After Hours with Jimmy Thistle

Episode 87 | Janey Lee Grace — Wham!, Cola Boy & the Elephant in the Room Nobody Told Her AboutJaney Lee Grace grew up in Nottingham, got into music in her teens, and somehow navigated the drug-soaked world of touring bands without falling too far in — largely, she thinks, out of fear. She had no safety net. Nobody was coming to pick her up if it went wrong. So it didn't go wrong. Not yet.She toured with Mary Wilson and the Supremes, then Wham! — she's in the documentary, a young woman in her early twenties watching George Michael become a superstar from the wings. She had a top 10 hit in 1991 with Cola Boy, played a warehouse rave in Venice that felt like being Madonna for five minutes, worked with Boy George, Kim Wilde, Matt Bianco, and Chris Evans at BBC London and Virgin Radio. Then she landed at Radio 2, where she'd stay for 23 years.In between all of it, she wrote a book called Imperfectly Natural Woman — 20 years ago — that made her the queen of holistic living. Coconut oil. Soap nuts. Natural deodorant. Organic everything. She talked about it on national radio to millions of listeners. And she stepped around the elephant in the room every single day, because alcohol was her treat. The one thing that didn't fit the brand. The one thing she couldn't touch.She mentioned it to a GP once, on the way out the door, a classic doorknob moment. The GP looked at her, said she seemed fine, suggested an alcohol-free day and a glass of water between drinks. Janey walked out relieved. That kept her stuck for five more years.In late 2017, a producer handed her a copy of Claire Pooley's The Sober Diaries ahead of an interview. She glanced at the back, realised Claire was just like her, and knew. She didn't read it until after Christmas — she didn't want to spoil the holidays. On the 30th of January 2018, she started the book and quit the same day.The first two months were rough. Leg cramps, terrible sleep, emotional chaos, shame she couldn't explain. She told nobody except Claire. She navigated a Radio 2 Christmas party, awards evenings and functions without telling a soul she'd stopped drinking. At two and a half months she sat in a car park outside a Club Soda event for twenty minutes before she dared go in. At three months, on her birthday, she went to a sober rave at the Ministry of Sound at 6.30 in the morning and thought: I get it now.At eight months she posted her coming out video on YouTube. She expected backlash. Every message said welcome to the club.In 2019 she did a TEDx talk called Sobriety Rocks Who Knew. She'd forgotten there'd be a live audience. Five people pulled her aside at the break and said: you described me exactly. Can you help? She founded the Sober Club that September. She's now a sober coach trainer, still doing BBC local radio, still championing the imperfectly natural life — with the elephant finally out of the room.One word for her life now: freedom.You can find Janey on Instagram at:https://www.instagram.com/janeyleegrace?stkn=MXY1NTJyc3d3MTB2NQ==The Sober Club at:https://www.thesoberclub.com/And Janey's books:https://amzn.to/4qV1Kvohttps://amzn.to/4yIPIIzhttps://amzn.to/4i9MicG

Episode 86 | Laura Van Antwerp — The Pinky Promise, the Ski Town & 172 Miles on the Tahoe Rim TrailLaura Van Antwerp is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, public speaker, social media influencer and adventure junkie with a passion for helping people get outdoors and live their best life without booze. As featured in Backpacker magazine, Laura is the Founder and CEO of YSP Adventures, which organizes adventure retreats, courses, and workshops to help sober and sober-curious people build confidence, find connection and HAVE FUN without booze! She is the hilarious personality behind @yoursoberpal on TikTok and Instagram, and the bestselling author of “Your Sober Pal Sobriety Affirmation Deck,” which features 50 funny and motivational cards to uplift and comfort people in their sobriety journey. Additionally, Laura is a backpacking and hiking guide with the Tahoe Rim Trail Association, a regular guest speaker at the University of Nevada, Reno, and the recipient of the 2022 Windfeldt Inspire Award.You can find Laura on Instagram at:https://www.instagram.com/yoursoberpal?igsi=YjA2YjB4NDBidzJyLaura's website is at:www.yoursoberpal.coyspadventures.comLaura's Linktree:https://linktr.ee/yoursoberpalBlackout - Sarah Hepolahttps://amzn.to/4zLCFHhRecovery Elevatorhttps://open.spotify.com/show/51g2uQIwCFuJ2igFSWxn0P?si=231a2d61c399410f

