How Alcohol Affected My ADHD | Millie Mackintosh

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1:05Olivia Attwood:Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang-on-the-patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear open that envelope? It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. The other thing we have in common is boarding school girls. I went to four boarding schools. Shut the f*** up, did you actually? What's the story of how Made in Chelsea came to exist and how you ended up on it?

1:38I was in my room trying to get ready for a date and I walked out in my underarm and then they were like, who are you? You need to be on the show. I got the bus to filming and then they made me get in a Bentley. Now I have heard you say that you think anxiety is a made-up construct.

1:52Olivia Attwood:Well, hold on. When did you start thinking about the fact that you wanted to remove alcohol from your life in this serious way? You have the night, you know, things get out of control. At the time, you just think you're having fun. Even you might know you've taken it a bit far. You wake up the next day and you are just like, f***. Yeah. I was pictured.

2:16Olivia Attwood:Hi dolls, welcome to Olivia's house. today's guest is TV personality, fashion and beauty entrepreneur, author, model and mum to two gorgeous girls. It's Millie McIntosh.

2:31Olivia Attwood:Thank you for having me. Finally. I know finally. I feel like we've been having this conversation for a minute. We've been Instagram friends. We've been DMing back and forth, especially the last couple of weeks. We've both been in the trenches. Everything you've been posting, I've just been like, I feel you. I know and my publicist would wish I'd post less but also when you see something you're like okay that meme or that quote really um I can really relate to that I'm gonna post it I know it's kind of hard not to even then I'm like oh I probably shouldn't I just post it anyway how are you like how are you today how's how's do you know what I'm actually really good today so I'm just gonna go with that go good yeah every day is different I think every day is so different um up and down it's a journey it's definitely you know life is lifing but i'm really focused on all the positive things in my life yes there's lots of exciting stuff going on and yeah most days i actually feel good on that note we have a little tradition here in the clubhouse where i ask my guests what they want to leave at the door okay it can be something a trend a person a thing it's whatever you just want to stay outside today what is it anyone out there who just enjoys bringing people down.

3:39Olivia Attwood:That's a good one. Just kind of people out there that are going to take the time out their day to go on your Instagram account and leave a horrible comment. Like, what's the point? Like, did you need to do that? Is that something you've found that you've experienced more in the last few weeks with everything going on? Or is it something you've always been aware of since you've been on telly? I think it's just something I've always been aware of. And I actually don't let it bring me down. I just kind of find it sad that people feel that they need to do that. So if you If you don't like me, fine.

4:09If you don't like my content, fine. But do you need to actually make the effort to comment on it?

4:13Olivia Attwood:It's just, I think like Instagram, social media has created the most perverted exchange between humans because like we always say those interactions, nine times out of 10, thank goodness, they would never take place face to face. People, I've never had anyone approach me and go, oh, I really hated you on Love Island. But they will message you that. But if they saw you out, they probably would be like, oh, I can get a selfie. Yeah, they definitely ask me for a selfie. Yeah. And then it's interesting that I think when you're going for a bit of a rough time or you maybe have made a mistake or like I'm going for a breakup, like I might post something and someone might DM me and go, oh, this is why your relationship didn't work out.

