After Hours with Jimmy Thistle

Episode 76 | Brad McLeod — The Million Dollar Man: Running from everything, Drug Trafficking & the Moment Everything Shifted
Brad McLeod was born in Canada, one of twins, to a sixteen-year-old mother still living with her own parents. By the time he was six the family had relocated to Waco, Texas, and the stability he'd known at his grandparents' hands had gone. The anxiety started early. The ADHD diagnosis followed. The suspensions. The arrests. The psychiatrists, the counsellors, the pharmaceuticals — Prozac, Wellbutrin, Adderall, all of it. By sixteen he was in a lockdown treatment unit in Knoxville, Tennessee — transported there by a private security company after refusing to go voluntarily, running through a beehive and a barbed wire fence at a highway rest stop on the way.
He did a year in that program, came out the other side with a college acceptance and a car his parents had scraped together to buy him. Six months later he was sitting at a poker table when someone pulled out a pain pill and asked if he wanted to try it. He didn't know what an opiate was. He found out fast. The pills ran dry and the heroin came. He got robbed at gunpoint. He lost the apartment, the car, the college place. He got arrested again — drug trafficking charges — and when he stepped off a plane to visit his family, the police were waiting. A year in jail. Deportation. A lifetime ban from the United States.
He came back to Canada with a suitcase on his brother's floor, walking two hours each day to collect his methadone prescription, earning ten dollars an hour cash doing yard work for his parents just to cover the script. It was watching a girl's face light up to see him as he sat handcuffed in the back of a police car that finally made something shift — not the arrests, not the jail, not the deportation. Just one face in a car park.
Now sober, Brad runs the Sober Motivation Instagram, hosts his own podcast and has built one of the most active recovery communities online. His grandfather used to call him the million dollar man — for all the money spent trying to fix him. These days Brad's spending it differently.

You can find Brad on Insta at: https://www.instagram.com/sobermotivation

Brad's Linktree: https://linktr.ee/Sobermotivation

The Podcast: https://shows.acast.com/sobermotivation

The Website: https://www.sobermotivation.com

and the App! https://www.sobermotivation.com/?fbclid=PAVERFWAShEIpleHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA8xMjQwMjQ1NzQyODc0MTQAAaeM4yWqIsLZX4WK2KIXxKLT_V16Zhy9KUX7HmMZpj2VYfL9IZKO_NUeosKkGw_aem_uLKEHdE2U-8PLJXYvYoGeQ

Dreamseller - Brandon Novak - https://amzn.to/4guPmz3

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 75 | William Porter — Alcohol Explained: Iraq, Cointreau at Dawn & 12 Years on the Other Side

William Porter grew up in Raynes Park, South West London — fine childhood, nothing dramatic — started drinking at 14 in a park with a friend and a bottle from the off-licence. It was a non-event. But the culture of the 90s, the lads, the music, Oasis, TFI Friday, all of it normalised getting absolutely hammered as a personality trait. By the time he’d done university in Cardiff, law school in Guildford and landed a paralegal job in London, drinking was simply what you did.

Then at 26, half drunk on the sofa watching TV, an advert for the Territorial Army came on. He joined the Parachute Regiment reserve, quit drinking for three months to get through P Company selection, and passed. Then in 2005 he got mobilised and deployed to Iraq. In the build-up training, wracked with anxiety about what was ahead, he found the one thing that made the terror go away — a half cup of coffee filled up with Cointreau each morning, then drinking steadily through the day whenever he wasn’t training. Iraq itself was completely dry for six months. He came back thinking the enforced detox had fixed it. It hadn’t.

By his early thirties — married, two young sons — the pattern was drinking heavily from Friday lunchtime through the weekend, waking at 3am to drink himself back to sleep, dragging himself into work Monday and doing nothing, then cramming the week’s work into three days. In February 2014 he crawled out of five days of constant drinking and made the decision to stop. Cold turkey, three days of hell, and then — slowly — the realisation that what he’d thought was him at 100% was actually him at 60%.

He wrote Alcohol Explained in 2015, one of the most widely read and recommended books in the sobriety space, explaining the science, psychology and mechanics of alcohol addiction in plain language. Now 12 years sober, running three miles every morning, and navigating a difficult divorce without reaching for a bottle.

You can find William on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/alcoholexplained?igsh=MXU1NGk1bGdhMW9sZw==

Check out his website at:
https://alcoholexplained.com

Demon Coperhead - Barbara Kingsolver
https://amzn.to/4uFt026

The Outrun - Amy Liptrot
https://amzn.to/4fQ2ApO

The Outrun - Film
https://amzn.to/4ede45t

Alcohol Explained - William Porter
https://amzn.to/43HL3Zy
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 74 | April (Sally Sober) — From Whistler Snowboarder to 42 Days in Hospital: The Full Story

April grew up in London, Ontario — good grades, scholarship to university, full of creative ambition. She was the weird middle kid who painted her nails black and hung out with the art kids, and found her first real confidence at 19 when she discovered alcohol above the campus pub. What followed was a decade that looked brilliant from the outside: five years in Whistler snowboarding six days a week, a ska band in Vancouver, a career in travel sales, nightclub promoting. Work hard, play hard — always in balance, always functioning. Then COVID happened.
Locked down with a partner who also drank heavily, no job, liquor stores open from 7am, the balance tipped. By the time things opened up and the relationship ended, April was drinking alone to fall asleep and waking up at 2am to do it again. Loneliness was the trigger — it always has been. When a family member flew out and saw what her life had actually become, that was the moment things had to change.
What followed was a two-year cycle of getting sober, hitting a milestone, telling herself she’d been sober long enough to have just one — and relapsing. Four times. Each time the withdrawal was harder because she knew what was coming. Then this February: almost five months sober, Valentine’s Day, her friend cancelled at the last minute, a bottle of wine at home, a long weekend, the old crowd, and eventually — through a chain of events she can’t fully discuss for legal reasons — 42 days in hospital with emergency surgery. She lost her job. She couldn’t eat or drink anything for two weeks. A nurse left a bottle of water on the counter and she lay there staring at it, lips cracked, not allowed to touch it.
Now two months back and 111 days sober, April — who started her account as Sally Sober before going by her real name — talks about finally knowing who she is without a drink, the opposite of addiction being connection, and why this time genuinely feels different.