Episode 85 | Richard Chapman — £2,000 a Day, a Drug Cartel & the Finance Director Who Got Clean in the Rehab That Saved HimRichard Chapman grew up in Bradford, the youngest of three, with a father who was an HSBC area director, a grandfather who was a West Yorkshire police superintendent, and a home where the tea had better be on the table or things would get thrown against the wall. His dad was beloved by everyone who worked for him. Richard's experience was slightly different.He found his outlet on a rugby field — playing for Yorkshire at fifteen, inflicting as much violence as legally permissible on anyone in front of him — and left school with two O-levels and a desire to work on a building site. His dad sent him to Midland Bank instead. In a suit from Marks & Spencer. At 18.He turned out to be brilliant at it. Which his dad, now area director, deeply resented having to ring and confirm every Friday.At 29, a man with tattoos on his head offered Richard a line of cocaine in a bar in Guiseley. He'd never touched it before. He bought £500 worth the next day, in a Burberry duffel coat, in a pub called the Living Rooms. The man with the tattoos became his best friend for the next seventeen years.By the end, Richard was spending £2,000 a day on cocaine, sitting in Leeds car parks trying to run his banking team through a Blackberry, checking into hotels for the night and ordering seven more grams, laundering money for a drug cartel, defrauding his parents of £150,000, taking a £50,000 mortgage out in his wife's name and walking from his hotel in Scarborough to a drug deal with one flip-flop on and a sock.His 11-year-old son sent him a text from the next room. He drove home. He walked into rehab on the 5th of April 2020 with three grams left and snorted the lot before he walked through the door.Now six years clean. Finance director of Ark House — the rehab in Scarborough that got him well. Five boys. A dog. A view of the sea. One word: peaceful.In-Recovery is on Instagram at:https://www.instagram.com/in_recovery_podcastYou can find them at:https://arkhouserehab.co.uk/podcast/The Bag Lady Doc:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1596767/Wet House Doc:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF5wNsfKo84

Episode 84 | Sarah Rusbatch — Grey Area Drinking, Mummy Wine Culture & the Morning Her Daughter Asked What Happened to Your FaceSarah Rusbatch grew up in Scotland in a household where alcohol was simply part of life — grandma offering sips of wine at nine, her dad's beer froth, men in kilts addressing the haggis on Burns Night. By the time she was fourteen and had moved to five schools in eight years, alcohol was the answer to a question she hadn't quite formed yet: how do I fit in?She went to university in Hull, got deep into the nineties dance scene, moved to London, climbed the career ladder in recruitment — where in 1997 the fourth stage of every job interview was a pub session with tequila shots to see if you could handle your booze. She wore her capacity for alcohol as a badge of honour. She was lit up like a Christmas tree the moment she had a drink, and she didn't stop until the sun came up.Then came the baby, the move to Perth with no friends and no family, the loneliness that nobody talks about when everything on paper looks perfect, and a bottle of wine a night that slowly became the only thing in her toolbox. In 2017, she fell at a party, smashed her face, and was woken the next morning by her five-year-old daughter standing beside the bed asking what had happened to her face. There was dried blood and congealed vomit around her mouth.She did 100 days sober. She went back to drinking. She was back to exactly where she'd been within a month. She tried again. And again. Until 2019, when she finally understood it wasn't a her problem. It was alcohol.Now seven years sober, Sarah is one of Australia's leading grey area drinking coaches, the author of Beyond Booze, and the host of Stronger Bolder Wiser. She works with women aged 40 to 65 who are ready to change their relationship with alcohol — and she does it with a directness and warmth that makes this one of the best conversations we've had on the podcast.You can find Sarah on Instagram at:https://www.instagram.com/sarahrusbatchSarah's other links here:https://www.instagram.com/sarahrusbatchSarah's 100 things to do instead of drink:https://www.instagram.com/sarahrusbatchSarah Rusbatch - Beyong Booze:https://amzn.to/3U1EHmoSarah's Stronger, Bolder, Wiser - Podcasthttps://open.spotify.com/show/0NgeQwAek802stoj6ZfzYmSoberful Podcast:https://open.spotify.com/show/0Xll4Cyn6m18n5p24FXdhE

