From Addiction to Advocacy: Sam Thomas on Living Sober and Recovery

Rachel Casey (00:00:02):
Welcome to Sober Banter.

Rachel Casey (00:00:04):
My name is Rachel.

Rachel Casey (00:00:06):
I am hosting solo.

Rachel Casey (00:00:07):
Colin is at work today.

Rachel Casey (00:00:08):
We have a guest all the way from Frighton,

Rachel Casey (00:00:10):
UK,

Rachel Casey (00:00:11):
and his name is Sam Thomas,

Rachel Casey (00:00:13):
a writer and campaigner.

Rachel Casey (00:00:15):
Welcome, Sam.

Sam Thomas (00:00:16):
Hi there.

Sam Thomas (00:00:17):
Thank you for having me.

Rachel Casey (00:00:18):
Well, you've been sober since 11-10-2019, so congratulations.

Sam Thomas (00:00:22):
Thank you.

Rachel Casey (00:00:23):
Man, November is a good, we're November 22nd of 21st.

Sam Thomas (00:00:27):
No, it's nearly 2,000 days, actually, tomorrow, which only just really lasts today.

Rachel Casey (00:00:31):
Congratulations.

Sam Thomas (00:00:32):
I knew it was coming, but I'd forgotten casually about it.

Sam Thomas (00:00:34):
So, yeah, 2,000 days.

Rachel Casey (00:00:36):
I don't really keep track of,

Rachel Casey (00:00:37):
I kept track of the days in the very beginning,

Rachel Casey (00:00:40):
but do you have like a day tracker on your phone or do you just randomly?

Sam Thomas (00:00:44):
I mean, I'm quite old school.

Sam Thomas (00:00:46):
I'm just looking at how many days since.

Sam Thomas (00:00:50):
No,

Sam Thomas (00:00:50):
I do keep a bit of a track,

Sam Thomas (00:00:51):
but I used to do a weekly tweet,

Sam Thomas (00:00:54):
which I fall out of the habit of.

Sam Thomas (00:00:55):
So now it's just a case of the six month days and the yearly and that's about it in

Sam Thomas (00:01:01):
terms of milestones.

Rachel Casey (00:01:02):
Well, that's pretty cool.

Rachel Casey (00:01:03):
I hope you tweet tomorrow about 2,000 days.

Sam Thomas (00:01:05):
It's really inspirational.

Sam Thomas (00:01:07):
Very, very tweet.

Sam Thomas (00:01:07):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:01:10):
So not only tomorrow, 2,000 days, he has Gecko, a praying mantis, six tarantulas.

Rachel Casey (00:01:18):
Oh, my God.

Rachel Casey (00:01:19):
Two, I don't know what wandering spiders are, but I am terrified, but in a therapy scorpion.

Rachel Casey (00:01:25):
So what?

Rachel Casey (00:01:27):
Did that start after sobriety, in sobriety?

Sam Thomas (00:01:29):
And yes and no.

Sam Thomas (00:01:30):
I mean, there is a link, actually, between alcohol withdrawal and spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:01:35):
So I may as well just jump straight in, I suppose.

Sam Thomas (00:01:37):
Probably about 10 years ago,

Sam Thomas (00:01:38):
when I sort of was beginning to sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:01:41):
not quite 10 years,

Sam Thomas (00:01:42):
probably more than eight years ago,

Sam Thomas (00:01:43):
I'm going to be exact,

Sam Thomas (00:01:44):
I sort of did that classic thing of just abruptly stopping drinking,

Sam Thomas (00:01:47):
not really realising I was alcohol dependent.

Sam Thomas (00:01:50):
I had alcohol withdrawal episodes, which I didn't realize that was alcohol withdrawal either.

Sam Thomas (00:01:55):
So it was a bit of a mystery for a while whilst falling down so unwell on a regular basis.

Sam Thomas (00:02:00):
But sort of when I was sort of in and out of recovery for a period,

Sam Thomas (00:02:05):
I used to start having hallucinations as a result of alcohol withdrawal,

Sam Thomas (00:02:09):
several days in type thing.

Sam Thomas (00:02:10):
It's very scary, and I didn't have a clue.

Sam Thomas (00:02:12):
It's almost like dreaming whilst I was awake.

Sam Thomas (00:02:15):
Very strange.

Sam Thomas (00:02:16):
And,

Sam Thomas (00:02:16):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:02:16):
one of the other symptoms,

Sam Thomas (00:02:17):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:02:18):
of alcohol withdrawal is just full-blown insomnia.

Sam Thomas (00:02:20):
You just do not sleep.

Sam Thomas (00:02:22):
So I was sort of dreaming while I was awake.

Sam Thomas (00:02:24):
And the thing that was reoccurring again and again was spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:02:27):
So...

Sam Thomas (00:02:28):
What I did, I think, must have been about eight years.

Sam Thomas (00:02:30):
I was trying to write this out the other day what year it would have been,

Sam Thomas (00:02:32):
but I think it might have been 2016.

Sam Thomas (00:02:33):
I got my first tarantula, and admittedly, I was completely drunk.

Sam Thomas (00:02:36):
I had already two sort of little geckos at the time.

Sam Thomas (00:02:40):
And so it kind of made sense.

Sam Thomas (00:02:42):
You know, I keep hallucinating spiders, so let's get a tarantula.

Sam Thomas (00:02:44):
That makes sense.

Sam Thomas (00:02:46):
And in about five days, I sort of looked at her.

Sam Thomas (00:02:48):
She was on the kitchen sink.

Sam Thomas (00:02:50):
And she was pretty scaring.

Sam Thomas (00:02:52):
I didn't know anything about tarantulas at all.

Sam Thomas (00:02:56):
I barely knew what species she was.

Sam Thomas (00:02:58):
She was a Mexican Red Rump.

Sam Thomas (00:02:59):
She was concerned with the deep pain sight of tarantulas as well.

Sam Thomas (00:03:02):
So I didn't realize that she's not exactly a beginner's sort of tarantula.

Sam Thomas (00:03:05):
Anyway,

Sam Thomas (00:03:06):
once I sort of had a couple of bowls of wine,

Sam Thomas (00:03:09):
I used to sort of get out in the early hours of the morning.

Sam Thomas (00:03:11):
And actually I was in total awe of her.

Sam Thomas (00:03:14):
She was so sort of spectacular,

Sam Thomas (00:03:15):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:03:15):
doing all the little things with the legs and moving around.

Sam Thomas (00:03:17):
And she was really not that frightening at all.

Sam Thomas (00:03:20):
You know, she was just a ball of fluff.

Sam Thomas (00:03:22):
So from that point onwards, I was just sort of hooked, I suppose.

Sam Thomas (00:03:25):
So it sort of helped me to sort of rationalize the nightmares in a way.

Sam Thomas (00:03:28):
And they didn't, even though, yeah, they were still extremely scary.

Sam Thomas (00:03:31):
I thought, well, I've got a real one at home.

Sam Thomas (00:03:33):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:03:34):
and then over the years,

Sam Thomas (00:03:35):
particularly during lockdowns,

Sam Thomas (00:03:36):
when we had far too much time on our hands,

Sam Thomas (00:03:38):
far too much time to watch YouTube,

Sam Thomas (00:03:40):
I ended up sort of really doing a lot of research into spiders and things and then

Sam Thomas (00:03:43):
I just got a full-blown collection.

Sam Thomas (00:03:46):
I see.

Rachel Casey (00:03:47):
That is crazy.

Sam Thomas (00:03:48):
Yeah, but they're all quite young, even.

Sam Thomas (00:03:51):
Some are older than others, and some of them are pretty scary, like the wandering spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:03:55):
You've got the tiger wandering spider and the red fang wandering spider,

Sam Thomas (00:03:59):
which are as hideous and adorable as they sound.

Sam Thomas (00:04:02):
But yeah, I've got a small collection, a scorpion as well.

Sam Thomas (00:04:07):
So yeah, but at this stage, I'm not frightened by any of them, to be honest.

Rachel Casey (00:04:10):
But originally, so it's almost like an exposure therapy.

Sam Thomas (00:04:13):
Yeah, I suppose I don't, yeah, that's precisely it.

Sam Thomas (00:04:15):
I've been trying to work out for a while, what do you call that?

Sam Thomas (00:04:18):
Exposure therapy.

Sam Thomas (00:04:20):
Yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:04:20):
I suppose it's that,

Sam Thomas (00:04:21):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:04:21):
just sort of after a while you begin to rationalize it and it sort of diminishes

Sam Thomas (00:04:25):
the fear or the anxiety around them as time goes on.

Sam Thomas (00:04:28):
And it turned out I wasn't that frightened by them anyway, really.

Sam Thomas (00:04:30):
I just didn't know what they were.

Sam Thomas (00:04:31):
You know, I didn't really know much about tarantulas eight years ago.

Sam Thomas (00:04:34):
Now I'm

Sam Thomas (00:04:35):
you know a bit of an expert inverted commas but you know it's just they're just

Sam Thomas (00:04:40):
fascinating me and you know I've always been quite drawn to exotic things I think

Sam Thomas (00:04:44):
it's to me a few years to realize where a big interest in plants I've got loads of

Sam Thomas (00:04:48):
plants and I've got like I say geckos where I did have a chameleon up until

Sam Thomas (00:04:52):
recently unfortunately it died and I suppose when I think about it because I grew

Sam Thomas (00:04:55):
up in Liverpool which I'm sure you're familiar with where the Beatles are from

Sam Thomas (00:04:59):
It was very grim, very gray, very windy, very miserable in the north of the UK.

Sam Thomas (00:05:05):
So anything exotic just seemed like the polar opposite of that.

Sam Thomas (00:05:08):
So when I was a kid,

Sam Thomas (00:05:09):
nature programs,

Sam Thomas (00:05:11):
anything with David Attenborough,

Sam Thomas (00:05:12):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:05:12):
I was fascinated.

Sam Thomas (00:05:14):
So because it was just the polar opposite.

Sam Thomas (00:05:16):
And when I when I was in my mid 20s,

Sam Thomas (00:05:17):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:05:18):
I was able to start traveling to different places like the Canary Islands,

Sam Thomas (00:05:21):
Morocco.

Sam Thomas (00:05:22):
And of course,

Sam Thomas (00:05:22):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:05:23):
I realized it was all real and all these things,

Sam Thomas (00:05:25):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:05:25):
the plants and the animals and things.

Sam Thomas (00:05:27):
So I don't have many interests anyway, history as well.

Sam Thomas (00:05:31):
So, yeah, it kind of stems from that, I think.

Rachel Casey (00:05:36):
So if you had, you'd said, starts and stops, like what kind of drinker were you?

Rachel Casey (00:05:40):
Were you the binge drinker, the everyday drinker, or did it kind of develop over time?

Sam Thomas (00:05:45):
Yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:05:45):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:05:45):
I sort of jumped straight into an alcohol withdrawal,

Sam Thomas (00:05:47):
but it would rewind the clock.

Sam Thomas (00:05:49):
I mean, I started drinking.

Sam Thomas (00:05:49):
I drank twice when I was 18.

Sam Thomas (00:05:51):
Sorry, not 18.

Sam Thomas (00:05:52):
Sorry, 16 and 17.

Sam Thomas (00:05:55):
And I was in Liverpool, was on the gay scene.

Sam Thomas (00:05:57):
I absolutely loved it.

Sam Thomas (00:05:59):
I hated drinking.

Sam Thomas (00:06:00):
So I never drank again.

Sam Thomas (00:06:01):
And my first boyfriend, he didn't drink.

Sam Thomas (00:06:02):
He was a bit of a tough, you know, Lord, blah, blah, you know, that sort of thing.

Sam Thomas (00:06:07):
He had Lord's nails and his family and all this sort of stuff.

Sam Thomas (00:06:10):
So it was a part because he didn't drink.

Sam Thomas (00:06:12):
I didn't drink.

Sam Thomas (00:06:13):
And this was in the early 2000s when it was totally unfashionable not to drink.

Sam Thomas (00:06:18):
Not like these days where,

Sam Thomas (00:06:19):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:06:19):
Generation Z sort of really don't drink very much,

Sam Thomas (00:06:22):
if at all.

Sam Thomas (00:06:23):
When I was 23, here's later, I moved to Brighton.

Sam Thomas (00:06:26):
I set up a charity, which I'm sure will speak about later.

Sam Thomas (00:06:29):
And I was doing all these incredible, amazing things.

Sam Thomas (00:06:31):
And my sort of best friend at the time, he was, you know, a bit of a party animal.

Sam Thomas (00:06:35):
I used to tag along with him.

Sam Thomas (00:06:37):
He used to go out on Tuesdays because it was student night and Saturdays.

