After Hours with Jimmy Thistle

Episode 94 | Millie Gooch
I Drank to Escape My Anxiety. I Was Making It Worse.
Why do we drink to feel less anxious when alcohol can be the very thing making our anxiety worse?
This week, Jimmy is joined by Millie Gooch, founder of Sober Girl Society and author of Hangxiety, for an eye-opening conversation about alcohol, mental health and the science behind why drinking makes us feel the way it does.
Millie shares how university drinking culture led to blackouts, crippling hangovers and an exhausting cycle of drinking to quiet a mind that never seemed to switch off.
They explore the connection between alcohol and anxiety, the impact of ADHD and autism, why alcohol-fuelled confidence isn't necessarily real confidence, and the surprising challenges that can appear after getting sober.
They also discuss Britain's habit of laughing off dangerous drinking, the pressure of becoming a public face of sobriety, and why you don't need to hit rock bottom to question your relationship with alcohol.
Whether you're sober, sober curious or simply wondering why drinking leaves you feeling worse than it used to, this conversation is for you.
Choose tomorrow. Stay sober today.

Millie Gooch IG: https://www.instagram.com/milliegooch
Millie Gooch TT: https://www.tiktok.com/@milliegooch
Sober Girl Society Website: https://sobergirlsociety.com/
Sober Girl Society IG: https://www.instagram.com/sobergirlsociety
Sober Girl Society TT: https://www.tiktok.com/@sobergirlsociety
Hangxiety: https://sobergirlsociety.com/pages/hangxiety-links
Alcohol Change UK: https://alcoholchange.org.uk/
Enjoyed After Hours? Follow, review and share the podcast!
Instagram: @thesoberthistle
Coaching: https://thistlefreedomcoaching.com
Support: https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt
Books:
Alcohol Explained: https://amzn.to/4uMmkyB
This Naked Mind: https://amzn.to/4eC6L6z
A Million Little Pieces: https://amzn.to/44jOV3i
Donate:
https://motiv8.im/donate/
https://nacoa.org.uk/get-involved/donating/donate/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 93 | Melissa Cheriegate: I Was an Extra in My Own Life
What happens when you spend so long living for everyone else that you forget who you are?
This week on After Hours with Jimmy Thistle, I'm joined by Melissa Cheriegate, artist and creator of the Whoever You Artpodcast, for an honest conversation about addiction, identity and finding your way back to yourself.
From the fashion world and its party culture to marriage, motherhood and life across several countries, Melissa's journey took a devastating turn following the death of her father.
As her drinking spiralled, alcohol became something she needed just to function. Two stays in rehab, relapse and some frightening moments followed before she finally found her own reasons to stop.
We talk about grief, motherhood, ADHD, shame, the dangers of wine culture and the surprising role that art, creativity and podcasting have played in her recovery.
But at the heart of Melissa's story is something bigger than alcohol: learning to stop being an extra in your own life and finally becoming the person who gets to write the story.
An honest, moving conversation about second chances, self-worth and discovering that it's never too late to begin again.
Find Melissa: Instagram @whoeveryouart.podcast
https://open.spotify.com/show/033U09Igdg96MTQw9UxMcd?si=02b0f326b3934471
https://www.youtube.com/@whoeveryouart

Find Jimmy: @thesoberthistle
Coaching: thistlefreedomcoaching.com
Choose tomorrow. Stay sober today. 🧡
Enjoyed After Hours? Follow, review and share the podcast!
Instagram: @thesoberthistle
Coaching: https://thistlefreedomcoaching.com
Support: https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt
Books:
Alcohol Explained: https://amzn.to/4uMmkyB
This Naked Mind: https://amzn.to/4eC6L6z
A Million Little Pieces: https://amzn.to/44jOV3i
Donate:
https://motiv8.im/donate/
https://nacoa.org.uk/get-involved/donating/donate/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