Episode 83 | Sarah Drage — The Doctor, the Car Keys & What Happens When You Finally Get Your Dad Back and then lose him again...Sarah Drage grew up in West Yorkshire, the eldest of three daughters to a man who was, by her account, genuinely ahead of his time — forward thinking, emotionally open, taking his girls to business meetings in the nineties, teaching them to be independent and articulate and to challenge the world around them. He also drank. Not obviously at first — whiskey, a glass here and there — but enough that Sarah noticed, from a young age, that there were two versions of her dad. The one she adored. And the one she tried to avoid.By the time she was a teenager she knew what it was. She tried everything. She poured his drinks down the sink and topped bottles up with water — not knowing that removing the alcohol from a physically dependent person could trigger a fatal seizure. She tried confrontation. She tried tough love. She tried overachieving, becoming the first in her family to go to university, as if her own success might give him a reason to stop.In 2015, after a family holiday where he arrived drunk and volatile, she gave him an ultimatum: rehab or no contact. He agreed. He detoxed. He got sixteen months sober — the best sixteen months the family had had in years. She got her dad back. Then his father died. And within four months so did he.Thirty hours after being admitted to A&E, at 59 years old — one week before his sixtieth birthday — Steve Drage was taken off life support. He didn't recognise Sarah in the wheelchair. He asked if she had his car keys because he wanted to check the girls were okay.Sarah is now a NACOA ambassador, a social media manager and one of the most honest voices on what it means to grow up in the shadow of a parent's addiction. This episode ranges from the mechanics of alcohol dependency to social media addiction, emotional resilience, the manosphere, and why she now believes stigma was never really the problem.You can find Sarah on Insta at:https://www.instagram.com/sarah_drageYou can find Nacoa at:https://nacoa.org.uk/The Lancet report by Professor David Nutt (2010)https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)61462-6/abstractInside the Manosphere - Louis Therouxhttps://www.netflix.com/watch/81920687

Episode 82 | Michael Kiernan — The Wrong Number, the Guinness World Record & the Cold Water That Changed EverythingMichael Kiernan grew up in Crosshill, a small town where everybody knew everybody and especially knew your family. Good childhood, strong women, a mum and a gran raising him — and then a stepdad who came into his life at eleven and whose surname he briefly took on. He got his first job, met the wrong crowd, had his first drink at seventeen — a bottle of Thunderbird downed at a party — and promptly fell asleep. It barely registered. What registered was the weed he was introduced to at work shortly after, and the week in Blackpool in 1991 that changed his personality permanently.One disco biscuit on a dance floor in Sequins, every night for a week, washed down with everything else going. He came home a different person. His first full-blown panic attack sent him to bed for months, cost him his job, introduced him to beta blockers and codeine. And in codeine, he found something. An opiate that was socially acceptable, prescription-grade, and brilliant at making everything stop.For the next thirty years, Michael was what he calls the undercover addict. Always had heavier users around him to compare himself to. Still holding down jobs, still keeping up appearances, still the driver because his substance of choice wasn't alcohol. Weed to start the day. Speed to stay up late. Valium to get to sleep. Codeine for the pain — first from arthritis in his hips, then for everything else. At his worst he was 22 stone, eating two tubs of Ben & Jerry's a night, binge eating fruit and veg to lose weight while still medicating everything with pills, not caring whether he woke up in the morning.Then COVID. Made redundant. No pretence of going to work. Forty to fifty dihydrocodeine a day. And one afternoon outside a health centre, rattling, out of prescription, running through his options — he scrolled to H on his phone meaning to call someone he knew who used heroin. He called his mum instead by accident. And he stayed on the line.Now in recovery. Guinness World Record holder — two hours and five minutes buried in snow in shorts at Glenshee. Founder of Flowstate Experience, a cold water and ice therapy community in Scotland. Partner, radio show host, ice bath evangelist. One wrong number from a completely different life.You can find Michael on Instagram at:https://www.instagram.com/michael_flowstate_experience_His website:https://www.facebook.com/share/g/19YCYLESpp/?mibextid=wwXIfrAnd the radio show:https://www.instagram.com/michael_flowstate_experience_?igsh=MXZ5MXFrOG5lenB0aw==Links to the 2 Flowstate films that inspired Michael:https://youtu.be/dftQD_EEcgg?si=e2o95sFcmuRnHWtUhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvuCViWPlZY

