was a gear shift of the kind that

I'd say mentally I wasn't ready for and I didn't know how to I didn't know how to process it and I don't think that I was in the right as I say looking back I think I could do it with a lot more grace now, but that's because I've done it, if that makes sense. It's through having sort of learnt from it, that I've learned how to approach it. But then I started, I went to an evening course and I started writing. And that was, that was in about 2010, I think. So my kids would have been six and two. And that point, suddenly things started. to fall much more into place for me. I think because I had found an outless

and I had found a new community of people through, you know, meeting other writers, meeting the writing tutors, thinking about writing in a different kind of a way. And that was when, yeah, it just all sort of fell together, really, and I started to be a lot happier. Okay.

So your first book, Blood Orange. Yes. Now, I want to talk about this because it featured, I mean, you write alcoholics very well, Harriet, that's what I want to say. It featured a very heavy drinking criminal barrister called him. Alison. Alison. And now obviously, I, you know, I don't want to be so sort of simple as to go,

ooh, is that you? Aspects, certainly. I mean, the line I always use is I research the hangovers. And, you know, a loss of research had gone into those hangovers. And, I mean, there's a scene in it when she does karaoke. And in her head at the time of singing, she's absolutely brilliant. You know, it's Smith's song. It's there is a light that will never go out.

And she thinks she's absolutely nailed it. And then her husband shows her a video of herself doing it the next day. And the shame of that is absolutely crushing. And, you know, while that has not, I mean, please, Lord, no one ever video me doing karaoke, drunk or sober. But while no one's ever done that to me, there is that thing, isn't there, where, you know, you think you're just amazing at the party. And then you see a photo and it's like, yeah, that was a bit sort of, well, someone put that woman to bed. And so I brought a lot of that energy onto the page of Blood Orange. But, I mean, I think that something I have always found about characterization,

and I sort of realized when I read, I think there was an article about method acting, and is it the Stanislavski method, that you take, for those actors, when they're asked, say, to act what it's like to suffer a bereavement to someone very close, if they've not actually had that experience, they will take losing their dog or losing, you know, losing a pet, or just a less sort of momentous bereavement, shall we say. That's not to diminish the loss of a dog at all, but they'll take something smaller and then they'll sort of weave it up and up and up so that they can inhabit the feeling of the big thing. And that is sort of what I tried to do. I mean, it's what I try to do with any of

the characters because mercifully nothing that bad has ever happened to me and nothing, I've never done anything that bad either. It's not to say I have been perfect, but, you know, I think there's the other line I often say about blood oranges that I've never done that on a train. And you have to read it to find out what that is. No, no, we're not, I don't know that we're going to talk about that now. But I do have a mulberry handbag still. And this is not stained with anything. People, can I just say right now, people are like on the bus on their way to to work listening to this going, what? They're on the train looking at everyone

very differently. And let your brain go where it needs to go. And it's not as bad as you might think, though. It's pretty bad. Okay. But no, so she was in part me. She was in part me, but not. She was a what if, though.

Okay. Because I had left. I had left and I had chosen to be a, at home. And she, on the other hand, was someone who was trying to negotiate that balance of working full-time as a barrister while also having a young child. So there was, you know, it certainly wasn't autobiographical in every sense. I noticed, you know, when Traitors came on, you were described as being sober. And you, and I noticed also you'd go back. to the, you know, after the round table or whatever, you go back and people go have a drink.

And I remember there was one bit where you said, I don't drink alcohol actually. Yeah. Tell me, can I ask you about that? Oh, yeah, totally. So you're, so you are sober now. Yes. So do you, how do you describe yourself? I mean, it's a, it's a fiddly one, isn't it?

Because the word alcoholic has got so many connotations of true rock bottom and loss of loss of career, loss of family, you know, that it's the point where you're in a gutter. I mean, I think, strictly speaking, it was an alcohol use disorder as opposed to a full physical dependency. But there is an AA phrase about a thousand not being enough and one being too many. And you see, that for me is, I would never be satisfied with one glass of wine. It would always have to be a bottle and a half if it started. And lost weekends wouldn't be lost as in, you know, you'd find me four days later in a skip somewhere in Amsterdam. But there would be hours and hours lost in Blackout.