4:52Olivia Attwood:I'm like, what would actually go for your mind to think, yeah, I'm going to write this and hit send to someone. But the only way I can rationalize it is you hurt people, hurt people. And I kind of hate that bullshit because I think it gives people like a free pass. but it is true because no one happy or balanced behaves like that no do you ever interact with those kind of comments or dms i try so hard not to because i think it just feeds it yeah and then then they're like great i got the attention i wanted from that comment so if anything i just don't think there's really a place for it and i don't want my that to be part of my platform so sometimes i do like block or yeah i just don't want it there i actually i think i'm quite weird I leave rude comments because I just think it's interaction I'm like I also think sometimes people need their moment and I'm like yeah I'm actually fine the only I'm like you know what you can have a little spot and leave my picture yeah but the only time I ever and it doesn't happen too much but if it's about if someone comments on my and this is that pisses me off if someone comments on my page about I don't know about a rude thing about my friend or someone in my family or it's someone that basically hasn't asked to be like you know on this stage that I've chose for myself then it's gone and they probably will get a message from me because I feel very protective over like my friends my family who haven't asked yeah to be a part of this you know but do you reply to comments well I mean my agent is here I don't say much anymore I definitely impose love island world when you know we went into love island I came out of a million followers like you yeah there's no there's no amount of overnight PR training that can teach you how to manage like crowd control that so i used to do a lot of like sing you know like michelle obama says like they go low we go high i love that quote i go in the mud i'm like i drag you to fucking hell like you i'm going you want to load low i'll show you low so i used to a lot of like you know like someone messaged me or you like this and i'd get on them and go have you seen yourself you you know fucking this that and the other so i used to do about a lot of that I don't so much anymore Scarlett so you can breathe um because obviously as well when you have the platform and the you know you just this has to be you know you're expected to kind of just take aren't you so when you like respond on their level you can get yourself in trouble and also you shouldn't do that I'm a little bit more mature now little yeah but it's like the dopamine hit right yes and like you know as a fellow ADHD girl you get like we love cheap dopamine like whether that's an interaction yeah any dopamine shopping falling in love like an impulse decision alcohol we'll get on to all of that but let's go back because the other thing we have in common is boarding school girls so you went to an all-girls boarding school i went to four boarding schools wait shut the fuck up did you actually i went to four yeah because you had you were having a bad time at school but that's yeah it's like a combination of like having about time one closed down one only went up to age 12 so I okay and then I wanted to go to the three of them were all girls and then the last one was mixed and which like what was your kind of if you had to overarch your experience of school how would you it's not good no no I struggled to fit in I struggled with bullying um you know being being at boarding school when I was 10 it was pretty hard you know being away from your family and like yeah I think I learned quite early on kind of not to um like my you know my feelings weren't valid or you know I couldn't really express how I felt um and because I didn't really feel like I fit in with like a particular group of friends um and I felt like a bit of an outsider I kind of became a bit of a chameleon like I didn't really know who I was I was like okay I'll kind of be whoever this group of people needs me to be so that I can be accepted because that felt like the kind of safest thing to do yeah Yeah.