Episode 81 | Ashley Baker — Rocket Fuel at 13, Death Metal in Dubai & 17 Years Sober His Own WayAshley Baker was born in the UK but never lived there. He grew up in Dubai in the late seventies and eighties — before it was trendy, when it was still mostly desert — the only child of an English mum who'd stayed after his dad left when he was four. She tried to take her life twice before he was old enough to understand why. He grew up with four languages, an Arabic school, a private English school, and by thirteen, a can of Fosters nicked from his parents and a plan to be the coolest kid on the 31st floor of the Hyatt Regency.The plan involved rocket fuel — everything in the drinks cabinet mixed into a 1.5 litre water bottle, downed on a dare in front of his friends. He fell into the pool, woke up the next day still drunk, got on the school bus, and everyone applauded. That was it. He was the man. He never really stopped drinking after that.At seventeen his family moved to Germany, where he discovered that you could buy alcohol in supermarkets at sixteen and that every death metal bar in Stuttgart was open until dawn. He got an apprenticeship as a chef — the one job in the world where drinking before a shift was not just accepted but culturally expected — and spent the next fifteen years being the best and worst version of himself simultaneously.By thirty-one he was drinking two bottles of wine before he could get out of bed, going to his neighbours to ask if they had any wine left, and shaking so badly he had to medicate the withdrawals with more alcohol just to get upright. He went to rehab twice — the first time he left after two weeks and was back drinking within a week. The second time it stuck.Seventeen years sober. Fully tattooed. Qualified addiction counsellor and sober coach in Stuttgart. Completely at peace. And still listening to death metal.You can find Ash on instagram at:https://www.instagram.com/ashleybaker.sobercoach?igsh=dnJobnFnZXdsNHRnand his Linktree at:https://linktr.ee/ashleybaker.sobercoachThe Power of Now - Eckhart Tollehttps://amzn.to/4gZ0eWsBoiling Point - Stephen Grahamhttps://amzn.to/4pPYWiL

Episode 80 | Scott Murdoch — Four Cans in the Fridge, the Marathon des Sables & Running to the First MinisterScott Murdoch grew up on the schemes of Loch Lomond — grey houses, young teams, a school that got burnt down so they learned in caravans — and moved at thirteen to a nicer part of town where he suddenly realised other people's parents had Ferraris. His gran died of alcoholism at 58 looking about 80. His dad drank every day. His mum put up with it because she'd grown up in it too. As a kid, Scott knew that if his dad had four cans of beer in the fridge at home, the evening would be okay. If he went to the pub with his friends, it was best to hide under the covers and wait for it to pass.He left school with a C in PE and a C in Music — both on performance marks alone, because he never bothered sitting the written exams. Drank in the park, caused trouble, got himself a reputation and wore it as a badge of honour. At 21, something shifted. He made two Google searches on the same day: being the child of an alcoholic, which is when NACOA appeared. And what is the toughest race on earth, which is when the Marathon des Sables appeared. Six marathons across the Sahara Desert in five days, 50 degree heat, sandstorms, a medical tent where people's feet were degloved from the sand. Scott decided he was going to do both.It took him eight years. He went back to college, got straight A's, went to university, got straight A's again and won the court medal — the highest academic award for business at his university. Retrained, found a job he believed in, started working with NACOA, ran the Marathon des Sables in April last year for the charity, then ran 100km from Glasgow to Edinburgh through the night without sleeping to hand a letter from a grieving child to John Swinney, Scotland's First Minister.Now 60 days out from attempting a Guinness World Record — two marathons in two time zones on the same day in Samoa — with Callum Best, Ian Stringer and Josh Connolly, all children of alcoholics, all NACOA ambassadors. The goal: to fund a national schools education programme so that children like Scott never have to count cans in silence again.You can find Scott on Instagram at:https://www.instagram.com/scott1murdochand you can donate to his Chasing Yesterday Marathons here:https://www.instagram.com/scott1murdoch?igsh=MWhkMG01OTltdmo4OA==