Episode 88 | Steve Smith — Nitro, the Door Handle & the Man Who Quit on a Train Platform
Steve Smith grew up in Berkshire, the son of Glaswegian parents — his dad a police officer turned private investigator who joined the force in England because Glasgow wanted him two inches taller. There was always a party. Beers dangled over the garden fence to signal the neighbours. Eventually a bar built into the house, optics and all, pure Del Boy. Nobody got into trouble. It was just fun. That's what Steve learned alcohol was.
Then Cocktail came out. He started at the TGI Fridays in Reading, moved into the West End, and became one of the top flair bartenders in London. He went by Nitro. He competed in Dubai and Vegas. He won the World Championships. Free drinks and free entry everywhere he went, because in that world he was a rock star. Managers told the team to down a Bloody Mary before shift to sort themselves out. It wasn't a red flag. It was the job.
He drank every single day through his twenties and most of his thirties. He moved into management, then operations, then senior management for big restaurant chains — where the drinking simply changed clothes and became wine tastings and client entertaining. He ran over twenty marathons and used every one as proof he was fine. How could there be a problem? He'd just run 26 miles.
At 41, with an eleven-week-old son at home, he fell asleep on a train after a 10am wine tasting and woke up fifty miles from home on the last service with no phone, no wallet and no keys. That was the first time he really sat up. It took another five or six years.
There was the morning he woke in agony convinced he'd damaged his liver — and discovered he'd slept on a door handle in his brother's spare room. The GP said he'd strained something. Steve took it as a green light.
The end, when it came, was quiet. A night in London where he drank faster than colleagues fifteen years younger, left his glasses behind, and felt like the old boy who couldn't handle it. He woke up and thought: I'm bored of this. A few weeks later, a curry with his brother, standing on a train platform — I think that's it for me. 27th June 2021.
He signed up for an Ironman having never done a triathlon. Now he runs 200-mile ultras, coaches dads through their first 90 days, and hosts The Alcohol Free Revolution.
One word for his life now: full.
Steve is on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/sober.illiant/
His website is:
The Acohol Free Revolution Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-alcohol-free-revolution-podcast/id1826062887
Alcohol Lied to Me - Craig Beck
https://amzn.to/4yxdB5v
The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober - Catherine Gray
https://amzn.to/3T5XtJg