The comedian John Robins has at all times cherished speaking about booze. In his standup, he used to painting himself as a bon viveur who knew how to give himself the better of instances; a larky drinker out for a chuckle; a nerdy tippler who recorded nights out in Sherlock Holmes-themed notepads – arrival time, drinks consumed, percentages of alcohol, pub environment. He additionally had a routine about contracting gout, despite the fact that he by no means has completed in actual life.
On the radio, he hosted a present along with his good friend Elis James wherein they meticulously detailed pub crawls and coined the phrase “Keep it session”, encouraging listeners to stick to low-alcohol beer when out for the complete night. If anyone was doubtful about his love of booze, Robins then devised a podcast collection referred to as The Moon Under Water, named after George Orwell’s 1946 essay describing the good pub. In it, Robins and his co-host Robin Allender invited visitors to design their dream watering gap. Yet, regardless of dedicating a lot time to the dialogue of booze, Robins may by no means discover the proper phrase to describe his relationship with it. Then in 2023 he lastly found it: alcoholic.
He revealed this in one other podcast collection he co-presented with James referred to as How Do You Cope?, wherein they invited visitors to speak about how they had acquired by way of life’s hardest trials. Not solely did it emerge that Robins had been identified as an alcoholic, it additionally transpired that the Oxford-educated, Edinburgh comedy award-winning, Taskmaster-triumphing success story had by no means been in a position to cope.
After touring with Howl, a standup present about his habit, he has now written a e-book about it. The title couldn’t be extra blunt – Thirst. The writer initially wanted to go along with the subtitle alone; Twelve Drinks That Changed My Life is sexier, jollier and extra marketable. But Thirst is infinitely extra highly effective. And it’s Thirst that will get to the coronary heart of Robins’s relationship with alcohol. Throughout his life, it’s been a craving.
The e-book’s cowl is as blunt as the title. It options a attractive blond curly-haired little boy, each palms clenching a can of lager, the contents of which he seems to be pouring down his throat. And this, in a single surprising picture, is the story of Robins’s life.
We meet at his residence in Buckinghamshire, which is surrounded by soccer and cricket pitches, and little else. There are not any roaring vehicles, no hum of exercise, not a lot as hushed dialog. Just blissful silence and birdsong. Though he has lived right here for 10 years, you sense the peace is a vital a part of his rehabilitation.
His tiny cottage is full of stuff – tributes to his hero Freddie Mercury, awards, golf golf equipment, poetry books and unlikely knick-knacks. Perhaps the very unlikely is a doll of himself, a souvenir from his stint on Taskmaster in 2024. It’s all magnificently ordered. He’s sporting a Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy T-shirt (one other hero) and a Dark Star Brewing cap. I say I’m stunned at the cap – a lot of recovering alcoholics would throw reminders of booze in the bin. He smiles. “I know. This is a slight problem.”
Then he stops, and adjustments his thoughts. “No, the cap isn’t the issue. I have to exist in a world with alcohol in it, and I can make that really difficult or I can make that as easy as it’s ever going to be. I could move to a dry county in America if I wanted to. But it would be an enormous arse ache and it would ruin my life. I could go through the house and remove every reference to booze and every photo of me drinking, but I don’t know that would help. So whether I wear the cap is neither here nor there. I can obsess about alcohol not wearing the cap.” He laughs. “And besides, it’s the only cap I’ve got that actually fits my head.”
Like many standups, Robins is a little manic on stage. Stories are informed in an exaggerated method, his voice rises in pitch and the supply turns into turbo-charged, high-anxiety bordering on the hysterical (in each senses). In individual, he couldn’t be extra completely different – calm, light, a good listener. He speaks quietly, exactly, each thought measured out by the teaspoon. Even now, he remains to be understanding precisely what his relationship to alcohol was – why he wanted it, what it did for him, the way it virtually destroyed him. For most of his life, he assumed he acquired extra out of alcohol than alcohol took from him. Now he is aware of it was at all times the different means spherical.
Robins first got here throughout booze when he was 5 – 6 at a household celebration when the grownups have been drinking champagne. He observed it made them relaxed, begged for a sip, then pretended he was drunk. His subsequent encounter, now aged seven, was extra vital. At the time it appeared so harmless. Now he appears again and says even then he confirmed all the indicators of an alcoholic. The adults have been drinking a bottle of Jacob’s Creek, which was saved in the kitchen. He pretended he was going to the lavatory, sneaked off there, poured himself some wine disguised in orange juice. Sure sufficient he was caught by his mom, and the adults made a joke of it.
