Advice
James Brown
Editor and media entrepreneur, he quit the stimulants while at the epicentre of a hugely indulgent profession
For a lot of people heavy drinking and drug use is a professional no-go area, but for me it wasn't just part of the job, it was a badge of honour. First I was a music journalist on the NME and then I started the hedonist's handbook, Loaded magazine, the perfect job for the drug-taking alcoholic who wanted to stay up all night partying, meet people with great stories and write about it.
The booze didn't just begin on the day I started work at the NME aged 21. I'd been drinking since my late teens. Skipping beer I went from cider at teenage parties to vodka and tequila on the road with bands to fine wine in restaurants with music PRs in the time it took my friends to get a degree.
In Vegas with U2 for The Sunday Times I drank so many screwdrivers with Bono my stomach lining actually fell out with alcoholic gastritis. Typical of my outlook on life, I quit the OJ, not the vodka. At the NME, drink, ecstasy, speed and grass was prevalent among the writers. At Loaded, cocaine and heroin users populated the office.
This excessive consumption became more visible and problematic when I joined the Savile Row-suited grown-up world of GQ. Staffed by well-schooled people with good manners and multiple-barreled names, my alcoholism stood out like a house on fire. Thankfully the head of personnel took it upon herself to try and save wayward strays like myself, and after a spectacularly stupid incident when a champagne bottle smashed my office window and a car windscreen below, she suggested I go to residential rehab.
I welcomed this but turned the residential side of it down. I didn't think I'd be able to come back after a month away and manage the job with any credibility or influence. Also I wasn't sure I'd want the job when I came out. Instead, I started seeing an addiction counsellor called Clive Meindl twice a week.
Going to the first session was terrifying. I ended up in the wrong place and felt like a school kid f**king up. I eventually made it in 30 minutes later but then never missed a session. The next six months felt like I was removing layers of concrete overcoats.
I came to think of his freelance rooms in rehab centres and private hospitals across London as safe houses. Places I could honestly discuss my consumption levels, triggers and feelings. That's all we did, talk – no lectures or lessons.
I was still drinking, Clive had never asked me not to, and there was a cupboard full of company chablis and champagne to think of. At the end of every day there would be drinks in the boardroom and as GQ editor I was required or welcome to pop in. I tried to limit myself with a drink diary and a self-imposed usage target but that didn't work. I was powerless over my intake and just bust right through it.
Then after five months of counselling, I got into a fight with a street dealer in America and then put in a massive order with a guy I knew who was associated with the Westies crime gang. Thankfully he never showed up and when I returned home my counsellor told me I sounded scared of myself. He was spot on. Every day come 4pm, drunk from lunch but functioning, I had no idea where I'd end up 12 hours later. Usually somewhere I didn't want to be.
For the first time he told me I was an alcoholic and an addict, and described how bad it could still become. This was my “moment of clarity”. Clive described a potential future of “bottoming out” with a potential menu of anything from death, prison, rape, to losing my family, friends, status or house. (I know people who've been through all of that now.) I knew then I wanted to stop more than I wanted to carry on.
I've never drunk or used since but the first days and years were precarious. “You're walking a dangerous tightrope,” Clive said when I continued to associate with users and drinkers. I wanted to still live my life the way I had but not indulge. I managed it but I wouldn't recommend it. In later years when cocaine appeared it felt like a bully had walked into the room. I'd quietly leave, but early on I'd front it out.
I managed to stay clean, to most people's disbelief. Many couldn't get their heads round it. One MD would offer me beer at lunch, which I'd never drunk anyway. F**k knows why he was doing that: thick, insensitive, trying to test me…?
Temptation was everywhere, off-licences screamed “BOOZE!” I came to call the supermarket wine aisle the Valley of Death. I couldn't sleep at night; huge lumps appeared on my gums as my body detoxed. It was challenging both emotionally and physically.
I learnt to say “No, I'm fine thanks” and when people challenged it I'd say, “I'm just not having any today.” I realised if I could get through a day at a time I was doing OK. I took to driving golf balls at a tatty driving range in Kings Cross. Other distractions included getting massages, buying ties at Richard James and eating Twirls.
Last week a good friend said, “I wouldn't have given you 18 days clean, never mind 18 years,” but the truth is I just didn't want to do it any more. I didn't like the way it controlled my life. I was lucky to find a different way of life.