Sam Thomas (00:06:41):
And then up until that point, up until the age of 23, I didn't drink.

Sam Thomas (00:06:43):
You know,

Sam Thomas (00:06:44):
it was often my sort of job to sort of pick him up off the floor sort of thing or

Sam Thomas (00:06:46):
throw him in a taxi at the end of the night.

Sam Thomas (00:06:48):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:06:49):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:06:50):
and then at some point he just decided on a whim that it'd be fun to sort of put a

Sam Thomas (00:06:54):
little bit of vodka in my Diet Coke.

Sam Thomas (00:06:57):
And of course, I didn't notice.

Sam Thomas (00:06:59):
I thought it tasted a little bit funny, but apart from that, I didn't really notice.

Sam Thomas (00:07:01):
And of course,

Sam Thomas (00:07:02):
within half an hour,

Sam Thomas (00:07:02):
I felt the effects of the vodka,

Sam Thomas (00:07:04):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:07:04):
it's straight in at the deep end.

Sam Thomas (00:07:07):
And from that day onwards, I just continued to drink.

Sam Thomas (00:07:09):
There was no real reason not to drink.

Sam Thomas (00:07:12):
It was my choice to drink from the day onwards, of course.

Sam Thomas (00:07:14):
It was like he spiked me every time.

Sam Thomas (00:07:15):
But the very first occasion was that.

Sam Thomas (00:07:19):
And then I ended up sort of drinking things like Sambuca and Coke because it had my name on it.

Sam Thomas (00:07:25):
And then rosé wine.

Sam Thomas (00:07:27):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:07:27):
So I really go to the deep end shots, of course.

Sam Thomas (00:07:29):
You know, the whole point of shots is to get drunk.

Sam Thomas (00:07:32):
So I kind of felt as though I had a lot of making up to do from all the years that

Sam Thomas (00:07:35):
I didn't drink.

Sam Thomas (00:07:36):
Of course,

Sam Thomas (00:07:36):
if we jump to about the age of 24,

Sam Thomas (00:07:37):
25,

Sam Thomas (00:07:37):
I can't remember exactly how old I was actually now,

Sam Thomas (00:07:40):
but my mother died about 11 years ago,

Sam Thomas (00:07:42):
I think it would have been.

Sam Thomas (00:07:44):
And of course, at that point, I was estranged from my mother.

Sam Thomas (00:07:46):
We didn't speak for seven years.

Sam Thomas (00:07:47):
I had a very complex relationship, almost an only system relationship with my mother.

Sam Thomas (00:07:51):
Her mother was money depressive, addict, as it so happens, in the asylums.

Sam Thomas (00:07:56):
Of course, back in the days, we did have asylums.

Sam Thomas (00:07:59):
She not having a mother sort of meant that she didn't have a role model and that

Sam Thomas (00:08:02):
sort of had a knock on impact on me in a way.

Sam Thomas (00:08:05):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:08:05):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:06):
to explain the sort of the background,

Sam Thomas (00:08:07):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:08:08):
and the reason for sort of non-existent relationship,

Sam Thomas (00:08:11):
she just didn't know how to be a mother as very simple terms.

Sam Thomas (00:08:14):
So she died and then at that point onwards,

Sam Thomas (00:08:16):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:17):
it just sort of became miserable,

Sam Thomas (00:08:19):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:19):
as you would expect.

Sam Thomas (00:08:20):
Not fun to be around.

Sam Thomas (00:08:21):
So I stopped getting the invoice on the Tuesday and Saturday nights like I'd always

Sam Thomas (00:08:24):
get without fail.

Sam Thomas (00:08:25):
So I ended up sort of drinking at home just on a Saturday night.

Sam Thomas (00:08:29):
I used to get the other two little bottles that you got on planes and trains and things.

Sam Thomas (00:08:33):
That was my idea of a binge drink, you know what I mean, a Saturday night.

Sam Thomas (00:08:36):
And then,

Sam Thomas (00:08:36):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:08:37):
over time,

Sam Thomas (00:08:38):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:38):
it became Friday,

Sam Thomas (00:08:39):
Saturday,

Sam Thomas (00:08:39):
Sunday,

Sam Thomas (00:08:40):
then sort of days during the week,

Sam Thomas (00:08:41):
you can see what's going to happen here,

Sam Thomas (00:08:43):
you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:08:43):
It just sort of becomes any excuse to drink.

Sam Thomas (00:08:45):
And because I was doing all these incredible,

Sam Thomas (00:08:47):
amazing things,

Sam Thomas (00:08:47):
speaking at conferences,

Sam Thomas (00:08:48):
doing media appearances,

Sam Thomas (00:08:50):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:51):
all sorts of things with my charity at the time,

Sam Thomas (00:08:52):
very high-profile stuff,

Sam Thomas (00:08:54):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:54):
I sort of had a bit of a high,

Sam Thomas (00:08:56):
but also a bit of a low,

Sam Thomas (00:08:58):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:08:58):
tail of two extremes.

Sam Thomas (00:08:59):
So the other question,

Rachel Casey (00:09:00):
Like a justification,

Rachel Casey (00:09:01):
kind of like,

Rachel Casey (00:09:02):
well,

Rachel Casey (00:09:02):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:09:03):
if this were failing,

Sam Thomas (00:09:04):
then I would actually have a problem.

Sam Thomas (00:09:06):
Yeah, it's just an excuse for any mood, any situation.

Sam Thomas (00:09:09):
You know, classic textbook, isn't it, really?

Sam Thomas (00:09:11):
Just is a reason to drink.

Sam Thomas (00:09:13):
But it was all in private at home.

Sam Thomas (00:09:15):
I didn't want to drink that much around other people.

Sam Thomas (00:09:17):
And at that point, I was going to the gym.

Sam Thomas (00:09:19):
I only started going to the gym in my mid-20s.

Sam Thomas (00:09:22):
You know,

Sam Thomas (00:09:22):
I put in a lot of muscle quite quickly,

Sam Thomas (00:09:24):
sort of become appealing to other men all of a sudden.

Sam Thomas (00:09:27):
And,

Sam Thomas (00:09:27):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:09:27):
I,

Sam Thomas (00:09:28):
the good thing was that because I went to gym quite late at night,

Sam Thomas (00:09:31):
it sort of acted as a bit of safe,

Sam Thomas (00:09:33):
a bit of a safeguard.

Sam Thomas (00:09:34):
So I mean, I wouldn't drink till after I've been to the gym.

Sam Thomas (00:09:37):
So if I went at nine, 10 o'clock.

Sam Thomas (00:09:39):
So then I would sort of drink till three, four, five in the morning, 20 what time I went to bed.

Sam Thomas (00:09:43):
I only slept a few hours sort of thing, got up, did where I had to do that day.

Sam Thomas (00:09:48):
But of course,

Sam Thomas (00:09:48):
there came a point when I sort of found out the habit of going to the gym and that

Sam Thomas (00:09:51):
sort of safeguard was removed and drinking.

Sam Thomas (00:09:54):
Well, it was just open season, you know, and it wasn't sort of day drinking immediately.

Sam Thomas (00:09:58):
But that is sort of become a thing a bit later, certainly towards the tail end of my 20s.

Sam Thomas (00:10:02):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:10:03):
yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:10:03):
it's sort of a bit sort of hazy at what point,

Sam Thomas (00:10:05):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:10:06):
things progressed because it's very sort of incremental,

Sam Thomas (00:10:08):
isn't it?

Sam Thomas (00:10:08):
Over a period of time.

Sam Thomas (00:10:10):
But it,

Sam Thomas (00:10:10):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:10:10):
I've been,

Sam Thomas (00:10:11):
to put this in very simple terms,

Sam Thomas (00:10:13):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:10:13):
from teetox in my early 20s up into the age of 23,

Sam Thomas (00:10:16):
and then teetox rehab by the age of 31.

Sam Thomas (00:10:18):
So it really is one extreme to the other.

Rachel Casey (00:10:23):
I definitely relate a lot with,

Rachel Casey (00:10:25):
so neither of my parents have passed,

Rachel Casey (00:10:27):
but one of the things that would happen when I would start drinking is I would

Rachel Casey (00:10:32):
start talking about my dad and the childhood,

Rachel Casey (00:10:35):
and then people just didn't want to be around it.

Rachel Casey (00:10:37):
And they were like...

Rachel Casey (00:10:38):
and you get the invitations less and less and so i totally relate to the and it was

Rachel Casey (00:10:44):
just always at a certain point that it just hit me that i just was like i would

Rachel Casey (00:10:48):
spill everything i would be fine for the first like five drinks and then after five

Rachel Casey (00:10:52):
they were like oh there's rachel she's on blackout she's talking about her dad and

Sam Thomas (00:10:56):
yeah and it just becomes more isolating as time goes on and i think that's that

Sam Thomas (00:11:00):
sort of the fuel

Rachel Casey (00:11:01):
Now you're not saying it out loud.

Rachel Casey (00:11:03):
Now you're saying it in your head and you're kind of going alone in this rabbit hole.

Rachel Casey (00:11:07):
And it can be a very, very lonely place.

Rachel Casey (00:11:11):
And I don't think anyone who hasn't done that understands how inner loneliness can feel.

Sam Thomas (00:11:19):
Yeah, and it's just through the fire, isn't it?

Sam Thomas (00:11:20):
You know, it's sort of one of the... Fuel.

Sam Thomas (00:11:23):
A few things,

Sam Thomas (00:11:24):
really,

Sam Thomas (00:11:24):
that's sort of the key ingredients,

Sam Thomas (00:11:25):
if you like,

Sam Thomas (00:11:26):
that sort of enables addiction to thrive.

Sam Thomas (00:11:29):
And, you know, isolation, you know, the more isolated I became, the more I drank, basically.

Sam Thomas (00:11:34):
And, of course, I was very isolated in my work as well because I was sort of a one-man band.

Sam Thomas (00:11:38):
It's a charity.

Sam Thomas (00:11:39):
There were people working with the charity,

Sam Thomas (00:11:40):
but it may as well have been the Sam Thomas Foundation.

Sam Thomas (00:11:43):
I should explain what that charity was, really.

Sam Thomas (00:11:44):
I mean, it was for men with eating disorders.

Sam Thomas (00:11:46):
I mean, I had bulimia throughout my teens from about the age of 13 to 21.

Sam Thomas (00:11:50):
It's a hard movie, too.

Sam Thomas (00:11:53):
And as you can probably see and go with this, I kind of sought one thing for another.

Sam Thomas (00:11:57):
So bulimia in my teens is a period in the early 20s when there wasn't really a

Sam Thomas (00:12:01):
default coping mechanism per se.

Sam Thomas (00:12:02):
But from the age of about 23, you know, it was alcohol.

Sam Thomas (00:12:05):
It just took over.

Sam Thomas (00:12:06):
It literally sought one thing for the other.

Sam Thomas (00:12:08):
And it is sort of quite common.

Sam Thomas (00:12:09):
Of course, Amy Winehouse, I just watched the article Back to Black.

Sam Thomas (00:12:12):
She's one famous example of,

Sam Thomas (00:12:14):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:12:14):
people who swap,

Sam Thomas (00:12:15):
I think it was addiction transference,

Sam Thomas (00:12:17):
I think it's called,

Sam Thomas (00:12:18):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:12:19):
people swap one thing for another.

Sam Thomas (00:12:20):
So I was doing that, reflecting on my experiences of being a man with an eating disorder.

Sam Thomas (00:12:25):
Keep me in mind, this is in the early 2000s, late 90s, early 2000s.

Sam Thomas (00:12:29):
It was just considered inconceivable for men to have eating disorders.

Sam Thomas (00:12:33):
Nobody was really talking about that.

Sam Thomas (00:12:34):
In fact, you know, anorexia was sort of, sort of known about, but not really understood.

Sam Thomas (00:12:38):
Bellinia, what was that?

Sam Thomas (00:12:40):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:12:41):
It was just not real.

Sam Thomas (00:12:42):
I mean, the only sort of famous example at the time was Princess Diana.

Sam Thomas (00:12:45):
There was a few other people that spoke out about it,

Sam Thomas (00:12:47):
like Jerry Halliwell from the Spice Girls,

Sam Thomas (00:12:49):
Elton John.

Sam Thomas (00:12:51):
But, you know, eating disorders were not on anyone's agenda, as it were.

Sam Thomas (00:12:54):
It wasn't in the mainstream.

Sam Thomas (00:12:55):
So the idea of having a man with an eating disorder was just totally inconceivable, like I say.

Sam Thomas (00:13:02):
So I set up a charity in response to that.

Sam Thomas (00:13:05):
Men get eating disorders too.

Sam Thomas (00:13:07):
Set it up in 2009.

Sam Thomas (00:13:09):
It took over.