And it was perhaps improving as I got older. But also the other thing was that as I got older, of course, physiologically I couldn't process it. So the hangovers were even worse than they had always been. and then bringing in sort of layers of neurosis and anxiety. You know, I'm quite neurotic. It's, I think, you know, maybe goes with the territory of crime writing that you're always sort of looking at things and thinking, oh, they might kill me.

But if you sort of whack booze into that mix as well, you know, it just amps up paranoia and anxiety. You're looking at me like I might not understand that. That might not be relatable to me, Harry. I'm trying to make no assumptions here. But yeah, I mean, I'm taking a pun that you know exactly, you know. But I think many of us do, though. I mean, it's amazing how many conversations that I have with,

because I talk about not drinking, the number of people who sidle up to me at parties saying, I'm beginning to wonder if maybe, and you're a bit like, well, you know, it's only a decision, you know, you're the only person who can make that decision. But it was not my friend anymore. And it may not ever have been my friend, but dear God, we had some fun, you know, back in the day. But it just stops being fun.

And I think the older you get, the less dignified. I mean, I'm not saying I'm a particularly dignified person, but I think that being in my late 40s, having a blackout when I've got teenage kids, it just doesn't feel as if that's something that I ought to have been doing. And so I stopped. And I have to say that stopping has been the best decision I think I've ever made, apart from the fact that I chose a very nice husband, and that was also a very good decision. But the stopping alcohol, I think, has opened up a level of freedom with everything else that I would never have thought was possible.

So what was, was there a kind of one moment when you decided to stop? or was it as is often the case? And I certainly found this as case. It was millions of little moments adding up over time and it sort of culminated with this. I can't do this anymore. It was a combination of things. I mean, I had a sober year in 2009.

And I actually really enjoyed that. I ran the marathon that year. I felt like I was, I mean, slowly, but, you know, I did. Again, I feel like we are twins, hot. Yeah, whereas there are not, there are not dissimilarate. I also, I don't know if I've mentioned, but I've also run a marathon slowly. It's a good, it's a good thing to have done, isn't it? It's the best way to run a marathon.

Well, I don't, I couldn't have, but I was faster than Katie Price. Well done. But that, I mean, and I think she'd just had some awful health thing, so actually it wasn't as much of an achievement as I thought it was at the time. But I finished it, and that was the big thing. But no, that was 2009 felt like a good year in terms of health, fitness, well-being. And at the same time, though, because I had always just said, I'm going to not drink for this year. Everything was focused on. I can't wait till it's one minute past midnight on 2010.

And then I shall have, oh, look, I bought a bottle of crystal. It's all going to be lovely. And I remember sort of having that first glass of champagne and it being a bit like, oh, is that it? But, you know, I sort of powered through and got back into the drinking thing. Did you think because this is quite a common thing, because you'd had time off, you'd had a year off, well, that proves that I don't have a problem. And did you think that maybe you could drink, quote, unquote, normally again? I don't even know if it had been that formulated as a thought.

I thought that if I could stop for a year, I think certainly the first half, if I could stop for a year, that was great. but I don't think I'd sort of thought about the drinking normally. I think at that point it was still, I mean, that was 16 years ago. I mean, bearing in mind, you know, I grew up in Scotland, I grew up in Edinburgh, friends of mine are still quite heavy drinkers. You know, that there was a culture of drinking, you know, that for me, the whole sort of ecstasy fuel part of the 90s completely passed me by because we were just drinking pints and shots.

It was always booze, booze, booze. So the idea of moderate drinking, I mean, I think, you know, the conversation about alcohol has changed so much. You know, if you just think about what's available by way of non-alcoholic drinks now in comparison to 2009. And, you know, and then people would, it really calls to front. You know, I vividly remember someone I'd known during pupillage, and he looked at me and he was like, you've changed, as if it was,

the worst, and I'm like, yeah, it's about bloody time I changed, honestly. But, you know, I got stuck back in and it was, it was all great fun. And, you know, and it's sort of sometimes it was, and sometimes it wasn't. But mostly, I think it was just creeping up. And then I stopped again in 2019. I had a break for about 16 months, which was so that I could write the second book. because I had real problems writing the next book after Blood Orange. And also because I was becoming aware of the fact that I was starting to have this more public existence.

