Langa Mthethwa wasn’t at rock bottom.
He was doing well at work, keeping it together, exercising through the week.
But every Friday to Sunday, the pattern kicked in. Heavy drinking from Friday night into Saturday, up again by 10 or 11 on Saturday morning, through the day, out again Saturday night, hair of the dog on Sunday, and by Monday he was shot. By Wednesday he’d feel normal again — just in time for the cycle to start over.
He calls it the middle lane. Successful on paper. Not in crisis. Not at rock bottom. Just stuck — and silently struggling.
In this conversation, Langa traces his relationship with alcohol from his first sip of his uncle’s beer at 11, through his teens in London, drinking Super Skull before his GCSE maths exam, through a Zimbabwean cultural landscape in which drinking was deeply embedded, through his twenties and thirties, to the morning of the 10th of March 2024 when he looked in the mirror and said: I cannot feel like this anymore.
He also talks about the FA Cup final moment — the first time, months into sobriety, that he knew exactly who he was without a drink in his hand. About identity versus willpower. About why change that’s attached to who you are is more sustainable than change built on resistance. And about what he now does to help other men step out of the middle lane and into the next version of themselves.
Timestamps
00:53 Coming Up — Langa’s Story
01:22 Follow the Show
01:35 Torque Ten — Quickfire Questions with Langa
04:05 The Middle Lane
05:09 Heavy Drinking — What That Actually Meant
05:58 The Loop — Friday to Sunday and Back Again
06:37 COVID and the Start of the Escalation
06:44 How It Started — First Sip at 11
08:12 The False Confidence Alcohol Gave Him
09:00 Drinking Before the GCSE Maths Exam
09:55 His Dad’s Silent Acceptance
13:07 Boarding School in Zimbabwe — Sent to Understand His Culture
17:40 Zimbabwean Drinking Culture
19:20 Work Hard, Drink Hard, Repeat
21:40 The Job That Lost Its Meaning
23:15 The Pursuit of Pleasure vs the Absence of Joy
24:53 What the Drinking Was Filling — Meaning, Presence, Consistency
25:41 Not at Rock Bottom — But Not Thriving Either
27:00 Keeping It Together While Sabotaging Your Potential
28:00 The 10th of March 2024 — Looking in the Mirror
29:08 Day at a Time, Weekend at a Time — The Decision
29:32 The Soba App — Blue Days and Red Days
32:03 Filling Life with Things That Had Meaning
32:58 The FA Cup Final — The Moment He Knew Who He Was Without a Drink
34:06 Change Is More Sustainable When It’s Attached to Identity, Not Willpower
35:17 The Lightbulb — Finding His Purpose
36:18 Identity vs Willpower — Dom and Langa Discuss
40:22 Limiting Beliefs and the Inner Critic
41:30 Physical Health — Training, Sleep, Diet
42:10 Values — Who You Are When Nobody’s Watching
43:14 Langa’s Call to Action — How to Find Him
45:02 Dom’s Closing Reflection — Identity, Not Willpower
You can find Langa at
https://www.instagram.com/bettermebetteryou_langa
https://www.linkedin.com/in/langa-mthethwa-356811a9
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