After Hours with Jimmy Thistle

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/
My Instagram is:
https://www.instagram.com/recovery_jimmy

And you can find all my other links at:
https://linktr.ee/jimmythistle

Buy me a coffee…
https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt

Alcohol Explained - William Porter
https://amzn.to/4uMmkyB

This Naked Mind - Annie Grace
https://amzn.to/4eC6L6z

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey
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 89 | Suzanne Warye — Mummy Wine Culture, the Vodka Deal & the Morning She Couldn't Remember Feeding Her Baby
Suzanne Warye grew up in Wisconsin, a state where 97 of America's 100 drunkest cities are located and the baseball team is literally called the Brewers. Drinking there didn't feel like a choice. It felt like a foregone conclusion.
Her parents divorced when she was six and her dad went hard into the party. Then, when she was nine, he sat her down and told her the doctor had said if he wanted to dance at her wedding, he had to quit. So he did. The next drink he had was at her wedding, twenty-four years later. That was the only conversation about alcohol she ever had growing up. No warning. No cautionary tale.
She had her first drink at fourteen — straight vodka, wasted, and that immediate rush of belonging. Varsity volleyball, student council, honour society by day; blackout drinker by night. College in Green Bay was booze and boys. Then Atlanta, then Chicago — single in the city, waking up in places she didn't recognise beside people she didn't remember. She calls it what it was: the walk of shame, a phrase that only ever applies to the woman.
It never occurred to her that quitting was an option. She didn't think she qualified. She just had to drink better. Be more adult about it. Find the moderation everyone else had supposedly mastered.
Then came motherhood — and one of the most extraordinary confessions on this show. Suzanne became an influencer in 2015, before the word existed. And she was paid by a vodka brand to make drinking look glamorous by the pool. She made it look beautiful. She poured every drop down the drain and never took a sip, because she was a busy mum with three kids and couldn't drink in the afternoon. Her followers didn't know that. They only saw a woman who seemed to have it all and a drink in her hand. She was, in her own words, both a perpetrator and a victim of mummy wine culture.
On the 19th of January 2020, after a champagne party, she woke at 10am and realised she'd nursed her three-month-old in the night with no memory of it at all. She spent the day on the couch, looked around at the chaos of her own home and thought: this scene needs a mum.
She got up and told her husband she was done. Six and a half years ago. Her husband quit two years later. Her book is The Sober Shift.
One word for her life now: wonderful.

Suzanne Warye is a sobriety influencer (@suzannewarye and @thesobermomlife) and the host of the popular
podcast The Sober Mom Life. Residing on the North Shore of Chicago with her husband and three kids, Suzanne
spends most of her time reheating her coffee and rocking her “whole heart, half ass” parenting philosophy.

For more visit:
https://suzannewarye.com/
https://thesobermomlife.com/

You can get the paperback copy of The Sober Shift here:
https://amzn.to/4yMk1he

My Instagram is:
https://www.instagram.com/recovery_jimmy

And you can find all my other links at:
https://linktr.ee/jimmythistle

Buy me a coffee…
https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt

Alcohol Explained - William Porter
https://amzn.to/4uMmkyB

This Naked Mind - Annie Grace
https://amzn.to/4eC6L6z

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey
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 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:
https://www.soberilliant.com

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

My Instagram is:
https://www.instagram.com/recovery_jimmy

And you can find all my other links at:
https://linktr.ee/jimmythistle

Buy me a coffee…
https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt

Alcohol Explained - William Porter
https://amzn.to/4uMmkyB

This Naked Mind - Annie Grace
https://amzn.to/4eC6L6z

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey
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 87 | Janey Lee Grace — Wham!, Cola Boy & the Elephant in the Room Nobody Told Her About
Janey 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/4qV1Kvo
https://amzn.to/4yIPIIz
https://amzn.to/4i9MicG

My Instagram is:
https://www.instagram.com/recovery_jimmy

And you can find all my other links at:
https://linktr.ee/jimmythistle

Buy me a coffee…
https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt

Alcohol Explained - William Porter
https://amzn.to/4uMmkyB

This Naked Mind - Annie Grace
https://amzn.to/4eC6L6z

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey
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 86 | Laura Van Antwerp — The Pinky Promise, the Ski Town & 172 Miles on the Tahoe Rim Trail

Laura 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=YjA2YjB4NDBidzJy

Laura's website is at:
www.yoursoberpal.co
yspadventures.com

Laura's Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/yoursoberpal

Blackout - Sarah Hepola
https://amzn.to/4zLCFHh

Recovery Elevator
https://open.spotify.com/show/51g2uQIwCFuJ2igFSWxn0P?si=231a2d61c399410f
My Instagram is:
https://www.instagram.com/recovery_jimmy

And you can find all my other links at:
https://linktr.ee/jimmythistle

Buy me a coffee…
https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt

Alcohol Explained - William Porter
https://amzn.to/4uMmkyB

This Naked Mind - Annie Grace
https://amzn.to/4eC6L6z

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey
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.