And people were writing reviews. And it was when I was on Twitter. And I was quite aware of the fact that if I had a few drinks, it was then that I would do my school settling at two in the morning and send out text saying, you know, emails, saying everything that I had never said because I was very bad. at expressing anger in a sober way. And I knew that if I let rip on some of the reviewers online,

it would be, you know, that you just couldn't, I couldn't do it. And, you know, with Blood Orange, it was such a Marmite book. I mean, many people absolutely loved it and absolutely loved Alison. But there was a sizable minority of people who were one-star readers who thought that she was, I mean, I think it was a compliment to the writing that people felt that she was alive so much that they could scream about what's a terrible mother she was. But I felt very protective, still feel very, very protective of her as a character. And, yeah, I just thought, you know, you need to be sober, Harriet, you need not to be, because I can be much less reactive when sober. But, you know, drunk, I just lose any kind of critical faculty.

So I stopped then, but then when I finished the book, I thought, oh, you know, I'll reward myself. But it was just starting to feel more tired. And, you know, during lockdown, I mean, I never mercifully fell into the trap of too much caning it during lockdown. And I know that that was difficult for some, but there was a low point. We'd had a project of making kombucha. That was our sourdough, is that we made our kombucha. and then the kombucha fermented. And so we, yeah, we kind of knock back the fermented combative.

That was a really bad hangover. Highly, highly alcoholic. You don't really want to think about, I mean, it wasn't methanol. We hadn't tried to distilled it. But I'm not sure that that kind of prison hooch is what you should be drinking. And then really the biggest turning point was that one of my closest friends died from breast cancer in 2021. And that was, you know, she was two weeks younger than me. And it just was a very, very big and shocking loss.

I mean, not shocking in the sense that it was still a shock, even though we knew that there was only one way, if that makes sense. Was it the first, I think sometimes the first significant bereavement that you experienced as an adult? That was the first of somebody who was my age. Yeah. I had not, no, there hadn't been anyone who had been not quite, I mean, there had been friends who died, but not this, this, because, yeah, we, I'd known Sarah since I was 13 and we were so close and our daughters were within months of each other and it was, yeah, it was, it was, it was just, it was horrible,

it was just terrible to watch and I, I don't know, there was something about the whole moment of it, The more I thought about it, the more I thought, you know, I was so lucky to have the privilege of being alive that actually I should stop messing around with it quite so much. But I think it just brought into sharp focus the fact that approaching 50 was a moment where change was still, I mean, change is always possible. So I don't want to say it's only still possible at 50. but there's something about, you know, the sooner you do it, the better the chances of reversing any damage might be and the longer that you get, hopefully, to live in a way that is more meaningful because I think it was a bit meaningless just sort of getting hammered

and making a fool of myself and then spending days feeling bad about it. You know, it's an awful lot of time wasted in remorse and regret because they're not particularly helpful emotions. I mean, they're good if they drive you to change. But if all you're doing is wallowing in self-pity and negativity, it's sort of not really worth it. And so at that point, I thought it was Sarah died in April of 2021. And it was at the beginning, I think of 22,

I started to address it quite seriously. And initially I was only going to stop, yes, it was at the beginning of 22, of 2022, because I was only going to stop until my 50th birthday, which was in November of 2022. And then, and I had one night out, so I didn't drink at all until June, but I had kept it that I was still, if I wanted to, I could drink. It wasn't that I had said I didn't. And I went out for dinner with an author. and I had decided that it would be too weird not drinking.

I hadn't, not thinking about the fact that actually it'd be really weird saying I haven't drunk for six months, you know, and I've decided I'm going to drink now, that that was bringing a different odd energy to the table. And after that, I just thought, you know what really is the, this is ridiculous. You know, that was, you know, and that wasn't a heavy night, I say. It was half a bottle of nice shabbly and two dirty martinis. And you just think, well, that's, you know, how many units? That's a lot of units for not a heavy night.

