Do You Really Need Alcohol to Socialise? School of Rock Bottom Thought #44: William Porter

What if the person you're angry with isn't the problem? What if your anger is exposing something you've spent your entire life trying to hide? In recovery, I discovered something deeply uncomfortable: beneath my anger was often a fear that I wasn't good enough, that people didn't love me, or that I didn't matter. I wanted to control everyone around me because, deep down, I couldn't bear feeling out of control myself. Then, in early recovery, a friend failed to call me back. I was furious. I made it personal. I convinced myself he didn't care about me. But when I finally discovered what he was going through, I felt physically sick. Because his world was falling apart, and somehow, I'd made it all about me. In this episode of School of Rock Bottom Thought Series, Oliver Mason explores the hidden connection between anger, addiction, ego, fear and self-esteem... and why the need to control other people can leave us trapped in our own suffering. What if the thing that's making you angry has absolutely nothing to do with you? And what if letting go of that need to control everything could be the very thing that sets you free? Listen or watch THE FULL EPISODE YouTube - https://tinyurl.com/bdc5dvfc Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3Z0Pr1r Apple - https://tinyurl.com/y3n2chk3 About the “THOUGHT” series - Every other Monday at 5 PM, I’ll bring you a quick ‘thought’—a powerful moment from previous episodes designed to kickstart your week with insight, motivation, and connection. These shorter clips help us stay connected as a community, while every other Tuesday delivers a full, brand-new episode with fresh stories and lessons. Oliver is an ambassador for Alcohol Change UK and you can access support here - https://tinyurl.com/5dt5773e Podcasting is an expensive passion. To help me keep going, I'd really appreciate it if you could buy me a coffee, thank you! https://buymeacoffee.com/olivermason1 Or via PayPal - https://www.paypal.me/olivermason1paypal Follow Oliver Instagram - https://tinyurl.com/2vt29sjv Facebook - https://tinyurl.com/34cwz59r TikTok - https://tinyurl.com/ujw4vxn9 LinkedIn - https://tinyurl.com/yuemhnd7 Threads - https://tinyurl.com/yk7vdeah X - https://tinyurl.com/3u5mnpds #AddictionRecovery #AngerManagement #MentalHealth

Adam Lancashire survived a cardiac arrest after decades of alcohol and cocaine addiction. In May 2024, his heart stopped for 26 minutes. After weeks in intensive care, he woke up with hypoxic brain damage and faced the challenge of rebuilding his life. He had to relearn basic skills, including how to walk and talk, confront the consequences of his addiction and find a way forward without drugs or alcohol. Now more than two years sober, Adam joins me to share his extraordinary story for the first time, covering addiction, survival, recovery, family breakdown and learning to live again. What happens when addiction takes you to the edge of death? And how do you rebuild your life when you wake up to discover that even the simplest everyday tasks have become a challenge? Adam's story is one of survival, resilience and a second chance. His childhood was marked by instability, and he discovered drugs at a young age. By 15, he was using cocaine. What began as a way to escape and feel more confident developed into years of alcohol and drug use, with serious consequences for his relationships, family life and wellbeing. Despite periods of apparent success, Adam struggled with addiction behind the scenes. Relationships broke down, family connections suffered, and the cycle of drinking and cocaine use became increasingly difficult to escape. Then, in May 2024, everything changed. After playing football, Adam collapsed on his way back to the station. He suffered a cardiac arrest and was resuscitated before being taken to hospital. After weeks in intensive care, he woke up with hypoxic brain damage. Surviving the cardiac arrest was only the beginning. Adam faced the enormous challenge of rebuilding his physical and cognitive abilities, learning to walk, speak, eat and carry out everyday tasks again. Alongside his rehabilitation, he also had to confront the addiction and personal struggles that had shaped so much of his life. Adam explains how he found his way into recovery through Alcoholics Anonymous, the importance of friendship and fellowship, and how helping others gave him a renewed sense of purpose. He speaks honestly about his approach to the 12-step programme and why he believes recovery does not look the same for everyone. Adam also opens up about guilt, shame and the pain of family relationships affected by addiction, including his estrangement from his son. He reflects on the temptation to romanticise the past, even when that past caused so much damage, and the difficult process of learning to forgive himself. His experience of recovering from brain damage while maintaining his sobriety brings another dimension to the conversation. Adam describes the frustration of losing abilities he once took for granted. Adam's shows that recovery does not have to follow rigid rules or a single prescribed path, and that rebuilding a life can begin even after the most devastating setbacks. Oliver is an ambassador for Alcohol Change UK, support here - https://tinyurl.com/5dt5773e Sponsor - www.gavinsisters.co.uk promo code SCHOOLOFROCKBOTTOM for 10% off! Support us - https://buymeacoffee.com/olivermason1 Topics - 0:00 Trailer & Intro 3:20 A rock bottom moment 8:25 Do you need a dramatic rock bottom? 10:35 The Invisible Line! 11:35 Money, travel and a morphine drop 16:35 Drinking leads to coke 19:35 Getting high on your own supply 22:50 Stealing & affairs 27:35 Estranged from family and giving up on yourself 31:05 Addiction progresses 35:50 A moment in The ICU 37:35 The recovery starts 41:05 Cravings return 42:20 Struggling with higher power in AA 44:05 Friendships in recovery 46:50 Can you do fellowship your way? Follow Adam Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/adamcamehome https://www.instagram.com/adam_lancashire Follow Oliver https://linktr.ee/olivermason YouTube - https://tinyurl.com/4jmw275u Spotify - https://tinyurl.com/y9ay6kmk Apple - https://tinyurl.com/y3n2chk3 #CocaineAddiction #AddictionRecovery #Sobriety