8:44Olivia Attwood:Well, that's like an actual human, well, it's an animalistic survival instinct because it's like the zebra in the wild that has the different stripes. Yeah, it's called fawning. Yeah. So it's like, that is like a way of surviving, especially at school, like no one wants to be different. But I think that when I was like reading and learning about, you know, the way you've talked about school, it would surprise people so much because, you know, most people know you're from Aiding Chelsea, like you're this cool girl, like you're impossibly gorgeous it's like how could you not be you know how would you not have just swam through school like you know what I mean from the outside I think people would be surprised to hear the experience you had because in your words like you were bullied at points by other girls yeah and it was like being bullied you know about my appearance which is insane but what would they even say to you you know I had kind of like that teenage you know stage where kind of you're like coming into yourself but like every you've got a lot going on I had like the acne the braces hadn't figured out my hair the whole works the whole works kind of like grew really tall really quickly so I was just like kind of like this like lanky like uncoordinated thing um really awkward um I didn't know I have ADHD but it explains quite a lot as well definitely because I did kind of become like the class clown to sort of yeah like the kind of troublemaker just because I think I like it got attention from other people which is validation which was validation um and I found learning difficult so I was like okay I'm just going to be the kind of stupid one that you know this we had a very similar experience at school I feel I feel I didn't struggle so much with other girls but in the sense that what you talk about like when I felt like I was falling behind in lessons and I was I knew I would if a teacher was to call on me and ask me a question I didn't know the answer to I would have found that so embarrassing so I used to deflect by causing trouble you know I think obviously going to going to a boarding school is obviously you know it's you are from a privileged situation to end up at boarding school so I think and I understand for a lot of people it is I and it's like you can't complain about it yeah it's like it's hard to gather sympathy around that it's almost like no one's asking for sympathy but it's a very like unique and it's a very tough situation it's if you imagine everyone had a bad day at school but you have a bad day at school and then you can't leave so those girls that were mean to you like in double science then you have to go and share a room with two of them like that is yeah that's tough and is that how did you find that difficult that element of like I'm stuck there with these people that I don't like like massively I was looking through some some like old photo albums at my mum's house recently from the age when I was about 12 and I just looked so pissed off and that's just how I remember being I was like so angry at my parents for making me go to boarding school so angry with the school like I just kind of was like I'm out to cause trouble because I just wanted to rebel against the whole thing and yeah it's hard it's for like weeks at a time it wasn't weekly boarding no oh so you were I did weekly you say and the only time I didn't go home was when I was did this I was saying this one of the day it's really sounds so draconian our detention was that you couldn't go home on the weekend they said keep you in so that the only time I wasn't home on the weekend is if I was they called it gated which also I feel like was just so counterproductive because what you know you keep all the naughty kids in school over the weekend what are they gonna get up skeleton crew of teachers that's gonna fucking work that's when I started smoking because I was like what else are we gonna do we're here all weekend yeah so yeah so that I mean that's and you went at 10 went at 10 and was have you had conversations with your mum as an adult about you had has she said to you I wish I hadn't sent you or it was I feel like they definitely thought they were doing the best thing for me and like you know it wasn't all bad that first school was in Dorset and we rode ponies every morning yeah you know and there was some kind of magic to it was a bit like St Trinian's yeah but then there was also the kind of you know really bad homesickness this is like before my phone so yeah it was like you got one phone call home a week and there was a lot of like you know homesickness for like a long time um and then I think maybe after about a year I kind of found it okay and that I think it can do two things I think I can create resilience and I think for me in the end it created resilience but I think sometimes it can cause more damage than it does and is that what how you would feel I spend a lot of time in therapy talking about some of you know the scars I have from that time in my life but I do think it also kind of forces you to be quite independent yes which like is a good and bad thing as well there's like a well you kind of have to learn to self-suit yeah and also I think I don't know what the schools you went to were like but you know I'm sure I could imagine a lot of this you have the school I went to probably is very different now like the pastoral care but for girls especially because my school was like historically a boys boarding school and then they introduced girls at a later point so when I went I think that was some of my lessons there was only like two or three girls in a lesson so I don't think they had really they hadn't developed how to like like nurture us and we just did a lot of like you know I remember like you know there was no like sanitary stuff in the bathroom there was no one to talk to about that it was you just kind of were figuring it out on your own yeah one of the ways I kind of figured out like one of the ways I figured out how to kind of be accepted and be like liked by the more popular girls was I taught myself how to do makeup okay so I would beg my mum to like you know take me shopping and buy me even just like super cheap bits of makeup just like anything I could get my hands on and then just I can't remember if it was that was it wasn't like I was looking at YouTube tutorials I think it was even just like books on like how to do makeup and I would just spend hours in the mirror like trying to do it and then the older girls at school would ask me to do their makeup and there was like a party and then that was kind of quite a good way in so you had this thing that they kind of wanted and that was your ticket into that friendship yeah and then I learned how to kind of change how I looked and that helped kind of helped me feel like I would be more accepted as well if I could kind of you know change my appearance when did you start sort of dipping your toe into like drinking and party culture because obviously you've got your book bad drunk which is on the shelf there and you talk this is what you know you've been talking a lot about in the last year your sobriety journey what was your first memory of alcohol basically um i mean my first memory of alcohol it was probably like alco pops you know kind of going to discos and parties and there'd be like the kind of wkds the bacardi breezes just like those super sweet like they were marketed for kids yes which is alcohol so fucked up and you know kind of just that getting that like tipsy feeling but then quite soon it kind of turned into you know stealing like spirits from home getting really drunk like before going to a party because you couldn't like really drink at a lot of these parties like you know you're kind of meant to be being like chaperoned but you just kind of pretend it was water in your bag when you were getting ready get really trashed before then have like a smanoffice like paralytic and be like it was just a smanoffice yeah and do you think like people around your parents were aware no because I was at boarding school so this was still like this would be when you were there this was it would be a mixture it would either be like I'd come home for the weekend and there was some kind of party going on disappear off somewhere I'd go somewhere else they weren't normally parties at my house it was like you know near where I lived in the countryside or it would be at school and people would like smuggle in booze and you cultivated yourself a reputation basically being a party girl and that kind of became yeah it was another way I kind of felt like I could be accepted and like fit in and it was like an identity like a hat you wore for many years but you said you know you do things just to kind of gained the approval of your peers but then you knew deep down that maybe you weren't still yeah I think at the time I just it was like again it was like a kind of this is how I can survive and when I'd gone through the bullying and had a lot of insecurities and didn't really like myself when I drank I suddenly kind of felt really good about myself and I don't know about you but I think that when I think about alcohol and one of my first memories of alcohol was having ADHD and having it at that point had it been mentioned to me as it was mentioned my parents as a child then the conversation came up again in my teen years but we were just saying when you came in the studio like it wasn't something that girls were being diagnosed with like we kind of they would diagnose everything else around it and go oh she might have anxieties like this but no one never diagnosed me of ADHD until I was 21 but I remember the first time the first couple times of actually drinking everything just went really quiet in my mind so all those racing thoughts all those like computer tabs are constantly open just shut down and still to this day that that is the effect alcohol gives me yeah and that's why people who are neurodivergent have the highest addiction rates of anyone and did you feel that as well that that kind of that quiet and like that all the the chatter in your mind just kind of went away i don't think i had the awareness at the time to be like oh this is what it is my brain's like gone quieter i just was like i like this feeling i want to keep this feeling i want to chase this feeling and so whenever i could i would get drunk i guess i know the answer to this but would you ever send your girls to boarding school no no i wouldn't under my roof if they really wanted to go yeah age 16 and it was weekly different different but that would probably be the only scenario I could imagine I'd want them to what would you no I don't think so unless they were a real little I'm joking everyone's like wait till they're teenagers but everyone's like but I'm like no no but they need their mum yeah I I I don't think that's the kind of I can't I can't how do I say this about making it sound bad on my mum I know that's I know it's hard isn't it because I I know my parents said what they thought was the absolute most, you know, and it was in so many ways, it was a wonderful experience.

