The Night John Robins Knew He Had to Quit Drinking
On The Mend
High Performance
4.9 • 566 Ratings
🗓️ 1 June 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Award-winning comedian and broadcaster John Robins tackles the fundamental question: are alcoholics born or made?
In this episode, John opens up about his 20-year struggle with chronic alcohol use, the childhood signs that hid in plain sight, and why every "moderation spreadsheet" failed until he accepted that one drink was the real problem.
The conversation moves past the "why" of addiction to focus entirely on the "how" of recovery. John shares the exact moment a podcast changed everything, the reality of rock bottom, and how he uses a toolkit of 12-step meetings, meditation, and running to build new neural pathways. It’s a raw, deeply honest look at the daily practice of sobriety and the liberating truth that you can only ever get one day sober in a day.
This episode covers the following themes: Addiction, Acceptance, Denial, Moderation, and Recovery.
John's book Thirst: Twelve Drinks that Changed My Life is out now: https://amzn.eu/d/0ahkSNch
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: https://www.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? |
| 0:01.6 | Hit follow wherever you get your podcast and you'll be the first to find out. |
| 0:06.2 | For so long I had these two forces, which was the fear of drinking and the fear of not drinking. |
| 0:12.1 | I'd started doing CrossFit. |
| 0:13.4 | That hadn't stopped me drinking. |
| 0:14.8 | My GP telling me I need to sort my fucking life out. |
| 0:17.6 | Direct quote. |
| 0:18.8 | I just thought, I have nothing left. I've absolutely nothing left in my power to get on top of this. |
| 0:31.2 | Hi everybody. Welcome back to On the Men. This is a podcast where we look back at life's toughest moments to figure out how we move forward. |
| 0:37.4 | Today we have John Robbins. I'm very, very excited to have you on. Thank you so much you coming on, mate. You're welcome. Thank you for having me here. I'm really excited. My wife talked to you last week on the radio. Yeah. She said lovely things about you. Oh, that's very nice. Yeah, I was talking to her about the book and also about the marathon. And then I had to pick a show tune. |
| 0:55.0 | Oh, did you? |
| 0:56.0 | I didn't know what that meant. |
| 0:59.0 | Because I'm not big in the sort of the West End Broadway world. |
| 1:03.0 | Oh, you're not. |
| 1:04.0 | But I managed to sort of scour my past for a show tune. |
| 1:08.0 | Right. |
| 1:09.0 | So we managed to... |
| 1:10.0 | What did you pick? |
| 1:30.5 | Another suitcase in another hall. Oh, wow. Okay, great. The Barbara Dixon version from I think Avita. Right. Wow. Great. Nice. Yeah. So that way well. Yeah, it was lovely to chat to her. She's really nice. Oh, nice. Great. I read something from your book. It kind of blew my mind when I read it in the in the show brief. |
| 1:30.5 | It said, I would do. Right. I read something from your book. It kind of blew my mind when I read it in the show brief. |
| 1:37.3 | It said, I would do anything to feel better. Just don't ask me to change. Who told you that? |
| 1:47.7 | That was told to me. So when I was 18, 19, and it was something my therapist, that therapist said to me, he said, |
... |
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