Written by James Brown, @jamesjamesbrown
Richard Dawes, Public Relations
I could see a lot of recreational drug-taking going on around me when I first started and I never got into any of that. Alcohol, on the other hand, has always been difficult to regulate. It's probably the biggest problem in advertising and PR, and for anyone with a job that requires going out after hours. It's tough, because you need to go from the desk job, where you're dealing with pitches and crises and all sorts, and then go out to a function, where you've got to look after people. Doing that three nights a week till midnight could be tough without enjoying yourself with a glass of wine or 10. But after doing it for 20 years you realise that you can't function if you're all work and all play.
I don't think there's an expectation to drink so much as it's a pressure people put on themselves to make sure they're living up to being that confident person they're expected to be. That's why you used to see quite a high burnout rate in PR.
Once you get a bit more responsibility, you have to do these high-pressured meetings. If you're sitting in a planning meeting with a hangover, there's this anxiety that creeps in. I've spoken to a lot of people about this, and that anxiety is becoming much more prevalent. And the only way to beat away that anxiety is to not drink, and look after yourself a bit. Otherwise you're going to be sitting there losing your mind. I've been there and it's not a pleasant place.
You have several situations that change your behaviour. For me, having a family and having to look after the kids with a hangover definitely makes you think again about having to combine business with pleasure too often.
About two years ago I had four months off drinking. Previously the longest I'd done had been a week. It was Glastonbury about two weeks in, and I thought, you know what, I'm going to try this. There was something about doing the most outrageous, debauched weekend in the music calendar and doing it sober. It was like, if I can do this I can do anything. And it was tough, but it wasn't impossible. I felt like, hold on a minute, I've conquered Everest! I actually enjoyed it. It gave me a real sense of perspective. It's great. Last night I went home, jumped out on the bike quickly, came back, had a nice healthy dinner, went to bed at 11 o'clock, woke up this morning with my head clear as a bell.
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Mark Pritchard, DJ and Producer
You've got lots of producers who were just making music in their bedrooms, and then all of a sudden they get some success, and they're thrust out in front of people. It's caused a lot of problems for a lot of them. When many people start out they are not that confident or they suffer from anxiety, then they have to start getting out of it to get through these experiences.
I know a lot of producers and DJs who are really shy – I'm definitely in that category myself. I didn't drink much when I started going out clubbing, but later down the line, I drank to deal with nerves. It helped take the edge off the oddness of being in front of lots of people. I was like, I should have done this a long time ago. If you're touring a lot and you get wasted on the Friday and you've got three more gigs to do that weekend and you're not going to sleep, the last thing you want to do is get up the next day then travel in airports.
Over time I got more used to it, and I managed to deal with that situation, but I've seen a lot of kids over the past five years come through who all of a sudden are massive, and it's a lot to deal with, to be under that amount of pressure, and suddenly everyone wants to talk to them and give them drink and drugs. It's quite a dangerous situation.
Of course you can get away with it more when you're younger. You're far more resilient. When you get a bit older it's much harder to maintain, at some point something's going to have to give. Especially if it's mixed in with drugs, and drinking, constant partying… You have to keep an eye on it and ideally, there's some good people around you keeping an eye on you as well, to make sure you're not going off the rails.
There are promoters who like hanging out and having a good time with DJs. Some people have the stamina to do that, I most certainly haven't. I've heard stories about certain DJs who were quite big who weren't that type of person, but they'd have an agent or somebody who would be the designated party person, and they would do the schmoozing hanging out thing, and the DJ would just get back to the hotel.
Lemmy Ashton, Club Promoter
When I was younger, you'd go backstage or get a rider and your mentality would be: “This could never happen again, I better make the most of it.” So you're just hammering it. Somebody's giving you something for free, you have to get it in you before it goes.
But you're making the job more difficult for yourself if you're not totally there. When you're dealing with people who may be in less sound of a mind, you have to find ways of making them think that they're doing the decision-making. You have to think ahead, you've got to think a little bit more about your decisions – you don't want to damage any relationships, if someone's being silly, you have to find a way to make them realise that or help them without embarrassing them. That stuff is much easier to do sober. Not to mention it makes it easier to remember things: phone numbers, managers' names, all that kind of stuff.
You have to talk to people who you've never met before and you have to try to be their friend. It can feel a lot easier if you dabble but you can avoid it. You can always pull a parachute when you need to. Grab your phone and say “I'll be back in a second” and there's never any questions. You don't really want to surround yourself with people who are poking you all the time to get out of your mind. You do get the odd person saying “Oh what, you not drinking today?” But you can push it back. Just engineer the conversation so it works for you: “Yeah, I will be partying, but not just yet,” and by the time that rolls around they're usually having too much fun and they've forgotten about it. And you make sure you have a water on the go. Because there is a need if you're in a social situation to be doing something with your hands.
Interviews by Eddy Lawrence
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