Yeah. And you just have to think, actually, I just had to think it was time. It was time. It was time to stop. So bar that one night in 22. I mean, it has been over four years. But from the date of actually no alcohol, it's the 7th of June of 2022. And I do feel I'm proud of it as an achievement in the sense that, I mean, I know it's not

something I can be complacent about, but it has been the bedrock, I think, to a lot of positive change. And, you know, I don't think I could have done, like, I couldn't have done the show. Well, I was going to say to you, I'm assuming this is a very intense environment to be in. I think that all intense environments are better handled without alcohol. I think all periods of stress, it's only going to make things worse. It doesn't make, well, it certainly for me, I can only speak for myself, but any time of intense pressure where I have to make decisions, where I have to consider what I'm doing is only.

vastly deteriorated with the addition of alcohol. For me, having a clear head is just so much better. And as I say, I don't have all that time that I waste feeling bad about... I mean, I have...

Obviously, I have flashes of waking up at 3 going, oh God, what did I say? But it's so much less than it used to be. It's just... It just makes things so much more straight, forward. But also, I always remember when I got sober, what I suddenly realized, so yes, there was all that time spent in remorse and regret, as you said, and paranoia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then, but there was also, and I don't know if this, if you find this relatable at all, but I realized how much of my time, even when I wasn't drinking, I was, I spent thinking about drinking. So I got very protective and defensive over the fact that I wasn't a daytime drinker. and I didn't drink every day. But when I got sober, I realized how much time was spent thinking about when I was the next drink-up was going to be. Yeah. You know, and my whole life revolved around the bottle of Shabli.

Yeah. You know, the kind of a sensibly, seemingly kind of quite normal thing was sucking all my energy. And the thing also of being annoyed, you know, I would get annoyed if other people weren't drinking with me. And that's such a, that is such a. That is such a sign as well. Taking people hostage.

It's just, you know, and it's just no, it's bad. I'm much more productive. Even if I spend more time scrolling, I'm still much more productive. I read more. I actually exercise. I'm able to eat healthily. I'm able to not have appalling skin. You know, it's just when I look back at photos of myself,

it was just there was a sort of bloatedness. in terms of just lack of, you know, water retention and lack of skin care, you know, never took my makeup off at night because of just sleep in it, you know. So, no, I think that it's interesting looking back over my books in the way that they seem to mark an evolution, that Blood Orange was, I was drinking when I was writing that, and I was. and I was thinking back to how I was drinking. Because when I was doing peoplage, when I was at the bar, was as I say, in the 90s, early 2000s,

there was, I think, more of a drinking culture. But I wasn't necessarily, I mean, I don't know. I'd been in dialogue with myself a lot about alcohol, but I think I was still at the time of writing Blood Orange of the view that if I was functioning, and I was very highly functioning, I didn't need to think about the toll that drinking was having on me. And, you know, I'm very fond of that book.

You know, I think it's got, there's one chapter in it where she goes to Brighton with her husband, which has never needed editing. I don't think I've ever had anything in my life I've written before or since. That very, very little of that was changed. You know, it was maybe a couple of commas. And so that book was, I don't know, I guess it needed to be written while I was still drinking so I could bring some of that energy to the page. But, I mean, I would like to think it's implicit in that book that it is not an advertisement for, you know, this is how you get through the Sauvignon safely. And it's also, I think, at least heavily implied in subtext that, you know, by the end she might have realized that, you know,

that there are other roots to happiness than, you know, drinking yourself into blackout. Exactly that. That it is quite clear that she's not a happy woman and it's a manifestation of that unhappiness that is leading her to Cane it quite so much. Do you think that there's, I know this is going to sound kind of, again, sort of like a cliche, but through writing her,

did you work through some of your own issues with alcohol? I think that through not just her, but actually through all of the books, because the responses to her, as I say, were very mixed, but the harshest critics of her were, you know, there were things, you know, that because she was being called an alcoholic and because I had not at that point accepted that the word might apply to me because, you know, I wasn't that bad. But there's always someone worse than you. So, you know, on that basis, you can. never do anything about it. And I think that realizing that the external opinion of her was that she was that bad caused me to think, well, hang on a minute, some of this is what I do. Maybe I am. I've never been to an AA meeting. Though I would definitely go if I ever found myself thinking that I needed to.

