Is Alcohol Addiction A Disease? If you have a drink problem and you sign up to the idea that alcoholism is a disease, then you are a member for life! Even when you stop drinking you are still in the club and you cannot leave. It’s a sort of shitty Hotel California. The disease model enriches a booming rehab […]

Last week I saw a piece in a popular magazine for women suggesting that red wine should be the alcoholic drink of choice during lockdown. I swore at my phone, tweeted and deleted and then sat down to write something a little more considered – red wine, the alcohol industry and dodgy science. Oi!! Red wine is good for you! […]

Let's imagine that I am a travelling salesperson selling an exciting new product - The Alcohol Pill. In this analogy alcohol doesn't exist. You have never heard of wine or beer. There's no Jaegermeister and no tequila and nobody seeks to escape life through chemical means. Then I show up! I turn up at your house, knock on the door [...]

I quit drinking alcohol 2 years ago because it was dominating my life but I never really felt that the word ‘alcoholic’ applied to me.  My dad was a classic, first thing in the morning, 2 bottles of whiskey a day alcoholic and I was never that. I was heading that way though. I wished there was a list of […]

The thing about alcohol is that it’s everybody’s favourite drug addiction and if you’re not part of the ‘gang’ then quite frankly, you can f*ck off! We’re living in a world where it’s easier to drink alcohol than not. So if you want to give up for good you need to be able to see this for what it is…. […]

In addition to the posts I write on this blog, Voice of Calm, I also offer support and advice on my new Instagram @TheAlcoholSpell. Come follow me for daily thoughts and motivation about alcohol, how to quit, how wonderful life is without it, the truth about the alcohol industry and loads more.  

I woke up to the news that South Africa has banned all alcohol sales for the next 3 weeks of Covid-19 lockdown.  Even though no alcohol has passed my lips for 2 years when I heard this news I had a mini meltdown by proxy.  I may not drink any more but I still have plenty of sympathy for those […]

I hear you! You’re not a morning drinking, wife beating, park bench sleeping, slurring, stinking alcoholic. And you don’t get the shakes when you haven’t had alcohol for a few hours. You’d never drink during the day and anything after 6pm is fine, right? There’s this very strange notion that the time of day you start drinking is a marker […]

In the last 2 years there has been a dramatic increase in alcoholic drinks specifically aimed at women: ready made cocktails, fruit flavoured beer, skinny wine, low-carb spirits and now, an abundance of pink potions! But with women’s alcohol consumption in the UK at the highest it’s ever been and incidence of liver disease among women on the rise, is […]

If it was 1997, the fact that British women are among the heaviest drinkers in the world would have me beaming with pride while exclaiming, ‘Get in ladies! GET IN!!’ However it’s 2018 and ladette culture is so last century! So how is it that we are in this completely embarrassing situation?  Micky Flanagan Knows What Time It Is I […]