Episode 24
Bottled Up
From Hopeless to Honours: A Recovering Alcoholic and Academic on Why Families Need Help Too
Guest: Dr John McMahon — psychologist, author and co-founder of Bottled Up
Trigger Warning
This episode covers addiction, rock bottom and darker thoughts. Please take care when listening.
Episode Description
John McMahon left school with practically nothing. He’d spent his teens training for the priesthood — Hogwarts with hymns, as he puts it — until puberty arrived and the idea of lifelong celibacy lost its appeal. He came back, became Holy John, went out of his way to prove he wasn’t, and ended up on the hippie trail and eventually a psychiatric hospital in 1984 where a doctor told him he had brain damage, liver damage, and six months to live if he continued.
What followed was a return to education — a degree, then a doctorate in psychology — writing and teaching the largest master’s course in the UK on addiction, and eventually, with his wife Lou, building Bottled Up: a free website and resource for the families of alcoholics that is built on a simple but overlooked truth. One drink affects three to five people minimum. And almost every recovery programme is aimed at the drinker alone.
In this conversation, John traces the full arc of his life and talks about what addiction actually is, why willpower alone never works, what the families of alcoholics live through that nobody talks about, and why his nursing manager’s six words became one of the most important sentences of his life.
Timestamps
00:00 I’m a Hopeless Case. You May Well Be. But You’re Not a Lost Cause.
01:18 Trigger Warning
01:26 Talk Ten — Quickfire Questions with John
02:51 The Priesthood — Hogwarts With Hymns
04:20 Why He Left — Puberty & Celibacy
05:35 Holy John
06:11 The Hippie Trail — Devon, Drugs and the Police
09:10 The First Glastonbury
09:35 Back to Devon — Head Scrambled, LSD
10:05 The Grey Van — Meeting Lou at 21
13:00 Lou’s Father the Pastor — The Garden Conversation
15:00 Training as a Psychiatric Nurse — Still Drinking
17:00 How the Dependency Deepened
19:00 What Addiction Actually Looks Like From the Inside
21:00 The Darker Thoughts
22:00 Brain Damage, Liver Damage, Six Months
24:00 Why the Death Sentence Wasn’t the Thing That Did It
25:45 The Picture of Dorian Gray
27:00 I Don’t Want to Be That Person Anymore
29:30 AA — Hating It First, Then Embracing It
31:00 An Egomaniac With an Inferiority Complex
32:00 The Nursing Manager
34:00 Going Back to Education — Degree, Then Doctorate
36:00 Writing and Teaching the Largest Masters Course on Addiction in the UK
38:00 Families of Alcoholics — The People Nobody Talks About
42:00 Bottled Up — The Website John and Lou Built
44:00 Lou’s Story — The Widow of an Alcoholic Who Didn’t Come Out the Other Side
46:00 Finding Each Other Again Decades Later
47:10 It’s Never Too Late. But You Can’t Do It on Your Own.
48:00 The Walk to the Cathedral — and the Walk Back
48:59 Dom’s Closing Reflection
You can find out more about John McMahon at
Bottled Up – Help for Alcoholics & Families Bottled Up – Support, Tools & Hope
Resources
If this episode has raised issues for you:
Alcoholics Anonymous UK: 0800 9177 650 — alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk
Al-Anon — support for families and friends of alcoholics: 0800 0086 811 — al-anonuk.org.uk
Samaritans — free, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: 116 123
All previous Torque episodes available at
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