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Hello, everyone and welcome back to On the Mend.

Now, today is a very different episode to what we've done before.

Today is going to be a solo episode.

Right, so I kind of thought about this a lot recently.

Like, I quite like a solo episode with someone. And it also terrifies me. You know, the thought of kind of sitting here and talking on my own is really scary. And recently I'm trying to kind of, I don't know, run towards things that scare me, you know, rather than being kind of like safe within my comfort zone. I'm trying to push myself a little bit, you know, and kind of go, can I do this? Can I kind of, can I sit there and talk with no one else? You know, I find it hard enough on Instagram. If I have to film a video on Instagram, like people say, oh, you do it so well. I'm like, it's because I do 28 bloody takes of it, you know, because I hate the first, you know, 15. Then I'll say, you know, a swear word too much, which happens quite a lot. You know, so I was like, right, okay, this is something which is quite challenging. And also I get asked loads of questions on social media about on the mend and about certain

subjects and what I feel about them.

And I felt like posting videos about them would be one thing, but actually kind of talking

about certain subjects that interests me in a podcast form might be interesting for other

people too. Because I like hearing these things from people. You know, I kind of gravitate

towards people who have, you know, something I want. Or, you know, when I was in very early

recovery, I remember being told, stick with the winners. And I'm not, you know, trying

to blow mine trumpets, I'm a winner, but I am clean and sober. And I'm not, you know, trying to blow mine trumpets. I'm a winner,

but I am clean and sober. And I'm very proud of that. But when I went to certain places and I met

people in recovery, I definitely found that I stuck with the people that I thought had something

that I wanted, had something that I needed, rather than the people I thought I could party with.

You know, so that was really big for me. So I thought, you know, let's do this. Let's do a little solo, a few solo episodes. And we're going to try them out. We're going to see how people feel about them, you know, and kind of test it out. If you like it, let me know. If it's boring, let me know. you know, and we'll stop doing them or we'll kind of,

we'll kind of see where we go. I hope you like it. I'm really terrified about it, but let's go for it.

Right. I thought we'd start every solo episode with something which I've been banging on about for quite a long time, which has been really powerful to me, which is a gratitude list.

You know, I first came across gratitude list in rehab. They sat me down in a group therapy and they talked about the power of gratitude and at the time I was like I'm stuck in what is essentially a hospital you know and a mental hospital that's not put it

you know it's not a holiday camp surrounded by people I didn't know I didn't want to be there

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