‘You really feel like you’re going to die’: Millie Mackintosh on the life changing moment she decided to go sober

1. Fitness and wellbeing

‘A best friend said, I just can't see you do this to yourself anymore. Six months later, I stopped drinking.’

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This year Millie Mackintosh released a book called Bad Drunk. In it, she recounts her experiences of alcohol abuse, anxiety and the moments that inspired her to give up drinking for good.

In an appearance on The Well Enough podcast she delved deeper into the stories in the book and reflected on the impact alcohol had on her health and what might have happened had she carried on drinking.

“I've had alcohol poisoning probably twice and you really feel like you're going to die,” she told podcast host Emilie Lavinia. “It really does destroy lives and for a lot of people, the only way to abstain is just to completely stop.”

Discussing her decision to go sober for good she explained, “one of the biggest shifts for me was getting really informed.”

“I just downloaded all the podcasts I could find about quitting alcohol. I bought books. I wanted to consume as much information as I could. I think I started with the Andrew Huberman podcast which was called something like, What Alcohol Does to Your Body and Brain. That was a real shift for me.”

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Mackintosh revealed how she had found sobriety challenging in the beginning, but how the benefits of her new lifestyle now far outweigh those of her old one.

“Positives for me really are at the time that I've got back, the time that I'm not spent hungover. Not having that feeling of dread when I wake up on the weekend and actually being able to get out the house early, enjoy the day with my kids. And I really wasn't able to enjoy parenting when I'd been drinking the night before. And I love being a mum. I mean, it's hard, but I love it. And it was really stealing my joy.”

Mackintosh also shared some of the things that helped her to stay sober, despite the world around her celebrating drinking and encouraging it in almost every social situation.

“For me, a sober coach weekly was what I did for about six months. So I had that support. Have a couple of people close to you that know, and when you're going to those events, just have a wingman with you, have someone with you that knows that it's gonna be a bit tricky for you to get through that social anxiety without a drink. Someone that can squeeze your hand, someone that can just kind of just be your support – cause it's hard.”

Psychopharmacologist Professor David Nutt also appeared on the podcast. Nutt is an expert on the harms caused by drugs and alcohol and the creator of alcohol alternative, Sentia. He explained that for anyone considering their alcohol intake, “the key message is that people should think about their drinking. And when you start to do that, you realise several things. You realise that a lot of the drinks you drink don't have any value at all.

“Be objective about drinking as you would be about any other aspect of health, like weight or blood pressure or cholesterol or whatever. This is a serious thing you are doing. It's a drug. And the second point is, take it seriously. It's actually quite challenging to confront a friend with a concern about drinking because they can often turn on you.”

Mackintosh reflected on her own experiences with friends and the times those closest to her had tried to raise the issue of her drinking.

“I had so many disastrous ones, but in the last year there was a comment from a best friend who said, ‘I just can't see you do this to yourself anymore’. She said, ‘you can't, you just can't handle it. You're too sensitive. It just doesn't agree with you.”

Six months after that exchange and after having experienced alcohol poisoning and ending up in hospital more than once, Mackintosh stopped drinking alcohol.

The podcast also covered the safe limits of alcohol consumption, myths about small amounts of alcohol being good for you and what alcohol does to the body long term. Nutt explained how some German experts had assessed alcohol through the European food safety testing regime and found that the safest amount was limited to 150ml per year.

This information is at odds with the national safety guidelines, however Nutt expressed that no amount of alcohol is really good for the body and that myths about red wine and tequila being healthy present skewed data or simply aren’t true.

“We give a very protected place to alcohol because we enjoy it. And it's part of our heritage. Almost every cell in the body will be affected by alcohol. It's quite toxic.”

“You have a scrape on your skin, you kill the bugs with alcohol. If it can kill bugs – bugs are tougher than your skin cells. So it's potentially toxic to every cell in the body,” said Nutt.

Mackintosh explained that, “a lot of people, you know, they start drinking as soon as you can get your hands on it. For me, it was probably about 12.”

She also talked about her experiences with alcohol through her teens and twenties, falling out with friends and how alcohol affected her experience of becoming a parent. “My girls were the ultimate motivation to stop. They were six months and two when I stopped. And now nearly four and five and they'll have no memory of me drinking.”

“I'd say the gift is also the emotional sobriety that you get when you stop drinking the toxic substance. [...] You can really start doing the work on yourself to become fully emotionally sober. And that's really the work that I'm doing now.”

“Anything in your life that is making you unhappy, whether it's alcohol, whether it's a person, whatever it is – that toxic habit. Don't wait to change. Just do it because you never know how long you've got left. Life is short and if something is stealing your joy, make the change.”

Listen to the episode here and watch the full episode on YouTube. Well Enough is available wherever you get your podcasts.

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