Matt Willis: Taking Life In Recovery 1 Day at a Time
On The Mend
High Performance
4.9 • 566 Ratings
🗓️ 27 October 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this solo episode, Matt Willis explores what it really means to control your own narrative. He opens up about moments in his life when others tried to define him, through fame, addiction, or public perception, and how losing control of his story left him feeling misunderstood and disconnected from who he truly was.
Matt also shares personal experiences, including how winning I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! changed how the world saw him, and how he eventually reclaimed his identity through honesty, recovery, and storytelling. He reflects on lessons from past guests about ownership, self-compassion, and the power of rewriting your story from a place of truth.
A candid and empowering conversation about taking back your story, letting go of shame, and choosing how you move forward, on your own terms.
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Need Support?
Samaritans: Call 116 123 or visit samaritans.org
Narcotics Anonymous: na.org
Alcoholics Anonymous: alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk
Mental Health Mates: mentalhealthmates.co.uk
Shout: https: giveusashout.org
IAPT: england.nhs.uk/mental-health/adults/nhs-talking-therapies/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Want to know who's coming up next? Hit follow wherever you get your podcast and you'll be the first to find out. |
| 0:09.0 | Hey everybody, welcome back to On the Men. It's me, Matt Willis. And today is another solo episode, right? This show is all about looking back to see how we move forward, right? and how we kind of get on with life, even |
| 0:21.4 | through life's toughest, hardest moments. |
| 0:24.2 | And today, no guest, just me. |
| 0:26.8 | And I didn't really have much of a plan. |
| 0:29.8 | I wanted to kind of look back at something which I've been thinking about recently, which |
| 0:33.3 | is something I've got from the guests we've been listening to, which is about kind of owning |
| 0:38.8 | your narrative, right? Lots of times we can get other people who kind of form opinions about us. |
| 0:45.1 | And that can become the opinion of how we are represented in the world. And actually, |
| 0:49.9 | you can take that back and you can take some of the power back by controlling your own narrative. |
| 0:55.6 | There have been times I've really felt in control and there have been times when I felt absolutely |
| 1:00.6 | out of control, like I wasn't in control of my narrative whatsoever, especially during active addiction. |
| 1:06.8 | I felt like others were writing the story for me and I was at times falling into place with |
| 1:13.6 | a narrative that wasn't mine. If this theme resonates with you, if you feel like people are |
| 1:20.1 | judging a version of you without knowing your full story, please hit follow, you know, subscribe |
| 1:24.7 | wherever you can or leave a review, you know, pass this on to someone |
| 1:29.2 | who's still writing their own story because it might just be what they want to hear. So I was |
| 1:33.7 | thinking about this and thinking of a real time when I lost my own narrative. And I think the one thing |
| 1:40.1 | that springs to mind the most was leaving, I'm a Celebrity. This was in 2006, I believe, |
| 1:47.9 | which is mad to think that's like 19 years ago. But I was, I went in this show because I wanted to |
| 1:56.7 | release a solo album. And the first couple of singles hadn't done as well as everyone hoped they would. I think I was in a pretty bad place and the record company basically weren't going to release my solo album and I've worked hard on this with a lot of other people that I've worked really hard on it and I was devastated it wasn't going to be released. So they said, you know, you've got to do something to raise your profile. |
| 2:18.2 | Were you going on? |
... |
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