Real Men Like Otters

When lads stop bullshi**ing each other all the time, it's a beautiful thing

I went up the local Wetlands centre to see the otters on Tuesday morning. The lads were on top form - splashing about in their otter lake, prancing about on their hind legs, gobbling down bits of fish carcass like nobody’s business. I love those little fellas. As always, the whole experience was truly life affirming.

I’d gone there with my mate Dan. He’s just qualified as a personal trainer and is on a mission to help burnt out dads get their lives back on track. Like me, Dan has been sober for a few years now. Also like me, he knows what it’s like to have charged headlong into fatherhood at 100mph in his thirties only to crash a few years later, destroyed by work, stress and lack of sleep. Both of us, like so many other dads, turned to booze and drugs to try and cope. What a pair of dickheads.

Dan and I became mates from the football. We spent over a decade going to West Ham matches home and away, getting wankered, acting like pricks, watching our team lose in a variety of damp, freezing-cold locations. It was fucking great.

But now those days are gone. It’s not that we don’t look back and treasure the memories. But we are more honest about the price we paid for those weekends of turbo-fuelled excess and mayhem. We always spent the days that followed in a state of regret and anguish; pain, shame and anxiety haunting our working week until the weekend came back around and we did it all over again.

It all gets a bit out of hand in the end. I started letting those weekend habits seep into the week. Before I knew it, I was partying alone, on random Tuesday afternoons. Booze and drugs had become the only means I knew of coping with the difficult shit spinning around my brain.

Dan and I both got sober around the same time. Giving up wasn’t easy for either of us. But we got through it and now here we are on the other side - meeting up on a Tuesday morning to look at the otters. One thing we both reflected on as we gazed upon the adorable semi-aquatic mammals, was how secretive we used to be about our own feelings.

Back then, I assumed I was the only one in our gang who worried and fretted for days after a binge. I thought I was the only one who woke up in the night consumed by guilt and self-hatred. I thought I was the only one convinced that I was deeply flawed, frightened and constantly teetering on the edge of failure. Turns out Dan was going through all those feelings too. For all I know, everyone we knew was. But in our twenties and thirties, no-one wanted to show it.

In the pub on a Saturday, we were all so filled with the four B’s of the professional geezer: bravado, bullshit, booze and bugle. We were so eager to make each other laugh and just block out the shit that made us anxious during the week; we became experts at presenting ourselves as free-wheeling, care-free, laugh a minute legends. We all fooled each other into thinking that was our total reality.

Do I wish that we’d all been quieter and more reflective? That we’d sat around the pub drinking lemonade and talking about feelings? Do I fuck. Those days were great. But what I’ve learned since then is that we can all have just as much of a laugh together without putting on a constant front. Getting sober, growing up and showing a bit of vulnerability doesn’t mean you have to trade in your Jack The Lad card.

Dan makes me laugh as much as he ever did. And - as you well know, gentle reader - I remain fucking hilarious. But both of us are happy to admit the softer bits of our personalities; the feelings we’ve struggled with, the day-to-day shit that worries us; the residual insecurities we’ve carried around since we were kids. So what? I don’t give a fuck if people know I’m flawed, insecure and half barmy. Being sane is so fucking basic anyway.

Showing this side of yourself takes balls to begin with. Much bigger balls than it takes to hide behind the full time lad persona. But after a while it becomes easy-peasy. By doing it you’re not only helping yourself - you are helping other blokes around you. I know this because having a mate like Dan is gift and privilege. By being honest about himself he gives me license to be more honest about myself. And being more honest about myself is truly liberating, I can tell you.

What have you got to hide when you are completely up-front about yourself? Nothing. And if you’re not hiding anything then you have less reasons to be anxious. If you’re less anxious then you’re less likely to indulge in self-destructive behaviour.

It’s not just Dan: I am lucky to have a number of mates who are just as honest, vulnerable and fun to be with. I’ve ditched the ones who aren’t. Once you open yourself up to this stuff, you find it easy to shed those blokes for whom every social encounter is a tedious game of one-upmanship.

Being pissed in the pub all the time is alright - for kiddies. It’s pretty boring and and exhausting to put all that energy into pretending to be stronger than the next bloke. Constantly giving it the Big One is for babies, bullshitters and the sort of pompous, trumped-up wankers who currently run the country. Leave all that Billy Big Bollocks stuff to the public school wankers and drippy golf-club bores.

Proper grown-ups, with a real pair of bollocks on them, go and look at the otters and talk about their insecurities. That’s the way forward lads. Give it a go.

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This week’s podcast with Johann Hari

I had a great chat this week with the excellent writer Johann Hari. His new book, ‘Stolen Focus - Why You Can’t Pay Attention’ - is about the way in which modern society has eroded our ability to concentrate properly. There’s some great advice in there about how to give your mind a bit more time to breathe. I hope you enjoy listening.

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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

@CharitySane 0300 304 7000

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

https://cocaineanonymous.org.uk/

https://andysmanclub.co.uk/

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/gambling-addiction/