Sam Thomas (00:13:09):
It exploded in the media in the UK because,

Sam Thomas (00:13:12):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:13:13):
it was a new thing for the media to jump on.

Sam Thomas (00:13:16):
Manorexia, bulimia, the tabloids.

Sam Thomas (00:13:19):
That's very, very real.

Sam Thomas (00:13:20):
Yeah, it was.

Sam Thomas (00:13:21):
But at the time, you know, it really was sort of surreal for a lot of people, I suppose.

Sam Thomas (00:13:25):
But the point was, you had this sort of big profile as well throughout my 20s.

Sam Thomas (00:13:29):
So it was a lot of different things.

Sam Thomas (00:13:31):
Like I say,

Sam Thomas (00:13:32):
my work being sort of quite,

Sam Thomas (00:13:34):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:13:34):
full on and then sort of behind the scenes with the death of my mother and trying

Sam Thomas (00:13:38):
to sort of understand that.

Sam Thomas (00:13:40):
you know what i mean there's a lot of different things going on and you know like a

Sam Thomas (00:13:44):
lot of people are just too but took too much you know to try beyond stress later on

Sam Thomas (00:13:48):
it would be diagnosed with complex btsd that would mean to my early 30s so yeah i

Sam Thomas (00:13:53):
don't know jumping back quite a bit but just sort of trying to paint a picture of

Sam Thomas (00:13:56):
all the different things going on really

Rachel Casey (00:13:58):
Well, I feel like with addiction, we almost live these different lives, if you will.

Rachel Casey (00:14:03):
Like we have this private,

Rachel Casey (00:14:05):
like what people we want them to see,

Rachel Casey (00:14:07):
like the running the charity,

Rachel Casey (00:14:08):
running a business.

Rachel Casey (00:14:09):
And then there's this whole other of how we're dealing with the life emotions or the trauma or.

Rachel Casey (00:14:15):
So with the PTSD,

Rachel Casey (00:14:18):
I feel like a lot of these start coinciding with each other because people are like,

Rachel Casey (00:14:23):
they don't understand these disorders.

Rachel Casey (00:14:25):
And I think it's so important.

Rachel Casey (00:14:26):
So how do you explain it in when you're talked about men have disorders too?

Sam Thomas (00:14:30):
We travel around the country doing all these training,

Sam Thomas (00:14:33):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:14:33):
workshop tours for training,

Sam Thomas (00:14:35):
training sessions for professionals.

Sam Thomas (00:14:36):
And they sort of give a slightly different answer each time, I think.

Sam Thomas (00:14:40):
But several different things,

Sam Thomas (00:14:41):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:14:41):
there's always this overlap between different sort of disorders,

Sam Thomas (00:14:44):
I suppose,

Sam Thomas (00:14:45):
include addiction and eating disorders.

Sam Thomas (00:14:47):
There is such a thing called trancorexia,

Sam Thomas (00:14:49):
inverted commas,

Sam Thomas (00:14:51):
for lack of a better name,

Sam Thomas (00:14:52):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:14:52):
where people sort of don't eat and just drink instead.

Sam Thomas (00:14:55):
You know, that was super common and quite dangerous as well.

Sam Thomas (00:14:58):
And then, of course, with binge eating and food.

Sam Thomas (00:15:01):
The only big difference,

Sam Thomas (00:15:02):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:15:02):
with food is that you do need to develop a healthy,

Sam Thomas (00:15:04):
positive relationship with food.

Sam Thomas (00:15:06):
You can't abstain from food, obviously, but you can abstain from alcohol.

Sam Thomas (00:15:10):
Doesn't mean to say one's easier than the other,

Sam Thomas (00:15:12):
it's just different approaches to do different sort of distinct sort of illnesses.

Sam Thomas (00:15:16):
But like I say, you've got to deal with them sort of one by one, I suppose.

Sam Thomas (00:15:20):
And I think going,

Sam Thomas (00:15:21):
rewinding the clock to sort of many moons ago when I was sort of recovering from belief,

Sam Thomas (00:15:25):
it was a very conscious decision,

Sam Thomas (00:15:26):
I think,

Sam Thomas (00:15:27):
from about the age of 18 to 21 to really sort of overcome bulimia,

Sam Thomas (00:15:31):
whatever that meant.

Sam Thomas (00:15:33):
Of course, I attempted to go to the doctor twice at 16 and 18.

Sam Thomas (00:15:35):
At 16,

Sam Thomas (00:15:36):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:15:37):
I couldn't progress further because I needed parental consent,

Sam Thomas (00:15:40):
didn't have a relationship with my mother.

Sam Thomas (00:15:41):
As I mentioned, that was sort of quite explosive.

Sam Thomas (00:15:45):
My mother asked me, well, yeah, for the mental health people calling for.

Sam Thomas (00:15:49):
And that was the end of it.

Sam Thomas (00:15:50):
Would you proceed from there?

Sam Thomas (00:15:51):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:15:51):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:15:52):
from 18,

Sam Thomas (00:15:52):
when I moved down south to live near my dad,

Sam Thomas (00:15:54):
I spoke to the family doctor on that side of the family for the first time.

Sam Thomas (00:15:59):
very articulately explained what was going on.

Sam Thomas (00:16:01):
I think I'd even read Jerry Halliwell's book,

Sam Thomas (00:16:03):
I think it was called If Only,

Sam Thomas (00:16:04):
where she sort of quite explicitly talked about her emblema throughout the Spice

Sam Thomas (00:16:08):
Girl days and even before that.

Sam Thomas (00:16:10):
So I had some sort of background knowledge, and the internet was sort of fairly new at the time.

Sam Thomas (00:16:14):
You had to go to the library to sort of look things up, so I'd read a few things.

Sam Thomas (00:16:18):
So very articulately explained to the doctor what was going on,

Sam Thomas (00:16:20):
and she sort of seemed to dismiss the bulimia entirely and just focus specifically

Sam Thomas (00:16:26):
on the depression and anxiety,

Sam Thomas (00:16:28):
as if the bulimia was not really that important,

Sam Thomas (00:16:31):
just irrelevant,

Sam Thomas (00:16:32):
maybe a symptom of the depression and anxiety,

Sam Thomas (00:16:34):
perhaps.

Sam Thomas (00:16:35):
But of course,

Sam Thomas (00:16:35):
years later,

Sam Thomas (00:16:36):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:16:36):
a couple of years later,

Sam Thomas (00:16:37):
when I said,

Sam Thomas (00:16:38):
I think I'd realized pretty quickly that it was just because the idea of being a

Sam Thomas (00:16:41):
man with an eating disorder was just not on anyone's radar,

Sam Thomas (00:16:44):
especially with GPs and things.

Sam Thomas (00:16:46):
And of course, the diagnostic criteria of anorexia at the time was based on female bodies.

Sam Thomas (00:16:51):
So the loss of periods would have been one of the main symptoms of anorexia,

Sam Thomas (00:16:55):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:16:56):
not applicable to men.

Sam Thomas (00:16:57):
So there was a lot of catching up to do over the years and the DSM has changed since then.

Sam Thomas (00:17:01):
But there's sort of the legacy of that sort of still remains,

Sam Thomas (00:17:04):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:17:04):
the old school out of date sort of ideas still still linger as it were.

Sam Thomas (00:17:09):
So yeah, there's a lot of hoops to go through with me.

Sam Thomas (00:17:11):
And I can't remember how we came onto this now,

Sam Thomas (00:17:13):
but you know,

Sam Thomas (00:17:13):
it's just all this sort of gray area and overlaps.

Sam Thomas (00:17:15):
There was loads.

Rachel Casey (00:17:16):
Well,

Rachel Casey (00:17:16):
it's funny that with alcoholism and especially the big book in the AA way,

Rachel Casey (00:17:22):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:17:23):
one of the things,

Rachel Casey (00:17:23):
and I really can't read the chapter is to the wives.

Rachel Casey (00:17:27):
And because alcoholism was only in men and women, you can think of alcoholism.

Rachel Casey (00:17:32):
And they're like,

Rachel Casey (00:17:33):
oh,

Rachel Casey (00:17:33):
you have to,

Rachel Casey (00:17:33):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:17:34):
sit your wife down and,

Rachel Casey (00:17:36):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:17:36):
just playing where you're going.

Rachel Casey (00:17:37):
And I'm like,

Sam Thomas (00:17:38):
It's kind of interesting.

Sam Thomas (00:17:39):
His idea belongs to AA.

Sam Thomas (00:17:40):
It drives me a bit mad, to be honest.

Sam Thomas (00:17:42):
I don't know if I can say that.

Sam Thomas (00:17:43):
It was a men... The book is written to men.

Rachel Casey (00:17:45):
And I think...

Rachel Casey (00:17:52):
Which they've now voted to change it to people instead of even men or women.

Sam Thomas (00:17:57):
And again, it's just these things just haven't really caught up officially, if you like.

Sam Thomas (00:18:00):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:18:01):
And I've dabbled with AA in the past.

Sam Thomas (00:18:03):
And, you know, there's lots of things I sort of find myself in agreement with.

Sam Thomas (00:18:06):
Like, you know, resentment being the seed to all our ills, for instance.

Sam Thomas (00:18:09):
You know, I've said that quite a lot recently to different people.

Sam Thomas (00:18:12):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:18:12):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:18:13):
and holding on to anger and bitterness and all that sort of stuff,

Sam Thomas (00:18:15):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:18:16):
I've got no time for that.

Sam Thomas (00:18:17):
So there's certain things that I sort of agree.

Sam Thomas (00:18:19):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:18:20):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:18:20):
it's like a lot of things that the principle is crap,

Sam Thomas (00:18:22):
but the practice can be sort of quite troublesome.

Sam Thomas (00:18:24):
Sometimes it's not always easier to sort of implement.

Sam Thomas (00:18:27):
And that's what I've found.

Sam Thomas (00:18:28):
And yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:18:29):
I think,

Sam Thomas (00:18:29):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:18:29):
it's about sort of taking these principles and applying those things into the

Sam Thomas (00:18:34):
modern age,

Sam Thomas (00:18:35):
isn't it?

Sam Thomas (00:18:35):
And I think that's,

Sam Thomas (00:18:36):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:18:37):
one of numerous things that I think we're still sort of battling with,

Sam Thomas (00:18:40):
it seems,

Sam Thomas (00:18:40):
sort of the old school meets the new school.

Sam Thomas (00:18:43):
But it's all just the same school, really.

Sam Thomas (00:18:44):
So yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:18:45):
it's just,

Sam Thomas (00:18:45):
again,

Sam Thomas (00:18:46):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:18:46):
it's just about taking the bits that are applicable to you,

Sam Thomas (00:18:49):
that are relevant and working with that.

Sam Thomas (00:18:52):
But the healthy meals are trying to know.

Rachel Casey (00:18:53):
So if AA was not your route, how did you kind of get sober in the beginning years?

Sam Thomas (00:19:00):
I detoxed for the fourth and hopefully final time in November 2019.

Sam Thomas (00:19:03):
And interestingly,

Sam Thomas (00:19:04):
it was the week that apparently the first cases of COVID sort of were unleashed

Sam Thomas (00:19:10):
into Wuhan in China.

Sam Thomas (00:19:12):
And,

Sam Thomas (00:19:13):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:19:13):
the other ironic thing is the fact that one of the very last hallucinations I had

Sam Thomas (00:19:17):
was the bats,

Sam Thomas (00:19:19):
which is actually quite a frequent occurrence,

Sam Thomas (00:19:21):
believe it or not,

Sam Thomas (00:19:21):
the bats.

Sam Thomas (00:19:21):
It was really all spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:19:22):
It was bats.

(00:19:24):
Wow.

Sam Thomas (00:19:24):
So it's quite sort of weird, isn't it?

Sam Thomas (00:19:25):
When you think of this bat disease sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:19:28):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:19:28):
happening unknown to everybody at the time.

Sam Thomas (00:19:31):
And then the hallucination was bad.

Sam Thomas (00:19:33):
So beautifully poetic and ironic.

Rachel Casey (00:19:36):
It is really poetic.

Sam Thomas (00:19:37):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:19:38):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:19:38):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:19:39):
but the thing,

Sam Thomas (00:19:39):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:19:40):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:19:40):
nobody knew that there'd be a pandemic around the corner.

Sam Thomas (00:19:42):
So this sort of period for about...

Sam Thomas (00:19:45):
four months where the honeymoon period if you like of sobriety so i can put things

Sam Thomas (00:19:50):
to you know really into practice i went to grand canaria which is in the canary

Sam Thomas (00:19:56):
islands a month after my detox which in itself is extremely risky because of course

Sam Thomas (00:20:01):
grand canaria is an lgbt sort of friendly island i call it devil's island

Sam Thomas (00:20:06):
very good reason and what happens on the island stays on the island and of course

Sam Thomas (00:20:11):
it's party central kind of sex crazed if I have to be honest you know anything goes

Sam Thomas (00:20:16):
So here's me going to sort of Devil's Island,

Sam Thomas (00:20:18):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:20:18):
sort of the island of temptation a month in.

