How A Podcast Saved My Life

Change is always tough but sometimes salvation comes from unlikely places

I think it was Oscar Wilde who said “To lose one job might be counted as unfortunate but to lose two in the space of a month must be a fucking nightmare, mate.”

And he wasn’t wrong. I should know, it happened to me back in 2018. For the past few years I had been jogging along very nicely, with my own daily radio show and weekly TV programme. Plus I owned my own production company that made most of the stuff I was in and provided a little fall back option for when, inevitably, people decided that they didn’t want me to talk bollocks on air any more.

I have been freelance most of my career and have grown pretty used to the sometimes cruel and unpredictable ebb and flow of work. All gigs come to an end eventually. The trick is not to take it personally, move on quickly and always have a Plan B up your sleeve (sometimes Plans C, D and E come in handy too).

But in the Spring of 2018 everything came crashing down all at once in a way I just wasn’t prepared for.

I was told my radio contract wouldn’t be renewed. To be honest, I had seen that coming, was grateful of the two year run I’d had and was pretty much ready to jack it in anyway. And at least I still had my TV show to help pay the bills. Only I didn’t. Because within a fortnight I was told that the TV show being chopped too. Again, I would have been okay with this in isolation (I was fed up with making the show for all sorts of reasons) but it clearly wasn’t ideal timing. But then I still had my production company ticking away in the background, with an office full of busy staffers and trusted lieutenants building a little empire for me to rely on. Only, turns out, I didn’t really have that either.

The company had somehow been losing money, despite being almost permanently busy. Thousands of pounds had gone missing. Plus, we actually owed people money. It was an absolute shit-show. Soon all the busy people in my office were gone and I was sat in an empty room surrounded by bills wondering what the fuck had just happened.

Suffice to say, I didn’t get much sleep that summer. I spent fifty per cent of every night staring at a dark ceiling, breathing unsteadily and wondering whether I could convince my wife and kids to move with me to Denmark (I don’t know why I thought Denmark was the solution - they just seem to be so bloody nice out there).

At this stage in my life I had already been sober for three years.

In the past I would had most probably leant heavily on booze and drugs to help my mind deal with the sudden onslaught of stress and anxiety. But I was pretty confident that I wouldn’t relapse: however bad things felt I remained acutely aware that going back to my addictions would make everything infinitely worse.

I might not have been actually drinking or taking drugs but I wasn’t really sober in the purest sense of the word. Since knocking my bad habits on the head in 2015 I had been so busy with work that I hadn’t really focussed properly on my recovery. They call people like me ‘dry drunks.’ Just because I had managed to stop filling my body with toxic substances I thought I was better. But shovelling that shit into your system is only ever a symptom of a bigger problem. You don’t get into habits that destructive unless there is some deeper, darker feelings lurking behind them.

2018’s sequence of unfortunate events forced me to take my recovery a bit more seriously.

I felt simultaneously miserable and frantic. My mind buzzed morning noon and night with a thousand and one problems - some real, some imaginary. I starting chasing work I didn’t really want. I started filling my time up with nonsense schemes and wild goose chases that I thought might help get me out of the hole I was in. I became too intense.

And then I slowly started to embrace the idea that less was more: that in times of flux or uncertainty, it’s usually better to not speed up but slow down. I needed to take it easy, get some rest, allow my mind to process what the fuck was going on in my life and plan my next moves in a sober and rational way. Grabbing at possibilities or half chances never works out well. In the worse case scenarios, you actually manage to make one of your more frantic, far-out plans come to fruition - and then you’re stuck with it. By the time you get sane again it’s too late, you’re already balls deep in that gravel business you accidentally started in the midst of a mini-breakdown (yes, this was genuinely one of the ideas I toyed with when things got bad. Thank God I’ve got a loving wife who isn’t afraid to tell me to shut the fuck up when I come out with this sort of bollocks).

One day, in the middle of all this crap, I got an email from my old cohort Andy Dawson asking me if I wanted to do a podcast with him about football nostalgia.