I would suggest that by attaching your name to that, you are helping to broaden the definition. And I think that's right. And I think it's led to, you know, certainly it's led to some important conversations I've had with friends. I also think the more that I learn about alcoholics and the more I meet people that have had alcohol problems. Yeah. I learn that alcoholism is in a way, like the alcohol, the word alcohol in it is a bit of a red herring. And if you're lucky, you learn through the way you drank. Yeah. But you tend, you are this kind of highly sensitive person who, as you said, reacts from. than respond. And, you know, alcoholics, I think, tend to have more in common with each other

than just the fact that they drank heavily. You know, it's a sort of... Well, I mean, I think it's thinking about the reasons why. Yeah. It's not really... I mean, the alcohol was not the problem. No, it was the solution, right? And it's a poor solution.

So, you know, it served its time, I suppose, as I say, there were points that it was fun. Well, for a lot of us, I think alcohol is also, it's a way to feel like everyone else, isn't it? And it makes parties a lot more interesting and it makes other people a lot more interesting because I think the thing I've realized sober is that, honestly, some people are so dull, especially when they've had a drink in them and how you get through some dinners with it, oh, God, no.

And it's not because it's just the only way of rendering the intolerable, you know, mildly tolerable. And so I've become very good at, you know, either not going out. or leaving early. It depends on the friends. You know, some friends, some friends are very interesting, but other people, you do just think, oh God, no, make this stop and then leave. How easy or hard was it to stop drinking and what kind of things did you do to kind of make the process easier? I mean, I just stopped. That wasn't difficult because it was time to make the decision. I think that I remember going to a, there was drinks of lots of authors, a Christmas drinks in Waterstones.

And I actually found the thing that made me feel really twitchy was not having a glass in my hand because, you know, there's a limit to how much water or Coke or whatever you can drink. And so at one point I found myself picking up an empty champagne glass and walking around with it, just as a sort of armour, you know, it's a kind of I've got something to do with my hands. I do not care now. It's just, I think that to begin with it did feel as if I was missing a skin. But I have not just grown that back, but, you know, a level of rhinoceros hide as well. Well, I mean, not entirely.

But if somebody has a problem with my not drinking, it's a them problem, not a me problem. And if they feel I'm holding a mirror up to them, then, well, they can go and look in it, can't they? but I'm not saying they have to. And I think that, no, I mean, to go back to your question about whether I'd worked through it through the books, I think subconsciously I was because, I mean, the second book I wrote, I mean, she, the character for a long time, the main character, Sadie, was a non-character. She was just the anti-alison from Blood Orange. You know, she would have half a glass of wine and then put it down.

She would say, no, I must go now because I must take my daughter swimming. You know, all the things that, all the things that Alison was just like, oh, dear God, no, not swimming, please, hate activities. But that was, that was sort of my, I suppose, deflecting judgment and not necessarily cross-examining it. And then the third book, it ends at midnight, which I wrote during lockdown in a very dark space. I mean, it was dark that my friend was dying and it was lockdown. and it was COVID. You know, we know how terrible the time that was overall. And that book, I think, was looking at,

I was looking at my teenage years, really, that there was a lot of, there was a lot of being 1718, underage drinking in Edinburgh, which, you know, it was glorious. It was glorious fun, but it also, they're worse in darknesses. And so I think that was, shall we say, a retrospective of where it began. And I know all of this now, looking back on it, it wasn't conscious at the time. And then by the time I wrote the fourth book, A Lesson in Cruelty, I mean, and that book got, that book was prompted.

I had had this brilliant idea about, it was going to be a sort of succession like family, I mean, family drama, but with a lot of murder. And it was going to open with a body in a, it was a distillery, a disused distillery in the highlands. and there was going to be a body in a whiskey barrel that was pickled, essentially, and, you know, and found in a state of some decomposition. And my then editor, and he's brilliant, you know, not to knock him, and he's going to hate me for continuing to tell this story. But they, they sort of gone, I'd made the mistake of doing a plan, you see, and I'd given them the plan, and so they were giving in, yeah, never do that, don't tell people. And they kept discussing what, you know, it was all this input about we don't really think this is plausible.