Sam Thomas (00:20:22):
So I kind of realized if I could survive that week, then I'm probably in it for the long haul.

Sam Thomas (00:20:27):
And I did, you know, even though I kind of isolated myself quite a bit during that week.

Sam Thomas (00:20:31):
And of course,

Sam Thomas (00:20:32):
I've been there many times,

Sam Thomas (00:20:33):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:20:33):
I've been there 10 times,

Sam Thomas (00:20:34):
I think it is now,

Sam Thomas (00:20:35):
I think.

Sam Thomas (00:20:37):
eight times and um every 10 years i mean so you know i've been there knew it was

Sam Thomas (00:20:42):
kind of home away from home so in a way i was able to do that and then four months

Sam Thomas (00:20:46):
no three months later when just before the first lockdown was announced here in the

Sam Thomas (00:20:51):
uk sort of the end of you know the the the voluntary lockdown and then it became

Sam Thomas (00:20:56):
mandatory and anyway i've been to grand canary for the second time in my

Sam Thomas (00:21:01):
sobriety sort of journey.

Sam Thomas (00:21:02):
And then I kind of realized, you know, I was definitely in it for the wrong haul.

Sam Thomas (00:21:05):
You know, I didn't feel triggered.

Sam Thomas (00:21:06):
You know, there was people drinking all around me, but I didn't really think about it.

Sam Thomas (00:21:10):
That was the weird thing.

Sam Thomas (00:21:11):
And of course,

Sam Thomas (00:21:11):
for me,

Sam Thomas (00:21:12):
because I'd been sober in a previous life when everybody else was drinking,

Sam Thomas (00:21:16):
it wasn't that difficult.

Sam Thomas (00:21:18):
You know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:19):
I'd done,

Sam Thomas (00:21:19):
I've been there before,

Sam Thomas (00:21:20):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:20):
it wasn't like I'd always drank from year dot and I didn't know life without a drink.

Sam Thomas (00:21:25):
So in a way, it's probably just a bit easier.

Sam Thomas (00:21:27):
And actually,

Sam Thomas (00:21:29):
I found that even though it's the expectation to drink,

Sam Thomas (00:21:32):
when I said that I couldn't drink for X,

Sam Thomas (00:21:33):
Y,

Sam Thomas (00:21:33):
Z reasons,

Sam Thomas (00:21:34):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:34):
people were just quite respectful of that.

Sam Thomas (00:21:37):
And that's the case ever since.

Sam Thomas (00:21:38):
I've been to Grand Canary numerous times.

Sam Thomas (00:21:39):
And, you know, people seem to be, like I say, just very, yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:21:43):
Okay.

Sam Thomas (00:21:44):
Congratulate.

Rachel Casey (00:21:45):
Isn't that weird?

Rachel Casey (00:21:46):
Like, I always thought people cared, but it's like, they don't care.

Sam Thomas (00:21:48):
Yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:21:49):
it is a little bit,

Sam Thomas (00:21:49):
but I think,

Sam Thomas (00:21:50):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:50):
I think there's been a bit of a shift in recent times to sort of people going,

Sam Thomas (00:21:53):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:54):
choosing to be sober as well.

Sam Thomas (00:21:55):
So I think 10 years ago,

Sam Thomas (00:21:56):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:56):
yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:21:57):
it was still a bit weird,

Sam Thomas (00:21:58):
but I think now that,

Sam Thomas (00:21:58):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:21:59):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:21:59):
there's a growing sort of sober community within the LGBT umbrella.

Sam Thomas (00:22:05):
You know, I've written a couple of articles even.

Sam Thomas (00:22:07):
So it's definitely sort of growing and more sort of prominent.

Sam Thomas (00:22:10):
So I think, yeah, it's not quite as taboo as it would have been at one time.

Sam Thomas (00:22:14):
But no,

Sam Thomas (00:22:15):
going back to that sort of period for four months,

Sam Thomas (00:22:17):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:22:17):
I got back from Grand Canary the second time,

Sam Thomas (00:22:20):
just as when everybody was sort of panicked buying loo roll and things like that here,

Sam Thomas (00:22:25):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:22:25):
it was quite weird.

Sam Thomas (00:22:26):
And because I just,

Sam Thomas (00:22:28):
in those days,

Sam Thomas (00:22:28):
I didn't really pay that much attention to the news,

Sam Thomas (00:22:30):
to be honest.

Sam Thomas (00:22:31):
In fact,

Sam Thomas (00:22:32):
in the height of the drinking days,

Sam Thomas (00:22:33):
there was major world events that I didn't even know about.

Sam Thomas (00:22:36):
So, you know, totally oblivious to a lot of things.

Sam Thomas (00:22:39):
So all I had heard, all this sort of panic buying of a blue roll and silly things.

Sam Thomas (00:22:43):
And then I got back and then all of a sudden everybody's wearing masks in the airport.

Sam Thomas (00:22:48):
There was a few people before I left, you know, a few Chinese people and things like that.

Sam Thomas (00:22:51):
But when I came back, in the space of a week, it felt like the UK had changed.

Sam Thomas (00:22:56):
It went from sort of this sort of concern around sort of something around something

Sam Thomas (00:23:00):
called COVID-19 that nobody knew anything about to suddenly it sort of being on the

Sam Thomas (00:23:05):
first thing on everyone's lips,

Sam Thomas (00:23:06):
literally.

Sam Thomas (00:23:08):
So there's been a shift.

Sam Thomas (00:23:09):
And of course, a week later, we went into voluntary lockdown, if I remember right.

Sam Thomas (00:23:12):
And then a week later, I think we went into mandatory lockdown.

Sam Thomas (00:23:16):
Something like that.

Sam Thomas (00:23:17):
And then for the next, God knows how long.

Sam Thomas (00:23:18):
And you were sober.

Sam Thomas (00:23:19):
Yeah, that's what I mean.

Sam Thomas (00:23:21):
So for the next two years, we're in and out of lockdown.

Sam Thomas (00:23:24):
You know, our government was just chaotic.

Sam Thomas (00:23:26):
We had Boris Johnson.

Sam Thomas (00:23:27):
I know you had Trump at the time.

Sam Thomas (00:23:30):
And you've got him again, unfortunately.

Sam Thomas (00:23:32):
But you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:23:32):
It's sort of, so it was pretty chaotic.

Sam Thomas (00:23:35):
And it kind of, the only hope is that there'll be a vaccine.

Sam Thomas (00:23:37):
Do you remember?

Sam Thomas (00:23:38):
So it was sort of like life would resume once we have vaccines.

Sam Thomas (00:23:41):
I even took part in trials, you know.

Sam Thomas (00:23:43):
So, you know, I did a lot of things.

Sam Thomas (00:23:45):
I started writing a book in the lockdowns, you know, which I'm hopefully going to publish soon.

Sam Thomas (00:23:50):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:23:51):
yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:23:51):
I do lots of different things,

Sam Thomas (00:23:52):
but I suppose,

Sam Thomas (00:23:53):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:23:53):
life was on hold for the two years,

Sam Thomas (00:23:55):
it felt like.

Sam Thomas (00:23:56):
So it felt very prolonged.

Sam Thomas (00:23:58):
A lot of things I didn't really sort of begin to expose myself to even until I was

Sam Thomas (00:24:03):
much later on in recovery because of this two-year pause.

Sam Thomas (00:24:07):
You know, I was back to the gym for a few weeks, then we were back in lockdown again.

Sam Thomas (00:24:11):
You know, that was the one where they kept me going.

Sam Thomas (00:24:13):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:24:14):
yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:24:15):
it was just,

Sam Thomas (00:24:15):
I don't know what the original question was now,

Sam Thomas (00:24:17):
but,

Sam Thomas (00:24:17):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:24:17):
it's just for a period,

Sam Thomas (00:24:19):
it was just very chaotic.

Rachel Casey (00:24:21):
Just getting sober in the beginning is, yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:24:23):
And you said it was 2019.

Rachel Casey (00:24:24):
It was right before the COVID lockdown.

Rachel Casey (00:24:27):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:24:28):
There was a really important point I was going to mention, actually.

Sam Thomas (00:24:30):
I think if it'd been, I think because of the timings, it was four months before COVID really.

Sam Thomas (00:24:35):
Right.

Sam Thomas (00:24:36):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:24:36):
It was kind of good.

Sam Thomas (00:24:37):
It would have been retrospectively.

Sam Thomas (00:24:38):
I look back and think, yeah, would I have coped?

Sam Thomas (00:24:40):
It would have been very soon after that first detox.

Sam Thomas (00:24:43):
Yeah, I would have probably made it through, I think.

Sam Thomas (00:24:45):
I was very committed to it.

Sam Thomas (00:24:46):
But it would have been a lot different journey.

Sam Thomas (00:24:48):
I wouldn't have had...

Sam Thomas (00:24:49):
I may not have gone to Grand Canaria.

Sam Thomas (00:24:51):
It's sort of a major anxiety about it,

Sam Thomas (00:24:53):
thinking that,

Sam Thomas (00:24:54):
oh,

Sam Thomas (00:24:54):
if I go back there,

Sam Thomas (00:24:55):
that's where I'm going to renapse.

Sam Thomas (00:24:56):
Because I did that 30 early on, you know, it was quite sort of well rehearsed.

Sam Thomas (00:25:00):
You know, I've been there twice in very recent times, still not triggered.

Sam Thomas (00:25:04):
So in a way, it's quite good the way things worked out.

Sam Thomas (00:25:07):
But you can't plan for these things.

Sam Thomas (00:25:09):
It's just, you know, mishaps and consequences, really.

Rachel Casey (00:25:13):
So did you ever try like the dry January thing?

Rachel Casey (00:25:17):
Because I know that's more popular in the UK.

Sam Thomas (00:25:19):
No, I mean, it's a UK thing.

Sam Thomas (00:25:21):
I've written numerous articles about it, actually.

Sam Thomas (00:25:23):
And I'm always sort of very active during that period, it seems.

Sam Thomas (00:25:26):
No, I mean, I didn't really.

Sam Thomas (00:25:28):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:25:29):
funny enough,

Sam Thomas (00:25:29):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:25:30):
the articles that I've written is about that,

Sam Thomas (00:25:31):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:25:32):
it's actually probably quite dangerous for people to stop drinking abruptly on

Sam Thomas (00:25:36):
genuine first.

Sam Thomas (00:25:37):
You know, that was the point of my articles.

Sam Thomas (00:25:39):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:25:39):
to be fair,

Sam Thomas (00:25:39):
the most seriously alcohol dependent people probably wouldn't engage with it anyway,

Sam Thomas (00:25:42):
to be fair.

Sam Thomas (00:25:43):
It's really for people that just,

Sam Thomas (00:25:45):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:25:45):
have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol,

Sam Thomas (00:25:47):
want to save a few quid over January,

Sam Thomas (00:25:49):
especially post-Christmas and New Year.

Sam Thomas (00:25:51):
And then he got, you know, all sorts of bills during January as well.

Rachel Casey (00:25:55):
So, yeah, I mean... I don't think we talk about that enough either.

Rachel Casey (00:25:59):
And I get hesitant, like, for my dad.

Rachel Casey (00:26:04):
He is, like, alcohol dependent.

Rachel Casey (00:26:06):
He couldn't... If he were to stop, he would withdraw.

Rachel Casey (00:26:10):
It's a seizure.

Rachel Casey (00:26:11):
Like, I mean, the whole nine yards...

Rachel Casey (00:26:13):
And people,

Rachel Casey (00:26:15):
when you think of that heavy drinker,

Rachel Casey (00:26:16):
yeah,

Rachel Casey (00:26:16):
you can't just say,

Rachel Casey (00:26:17):
oh,

Rachel Casey (00:26:17):
just stop and give it up.

Rachel Casey (00:26:18):
Like, I mean, it would require a doctor.

Rachel Casey (00:26:23):
It would either hospitalization because it would take time to wean off of it.

Sam Thomas (00:26:26):
Yeah, no, completely.

Sam Thomas (00:26:27):
And I think, you know, that is not said enough.

Sam Thomas (00:26:29):
I think that's why I get sort of a bit uptight about Judge Henry's entitled.

Sam Thomas (00:26:32):
But the point is,

Sam Thomas (00:26:33):
it's really not meant to be for those people that are seriously alcohol dependent.

