Adam Lancashire survived a cardiac arrest after decades of alcohol and cocaine addiction. In May 2024, his heart stopped for 26 minutes. After weeks in intensive care, he woke up with hypoxic brain damage and faced the challenge of rebuilding his life. He had to relearn basic skills, including how to walk and talk, confront the consequences of his addiction and find a way forward without drugs or alcohol.

Now more than two years sober, Adam joins me to share his extraordinary story for the first time, covering addiction, survival, recovery, family breakdown and learning to live again.

What happens when addiction takes you to the edge of death? And how do you rebuild your life when you wake up to discover that even the simplest everyday tasks have become a challenge?

Adam's story is one of survival, resilience and a second chance. His childhood was marked by instability, and he discovered drugs at a young age. By 15, he was using cocaine.

What began as a way to escape and feel more confident developed into years of alcohol and drug use, with serious consequences for his relationships, family life and wellbeing.

Despite periods of apparent success, Adam struggled with addiction behind the scenes. Relationships broke down, family connections suffered, and the cycle of drinking and cocaine use became increasingly difficult to escape.

Then, in May 2024, everything changed. After playing football, Adam collapsed on his way back to the station. He suffered a cardiac arrest and was resuscitated before being taken to hospital. After weeks in intensive care, he woke up with hypoxic brain damage.

Surviving the cardiac arrest was only the beginning. Adam faced the enormous challenge of rebuilding his physical and cognitive abilities, learning to walk, speak, eat and carry out everyday tasks again. Alongside his rehabilitation, he also had to confront the addiction and personal struggles that had shaped so much of his life.

Adam explains how he found his way into recovery through Alcoholics Anonymous, the importance of friendship and fellowship, and how helping others gave him a renewed sense of purpose. He speaks honestly about his approach to the 12-step programme and why he believes recovery does not look the same for everyone.

Adam also opens up about guilt, shame and the pain of family relationships affected by addiction, including his estrangement from his son. He reflects on the temptation to romanticise the past, even when that past caused so much damage, and the difficult process of learning to forgive himself.

His experience of recovering from brain damage while maintaining his sobriety brings another dimension to the conversation. Adam describes the frustration of losing abilities he once took for granted.

Adam's shows that recovery does not have to follow rigid rules or a single prescribed path, and that rebuilding a life can begin even after the most devastating setbacks.

Oliver is an ambassador for Alcohol Change UK, support here - https://tinyurl.com/5dt5773e

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Topics -

0:00 Trailer & Intro

3:20 A rock bottom moment

8:25 Do you need a dramatic rock bottom?

10:35 The Invisible Line!

11:35 Money, travel and a morphine drop

16:35 Drinking leads to coke

19:35 Getting high on your own supply

22:50 Stealing & affairs

27:35 Estranged from family and giving up on yourself

31:05 Addiction progresses

35:50 A moment in The ICU

37:35 The recovery starts

41:05 Cravings return

42:20 Struggling with higher power in AA

44:05 Friendships in recovery

46:50 Can you do fellowship your way?

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#CocaineAddiction #AddictionRecovery #Sobriety

Fear can make recovery feel impossible. Addiction tells you that you are going to lose everything you love, or that you will never get the life you want. But what if those thoughts are not predictions, but lies? In this School of Rock Bottom Thought Series, Oliver Mason explores fear, catastrophising, relapse, gratitude, faith and the power of living in the present moment. Drawing on my own recovery and years of working with people in addiction treatment, I asks a simple but powerful question: what if you stopped putting your faith in the fear and started putting your faith in recovery?

Addiction has a remarkable ability to hijack our thinking. The moment we become grateful for our relationships, our work, our health or our lives, fear can turn those very things into reasons to worry. What if I lose this? What if everything goes wrong? What if I never get what I want? Suddenly, the future becomes a place of catastrophe, and alcohol or drugs can begin to look like an escape from a future that exists only in our imagination.

I explor why living in the day can be such a powerful principle in recovery. We cannot know exactly what is going to happen tomorrow, but addiction can convince us that we do. It gives us the worst possible outcome and presents it as though it is inevitable. Learning to recognise that process can create space between the fear and the decision to pick up a drink or drug.

I also explores the relationship between fear and self-centred thinking, and why helping another person can be such a powerful way of getting out of our own heads. From working with people in rehab to simply being there for somebody else, recovery can shift our attention away from the relentless internal noise of what I calls the “Oli show”.