Fear can make recovery feel impossible. Addiction tells you that you are going to lose everything you love, or that you will never get the life you want. But what if those thoughts are not predictions, but lies? In this School of Rock Bottom Thought Series, Oliver Mason explores fear, catastrophising, relapse, gratitude, faith and the power of living in the present moment. Drawing on my own recovery and years of working with people in addiction treatment, I asks a simple but powerful question: what if you stopped putting your faith in the fear and started putting your faith in recovery? Addiction has a remarkable ability to hijack our thinking. The moment we become grateful for our relationships, our work, our health or our lives, fear can turn those very things into reasons to worry. What if I lose this? What if everything goes wrong? What if I never get what I want? Suddenly, the future becomes a place of catastrophe, and alcohol or drugs can begin to look like an escape from a future that exists only in our imagination. I explor why living in the day can be such a powerful principle in recovery. We cannot know exactly what is going to happen tomorrow, but addiction can convince us that we do. It gives us the worst possible outcome and presents it as though it is inevitable. Learning to recognise that process can create space between the fear and the decision to pick up a drink or drug. I also explores the relationship between fear and self-centred thinking, and why helping another person can be such a powerful way of getting out of our own heads. From working with people in rehab to simply being there for somebody else, recovery can shift our attention away from the relentless internal noise of what I calls the “Oli show”. For people who find the spiritual language of recovery difficult, I offer another way of looking at faith. You do not necessarily have to believe in God or follow a particular religion to have faith. You can put your faith in recovery itself. Every day without drugs or alcohol becomes another piece of evidence that recovery works. Even when life becomes difficult, the overall trajectory can still be moving forward. This thought is ultimately about learning to trust the process. A difficult day does not mean recovery has failed. A closed door does not necessarily mean the end of the road. Sometimes the path simply changes. Sometimes the thing you feared losing makes way for something you could never have imagined finding.

What does alcoholism look like when nobody knows you have a problem? Tamsin spent nearly a decade drinking alone while building a successful career as a journalist, convinced that because she hadn't been arrested, lost her job or ended up in hospital, she couldn't be an alcoholic. She got sober in 2022, built a life in recovery, and then relapsed for one night in 2025 after putting her sobriety second. In this conversation, Tamsin opens up about hidden alcoholism, denial, addiction, relapse, shame, self-worth and why you don't need to hit rock bottom before asking for help. Tamsin describes what she calls being a "boring alcoholic": no dramatic arrests, car crashes or headline-making consequences, but a private addiction that increasingly controlled her life. She explains how alcohol became her way of managing anxiety, sleeping, socialising and feeling confident, while underneath it all she was struggling with self-worth. We talk about the moment she realised something wasn't right, sitting on a bus waiting for a shop to open so she could buy wine after finishing a night shift. Tamsin speaks candidly about her relapse in 2025 after almost three years sober. She explains what she means by "putting recovery second", how the same negative thoughts and patterns returned after one drink, and why having a recovery network around her helped her stop a one-night relapse from becoming something much bigger. We discuss relapse, the shame that can follow it, and the danger of believing that you've wasted your previous sobriety. Tamsin shares what it was like returning to recovery spaces after relapsing and how the tools she had built over nearly three years were still there when she needed them. We also explore relationships in recovery, including what it was like for Tamsin's partner to see her drunk for the first time. We talk about alcohol-free homes, boundaries and why protecting your recovery sometimes has to come before everything else. Another part of the conversation is alcohol delivery apps and how they can remove the barriers between craving and access. Tamsin explains how she secretly used delivery services during active addiction, while Oliver shares his experience of rapid alcohol delivery. Tamsin's message to anyone questioning their relationship with alcohol is simple: you do not need to call yourself an alcoholic, have a dramatic story or wait for your life to fall apart before you deserve help. If your drinking is making your life more negative, or you don't know what will happen once you take that first drink, that may be enough to start asking questions. Tamsin shares her experience openly online, helping people who don't recognise themselves in the stereotypical image of addiction. She has founded a sober and sober-curious book club, is an advisory director of a sober CIC, raises money for alcohol harm charities. Oliver is an ambassador for Alcohol Change UK, support here - https://tinyurl.com/5dt5773e Sponsor - www.gavinsisters.co.uk and use promo code SCHOOLOFROCKBOTTOM for 10% off! Support us - https://buymeacoffee.com/olivermason1 Topics - 0:00 Trailer & Intro 3:00 I didn't have a "rock bottom" moment! 7:00 What is rock bottom? 9:30 Hidden addiction is more dangerous? 12:15 Smashing denial 16:15 Hanxiety, sleep and migraines 18:00 Alcohol, relationships and control 19:45 I never felt "part of" 23:30 What is an alcoholic? 26:30 Putting your recovery second 30:30 Can you relapse for 1 day?! 34:15 How relapse effects your partner 38:30 Does your partner drink? 42:30 Picking back up tools during a relapse 46:00 Alcohol doesn't work anymore! 48:00 Alcohol delivery apps 56:00 Everyone deserves help Follow Tamsin Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@soberjourno Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tamsinsoberjourno Follow Oliver https://linktr.ee/olivermason YouTube - https://youtu.be/nb0ql7PrGpM Spotify - https://tinyurl.com/5fv45axp Apple - https://tinyurl.com/y3n2chk3