And I'm like, yeah, because I haven't written it yet. It will be if you just let me do it. But they came back. And the glorious insight they had come back with was that, well, you know, your readership's mostly female, Harriet. Women don't drink whiskey. So can you not do that, please? And I was a bit like, I'm sorry, that's just not actually true. But, okay, if that's what you think.

And they said, well, why don't you know, you could take the family structure and, you know, we went past, I had an idea about like a toxic Dalesford, some sort of, you know, farm shop extravaganza with like death bees. They feed on corpses and then they make honey out of it. That didn't, that didn't run. That might well be what Galesford is secretly all about. Who knows? Who knows we don't want to. Now I like Dalesford.

It's, well, it's hilarious. And then they had the brilliant idea of, we know what you could do that. You could put it in a vineyard. It could be a vineyard in the south of France, like Rose. And at that point, I killed the idea of Stone Dead because that just wasn't going to happen. And in the end, it ended up being about, well, three different women,

but one who'd just been released from prison, one who was jagging her hot professor. and these two women up in a very dystopian setting in the Highlands of Scotland and there was a lot of whiskey being drunk and I didn't do it on purpose but I did realise afterwards that it had been a massive FU to anyone who said that women don't drink whiskey having said that though there is nothing in that book that is an advertisement for drinking it is very much, I'd say that it's a story of release and redemption, guilt, forgiveness and how you can forgive yourself for having done something terrible.

You know, the woman who's released from prison at the start has a huge burden of guilt and shame for various actions that, you know, put her in prison in the first place. And obviously afterwards, I looked at it and I thought, oh, oh, you've written. that around the time you gave up drinking, did you, Harriet? Oh, is that, oh, okay, yeah, your subconscious is a bit clunky. It's a bit on the nose, isn't it, love? But you sort of see, because, you know, I'm not, as I don't plan, I don't, sort of, I have an idea and then it builds rather than sort of sitting there with a spreadsheet. And I don't, it's like I don't necessarily always know how I'm feeling until a bit later. I don't necessarily know what I'm thinking until a bit later when I've

then worked it out what my subconscious was trying to tell me. You know, I'm not saying my emotions are strange to me or that I'm disassociated. It's simply that, you know, there's layers of clarity there that I haven't necessarily seen to begin with. Right. Let's talk about witch trial. Yes. Which is the latest book.

Talk to us about witch trial without giving too much away about which trial. I'll do my best. I'll do my best. And I have to say, first of, I love this book. I have read it and it is absolutely, in the words of the young people, banging. You are going to love it. This is going to blow your mind. It's got all sorts of stuff in it. It's like, you don't really know. I mean, that's the joy of it. You don't really like, where is this going? Well, so this is the story of Matthew, a heart surgeon, who is called to jury service in Edinburgh for the trial of, it's a murder trial, of two girls who think they're witches. And it concerns the death of one of their schoolmates, Christian, who has been found dead in an Edinburgh. Park, In Belief Park, actually. I think I have given it the real name. And he is called, you know,

he's an expert in his field as a heart surgeon, but he doesn't know anything about courts. He doesn't know anything about how murder trials unfold. And he's in two minds even as to whether he is going to do it or whether he's going to make the perfectly reasonably excuse that, you know, he's off to go and do life-saving surgery. There are exceptions to jury duty. But he decides that he will carry out his civic responsibility. And as he sits on the jury and hears the evidence unfold, I mean, it's that they think they're witches, they're teenagers, they've been up to all sorts of occult shenanigans.

And he starts to become, shall we say, very immersed in the world of the trial and in the evidence that he hears. That I think is as much as I can say. It is honestly, it's so, it's so brilliant. And I do, and I know, well, it will get the, it will, it will get the audience. It deserves. There were two things that stood out to me. It's that the descriptions of Matthew's drinking.

Yes. Were very, they made me feel really icky in the way that they should. Yep. So there's that. But we've kind of dealt with that. But the other thing was that the description of teenage girls' bullying was incredibly well-observed. And I just wanted to know, is that something that you had experienced yourself? Not directly.