For people who find the spiritual language of recovery difficult, I offer another way of looking at faith. You do not necessarily have to believe in God or follow a particular religion to have faith. You can put your faith in recovery itself. Every day without drugs or alcohol becomes another piece of evidence that recovery works. Even when life becomes difficult, the overall trajectory can still be moving forward.

This thought is ultimately about learning to trust the process. A difficult day does not mean recovery has failed. A closed door does not necessarily mean the end of the road. Sometimes the path simply changes. Sometimes the thing you feared losing makes way for something you could never have imagined finding.

If you are in recovery, struggling with fear, worried about relapse, questioning your future or finding it difficult to trust that things can get better, this is a reminder to stay in the day, reach out, help somebody else and give tomorrow the opportunity to surprise you.

Listen or watch THE FULL EPISODE

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About the “THOUGHT” series -

Every other Monday at 5 PM, I’ll bring you a quick ‘thought’—a powerful moment from previous episodes designed to kickstart your week with insight, motivation, and connection. These shorter clips help us stay connected as a community, while every other Tuesday delivers a full, brand-new episode with fresh stories and lessons.

Oliver is an ambassador for Alcohol Change UK and you can access support here - https://tinyurl.com/5dt5773e

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#AddictionRecovery

#RelapsePrevention

#RecoveryIsPossible

What does alcoholism look like when nobody knows you have a problem? Tamsin spent nearly a decade drinking alone while building a successful career as a journalist, convinced that because she hadn't been arrested, lost her job or ended up in hospital, she couldn't be an alcoholic. She got sober in 2022, built a life in recovery, and then relapsed for one night in 2025 after putting her sobriety second.

In this conversation, Tamsin opens up about hidden alcoholism, denial, addiction, relapse, shame, self-worth and why you don't need to hit rock bottom before asking for help.

Tamsin describes what she calls being a "boring alcoholic": no dramatic arrests, car crashes or headline-making consequences, but a private addiction that increasingly controlled her life. She explains how alcohol became her way of managing anxiety, sleeping, socialising and feeling confident, while underneath it all she was struggling with self-worth.

We talk about the moment she realised something wasn't right, sitting on a bus waiting for a shop to open so she could buy wine after finishing a night shift.

Tamsin speaks candidly about her relapse in 2025 after almost three years sober. She explains what she means by "putting recovery second", how the same negative thoughts and patterns returned after one drink, and why having a recovery network around her helped her stop a one-night relapse from becoming something much bigger.

We discuss relapse, the shame that can follow it, and the danger of believing that you've wasted your previous sobriety. Tamsin shares what it was like returning to recovery spaces after relapsing and how the tools she had built over nearly three years were still there when she needed them.

We also explore relationships in recovery, including what it was like for Tamsin's partner to see her drunk for the first time. We talk about alcohol-free homes, boundaries and why protecting your recovery sometimes has to come before everything else.

Another part of the conversation is alcohol delivery apps and how they can remove the barriers between craving and access. Tamsin explains how she secretly used delivery services during active addiction, while Oliver shares his experience of rapid alcohol delivery.

Tamsin's message to anyone questioning their relationship with alcohol is simple: you do not need to call yourself an alcoholic, have a dramatic story or wait for your life to fall apart before you deserve help. If your drinking is making your life more negative, or you don't know what will happen once you take that first drink, that may be enough to start asking questions.

Tamsin shares her experience openly online, helping people who don't recognise themselves in the stereotypical image of addiction. She has founded a sober and sober-curious book club, is an advisory director of a sober CIC, raises money for alcohol harm charities.

Oliver is an ambassador for Alcohol Change UK, support here - https://tinyurl.com/5dt5773e

Sponsor -

www.gavinsisters.co.uk

and use promo code SCHOOLOFROCKBOTTOM for 10% off!

Support us -

https://buymeacoffee.com/olivermason1

Topics -

0:00 Trailer & Intro

3:00 I didn't have a "rock bottom" moment!

7:00 What is rock bottom?

9:30 Hidden addiction is more dangerous?

12:15 Smashing denial

16:15 Hanxiety, sleep and migraines

18:00 Alcohol, relationships and control

19:45 I never felt "part of"

23:30 What is an alcoholic?

26:30 Putting your recovery second

30:30 Can you relapse for 1 day?!

34:15 How relapse effects your partner

38:30 Does your partner drink?

42:30 Picking back up tools during a relapse

46:00 Alcohol doesn't work anymore!

48:00 Alcohol delivery apps

56:00 Everyone deserves help

Follow Tamsin

Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@soberjourno

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#Alcoholism

#AddictionRecovery

#Sobriety