Rachel Casey (00:26:38):
I don't think that's talked about enough is that,

Rachel Casey (00:26:39):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:26:40):
there are people you can't just tell someone to stop drinking,

Rachel Casey (00:26:43):
especially if you have a family member that is in that deep.

Rachel Casey (00:26:46):
It is not that simple at that point.

Rachel Casey (00:26:48):
And maybe people do think it's like, oh, well, they just stop drinking.

Rachel Casey (00:26:52):
But there does come a point where stopping drinking can kill you.

Sam Thomas (00:26:55):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:26:55):
And I'll tell you about my experience,

Sam Thomas (00:26:57):
actually,

Sam Thomas (00:26:57):
because I've told this story many times,

Sam Thomas (00:26:59):
actually,

Sam Thomas (00:26:59):
that I.

Sam Thomas (00:27:00):
I had fallen out of the habit of going to the gym.

Sam Thomas (00:27:02):
And it was, I think it was in very early July 2016, I think, if I remember right.

Sam Thomas (00:27:07):
I had done my way to a meeting in London at one of the men's groups at the charity.

Sam Thomas (00:27:10):
We ran sort of support groups in different places.

Sam Thomas (00:27:13):
And I was used to sort of consult with the group members about funding, I think it was.

Sam Thomas (00:27:17):
Anyway,

Sam Thomas (00:27:17):
about 24 hours after the last drink,

Sam Thomas (00:27:21):
which was quite,

Sam Thomas (00:27:22):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:27:22):
the first time I'd gone...

Sam Thomas (00:27:24):
for, you know, more than a day without a drink for a long time.

Sam Thomas (00:27:27):
Anyway, I didn't get to the meeting.

Sam Thomas (00:27:28):
About 36 hours or so in, you know, I ended up in hospital instead, basically.

Sam Thomas (00:27:34):
Sort of on the tube,

Sam Thomas (00:27:35):
falling down,

Sam Thomas (00:27:36):
seriously unwell,

Sam Thomas (00:27:36):
and it was sort of the most strangest feeling of illness,

Sam Thomas (00:27:39):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:27:39):
the shades and the sweats,

Sam Thomas (00:27:40):
and it was really hot,

Sam Thomas (00:27:41):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:27:41):
a bit like it is now,

Sam Thomas (00:27:42):
I suppose,

Sam Thomas (00:27:43):
here in the UK.

Sam Thomas (00:27:44):
Really, really hot in the tube as well, so it's even hotter.

Sam Thomas (00:27:47):
And managed to find a sanctuary in a sort of a coffee shop,

Sam Thomas (00:27:51):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:27:51):
above ground,

Sam Thomas (00:27:52):
over the road.

Sam Thomas (00:27:53):
It was really unbelievably quiet as well for central London.

Sam Thomas (00:27:56):
And there was one person that was sitting in a table opposite,

Sam Thomas (00:27:59):
keep looking at me,

Sam Thomas (00:28:00):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:28:00):
shaking,

Sam Thomas (00:28:01):
trying to pour water into a jug,

Sam Thomas (00:28:02):
getting water everywhere.

Sam Thomas (00:28:04):
No idea what was wrong with me.

Sam Thomas (00:28:05):
Of course, I really didn't know anything about having to see that, let alone alcohol withdrawal.

Sam Thomas (00:28:09):
So I thought, you know, I was having some sort of allergic reaction.

Rachel Casey (00:28:13):
Cold, flu.

Sam Thomas (00:28:14):
Yeah, fever, you know, all those sort of usual scenarios type thing.

Sam Thomas (00:28:18):
I know that the lady came over and it turned out she was an off-duty nurse from St.

Sam Thomas (00:28:23):
Mary's Hospital, which was a short distance away from where I was.

Sam Thomas (00:28:26):
she asked me what was wrong i said no idea anyway next minute you know another

Sam Thomas (00:28:30):
person sort of attending to me breathing into a paper bag so i couldn't breathe

Sam Thomas (00:28:33):
properly and all this sort of stuff don't really remember too much really in terms

Sam Thomas (00:28:36):
of the sequence of events because i kept phasing in and out as well and next minute

Sam Thomas (00:28:40):
was an ambulance next minute was in saint mary's and me being me sort of being more

Sam Thomas (00:28:44):
worried about get you know not getting to my meeting i sort of self-discharged

Sam Thomas (00:28:49):
would you believe

Sam Thomas (00:28:50):
And in those days,

Sam Thomas (00:28:51):
work took precedence over absolutely everything else,

Sam Thomas (00:28:54):
no matter what sort of thing.

Sam Thomas (00:28:55):
Very self-sacrificing looking back on it now.

Sam Thomas (00:28:58):
So, of course, you know, I had another episode a month later.

Sam Thomas (00:29:00):
It was Brighton Pride here where I'm based.

Sam Thomas (00:29:03):
It's one of the biggest Pride events, you know, in Europe.

Sam Thomas (00:29:06):
And of course, I'm slap bang in the middle of it.

Sam Thomas (00:29:08):
I'm sort of a short distance away from where a street party sort of held.

Sam Thomas (00:29:12):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:29:12):
of course,

Sam Thomas (00:29:13):
I'd got back from a little conference late on a Friday,

Sam Thomas (00:29:15):
had forgotten that it was Pride,

Sam Thomas (00:29:17):
had no wine,

Sam Thomas (00:29:17):
no food,

Sam Thomas (00:29:18):
no nothing in the fridge.

Sam Thomas (00:29:20):
So the entire weekend, I just sort of attempted to sleep, and I sort of did sort of sleep.

Sam Thomas (00:29:23):
Of course, by the bando, I was in our cover drawer again.

Sam Thomas (00:29:26):
Of course, this is a month after the first episode, which at the time wasn't diagnosed.

Sam Thomas (00:29:31):
Again, ended up in hospital.

Sam Thomas (00:29:33):
My friend sort of insists you go to hospital because there's something seriously wrong with you.

Sam Thomas (00:29:36):
And then, of course, the doctor sort of suggested, you know, do you think it might be HIV?

Sam Thomas (00:29:40):
You know,

Sam Thomas (00:29:40):
being a gay man,

Sam Thomas (00:29:41):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:29:41):
I sort of felt that,

Sam Thomas (00:29:42):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:29:42):
looking back on it,

Sam Thomas (00:29:43):
whilst I understand the need to ask the question,

Sam Thomas (00:29:45):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:29:45):
it kind of felt a bit sumptuous,

Sam Thomas (00:29:47):
really.

Sam Thomas (00:29:48):
But of course,

Sam Thomas (00:29:49):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:29:49):
a lot of people here in Brighton,

Sam Thomas (00:29:50):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:29:50):
but one third,

Sam Thomas (00:29:51):
I think,

Sam Thomas (00:29:51):
of gay men or men who have sex with men have HIV.

Sam Thomas (00:29:54):
So it wasn't totally out of the question.

Sam Thomas (00:29:56):
Anyway, it turned out it wasn't.

Sam Thomas (00:29:58):
And then in November of that year, given him on the first admissions in July,

Sam Thomas (00:30:02):
Second mission, sort of, say mission, sort of visit to an accident and emergency.

Sam Thomas (00:30:06):
The second one was in the lowest,

Sam Thomas (00:30:07):
and then in November of that year,

Sam Thomas (00:30:09):
yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:30:10):
I was back in hospital again,

Sam Thomas (00:30:11):
and,

Sam Thomas (00:30:11):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:30:12):
it was sort of confirmed that,

Sam Thomas (00:30:13):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:30:13):
it was our car withdrawal.

Sam Thomas (00:30:14):
So it took about five months.

Rachel Casey (00:30:16):
Yeah,

Rachel Casey (00:30:17):
and I think every time with the doctor that my panels would come back something off,

Rachel Casey (00:30:23):
and any suggestion that it could be alcohol,

Rachel Casey (00:30:25):
it's like,

Rachel Casey (00:30:25):
oh,

Rachel Casey (00:30:25):
no,

Rachel Casey (00:30:26):
it's probably not the drink.

Sam Thomas (00:30:26):
Yeah, yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:30:27):
Well,

Sam Thomas (00:30:27):
funny enough,

Sam Thomas (00:30:28):
I've just been,

Sam Thomas (00:30:29):
because I'm rewriting a memoir that was just published a couple of years ago,

Sam Thomas (00:30:31):
and actually I've just been writing about that whole secrets of events just very,

Sam Thomas (00:30:35):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:30:35):
I'm in the middle of it now,

Sam Thomas (00:30:36):
actually.

Sam Thomas (00:30:37):
One of the things that I think I realized when I was rewriting it is the fact that

Sam Thomas (00:30:41):
lots of questions were asked...

Sam Thomas (00:30:43):
through all these different things, you know, blood tests, you know, everything was ruled out.

Sam Thomas (00:30:47):
But at no point along the line did anyone say to me, do you drink and how much do you drink?

Sam Thomas (00:30:52):
And that was the weird thing.

Sam Thomas (00:30:54):
And, you know, and it is a common question to be asked.

Sam Thomas (00:30:57):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:30:58):
I've been in hospital far too many times during the rock and roll years when I was

Sam Thomas (00:31:01):
in and out of hospital on a regular basis.

Sam Thomas (00:31:03):
So you used to sort of hear doctors say to other patients, you know, do you smoke?

Sam Thomas (00:31:07):
Do you drink?

Sam Thomas (00:31:07):
Do you do drugs?

Sam Thomas (00:31:08):
Will they use your question?

Sam Thomas (00:31:09):
But for some unknown reason, it was just never asked.

Sam Thomas (00:31:12):
And I think at one point,

Sam Thomas (00:31:13):
I think I sort of minimized it a bit and said,

Sam Thomas (00:31:16):
oh,

Sam Thomas (00:31:16):
I don't drink too much and favorite question of that.

Sam Thomas (00:31:19):
But it was sort of, you know, I don't really recall when that was in the timeline, to be honest.

Sam Thomas (00:31:23):
But no, it was just never really fully as full.

Sam Thomas (00:31:25):
If it was asked, you know, there was no sort of probing questions just to check.

Rachel Casey (00:31:29):
that things that those have definitely enhanced though over the years like as

Rachel Casey (00:31:33):
people have found alcohol to be more dangerous and like even at least in the u.s

Rachel Casey (00:31:39):
just this year the surgeon general for the first time said there is no amount of

Rachel Casey (00:31:43):
alcohol it's safe because it's been well up until last year it was one alcohol

Rachel Casey (00:31:49):
drink a day it was considered safe and now it's none and i think that

Sam Thomas (00:31:55):
Yeah, I always lied about the drug.

Sam Thomas (00:31:56):
Yeah, everybody does.

Sam Thomas (00:31:57):
I don't think that was a really common thing.

Sam Thomas (00:31:59):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:31:59):
I think they say that usually so many sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:32:02):
I think usually doctors,

Sam Thomas (00:32:03):
I read somewhere,

Sam Thomas (00:32:05):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:32:05):
usually it's treble,

Sam Thomas (00:32:06):
what people say normally.

Sam Thomas (00:32:08):
You know what I mean?

Rachel Casey (00:32:09):
I mean, I wasn't very honest about the binge eating either.

Rachel Casey (00:32:12):
Like that was my little secret too of like just – and I usually – and it was never

Rachel Casey (00:32:17):
around people.

Rachel Casey (00:32:17):
It was always – it seemed to be sweets was my thing.

Rachel Casey (00:32:20):
And I don't – that's where it's like I have to buy like all the chocolate.

Rachel Casey (00:32:25):
And it's the same with my alcoholism.

Rachel Casey (00:32:28):
But I'm more open about that today because, I don't know, I guess I used to be ashamed of it.

Rachel Casey (00:32:31):
Now I'm like, yeah, it's part of the history and I can watch out for it.

Rachel Casey (00:32:35):
But it is –

Rachel Casey (00:32:36):
What's the metaphor is they talk about the tiger in the cage is,

Rachel Casey (00:32:39):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:32:40):
like with alcohol,

Rachel Casey (00:32:40):
you can just put a tiger in a cage and that's fine.

Rachel Casey (00:32:43):
But with eating,

Rachel Casey (00:32:44):
you have to go in that cage and learn how to accept the tiger and kind of pet the

Rachel Casey (00:32:49):
tiger because you have to have food in your life.

Sam Thomas (00:32:52):
My trench is in Scorpion.

Sam Thomas (00:32:54):
Yeah, yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:32:55):
Oh my God, I still can't.

Rachel Casey (00:32:59):
Although you're really justifying,

Rachel Casey (00:33:01):
like I've thought about signing up for exposure therapy because I am so scared of

Rachel Casey (00:33:05):
spiders and I don't know what it is.

Rachel Casey (00:33:07):
Well, I have a theory that

Rachel Casey (00:33:11):
There was one night heavily drunk and there were drugs involved.

