Sober October: Me, my father and the demon drink
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2024
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As many take a break from booze for Sober October, the writer Hannah Betts marks ten years since she gave up alcohol. It’s given her a moment to reflect on her father’s death from his own alcohol addiction and to consider why Britain apparently has such a destructive love of booze.
If you or someone you know is affected by alcohol addiction support and advice can be found through the NHS and Drinkaware.
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Guest: Hannah Betts, writer, The Times and https://hannahbetts.substack.com/
Host: Luke Jones.
Photo: Getty Images.
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Transcript
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| 1:01.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, I not make your |
| 1:24.0 | hibernation that little bit more difficult by making some kind of a change. |
| 1:30.0 | October, like January, is increasingly a dry month for some. |
| 1:34.6 | Stocktober is a popular charity challenge, giving it all up to support any number of causes, |
| 1:40.4 | some supporting those who seriously struggle with booze. |
| 1:43.5 | Remember it's 10,000 of us who are killed each year in the UK by it. Hannah Betts, like a fifth of the country, doesn't drink, at least anymore. |
| 2:00.0 | In the Times last week she wrote about her 10 years of sobriety why she gave up drink and how |
| 2:06.1 | her father didn't in quite a distressing fashion. |
| 2:37.8 | The story today, today, me, my father and the demon drink. My name is Hannah Betts and I've been writing for the time since well 1924, 1998 October so that's 26 years ago now, on lots and lots and lots of different things. |
| 2:46.6 | I was a leader writer, I edited Op-Ed, you know, too much of me, and now I'm a freelance contributor. |
| 2:55.0 | Is the word celebrate for anniversaries of sobriety I mean what's the word for it? |
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