EPISODE 92 | SOPHIE HYDE
"I Could Stop at Two Glasses of Wine. But All I Thought About Was the Next One."
What happens when you're the life and soul of the party, but behind the scenes you're absolutely miserable?
This week on After Hours with Jimmy Thistle, I'm joined by Sophie Hyde, the former party girl who's discovered she can still dance, celebrate and enjoy life without alcohol.
Sophie talks openly about her drinking at university, the mental exhaustion of trying to moderate, and the three friends who helped her take her first proper break from booze.
We get into sober weddings, navigating marriage when your partner still drinks, the pressure to be the fun one, and why changing jobs wasn't enough to make Sophie happy.
We also talk about the moment she realised she didn't need to hit some catastrophic rock bottom before making a change.
And there's a special connection to next week's guest, Millie Gooch, whose podcast and book helped Sophie begin questioning her drinking.
If you've ever spent an evening thinking more about your next drink than the conversation in front of you, this episode is for you.
Find Sophie: Instagram @sophiesoberglows
Find Jimmy: Instagram @recovery_jimmy
Enjoyed After Hours? Follow, review and share the podcast!
Instagram: @thesoberthistle
Coaching: https://thistlefreedomcoaching.com
Support: https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt
Books:
Alcohol Explained: https://amzn.to/4uMmkyB
This Naked Mind: https://amzn.to/4eC6L6z
A Million Little Pieces: https://amzn.to/44jOV3i
Donate:
https://motiv8.im/donate/
https://nacoa.org.uk/get-involved/donating/donate/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jonny Crawford joined the RAF at nineteen looking for discipline. What he got was twelve years of what he calls the fittest alcoholics in the world.
In this episode he pulls the curtain back on a drinking culture most people never see. The beer calls that weren't compulsory but absolutely were, because if you didn't turn up you got the worst jobs the next day. The cocaine syndicates. Lads sweating it out in the sauna on a Friday and pulling a sickie on a Monday to dodge the drugs test. Mates binning eleven-year careers over one night at a festival. And the old flight sergeants living vicariously through the young lads the morning after.
It ended on a back road in Cyprus. Jonny got behind the wheel blind drunk, two of his mates in the car, doing 80 miles an hour on his way to the next pub. The car left the road and slid between two trees that would have killed him outright, and into the bushes. All three of them walked out without a scratch. The first car down that empty road turned out to be a pal from boxing. And Jonny asked him for a lift to the pub, and the party ran until the next day.
He should have woken up destroyed. Instead he woke up loved. He calls it his first encounter with the Holy Spirit, and the 18th of September 2022 was the last time he touched a drink.

Jonny talks honestly about what came next: ordering a Bible he couldn't understand, locking his door at weekends and watching sobriety videos with headphones in while the old crowd knocked, and the people back in Scotland asking his mum whether he'd had a breakdown. As he puts it, when he was sniffing coke and wrecking his life, it was "that's just Johnny Boy." When he got sober and found faith, he'd lost the plot.

He and Jimmy get into the identity question too, and don't entirely agree. Jonny won't let the men he works with call themselves addicts. Jimmy makes the case for what the fellowship gave him and what he had to leave behind.

Plus: what men really hide from their families, why alcohol is the gateway, and the morning journal that changed everything.
One word for life now? Clarity.

You can find Jonny on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/jonnycrawfordmentor/