You can find April on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/sobergalproblems?igsh=MTY1OHRtaW04ZmR3MA==

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 73 | Ross Powell — Jersey, Ketamine & Running Ultras: How £100K, a Van Crash & 18 Hours in a Cell Finally Broke Through
Ross grew up on Jersey — nine miles by five — in a house where his dad drank heavily from Friday to Sunday and family life happened around arguing and alcohol. There was no one kicking a ball about with him, no male figure showing up for things. So Ross found his people outside, got easily led, got into trouble at school, and by 13 was paralytic at a New Year’s Eve party wondering why people kept telling him the next day about a version of himself he didn’t recognise. That version, he’d eventually realise, was his dad.
Through his twenties he worked as a maintenance carpenter, drank every weekend to blackout, and smoked weed daily. Then after COVID he inherited £100,000. Within 16 months it was gone — all of it snorted or drunk, surrounded by people who appeared when the money did and vanished when it didn’t. He had over 30 Monday no-shows at work in a single year. Ketamine became his midweek go-to. He crashed a van while on it with friends in the back, tried to do a runner, got caught, and spent 18 hours crying in a cell. The fine cleared his bank account. He was close to prison.
What pulled him back was running. He went from never running in his life to a sub-four-hour marathon in four months — then an ultra of 100K in Austria. Each time he cleaned up something would bring him back: a funeral wake, a friend saying you’ve done so well, the cogs of the old life turning again. Three pints at a pub and he felt nothing but shame. He left with his mum.
Now approaching a year sober on Jersey, training for ultras, in a relationship with a woman who used to take drugs just to try and fit in around him, Ross talks about what sobriety actually is: not becoming a better person, but stripping back to your raw, honest self with nowhere left to hide. His word for life now: magical.

Ross is on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/rosspowell__?igsh=MWliZHk0aDd5M2N4Mw==

The Daily Stoic - Ryan Holiday
https://amzn.to/4vduoZF

Can't Hurt Me - David Goggins
https://amzn.to/4vmeXyD

TOMU - The Open Mic Unfiltered Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tomu-the-open-mic-unfiltered/id1822149303
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.

Send us Fan Mail
Episode 72 | Jessica White — Sexier Sober: The San Diego Coach Who Quit Without Trying & Never Looked Back
In this bright, sharp and genuinely thought-provoking episode, Jimmy sits down with Jessica White — sober coach, host of the Sexier Sober podcast, and professional organiser based in Carlsbad, California — whose story of growing up in a high-functioning drinking household, nine years of blackout drinking, and a moment of quiet moral clarity that ended it all without drama or rehab is one of the most distinctive the podcast has featured.
Jess grew up in San Diego in a well-meaning, loving family where both parents had substance issues — managed, high-functioning, never chaotic — but emotionally distant. She absorbed drinking as the normal currency of connection: football parties, family gatherings, the way adults loosened up and let go. A sensitive, neurodivergent kid who felt something was always slightly wrong with her, she couldn’t wait to find what would finally make her feel okay. At 14, she found it — blacked out the first time, threw up, and couldn’t wait for the next one.
For nine years, Jess drank hard and largely had fun — social, energetic, the life of every party. She chose UC San Diego deliberately, a school full of serious students, because some part of her knew she needed that counterweight. She graduated with good grades. But outside the library, Thursday through Sunday, she was blacking out consistently, waking up with no memory of whole nights, doing things she’d never do sober, saying things she’d never say, sleeping with people she’d never have chosen — and rationalising every single time that next time she’d moderate.
The moment that broke it wasn’t dramatic. It was a Tuesday night, Taco Tuesday, with a younger colleague who looked up to her as a role model. Jess had two or three drinks, remembered nothing, lost her phone, was driven home drunk by the person who called her a mentor. The shame wasn’t about the hangover. It was about the profound split between who she was performing herself to be and who she was actually showing up as. Out of alignment. Out of integrity. Done.
That was July 8th 2020 — two weeks before Jimmy’s own sober date. She never craved it again.
What makes Jess’s story distinctive is the path she took before that date. Three years of internal work — meditation, journaling, visualisation, studying how she worked. Six months of treatment at Rogers Behavioral Health for depression and anxiety — not for alcohol. A growing circle of people who were living differently and reflecting back to her what was possible. By the time she put down the drink, the work was already done. The alcohol just stopped fitting the life she was building.
Now nearly five years sober, Jess runs Sexier Sober — one-to-one coaching, a podcast, and a community membership — built around the radical idea that sobriety isn’t the goal. The goal is becoming so clear on who you are and who you want to be that alcohol simply stops making sense. Effortless sobriety, she calls it. Not easy. Just inevitable.

You can find Jess on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/jessmariewhite?igsh=MTdhMnJpeTE2cWdmbA==
And her Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/jess

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://a.co/d/0854fIb6
This Naked Mind - Annie Grace
https://a.co/d/0gy6mT9Z
A Million Little Pieces - James Frey
https://a.co/d/0jdcIjGb
Donate:
https://motiv8.im/donate/
https://nacoa.org.uk/get-involved/donating/donate/
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.