No, I was lucky enough not to be one of the biggest victims at school. But, you know, I was an all-girls school. So, you know, it's endemic. Yes. And years seven and eight, the worst. I was a witness to some appalling bullying. And I actually did try and tell the teacher. And I don't think much got done.

And the iterations of those girls' names appear in all of my books in various forms. Oh, I love it. But obviously, you know, totally denial. No, there was some, there was some appellation. I mean, of course, with any, you know, as you go through teenage years and you're in groups, there are always periods where some people are more favoured than others. And I think I'm hypersensitive to rejection. I'm hypersensitive to feeling that I might be being left out of things.

So even though I would say I was not bullied, there may have been times I felt more of a victim of it than I was, if I can put it that way. That makes sense. And also I'd say that this whole, you know, what I talked about at the beginning in terms of the method writing, that, you know, I can quite easily imagine being, because, you know, I'm the sort of person who if someone doesn't reply to a text, I will immediately spiral out into what have I done wrong?

Why aren't they replying? They've really upset. I've really upset them. Can I just ask you one more question about the trojas them? Yes, of course. If you were hypersensitive to rejection, criticism, paranoid. Look, I am very similar, Harriet. How the fuck do you cope in that castle?

Well, I was really lucky that I didn't come under suspicion. I was really lucky because one of the biggest fears I had going into it that I would end up being somebody who was constantly suspected, especially not having, you know, if I were faithful and I hadn't done anything. I would really have struggled with that. But I know, you know, I'd sort of, I'd gone through so much to get onto it that I just thought, let's just give this a go. I was taking a very big risk on many levels by,

taking part, but it was too irresistible. Having being chosen, how could I say no? I just think also what I want to finish on is if there's anyone, there's a woman listening in midlife, and I think we have a lot of midlife women listening, who are perhaps desperate to make a change or do something, but they're scared to. I feel like, what advice would you give them? because I feel like you're iconic in terms of just doing the thing, right? So you changed your career from Barrister and then you went and you became a novelist. And then you thought, well, fuck it. I'm just going to go on this show.

You know what I mean? And what would your advice be to someone who's scared of doing the thing? I think don't put limits on yourself. If you can possibly stop doing that, that the only person who's keeping you. you a prisoner as yourself and that we are all capable of far more than we think we are. And by, it's not a question of not accepting no or not. I mean, I'm never going to be able to run 100 metres in under 10 seconds. There are obviously limitations.

But I think that if you set yourself a realistic-ish goal, you should just go for it. And it's possible to make, there is so many, there are. are always so many excuses that you can make all the way along the line about the time's not right for this or maybe that. Just do it. Just get on with it and do it and stop. You know, if you feel you're moaning about something a lot, maybe stop moaning about it and do something to sort it out. You know, also get a therapist because that's the thing that, you know, I got an amazing therapist around the time that I stopped drinking. And I'd say that she has been hugely instrumental in my just sort of letting go of all of the, you know,

all of the things that were stopping me in terms of lack of self-confidence or overthinking or being scared of what people might think. And actually, no, that has brought me to the big thing, which is fuck what people think. Just do what you want to do anyway, as long as it's not like being mean. And have fun. Yeah, and have fun. I think you are iconic. And I thank you for all you do because you are a great role model for women like me.

who are scared and spiral, as you said. And to know that you do that too, and yet you just go ahead and do it anyway, I fucking love you for it. Harriet Tice, thank you for coming on the life of Brian. And thank you. And can I just say, though, that you are, that's a huge compliment,

because I think you are massively inspiring because you have also said, fuck it and just done it, even if you are terrified and spiraling. So, you know, don't put yourself down there. I think you're brilliant. I don't know about you, but my brain is still whirring after that chat with Harriet. And if you want more of her in your life, and I totally do,

her new book, The Witch Trial, is out on the 26th of February. And the good news is that Harriet will be back on Friday for our special bonus episode, The Life of You, while she'll be sharing the things that keep her grounded when life feels like a particularly tense traitor's mission. In the meantime, let me know your thoughts over on Instagram at at Life of Brineepod. Don't forget to subscribe, to follow, to rate and rave about us to your friends, but most of all, keep being your brilliant self. I'll see you next time.