Rachel Casey (00:33:14):
And I saw a spider and it like tripped me out.

Rachel Casey (00:33:17):
And I think it was like, I think it turned into hallucination.

Rachel Casey (00:33:22):
And I ever since then, I haven't been able to handle it.

Rachel Casey (00:33:24):
And I think the drugs definitely enhanced my fear.

Rachel Casey (00:33:28):
But man, maybe I need to look at exposure therapy.

Sam Thomas (00:33:31):
Yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:33:32):
and I was a little bit nervous of them at first because,

Sam Thomas (00:33:34):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:33:35):
I've actually got a couple of medically significant ones,

Sam Thomas (00:33:39):
which in the grand scheme of things are still very mild venom,

Sam Thomas (00:33:42):
but I've handled them.

Sam Thomas (00:33:43):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:33:44):
And it sounds crazy.

Sam Thomas (00:33:45):
And the reason why is just in case they run up my arm, then I'm like, you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:33:49):
So I've handled them.

Sam Thomas (00:33:50):
I think,

Sam Thomas (00:33:50):
well,

Sam Thomas (00:33:51):
if they sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:33:51):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:33:52):
they never do this,

Sam Thomas (00:33:52):
to be fair,

Sam Thomas (00:33:53):
but they do run up my arm for any reason.

Sam Thomas (00:33:54):
Well, I've handled it before, so it's fine.

Sam Thomas (00:33:57):
So,

Sam Thomas (00:33:57):
and they're very reluctant to bite anyways,

Sam Thomas (00:33:59):
only a handful of species that are prolific biters,

Sam Thomas (00:34:02):
really.

Sam Thomas (00:34:02):
So, yeah, I think it's very true.

Sam Thomas (00:34:04):
And I think,

Sam Thomas (00:34:04):
I suppose what it comes back to is,

Sam Thomas (00:34:05):
like I said earlier,

Sam Thomas (00:34:06):
it's just rationalizing what the fear,

Sam Thomas (00:34:07):
what the danger actually is,

Sam Thomas (00:34:09):
if anything.

Rachel Casey (00:34:10):
What does your recovery look like to,

Rachel Casey (00:34:12):
like,

Rachel Casey (00:34:12):
for,

Rachel Casey (00:34:13):
I guess,

Rachel Casey (00:34:14):
do you just feel that you're past the point?

Rachel Casey (00:34:15):
Like,

Rachel Casey (00:34:16):
I know you said,

Rachel Casey (00:34:17):
like,

Rachel Casey (00:34:17):
you talked about,

Rachel Casey (00:34:18):
I can't remember the name of,

Rachel Casey (00:34:19):
you said the,

Rachel Casey (00:34:21):
where you went for treatment and it's like the island,

Rachel Casey (00:34:23):
the party island.

Sam Thomas (00:34:25):
Oh, yeah, Green Canary.

Sam Thomas (00:34:26):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:34:27):
Grand Canary.

Rachel Casey (00:34:28):
So we go to Vegas and I used to get just blackout in Vegas,

Rachel Casey (00:34:32):
but we've gone probably seven times sober and I don't think about a drink.

Rachel Casey (00:34:36):
And it is just crazy that it's just not I don't think about the alcohol.

Rachel Casey (00:34:42):
I just I really don't.

Rachel Casey (00:34:43):
And if I do see it, it's usually like, oh, I'm glad I don't do that.

Sam Thomas (00:34:46):
Yeah, exactly.

Sam Thomas (00:34:47):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:34:47):
I mean, it's more like I feel badly.

Sam Thomas (00:34:49):
Yeah, you sort of dissociate yourself from it anyway.

Sam Thomas (00:34:51):
So I remember when I was there last, I think, when was it?

Sam Thomas (00:34:54):
September.

Sam Thomas (00:34:54):
And I think, you know, I sat by the pool and just observed.

Sam Thomas (00:34:57):
And I said,

Sam Thomas (00:34:58):
oh,

Sam Thomas (00:34:58):
I'm so glad that I don't live that lifestyle anymore,

Sam Thomas (00:35:01):
just from watching other people.

Sam Thomas (00:35:02):
And it's fascinating.

Rachel Casey (00:35:03):
Like, what is weird?

Sam Thomas (00:35:05):
Yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:35:05):
it's quite sad in a way because you kind of think people,

Sam Thomas (00:35:07):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:07):
they think they're having the time of their lives,

Sam Thomas (00:35:09):
but are they really?

Sam Thomas (00:35:09):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:35:10):
But it's not my job to sort of make an intervention and,

Sam Thomas (00:35:14):
you know what I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:35:14):
tell them,

Sam Thomas (00:35:15):
well,

Sam Thomas (00:35:15):
haven't you tried not drinking?

Sam Thomas (00:35:16):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:35:17):
I just don't go there because I just don't really see the point.

Sam Thomas (00:35:20):
But, you know, yeah, you do sort of just associate myself.

Sam Thomas (00:35:22):
And I do see the amusement as well.

Sam Thomas (00:35:23):
You know, it's just sort of looking at it from that perspective, not taking it seriously.

Rachel Casey (00:35:28):
That used to be me.

Rachel Casey (00:35:29):
That was me at one point.

Rachel Casey (00:35:30):
And I'm just like, yep.

Rachel Casey (00:35:31):
And there was probably someone sober watching me saying, that used to be me.

Sam Thomas (00:35:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:35:37):
And also, you don't know.

Sam Thomas (00:35:39):
And also,

Sam Thomas (00:35:39):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:35:39):
unfortunately,

Sam Thomas (00:35:41):
it does come out quite a lot,

Sam Thomas (00:35:42):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:42):
why do you not drink,

Sam Thomas (00:35:43):
blah,

Sam Thomas (00:35:43):
blah,

Sam Thomas (00:35:43):
blah,

Sam Thomas (00:35:43):
blah,

Sam Thomas (00:35:43):
blah.

Sam Thomas (00:35:44):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:35:44):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:44):
it usually sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:35:45):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:45):
it starts conversations and it usually sort of might even just plant a seed in

Sam Thomas (00:35:49):
someone's brain.

Sam Thomas (00:35:50):
Again,

Sam Thomas (00:35:50):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:50):
I haven't got time to sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:35:52):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:52):
go around and,

Sam Thomas (00:35:54):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:35:56):
sort of ideas about drink.

Sam Thomas (00:35:56):
I haven't got time for that.

Sam Thomas (00:35:57):
But you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:35:58):
I think when you do sort of have the normal everyday sort of conversations,

Sam Thomas (00:36:01):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:36:02):
it can plant that seed.

Sam Thomas (00:36:04):
And I think it also sort of says to people that it is possible to live a different

Sam Thomas (00:36:07):
lifestyle to what is the status quo,

Sam Thomas (00:36:09):
what's the norm,

Sam Thomas (00:36:11):
inverted commas.

Rachel Casey (00:36:12):
So what does your day-to-day look like?

Rachel Casey (00:36:13):
Like how do you do anything to practice?

Rachel Casey (00:36:17):
I mean, if you're writing a book, you're also having a eating store charity.

Rachel Casey (00:36:20):
I feel like you have quite a bit of check-ins.

Sam Thomas (00:36:22):
Yes.

Sam Thomas (00:36:23):
I mean, I left the charity, you should have said, about six years ago or seven years ago.

Sam Thomas (00:36:26):
I can't remember.

Sam Thomas (00:36:28):
2018.

Sam Thomas (00:36:28):
Seven years ago.

Sam Thomas (00:36:30):
So now I left the charity course some time ago in quite abrupt circumstances, actually.

Sam Thomas (00:36:34):
I sort of left the band, did what Jerry Halliwell did back in the day, like the Spice Girls.

Sam Thomas (00:36:40):
And it turned out I was the band.

Sam Thomas (00:36:41):
So the charities have also just disbanded eventually.

Sam Thomas (00:36:44):
And,

Sam Thomas (00:36:44):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:36:45):
I sort of been writing and doing bits and pieces,

Sam Thomas (00:36:48):
really sort of trying to sort of

Sam Thomas (00:36:50):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:36:50):
focusing on my recovery,

Sam Thomas (00:36:51):
really,

Sam Thomas (00:36:51):
when I think about it,

Sam Thomas (00:36:52):
but,

Sam Thomas (00:36:52):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:36:53):
sort of thinking of what sort of solo career might look like in the future.

Sam Thomas (00:36:57):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:36:57):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:36:57):
it did come at a significant cost and it was self-sacrifice,

Sam Thomas (00:37:01):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:37:01):
giving service and all this sort of stuff,

Sam Thomas (00:37:04):
helping others and do good.

Sam Thomas (00:37:06):
Shouldn't come at the cost of self-sacrifice.

Sam Thomas (00:37:08):
So that was the massive lesson I learned from the charity.

Sam Thomas (00:37:10):
So I'm not doing that again.

Sam Thomas (00:37:12):
But going back to day-to-day,

Sam Thomas (00:37:13):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:37:13):
I think I strive to sort of keep things relatively simple.

Sam Thomas (00:37:16):
You know, I did go away occasionally.

Sam Thomas (00:37:18):
I've been to Morocco back in January.

Sam Thomas (00:37:19):
I've been meaning to go back to Morocco for a while.

Sam Thomas (00:37:21):
I was there in 2016.

Sam Thomas (00:37:22):
For about eight years, I've been threatening to go, and I finally did.

Sam Thomas (00:37:27):
So I get to do a little bit of that.

Sam Thomas (00:37:28):
Not often, though.

Sam Thomas (00:37:29):
And then, you know, I've been writing occasional articles.

Sam Thomas (00:37:33):
You know, the book, you know, I wasn't going to rewrite this book.

Sam Thomas (00:37:35):
You know, I sort of shelved it two years ago, two months before it was due to be published.

Sam Thomas (00:37:39):
So it doesn't look like a very good track record, does it?

Sam Thomas (00:37:41):
Leave the charity, shelve a book.

Sam Thomas (00:37:43):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:37:43):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:37:43):
I think,

Sam Thomas (00:37:43):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:37:43):
I've had to sort of make decisions along the way that sort of puts recovery first.

Sam Thomas (00:37:48):
And actually,

Sam Thomas (00:37:48):
it's the first time in a long time that I sort of feel as though a lot of things

Sam Thomas (00:37:52):
are sort of mostly in place now.

Sam Thomas (00:37:54):
Keeping in mind,

Sam Thomas (00:37:55):
it felt like a lot of things were on pause for a while as I mentioned earlier with

Sam Thomas (00:37:58):
lockdowns and things.

Sam Thomas (00:38:00):
So, and it's also just doing things for the right reasons, I suppose, as well.

Sam Thomas (00:38:03):
Not feeling that everything has to be for show.

Sam Thomas (00:38:06):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:38:07):
going back to the book,

Sam Thomas (00:38:07):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:38:08):
I kind of realized that I was doing it for the wrong reasons because I wanted to

Sam Thomas (00:38:11):
sort of find my place in the world,

Sam Thomas (00:38:13):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:38:14):
because I have this sort of position,

Sam Thomas (00:38:15):
bit of influence and things like that.

Sam Thomas (00:38:18):
But actually,

Sam Thomas (00:38:18):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:38:18):
I kind of felt that actually you can't just do something for those reasons.

Sam Thomas (00:38:21):
It's very superficial in a way.

Sam Thomas (00:38:23):
So, you know, I just sort of go away and think about, you know, why am I doing this?

Sam Thomas (00:38:28):
And it's actually because I think the story has value.

Sam Thomas (00:38:30):
You know, it's just I think, you know, it could inspire people, I suppose.

Sam Thomas (00:38:35):
So rather than sort of making some statement about it, just sort of say, hey, look at me.

Sam Thomas (00:38:40):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:38:41):
It's real.

Sam Thomas (00:38:42):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:38:42):
I mean, you see, I even went through my Instagram yesterday and just sort of tidied things up.

Sam Thomas (00:38:48):
You know, there were certain, you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:38:49):
You look back and you think, well, actually, I think I posted that again for the wrong reasons.

Sam Thomas (00:38:53):
And then other posts that are just sort of more relaxed, more sort of off the cuff, if you like.

Sam Thomas (00:38:58):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:38:58):
I think those sort of more authentic.

Sam Thomas (00:39:01):
So it's just,

Sam Thomas (00:39:01):
I don't know,

Sam Thomas (00:39:01):
really,

Sam Thomas (00:39:02):
it's just that shift between,

Sam Thomas (00:39:03):
I don't know what I'm really saying,

Sam Thomas (00:39:04):
but it's just the shift from being,

Sam Thomas (00:39:05):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:39:06):
doing things in one place,

Sam Thomas (00:39:06):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:39:06):
security is sort of doing things in one place,

Sam Thomas (00:39:08):
it's self-assurance,

Sam Thomas (00:39:09):
I think that's what it is.