“Some people would go, ‘He’s seven! He’s not an alcoholic, he’s seven!’ But I know that same obsession he had, which he wasn’t aware of, is the same obsession I have now.” Wasn’t it extra that the younger Robins knew it was forbidden than that it was alcohol? He shakes his head. “No. It was always different to everything else. I didn’t feel like that about food or even sweets, and I’ve never really been tempted by drugs. There’s something about alcohol.” From then on, he says, he was fixated.
By the age of 12, he’d satisfied his mom to purchase him a can of Woodpecker cider each Friday evening to go along with his fish and chips. At 13, he went to Scout camp and all he may consider was how to cajole the leaders into giving him a small bottle of beer. At 14, he carried out in the faculty play and acquired drunk at the after-show get together on 4 cans of Strongbow cider, 4 bottles of beer and a bottle of Archers Peach Schnapps, the equal of 14 pints. He then sprayed aftershave into his mouth for good measure. When he wakened the subsequent day at the parental residence of his first girlfriend, he was informed he had puked in his sleep and had to be put into the restoration place to cease him choking on his vomit. And on it went.
Apart from the drink, he was a mannequin schoolboy rising up in Bristol – tutorial, swotty, well-behaved, likeable. Even although his father left the household when he was six, he acquired on with life. At 13, he and his mom moved in along with his grumpy stepfather, a recovering alcoholic with whom he struggled to strike up a rapport, and nonetheless he acquired on with life. At Oxford University, he studied English and drank and drank and drank – something and all the things other than whisky, which he has an aversion to. He collected empty bottles like warfare trophies. In 2016, now in his early 30s and a longtime comedian, he had amassed 70 empty bottles of Captain Morgan Dark Rum in his rented flat.
He attended virtually each social event going, however he was not often current as a result of all his consideration was devoted to his drinking routine. “My focus was, ‘What booze have they got? Why are people not getting another round in? I’ve finished my drink; oh God, he’s such a slow drinker.’ All this madness. If there was a birthday party in a pub that didn’t have the right drink, I’d say to my friends, ‘D’you want to go to that pub next door? It’s actually better.’ That self-importance, that controlling ‘This needs to go the way I want it to go on someone else’s birthday’, it’s exhausting.”
It will need to have been horrible on your buddies, too, I say. “Exactly. Friends would say, ‘We just always do what you want.’” Does that trouble him? “Erm … ” He thinks about it. Robins, aged 43, has been attending Alcoholics Anonymous since he stopped drinking. Now he says he has a toolkit to deal not simply along with his want for drink but in addition his previous behaviour. “My initial reaction is, ‘God that’s so embarrassing. You’re an awful person.’ But then the toolkit kicks in. Take a breath, it’s OK, you know why that was happening, you’ve apologised, it’s OK.’ That’s what I’ve got in my head because the danger is you go, ‘Fuck you, you’re awful, you’ve always been a piece of shit, how can you treat your friends like that? You might as well have a drink right now.’”
What did he assume when buddies informed him it at all times had to be his means when he was drinking? “There’s a phrase that I heard early in sobriety which is ‘The piece of shit at the centre of the universe’. And it’s such a good description of me. Of who I was. So when I heard that person going, ‘Why do we always have to do what you want?’, two things were happening. I was going, ‘Fucking hell, John, you’re awful, how can you be like this?’ and the other part was going, ‘Yeah, but it’s a better pub.’”
It’s humorous, I say – in the e-book you describe your self as so meek, you’ve by no means had a correct argument, but your behaviour turned so controlling. “I think alcohol made me controlling. That’s not to blame alcohol. It was me who was being controlling. But when your focus is on getting the thing you need to survive, you’re going to do some unpleasant stuff to get there. I’m lucky that, through circumstance – privilege, support, friends – I wasn’t doing awful stuff, I wasn’t stealing.” Again he comes to a sudden cease. “Actually that’s not true. I’ve stolen so much booze in my life. But I wasn’t violent. I could be controlling, inflexible and a pain in the arse, but I was doing my best. If my friends were here, they’d say, ‘You’re fine, chill out, don’t be so hard on yourself.’”
There have been instances he stopped drinking. At the age of twenty-two, he went teetotal for 18 months and began doing standup comedy. He realised he didn’t want alcohol to stand on a stage. Robins says he has by no means completed a gig drunk; that he owes it to his viewers to be sober whereas they’re out having a good time. For most of his skilled life, his reward has been getting smashed when he will get residence. Eighteen months after giving up, he thought he’d proved to himself that he may do with out alcohol, so he began drinking once more. Heavily, after all. By the age of 29, he thought he was overdoing it, so he stopped once more. This time he struggled, and 10 months later he was again on the booze. For the subsequent decade till he was 40, he drank excessively.