What if the thought “Life is shit. What’s the point?” isn’t the truth, but simply a thought? In this next School of Rock Bottom Thought Series, Oliver Mason explores self-pity, addiction, recovery, intrusive thoughts, anxiety and the search for purpose. I share how I learned to stop identifying with every thought my brain produced, challenge the stories that kept me trapped, and recognise the evidence that recovery was actually changing my life. From standing on a train platform with an intrusive thought to discovering the unexpected power of a gratitude list, this is a conversation about finding meaning when your mind is telling you there is none. In active addiction, “Life is shit. What’s the point?” can feel less like a passing thought and more like an undeniable fact. I explain how that same thought can still appear in recovery, even when I am completely clean and sober. The difference is what happens next. Rather than seeing myself as my thoughts, I describe seeing myself as the awareness of those thoughts. That small gap between having a thought and reacting to it became a game changer. I explore how this perspective helped me challenge anxiety, rumination and the tendency to turn one frightening thought into an entire story about myself. I also share a powerful example of experiencing an intrusive thought on a train platform and immediately spiralling into anxiety and self-diagnosis. The thought itself wasn't necessarily the problem. My reaction to it was. For me, recovery has increasingly been about recognising that while I may not have complete control over what enters my mind, I can develop far more choice over how I respond. The conversation then moves into one of the most important questions in recovery: what gives your life a point? I remember calling a mentor during early recovery and saying, “Life is shit. What’s the point?” Instead of joining me in the self-pity, my mentor challenged me to find something on my gratitude list that proved the thought wasn't true. What I discovered was surprisingly simple. I had spent time with my godson and watched a film. But within those ordinary moments was something much bigger: I was someone's godfather. I had a young person in my life who looked up to me. Suddenly, my life had purpose. That experience changed the way I viewed gratitude. What had once felt like meaningless box-ticking became evidence that my life was changing. The things on my gratitude list were things that were possible because I was sober. I also explore the idea that recovery isn't simply about removing alcohol or drugs. The energy, drive and intensity that once went into addiction doesn't necessarily disappear. It can be redirected towards purpose, creativity, relationships, service and building a completely different life. Listen or watch THE FULL EPISODE YouTube - https://tinyurl.com/bdc5dvfc Spotify - https://spoti.fi/3Z0Pr1r Apple - https://tinyurl.com/y3n2chk3 About the “THOUGHT” series - Every other Monday at 5 PM, I’ll bring you a quick ‘thought’—a powerful moment from previous episodes designed to kickstart your week with insight, motivation, and connection. These shorter clips help us stay connected as a community, while every other Tuesday delivers a full, brand-new episode with fresh stories and lessons. Oliver is an ambassador for Alcohol Change UK and you can access support here - https://tinyurl.com/5dt5773e Podcasting is an expensive passion. To help me keep going, I'd really appreciate it if you could buy me a coffee, thank you! https://buymeacoffee.com/olivermason1 Or via PayPal - https://www.paypal.me/olivermason1paypal Follow Oliver Instagram - https://tinyurl.com/2vt29sjv Facebook - https://tinyurl.com/34cwz59r TikTok - https://tinyurl.com/ujw4vxn9 LinkedIn - https://tinyurl.com/yuemhnd7 Threads - https://tinyurl.com/yk7vdeah X - https://tinyurl.com/3u5mnpds #AddictionRecovery #RelapsePrevention #RecoveryIsPossible