Half Drill Sergeant, Half Best Mate

A Snooker Hall In Yorkshire. December 2014.

Eight months sober. First Christmas back in the UK without rocking up to my Mum's looking like Andre The Giant.

I'd ventured over to Huddersfield for a day of snooker and sparkling water with my best mate. My favourite person in the world.

Our names hadn't been said separately since '99. "Seen Gaz & James?" "Hear what Gaz and James did last night!? Fucking nutjobs."

He'd seen all of it. Debated with every bouncer who'd decided I was no longer fit for their establishment. The four-month union ban. The Sunday night misery so thick you could stand a fucking cue in it. The financial worries that made Nick Leeson's seem chill.

We were playing the way we always used to. Competitive. A bit aggy. I hate losing to my kid at Uno, never mind a best-of-eleven, Hendry-White reenactment with good ol' Jimbo.

One night, when we lived in London, he ribbed me in a black cab about my booze weight. "Mate, it's wearing a bit thin," I said, as I considered lamping the cunt with all my might.

"Pity you ain't," came the disarming reply, as even my then girlfriend howled.

I bent down over the table, caught myself looking slender and majestic in a Tetley's mirror, lined up a shot, and he just looked at me and said:

"I can't believe how thin you are, Gaz. Bout fucking time you got sober, eh."

And then he pissed himself laughing. No hug. No misty-eyed speech about how proud he was of me. He was though. Very.

No therapy bollocks. Just a mate, from Yorkshire, with the bedside manner of Geoffrey Boycott, cracking up at the state of the old me, delighted the new one had finally turned up.

Probably my favourite thing anyone's ever said to me.

Why That's Stuck With Me For A Decade

I've turned that sentence over in my head plenty of times since. Trying to work out why it landed harder than every gentle, well-meaning thing anyone said to me in drinking years. His manner speaks to me. Pussy-footin' doesn't.

He's also my best mate. I know he loves me. But we've torn the piss out of each other for over twenty-five years. For him to suddenly adorn me with pleasantries would have gone against our familiar.

My conclusion is this. Softness has its place. I'm not against it. I cry almost every day. Netflix, news, watching my kiddo fall asleep. I meditate every single day. I'm not some hard-nosed dockyard worker who thinks emotions are for ladies.

But softness never once cracked me open. Only the truth did that. I've got ADHD. If you're skirting around the truth with me, I'll vom in my mouth.

James didn't say what he said to hurt me. He said it because he'd watched my twenties amount to nothing. He said it because he'd watched me crawl into a Hull Wetherspoons to stop the sweats and the rattling when I was 19 years old. So he wasn't going to pretend that hadn't happened just to protect my feelings.

He also came back to our shared house at uni one night, which I'd spent 45 minutes smashing up with a dartboard. A whole downstairs of a house. I'd tell you the whole story, but my Mum reads these.

The joke was the love. The bluntness was the respect. He trusted I was strong enough to hear the truth about myself, finally, from someone who actually knew me.

Why I Talk To You The Way I Do

That's where all of this comes from. Every blunt caption. Every no bullshit newsletter. Every time I go on an Instagram rant and Full Metal Jacket your ass about how fucking stupid getting spannered all weekend is, when you could be connecting with your kids.

I'm not being harsh for the sake of it. I've tried gentle. Gentle was my life's very own chocolate teapot. Gentle made my excuses and justifications for another twelve months pissed down the pan seem just about believable.

What saved me was people, and eventually a version of myself, willing to say the unglamorous true thing out loud instead of the comfortable version everyone else was offering.

I know some people find me too much. Too sweary. Too blunt. But I'm a sweetheart really. I've got ADHD. I'm a fucking empath. And if you've taken the time to subscribe, I reckon you've twigged my soft side.

I get it. I'm not for everyone. I've made peace with that. The AA-ers aren't too fond of my insistence that a lifetime label is a crock of shit.

Because the people this actually reaches, the ones who needed someone to stop managing their feelings and just tell them the truth, they're the ones I'm writing for. Every single week. Every single post.

You don't get sober from being told you're doing great. You get sober from someone who loves you enough to eloquently snarl in your face and mean it. If you're willing to change, of course.

What I've Learned From Doing This For Years

The people who message me and actually change aren't the ones looking for a gentle hand on the shoulder.

They're the ones who are sick of their own shit and want someone to finally call it out. Someone who's lived it, not read about it in a fucking textbook. Someone who'll be in their corner on a Friday when the old life is banging on the door, and who won't flinch, soften it, or pretend the answer is complicated.

Stopping boozing isn't complicated. It's just hard. Big fucking difference.

That's the entire philosophy behind everything I do. The newsletter. The posts. The DMs. The emails. And it's the entire philosophy behind the coaching I run for a handful of people a month, for anyone who wants exactly this, but pointed directly at their own life.

Half drill sergeant. Half best mate. Same as James in that snooker hall.

And honestly, it's not just booze. Every meaningful change I've ever made in my life came from someone telling me the truth, not managing me through it. Every good relationship I've got is with someone who'll tell me when I'm being a prick rather than nodding along. Every proper mate is the one who'll take the piss out of you in a way that somehow says I see you and I'm not going anywhere, both at once.

Brutal honesty, delivered with love, is basically the answer to most things. Careers. Friendships. Fatherhood. All of it. Soft lies feel nice for about four minutes. The truth is the only thing that's ever actually moved me forward.

That's the whole philosophy, on or off the drink.

If you're sick of gentle. If you're sick of your own excuses. If you want someone who'll actually tell you the truth and then help you build something with it, I coach a handful of people a month, exactly like this.

This is where you start.