Rachel Casey (00:39:10):
Well, I think in sobriety, too, is you get another level of, you can feel, you know, it doesn't,

Rachel Casey (00:39:17):
In the beginning,

Rachel Casey (00:39:18):
I was terrified of my feelings when I got sober and I was like,

Rachel Casey (00:39:21):
how can I keep busy to keep that still?

Rachel Casey (00:39:23):
I don't want to drink now and I can't shut them down.

Rachel Casey (00:39:27):
So it takes time to be like,

Rachel Casey (00:39:28):
okay,

Rachel Casey (00:39:29):
so now I'm getting like my values and what I want to do with them and how I want to

Rachel Casey (00:39:34):
share them.

Rachel Casey (00:39:34):
And knowing that you have something that a lot of people are struggling with to help them.

Rachel Casey (00:39:39):
And you're like, how can I put those into words to help?

Rachel Casey (00:39:42):
Because it's a very hard feeling to describe.

Rachel Casey (00:39:44):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:39:44):
Yeah, exactly.

Sam Thomas (00:39:45):
You know, I often feel too many different things all at the same time.

Sam Thomas (00:39:48):
I feel very conflicted about how I feel about most things, to be honest.

Sam Thomas (00:39:51):
So I think it's just sort of not being driven by feelings and,

Sam Thomas (00:39:55):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:39:55):
not acting out on them impulsively,

Sam Thomas (00:39:58):
I suppose.

Sam Thomas (00:39:58):
I don't really do that.

Sam Thomas (00:39:59):
I'm still effing blind at this, that and the other day to day.

Sam Thomas (00:40:03):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:40:03):
Things that get on my nose.

Sam Thomas (00:40:04):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:40:04):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:40:05):
I don't sort of have these sort of massive sort of meltdowns in the way that I used to.

Rachel Casey (00:40:08):
Oh no, I don't either.

Rachel Casey (00:40:09):
And I think that there's a part of getting sober and it doesn't,

Rachel Casey (00:40:13):
again,

Rachel Casey (00:40:13):
and for anyone listening who's new in sobriety,

Rachel Casey (00:40:16):
it doesn't come instantly.

Rachel Casey (00:40:17):
I thought everything was like instant.

Rachel Casey (00:40:19):
As soon as I stopped drinking, like everything would be solved.

Rachel Casey (00:40:22):
And I find each year there's like a new level or a new,

Rachel Casey (00:40:26):
like a new feeling internally of sobriety like you've reached this whole and i

Rachel Casey (00:40:33):
think the ego drops a little bit more in in the beginning yeah it's very easy i

Rachel Casey (00:40:38):
don't i and i don't even know that it's i i just i don't know that i did it for ego

Rachel Casey (00:40:43):
or i just was so amazed i didn't know i would ever be sober i was one of those

Sam Thomas (00:40:48):
people yeah i think everyone just thought i'd be dead and so

Rachel Casey (00:40:51):
So then I was like, guy, this is crazy that you can feel this way without alcohol.

Rachel Casey (00:40:57):
And then it's kind of rounded to I don't think about it as much anymore.

Rachel Casey (00:41:01):
And now it's like,

Rachel Casey (00:41:03):
well,

Rachel Casey (00:41:03):
I spend a lot of time talking about it,

Rachel Casey (00:41:05):
but I'm hoping that it's helping someone who was once like me.

Rachel Casey (00:41:09):
That's my husband now says he'll never say never.

Rachel Casey (00:41:12):
And he'll never say he won't ever like never drink again because he's like,

Rachel Casey (00:41:15):
I never thought I'd stop drinking,

Rachel Casey (00:41:16):
to be honest.

Rachel Casey (00:41:17):
So.

Rachel Casey (00:41:18):
He's like, that's something you can't say never anymore.

Rachel Casey (00:41:22):
He really did.

Sam Thomas (00:41:23):
He never thought he'd stop.

Sam Thomas (00:41:24):
Yeah, exactly.

Sam Thomas (00:41:25):
If I say I'm not going to do something, then inevitably I will say.

Sam Thomas (00:41:30):
So I don't say that anymore.

Sam Thomas (00:41:31):
I just say, yeah, I may do this.

Sam Thomas (00:41:34):
I may not.

Sam Thomas (00:41:35):
I suppose going back to ego, I think that's a good point.

Sam Thomas (00:41:37):
I think a lot of things,

Sam Thomas (00:41:38):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:41:38):
because I,

Sam Thomas (00:41:40):
again,

Sam Thomas (00:41:40):
I achieved all these incredible,

Sam Thomas (00:41:41):
amazing things.

Sam Thomas (00:41:42):
You know,

Sam Thomas (00:41:42):
I did have a bit of an ego problem when I think about it throughout my 20s and

Sam Thomas (00:41:45):
early 30s.

Sam Thomas (00:41:46):
Maybe up until recent times even.

Sam Thomas (00:41:48):
But I think the shift now is that things are not sort of, again, it's not really about ego.

Sam Thomas (00:41:53):
It's more about instinct.

Sam Thomas (00:41:54):
You know, I trust my instinct a lot more about things.

Sam Thomas (00:41:57):
You know, and sometimes those two things can be a conflict.

Sam Thomas (00:42:00):
You know,

Sam Thomas (00:42:00):
ego says one thing,

Sam Thomas (00:42:01):
but instinctive,

Sam Thomas (00:42:02):
your instinct even says something completely different.

Sam Thomas (00:42:06):
So, you know, rewriting the book, you know, my ego said, oh, can I really be bothered?

Sam Thomas (00:42:11):
You know, why am I doing this?

Sam Thomas (00:42:12):
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Sam Thomas (00:42:14):
But then my instinct goes, actually, no, this is what you've got to do.

Sam Thomas (00:42:17):
It won't be my career defining work necessarily, but you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:42:20):
It'll be a stepping stone onto other things, hopefully.

Sam Thomas (00:42:23):
So just trusting that and not sort of, again, not everything has to be to make a statement.

Sam Thomas (00:42:28):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:42:29):
Again, I was sort of very prone to doing that.

Sam Thomas (00:42:32):
And like I said earlier,

Sam Thomas (00:42:33):
it's about,

Sam Thomas (00:42:34):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:42:34):
I think ego and insecurity,

Sam Thomas (00:42:36):
I think,

Sam Thomas (00:42:36):
often come hand in hand.

Sam Thomas (00:42:38):
Instinct and self-assurance also, I think, come hand in hand.

Sam Thomas (00:42:41):
So I think that's the shift, I think.

Rachel Casey (00:42:44):
I think it's the, you know, it's the faith and fear.

Rachel Casey (00:42:47):
You know, there's that balance between yin and yang.

Sam Thomas (00:42:50):
Yeah, no, it's all, yeah, it's all those.

Sam Thomas (00:42:52):
But I think,

Sam Thomas (00:42:52):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:42:53):
I think it's good to have experienced both,

Sam Thomas (00:42:55):
all those different extremes,

Sam Thomas (00:42:56):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:42:57):
because then you can rationalize it.

Sam Thomas (00:42:59):
So, no, I think it's all quite good.

Sam Thomas (00:43:01):
And yeah,

Sam Thomas (00:43:01):
like you say,

Sam Thomas (00:43:02):
that I think each year that passes,

Sam Thomas (00:43:04):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:43:04):
I think there is this new layer of understanding and awareness and all this sort of stuff.

Sam Thomas (00:43:08):
So that's why we say recovering rather than recovered.

Sam Thomas (00:43:12):
Yeah, you know, I'm always in recovery.

Sam Thomas (00:43:13):
Yeah, it's a process.

Sam Thomas (00:43:14):
And I used to sort of question that at the beginning.

Sam Thomas (00:43:16):
Why do we not say recovered?

Sam Thomas (00:43:17):
But it's for that reason, because, you know, it's just ongoing forever and always.

Sam Thomas (00:43:22):
And, you know, I've forgotten his name all of a sudden.

Sam Thomas (00:43:25):
Who's the guy?

Sam Thomas (00:43:26):
Anthony Hopkins.

Sam Thomas (00:43:27):
Yeah, I mean, he's in recovery.

Sam Thomas (00:43:29):
He's in sober a long time.

Sam Thomas (00:43:30):
He's been in recovery for about 300 years, I think.

Sam Thomas (00:43:32):
You know what I mean?

Rachel Casey (00:43:34):
I think he's almost 40 years, or maybe 40, yeah, for a long time.

Sam Thomas (00:43:37):
Yeah, and actually the interesting thing is as well, this is a really important point,

Sam Thomas (00:43:41):
A lot of people that I noticed,

Sam Thomas (00:43:42):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:43:42):
I was sort of at 33 years age,

Sam Thomas (00:43:44):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:43:45):
of age,

Sam Thomas (00:43:45):
I think.

Sam Thomas (00:43:46):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:43:47):
Was I 31?

Sam Thomas (00:43:47):
No, 33.

Sam Thomas (00:43:47):
Yeah, I was right.

Sam Thomas (00:43:48):
When I did my fourth and final detox,

Sam Thomas (00:43:51):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:43:51):
I was old enough to notice the pattern,

Sam Thomas (00:43:53):
but still young enough to make the changes.

Sam Thomas (00:43:56):
And it's not to say that anyone's too old to change,

Sam Thomas (00:43:58):
but it's just,

Sam Thomas (00:43:59):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:43:59):
it's a good sort of age,

Sam Thomas (00:44:00):
isn't it?

Sam Thomas (00:44:00):
Where you've got the incentive to change.

Sam Thomas (00:44:01):
Because in theory, you know, you're just short of halfway through your life sort of thing.

Sam Thomas (00:44:06):
You know, a lot of, you know, look at a lot of majors and 11s beside Anthony Hopkins.

Sam Thomas (00:44:10):
If I remember right, I'm pretty sure he did.

Sam Thomas (00:44:12):
He detoxed around early 30s again.

Sam Thomas (00:44:15):
I know Eminem did and maybe a couple of others.

Sam Thomas (00:44:18):
I mean, I was going to say Russell Brandt.

Rachel Casey (00:44:19):
Oh, there's a lot of people.

Sam Thomas (00:44:20):
I was going to say Russell Brandt, but yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:44:23):
I still love Russell Brandt.

Rachel Casey (00:44:26):
I don't know.

Rachel Casey (00:44:27):
I still love him.

Sam Thomas (00:44:28):
Yeah, I know.

Sam Thomas (00:44:28):
Like I say, we've got to be cautious because we don't know.

Sam Thomas (00:44:30):
Yeah, we don't know what's.

Rachel Casey (00:44:32):
We don't know what we don't know.

Rachel Casey (00:44:33):
I do like the recovery stuff.

Sam Thomas (00:44:35):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:44:36):
So the point is, you know, there's a few sort of examples just picking up famous people.

Sam Thomas (00:44:39):
But you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:44:40):
Just a few examples of people that sort of had a very wild sort of teens and 20s

Sam Thomas (00:44:46):
and then,

Sam Thomas (00:44:47):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:44:47):
around about,

Sam Thomas (00:44:48):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:44:48):
early to midday sort of implemented changes sort of thing,

Sam Thomas (00:44:51):
went through this sort of transition.

Sam Thomas (00:44:53):
But like I say, I can't trust enough that you can do it at any age.

Sam Thomas (00:44:55):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:44:56):
There's no sort of time limit.

Sam Thomas (00:44:58):
Yeah.

Rachel Casey (00:44:58):
Well,

Rachel Casey (00:44:58):
I mean,

Rachel Casey (00:44:58):
everyone there are you could find any age of and I think there are celebrities even

Rachel Casey (00:45:03):
that are just recently getting sober that are in their 50s,

Rachel Casey (00:45:05):
you know,

Rachel Casey (00:45:06):
and or there's people now as I was in my 20s and my husband was in his 30s.

Rachel Casey (00:45:11):
And I mean,

Rachel Casey (00:45:12):
yeah,

Rachel Casey (00:45:12):
I don't think any age is a great age to get sober,

Rachel Casey (00:45:16):
to be honest,

Rachel Casey (00:45:16):
because you'll you're only enhancing the remaining years you have left.

Rachel Casey (00:45:21):
You know, I know that I wouldn't have lived as long had I not got sober.

Rachel Casey (00:45:25):
I mean, I guess I don't technically know because I don't know the future.

Rachel Casey (00:45:28):
But yeah, it's I've never met anyone that's regretted getting sober and I've never regretted.

Rachel Casey (00:45:35):
There's never been one day that's passed that I've regretted getting sober.

Sam Thomas (00:45:39):
Where I live, you know, I live near a high street and it's just full of homeless people.

