This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

Alright, thank you so much for joining this is Annie Grace at this naked mind podcast.

And today I am so excited because I have William Porter, he is the author of Alcohol Explained.

And this book was recommended to me by a bunch of readers actually and I picked it up and I read it and have been,

I mean, will I've been blown away by the caliber of research and study and content and how well you logically articulate alcohol.

I mean, it truly is alcohol explained. It's phenomenal and I am just thrilled to talk to you today about it.

And so I have a bunch of questions but I'd love to just start with like your personal story.

Where where did this come from?

I suppose we'll start together the beginning. I mean I started drinking and smoking was about 14 and that was back at sort of the beginning of the 9th test.

And I quite quickly came across Alan Cars book on stopping smoking and I needed to stop smoking immediately.

I had to read it quite a few times before I finally stopped. I was quite blown away by the way he looked at things and analyze things.

So I stopped smoking around, I think I finally stopped around the age of when I got back from university.

So it was about 21 or so but I continue drinking. And as per most people it just got heavier and heavier and more and more out of hand.

And at one point I was in the reserve Italian and the parachute regimen and served out in Iraq.

So that was kind of a, I mean my drinking was getting more and more but that as you can imagine was probably quite a bit.

Quite a bit accelerator in many ways so coming up the back end of that.

I picked up some fairly visible drinking habits and that just sort of continued and things just got more and more out of hand.

So eventually it came to the point where you have to do something about it.

And I stopped drinking three and a bit years ago I think February 18 will be my fourth year not drinking.

So and so what was it the research first or was it the decision and then the research to solidify the decision?

Yeah, to be honest it all it was a very very long process because I only been at university and suffering really bad in Sonnia when I was drinking.

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