Project Knight:
https://jonnycrawford.unforged.me/links/?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAcGRvZgJzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA85MzY2MTk3NDMzOTI0NTkAAaftTeFdIKdJC5U-Q26FI9ETXa6aDQRj84oCFfkZOPk0E6gVUQi4NfUr0YOj9w_aem_tHU4KJuvMX8EfFf1A5VkIg
Enjoyed After Hours? Follow, review and share the podcast!
Instagram: @thesoberthistle
Coaching: https://thistlefreedomcoaching.com
Support: https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt
Books:
Alcohol Explained: https://amzn.to/4uMmkyB
This Naked Mind: https://amzn.to/4eC6L6z
A Million Little Pieces: https://amzn.to/44jOV3i
Donate:
https://motiv8.im/donate/
https://nacoa.org.uk/get-involved/donating/donate/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Olivia Farrelly had her last drink on 4 July 2018. It was a gin, at a wedding in Spain, and she knew before she'd finished it. She handed the glass to her husband Gary and asked him to take a photograph, because it felt that big. She still has the pictures.
Eight years on, Olivia is an alcohol-free coach and mentor, the host of No More Booze – The Podcast, and the woman her clients call "the smiling assassin".
In this episode she tells Jimmy about growing up in nineties Ireland, where the pub was where you learned to be social. About 16 nights in a row out in Sydney, and only making it to the Opera House the night before she flew home. About half a bottle of vodka, throwing it straight back up, and then drinking 16 Baileys. And about hangovers so monumental that in the end they made the decision for her.
But this is not a war stories episode. Olivia is trained in psychology, and she's spent eight years working out exactly why life on the other side is better. She talks about alcohol painting you into a corner, and how every drink you don't take lets you see more of the world. About the question that changed everything for her: how does a fish know it's wet? About emotional maturity arriving at 37, and the shame that had to be dealt with before joy could move in.
She's honest about the hard parts too. The dark night of the soul after the booze went. Redefining friendships built on drinking. Being called holier-than-thou. Going through menopause with a clear head rather than a foggy one.
And she makes the case for what she's built instead: sauna and ice on a Sunday morning, matcha with friends, a weighted blanket, a mango kombucha and a murder documentary. A life she calls beautifully ordinary, and would not trade for a cheque for a hundred million.
Jimmy and Olivia also get into gray area drinking versus the alcoholic label, why Sober October should be a count up rather than a countdown, and why twelve people in Olivia's life no longer drink.
One word for life now? Joyful.

Find Olivia on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/greyareadrinker/

No More Booze 30:
https://nomorebooze30.lovable.app/?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAcGRvZgJzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA85MzY2MTk3NDMzOTI0NTkAAafqMV47f9QGRvNDTF8xByxEhaKCJSDrnUJhA5B7jb71HMs2Oxo0q6z5Xjsu3A_aem_WfMt3HpKCGZhTZllsgEGsw&utm_id=97760_v0_s00_e0_tv3

Am I a Grey Area Drinker Quiz:
https://grey-area-assessment.lovable.app/?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAcGRvZgJzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA85MzY2MTk3NDMzOTI0NTkAAadwbhpUxaZyvQ-8pKbMZjJ8qXC2GTd-BHbUhafHQ4U6fXiVg4xodrkwWC7Oew_aem_kLMN5fgrfbkgPfS-fEA6EA&utm_id=97760_v0_s00_e0_tv3

No More Booze - The Podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/show/037RmUDIJ3hW44FI5YLRjN?si=QsxQaVaqRdCQNL8s-2T-dA&utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAcGRvZgJzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA85MzY2MTk3NDMzOTI0NTkAAafwG9VjlfPf_V0F_FSj0Xy68kdwFy73yU1qRVERRm9zuZ1C3A7H3F3xqp6lgA_aem_TEke57rdTZeVPCOyUOTfMw&nd=1&dlsi=796525ccc19848e3

The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Gray:
https://link.amazon/B0g5RWsby

Feel Good Podcast with Dr Rangan Chatterjee:
https://drchatterjee.com/is-it-time-for-a-tactical-break-from-alcohol-with-andy-ramage-re-release/
Enjoyed After Hours? Follow, review and share the podcast!
Instagram: @thesoberthistle
Coaching: https://thistlefreedomcoaching.com
Support: https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt
Books:
Alcohol Explained: https://amzn.to/4uMmkyB
This Naked Mind: https://amzn.to/4eC6L6z
A Million Little Pieces: https://amzn.to/44jOV3i
Donate:
https://motiv8.im/donate/
https://nacoa.org.uk/get-involved/donating/donate/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.