In the e-book, Robins asks himself what he wanted from booze. Sometimes it sounds mystical, sometimes romantic, usually determined. “I wanted alcohol to take me to a place where I was not. I remember texting a friend and saying I want to get to a place where only the music exists, so I’m just receiving it. And maybe just for a couple of seconds I get into this headspace where I think I’m not here, I’m just hearing this song. That’s what made alcohol so powerful for me. It was the closest I could get to transcendence. Also it was freedom from my thoughts, the constant prose in my head – criticism, shame, anger. I could write you a list as long as you like.”
What did he really feel ashamed of? Robins says he doesn’t know. It wasn’t like guilt, rooted in the particular. He is aware of he at all times wanted a father determine, and there wasn’t one there for him. Hence his obsession with Freddie Mercury, Ayrton Senna, Roald Dahl and different unlikely males who may by no means ship for him (not least as a result of all of them died when he was younger). And he is aware of he felt insufficient and was ready to be uncovered, although he didn’t know why or what for. “Shame is just a very deep feeling that there is something wrong with you. And I couldn’t tell you why I feel that, or used to feel that very acutely.”
It’s such a unhappy, draining emotion, I say, not least when you don’t have anything to be ashamed of. “Someone once said to me around #MeToo that the wrong men are worried.” He laughs. “And what connects the worst men in my industry is they do not give this a second’s thought. They have no guilt, no shame, no regret.” Should they’ve? “Yes! They should have all mine for a start!” For what? “For sexual assault for a start.” He could possibly be referring to allegations towards a variety of male comedians, together with Russell Brand, Louis CK, Chris D’Elia.
I’ve met my share of nasty fucked-up comedians who you wouldn’t need to spend a second with, I say, however you appear to be a good fuck-up and good firm. “Thank you. You should have sat here four years ago. I would have been drinking and I don’t think you would have thought, he’s a guy I want to spend time with.” Why not? “First, I wouldn’t have wanted you here; a stranger in my house would have freaked me out.” Would he have wanted many individuals right here? “If they were drinking in the way I was, yeah. I would have loved nothing more than to have a close friend here for hours just talking and drinking and listening to music.”
Robins says the previous few years of his drinking have been the most self-deluding. He had satisfied himself he wasn’t an alcoholic, simply any person who may do with slicing down. So he had two sober days a week, drank low-proof alcohol and have become a self-righteous proportion bore. These have been the days when he informed all his listeners to “keep it session”, like the excessive priest of sobriety.
“I’d have two days off a week and have beer that was 4% not 5% and wine that was 8% not 12%. I told myself I was in control of my drinking. Not realising that if you drink two bottles of riesling and four cans of weaker beer every night, what is that? That’s an alcoholic. Just an alcoholic who’s drinking slightly weaker wine. I was drinking till I stumbled up to bed and passed out. But in the madness of it, I’m thinking, ‘You’ve found the third way.’ And when two days off became three days off a week, well, now it’s plain sailing. But all the time I’m harder company to be around when I’m not drinking because I’m obsessing about tomorrow.”
At his lowest, he says, he minimize a pathetic determine. He would sit at residence watching repeats of Nineteen Eighties Keith Floyd cooking reveals, making the meals Floyd was making and drinking the drink he was drinking. “It’s so sad. ‘What are you doing tonight?’ I’m having a little party with Keith Floyd from the 80s who died an alcoholic.’”
Even then, it took a variety of components to crash into one another earlier than he may settle for that he was an alcoholic. In 2020, he visited his GP with a mixture of tension, fast weight reduction and a heartbeat “like a marching band”. The GP informed him, “I’ve had many patients that drink like you. I’ve buried most of them. Some make 70, most die in their 50s and 60s, some in their 40s. Having the odd night off is irrelevant when you’re drinking as much as you do. You need to sort your fucking life out.” Still, he took no heed. Two years later one more relationship failed. There had been so many (together with one with fellow comedian Sara Pascoe, with whom he purchased the cottage we’re in right this moment), however this was the worst. He was engaged to dressmaker Coco Fennell and was satisfied she was “the one”. The cut up broke his coronary heart, and he cracked up. In autumn 2022, he met up along with his shut good friend (and one other fellow comedian) Lou Sanders. He informed her, “I want to die. I want alcohol to be the thing that kills me. I’m going to drink myself to death.” She held his hand, they cried and he or she informed him he was an alcoholic and wanted assist.