Sam Thomas (00:45:44):
Clearly a lot of people, a lot of issues, mental health issues, addiction especially.

Sam Thomas (00:45:48):
Constantly reminded all the time, it feels like, of what could have been.

Sam Thomas (00:45:52):
You know what I mean?

Rachel Casey (00:45:54):
And I think that's inch too in my...

Rachel Casey (00:45:55):
I don't know for you how it feels,

Rachel Casey (00:45:57):
but with homeless...

Rachel Casey (00:45:58):
In the beginning,

Rachel Casey (00:46:00):
when I was newly sober,

Rachel Casey (00:46:01):
I was like,

Rachel Casey (00:46:02):
that person could go get help.

Rachel Casey (00:46:03):
I'm getting help.

Rachel Casey (00:46:04):
I'm only a few days, few months sober.

Rachel Casey (00:46:07):
And now as I've developed my recovery, I've worked with a lot of people in sobriety.

Rachel Casey (00:46:14):
I'm like...

Rachel Casey (00:46:15):
They just haven't hit their point yet.

Rachel Casey (00:46:17):
You know, like I feel badly.

Rachel Casey (00:46:18):
It's more like I understand how they got there versus looking at in the beginning.

Rachel Casey (00:46:24):
I think I was like, you can do it, too.

Rachel Casey (00:46:25):
You know, and like, come on, get to this meeting, like come in the meeting with me.

Rachel Casey (00:46:29):
And now I'm like even trying to do that, like it's that's not their journey, you know, and.

Rachel Casey (00:46:35):
It's just, it feels different.

Rachel Casey (00:46:36):
I don't know.

Rachel Casey (00:46:37):
I look at people different as my,

Rachel Casey (00:46:39):
and not in a judgment way,

Rachel Casey (00:46:40):
just like I understand way,

Rachel Casey (00:46:44):
if that makes any sense.

Sam Thomas (00:46:45):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:46:45):
And it's like,

Sam Thomas (00:46:45):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:46:45):
I still get very frustrated,

Sam Thomas (00:46:47):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:46:47):
sort of,

Sam Thomas (00:46:48):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:46:49):
the things,

Sam Thomas (00:46:49):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:46:49):
the antisocial behavior and the noise and everything else you see in the high strength.

Sam Thomas (00:46:53):
But,

Sam Thomas (00:46:53):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:46:53):
I think I realized that actually these are people that clearly are addicts,

Sam Thomas (00:46:57):
that their lifestyle,

Sam Thomas (00:46:58):
not necessarily chosen lifestyle,

Sam Thomas (00:46:59):
but it's the one that they're fallen prey to.

Sam Thomas (00:47:02):
And that's all they know.

Sam Thomas (00:47:03):
They don't necessarily know that there's this thing called recovery and that life

Sam Thomas (00:47:07):
can be different.

Sam Thomas (00:47:08):
So I have to sort of challenge myself,

Sam Thomas (00:47:10):
I suppose,

Sam Thomas (00:47:11):
on a daily basis,

Sam Thomas (00:47:12):
which is easier said than done because I do get seriously irritated.

Rachel Casey (00:47:16):
Because you can't say anything.

Rachel Casey (00:47:17):
There's nothing you could really do or say, you know.

Sam Thomas (00:47:20):
It's actually,

Sam Thomas (00:47:20):
and that's the other thing,

Sam Thomas (00:47:21):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:47:21):
there's no point,

Sam Thomas (00:47:22):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:47:22):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:47:23):
quite a few months ago,

Sam Thomas (00:47:25):
there was a person just lying on the street,

Sam Thomas (00:47:27):
you know,

Sam Thomas (00:47:28):
unconscious.

Sam Thomas (00:47:28):
And of course I walked past, you know, and did that thing until I turned around.

Sam Thomas (00:47:31):
Of course I did.

Sam Thomas (00:47:33):
He was totally pissed, as you can imagine.

Sam Thomas (00:47:36):
And this is not a normal thing around here where I live.

Sam Thomas (00:47:39):
So I sat there and said, do you need any help?

Sam Thomas (00:47:41):
No, F off.

Sam Thomas (00:47:43):
Isolation.

Sam Thomas (00:47:45):
I just said to him,

Sam Thomas (00:47:46):
look,

Sam Thomas (00:47:46):
I'm going to have to call in Ambers because I just can't leave you there.

Sam Thomas (00:47:49):
You know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:47:49):
You'll have a conscience now.

Sam Thomas (00:47:51):
There are certain things I can sort of override sometimes when it's just silly

Sam Thomas (00:47:56):
things and people just have to,

Sam Thomas (00:47:57):
yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:47:58):
But when it's things like that, just lying unconscious on the floor.

Sam Thomas (00:48:00):
So anyway, the unfortunate thing was I sat there.

Sam Thomas (00:48:03):
It was at the, I literally short distance away from the hospital.

Sam Thomas (00:48:05):
So the ambulance came within minutes.

Sam Thomas (00:48:07):
Of course,

Sam Thomas (00:48:07):
the ambulance people looked at me with that sort of look as if they'd say,

Sam Thomas (00:48:10):
did you really need to call us?

Sam Thomas (00:48:11):
Do you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:48:12):
Because they're so used to sort of just picking the right thing to do.

Sam Thomas (00:48:15):
That's all they do.

Sam Thomas (00:48:16):
They're just the cleanup team, really, that sort of suites people up.

Sam Thomas (00:48:18):
Of course,

Sam Thomas (00:48:19):
you were taken to A&E,

Sam Thomas (00:48:20):
probably gave A&E a load of grief and probably self-discharled,

Sam Thomas (00:48:23):
I imagine.

Sam Thomas (00:48:24):
But you know what I mean?

Sam Thomas (00:48:24):
It's just,

Sam Thomas (00:48:25):
it's difficult to sort of know at what point can you just choose to occur or what

Sam Thomas (00:48:29):
point you need to act.

Sam Thomas (00:48:31):
But, you know, yeah, I think it is difficult when you're sort of so exposed.

Sam Thomas (00:48:36):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:48:37):
if I lived in the middle of the country and,

Sam Thomas (00:48:38):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:48:39):
I've been to a few places near where I live and just realised how civilised it

Sam Thomas (00:48:42):
seems by comparison to Brighton.

Sam Thomas (00:48:44):
I went to Lewis,

Sam Thomas (00:48:45):
which is up the road,

Sam Thomas (00:48:46):
a real sort of old sort of typical English town,

Sam Thomas (00:48:49):
you know what I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:48:49):
Roman,

Sam Thomas (00:48:50):
with a castle and all this sort of stuff.

Sam Thomas (00:48:52):
And I was thinking how sort of civilised it all was by comparison.

Sam Thomas (00:48:56):
There's no sort of street chaos, you know what I mean.

Sam Thomas (00:48:59):
So...

Rachel Casey (00:48:59):
So if people want to follow you and if your book's coming out,

Rachel Casey (00:49:05):
how can people stay in contact with you and where are you talking about your

Rachel Casey (00:49:10):
recovery the most or how do they follow if you were to put out an article soon?

Sam Thomas (00:49:13):
Yeah, it's a good question because it's full chat.

Sam Thomas (00:49:15):
I mean, I was on Twitter, but I think we all agree it's on a life support machine now.

Rachel Casey (00:49:19):
Is Blue Sky now the thing?

Sam Thomas (00:49:20):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:49:21):
So I dabble at the other two.

Sam Thomas (00:49:22):
Is it Threads and Blue Sky?

Sam Thomas (00:49:24):
But I'm not ready.

Rachel Casey (00:49:25):
I have like 10 people.

Sam Thomas (00:49:26):
I am sort of a lot more active now on Instagram.

Sam Thomas (00:49:29):
You know, sort of.

Sam Thomas (00:49:30):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:49:30):
It's SamThomas8186, I think, if I remember rightly.

Sam Thomas (00:49:34):
And on there, I've got links to all my articles and things, which I've done a lot of now.

Sam Thomas (00:49:39):
Yeah, that's the main one.

Sam Thomas (00:49:41):
I mean, I was made part-time with it until fairly recently.

Sam Thomas (00:49:43):
So yeah, I'm sort of getting to grips with it finally.

Sam Thomas (00:49:46):
And in terms of the book, I mean, I'm working on it.

Sam Thomas (00:49:48):
I've no idea what's happening with the book.

Sam Thomas (00:49:49):
It's too early just yet, but it will happen, hopefully.

Sam Thomas (00:49:53):
So yeah, but if you follow me on Instagram, there'll be updates in time.

Rachel Casey (00:49:57):
And I'll put a link to your Instagram on there.

Rachel Casey (00:50:00):
Or even if you want to send me a few articles,

Rachel Casey (00:50:02):
we can put some links to your previous articles that if people would like to read,

Rachel Casey (00:50:05):
I would like to read them anyway.

Rachel Casey (00:50:07):
So thank you for coming on Sober Banter and sharing some of your...

Rachel Casey (00:50:13):
your story and who you are and that we do get to recover.

Rachel Casey (00:50:17):
That's the coolest part about all of this is it doesn't matter where we are.

Rachel Casey (00:50:21):
We have like friends literally everywhere in recovery of all types.

Rachel Casey (00:50:25):
It's not even just alcohol.

Rachel Casey (00:50:26):
It can be lots of different recoveries.

Rachel Casey (00:50:29):
You might have inspired me to try and do some exposure therapy because isn't that

Rachel Casey (00:50:33):
the weird thing that

Rachel Casey (00:50:34):
from addiction or from trauma.

Rachel Casey (00:50:37):
It's like me hearing that someone, it worked for you and you're a real person talking to me.

Rachel Casey (00:50:42):
You know, it's not just this hypothetical of exposure therapist supposed to work.

Rachel Casey (00:50:46):
It's like I hear it from someone and it's authentic and it's,

Rachel Casey (00:50:50):
I can tell that you really were scared.

Rachel Casey (00:50:52):
Now you talk about it like it's just like a pet cat.

Rachel Casey (00:50:55):
a cat or a dog and I can hear it and I'm like wow that is change and that's

Rachel Casey (00:50:59):
something I want and I want to not be scared of spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:51:03):
Let me know how many tarantulas you've got in six months time.

Rachel Casey (00:51:06):
If my husband hears this and gets it oh my god.

Rachel Casey (00:51:09):
I said I think there are places that I could go or people that would be with me and but it is

Rachel Casey (00:51:14):
If I would have woke up today and thought I'd say that sentence,

Rachel Casey (00:51:18):
I did not think it,

Rachel Casey (00:51:19):
but it is the connection,

Rachel Casey (00:51:20):
the authentic.

Rachel Casey (00:51:22):
I believe you.

Rachel Casey (00:51:22):
I can tell you're being real and that there is a possibility that maybe I won't be

Rachel Casey (00:51:28):
scared of spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:51:28):
I'll tell you what it could go.

Sam Thomas (00:51:29):
I've got a little praying mantis on my desk.

Sam Thomas (00:51:32):
I could show you, but I don't know if it will show up on the camera.

Sam Thomas (00:51:34):
I can try.

Rachel Casey (00:51:36):
Can you see it?

Rachel Casey (00:51:37):
No, where?

Rachel Casey (00:51:38):
Oh, I do see it.

Rachel Casey (00:51:39):
Yeah, I do.

Rachel Casey (00:51:40):
I don't think I've ever even seen it.

Rachel Casey (00:51:41):
Well, yes, I have.

Sam Thomas (00:51:42):
I mean,

Sam Thomas (00:51:44):
they're not scary at all,

Sam Thomas (00:51:45):
but they're quite good,

Sam Thomas (00:51:46):
sort of low-maintenance,

Sam Thomas (00:51:47):
sort of short-lived thing.

Sam Thomas (00:51:49):
And actually, I didn't know any of praying mantises, so I've got a few different things.

Sam Thomas (00:51:53):
And I had little crabs.

Rachel Casey (00:51:54):
It's an inspiration to learn more.

Sam Thomas (00:51:55):
Yeah, so you can try.

Sam Thomas (00:51:57):
Start with praying mantises and work your way up to spiders.

Sam Thomas (00:52:00):
Yeah.

Sam Thomas (00:52:01):
That that that will be quite elegant and graceful because we're praying much less

Rachel Casey (00:52:09):
than a tarantula.

Rachel Casey (00:52:10):
So again, thank you for coming on.

Rachel Casey (00:52:13):
And I will put all the links in the bio in below so that way people can get in

Rachel Casey (00:52:16):
contact or follow you and read some of your articles.

Rachel Casey (00:52:19):
So thank you again for your time.

Rachel Casey (00:52:21):
I appreciate it.

Sam Thomas (00:52:22):
Thank you.

Sam Thomas (00:52:22):
Thanks for having me.