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.

Hi, this is Annie Grace and this is this naked mind podcast and I'm here with Andrew. Welcome, Andrew. How are you?

I'm very well thanks, Annie. How are you? Good. Thanks for getting up at all crazy hours of the morning to do the podcast. Super fun.

So, um, why don't you take us back to kind of where it all started from you? Like your first drink, your history, stuff like that?

Well, my first drink was probably around the age of three.

We, my family had been to the Barossa Valley and had souvenir.

I had a lot of the cherry bottles and I quite like the flavor of the cherry.

And I'd, from what my sister has told me, I was probably a little bit intoxicated at the age of three just because I liked the taste of it.

Um, you know, I suppose it's like, I got older, early teens, you know, school, end up drinking beer, you know, the spirit, the experimenting with alcohol.

And it was just like, you know, a fun thing to do. Just you just did it.

I got older, um, I joined the, I joined the job with a fairly strong drinking culture and camaraderie.

And I took to that not a duct water.

Um, and I enjoyed it.

It was a way of, I suppose, socializing, letting off steam and just putting problems in the back of the, the back and not looking at the not, not resolving them.

Um, you know, not, I suppose for a long time for God.

Maybe, you know, from the age of 40 or, or, uh, maybe even earlier, I got this, yeah, I'm drinking too much. So yeah, three stages of, I'll give up for a month, I'll give up for three months, six months.

And what were the things that, that prompted the giving it up? Was it specific events or occasions or was it just kind of overall.

Um, there was times I turned into a person I didn't particularly like.

I always described myself as a happy drunk.

But sometimes I forget Naki.

And not very nice.

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