It lastly registered. “I’d always thought alcoholics were people who drank all the time, who didn’t resist, who just ruined every party because they were drunk when they turned up. But now, with the effort I’d expended planning, concealing, executing my plans, I was just worn out. Just completely worn out.”
Robins final drank alcohol on Sunday 6 November 2022. In the e-book, he counts the variety of days he has been sober. I ask if he’s nonetheless counting. No, he says, he can’t afford to as a result of that means you find yourself counting away your life. Does not drinking get simpler? He thinks. “It gets difficult less often.” That makes extra sense to him than saying simpler. “I have so many more ways to deal with thoughts of alcohol that I didn’t have the day after I stopped drinking, or six months or a year after. And I need to draw on them less often, but I’m still very new to living without alcohol, and feeling without alcohol, and succeeding and failing, being alone and being with people without alcohol. It’s all new, in a sense. So if I’m going to enjoy any of that, it can’t be how many days has it been. It can’t be like that.”
There have been so many struggles, he says. When he stopped, he was afraid of nights as a result of he was so used to drinking himself to sleep. Then there was studying to address social events, seeing different individuals drink, adapting to a new means of experiencing the world undulled by alcohol.
For now, he says, he can’t do standup. “At the moment I cannot even think about it. I think it’s related to not drinking; to not having my reward for going through it. I did a tour sober of my show Howl and found that very, very difficult.” He believes Howl is his finest present, however he acquired to a level where he merely couldn’t carry out it. What does a standup comedian do when he can now not do standup? “I can do gigs where I’m just compering and there’s less pressure, but I still dread those.” Fortunately, he says, he’s now doing three podcasts a week so there’s loads to preserve him energetic.
And then there’s his battle with relationships: “They are the most difficult part of sobriety.” Beforehand, he says, when there have been tensions, he may lose himself in drink. “Taking away my coping mechanism is difficult for me, and that’s fine. But when it’s difficult for two people, that’s just not fair. I don’t want to cause anybody any pain.” You’re speaking as for those who’re resigned to being single from now on, I say. “Yeah.” Are you happier by your self? “Yeah.” Do you assume that is non permanent or everlasting? “I don’t know. I don’t need to know. I’ve lived here alone, bar a couple of months, for 10 years.” Did you trigger companions a lot of ache? “I’ve never done any of the things you might imagine people do to cause pain in relationships.” You imply violence? “Yes, or infidelity. No screaming and shouting.” But he is aware of he has prompted ache, and he doesn’t need to try this any extra.
There have been nice triumphs in sobriety, although. His buddies inform him he is a lot extra current, a lot extra considerate. His anxiousness and self-loathing have diminished. “Since I stopped drinking, I no longer feel shame as a baseline emotion, and alcohol just creates it out of nowhere. Anyone who’s been hungover knows that feeling. I had therapy before you arrived, and I was talking about how a peaceful brain is available to me whenever I want it. I can’t tell you what a gift that is compared with what it’s like drinking all the time.”
Fans now strategy him and speak about how he has made them have a look at booze in another way. Beforehand, they might inform him how a lot they cherished to drink and talk about favorite pubs. “There are people who have got sober and they say they began that process because of me. And that’s great,” he says.
I ask about the e-book’s subtitle, Twelve Drinks That Changed My Life. What was his favorite tipple? He couldn’t say, and is now not , however he is aware of what his favorite drink is now. “I’ll tell you what my desert island drink would be. Bird & Blend Buttermint Tea. It smells like Werther’s Originals and tastes like butter and Murray Mints.” He closes his eyes and describes it with a craving that borders on the indecent. Then he laughs. “If I’d said that to myself between the ages of 18 and 40, I would have spat in my own face.”
As for the evenings, he positively relishes them. “8pm-10pm it’s herbal tea, ambient music, crosswords, silly iPhone games. It’s the best part of my day. I never saw that coming.”
The different evening he went to a get together. He was one among the first there and one among the first to depart, and he had a nice time. “So in my head I can either go, ‘Fucking hell, you’re boring, you left a party at 7.45pm, everyone else is getting pissed, you’re in bed at 9.45pm’ and that’s true. Or I can go, ‘You got to speak to your friend, you were there for the best bit, when you could hear people talking, you met this person who’s really interesting, you said goodbye. You nailed it!’”
Thirst by John Robins (Penguin Books Ltd, £20). To assist the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery fees could apply.