I liked Andy, he made me laugh. I thought just hanging out with him for one hour a week to talk shit might serve as a welcome respite for my troubled mind. I never thought it would be my salvation.

But it was. Not only did it offer a weekly opportunity to just relax into being a dickhead (something which I am excellent at); it actually started to attract a decent audience and make us a few quid. Which meant I was able to take a more measured and strategic approach to fixing my business. I didn’t have to make mad, knee-jerk decisions or barmy, backs-to-the-wall gambles. I had money to pay the bills. I gradually started to navigate the company out of trouble. Slowly, things started to work themselves out.

Just as important was the time I spent looking after myself, resting, reading and learning more about recovery. I realised that stopping drink and drugs was just the very start. I had to catch up on the harder stuff - like working out what made me such a fuck-head in the first place. I am so much better now because I balance my life carefully. I already had a great therapist who helped me loads. I also went to see a psychiatrist who, after hearing the story of the last few years of my life, ventured: ‘Sounds to me like you’ve just created space for your next project.’ I remember thinking: ‘What a load of bollocks. Doesn’t he realise my life is fucked?’ But it turned out he was 100% right. I had ditched a load of stressful unfulfilling stuff and created space for what became the best job I’ve had in my life. Although doing a podcast isn’t really a job, of course. Which is precisely why it is so great.

Lockdown was easier for me than most, not least because I was able to work from home. The increased time spent with my family, away from the more stressful elements of work life, did nothing but good for my mental health. And my experience of recovery gave me the tools I needed to combat the more existential conundrums presented by the pandemic. Recovery teaches you to change the things you can control, accept the things you can’t and learn how to tell the difference. As a result, you didn’t find me shitting myself about the end of civilisation at any point during the past year. I’ve been on a more Ron Atkinson-style ‘take each game as it comes’ type vibe to be honest.

If anything, I am more anxious about lockdown ending.

These last couple of weeks I’ve been feeling more tense than usual and can’t quite work out why. Maybe it’s the creeping spectre of meetings and people and obligations and non-elasticated trousers coming back into my life.

Change is always a bastard. It’s good to recognise that. Sometimes, even seemingly trivial alterations to your usual routine can knock you slightly off track. When they do, it’s important to slow down and give yourself a break. Things tend to work out in the end. And you really never know what good stuff might be waiting for you round the corner.

Top Flight Time Machine started out as just an amusing distraction but it really ending up helping me out of a bad place.

Not just because it’s fun and makes us a few quid. But because there is a community of like minded people that has grown around it. It’s no longer about football. It’s about all sorts of bollocks. But it is also quite honest and sincere and working with Andy brings out the best in me. I like sharing bits about myself on there and feeling like it connects with listeners. Actually, that sounds a bit wanky. What I really mean is, there are fans who praise us on Twitter which really panders to my not insubstantial ego. Hey, I said I was in recovery - I never said I was fucking Buddha.

Anyway, thank God Andy emailed me when he did or I might be running a gravel business by now. I suppose my point is, salvation can comes from the most unexpected places. If you remain calm in a time of crisis, the universe has got a way of intervening and taking care of stuff for you. Just take a breath, yeah?

No Podcast This Week

Sorry, didn’t quite get round to recording anything this week because it’s been busy. I have recorded about a hundred podcasts so I can take a nice long two week break for easter, get over to the Isle of Wight and reset my demons. The Reset Podcast will be back this coming Wednesday (I’ve already pre-recorded it - it’s a belter). Let me know who you might like to hear interviewed on future episodes - or what subjects/perspectives you’d like covered.

Some services, links and phone numbers to help you through the tough times

https://www.samaritans.org/ Tel 116 123

@calm 0800 58 58 58

@YoungMindsUK 0800 018 2138

@ChairtySane 0300 304 7000

https://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/

https://cocaineanonymous.org.uk/

https://andysmanclub.co.uk/