19:06Olivia Attwood:My sister and brother thrived at boarding school. My sister basically ran that school more than the headmaster did. So I think for certain children, it can be amazing, especially really sporty kids, whatever. But I don't think that I can't see myself sending my kids to boarding school. Sometimes I think about, obviously, I'm going to have a difficult time. You know, the whole like, do as I say, not as I do, which quite hard when everything we've done is like publicly documented. Do you ever think how you'll approach those conversations with your girls? Because they'll, you know. I think I just want to be super honest and open with them.

19:42Kind of educate them, you know, on the dangers of alcohol. Yeah. I'm not going to expect them to not drink because I don't drink. Like, I feel like people need to make their own mistakes and you can't like completely wrap them in cotton wool or, you know, just ban them from doing it because they're just going to want to do it more. Especially with kids, the more you're teenagers,

20:01Olivia Attwood:you say you're not doing that, the more I think it makes it more attractive. Like they want it more. Yeah. But I think the fact that they're going to grow up with a mum that doesn't drink will massively help because then it's not going to be something they see me doing. Yeah. And then I'll be very open and honest with them about my journey, my experience. Yeah. And I think if they understand that, okay, the way I'm wired, they might then realize they could have problems down the line with alcohol as well. They might have that kind of, they have a predisposition to possibly being susceptible to a bad relationship of alcohol.

20:35I think it's just having that awareness. And also understanding the health risks as well. Yeah, yeah. I mean, people don't want to talk about it, but actually it is linked to so many different cancers. I think the younger generation now don't actually drink how we used to drink.

20:49Olivia Attwood:They don't. Which is amazing, so I just hope that continues. I saw some stats from like an alcohol brand recently. Yeah, and it's, you know, our generation of millennials, we still hold up the alcohol market like on our own. You know, like Gen Z don't drink. My brother, you know, when he was at uni, my brother's 24 now. There just wasn't the drinking culture. Like if you think about how, you know, people at uni were the age we were. It was insane. Yeah, every night.

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24:31you were cast at Maiden Chelsea when you were 21 years old I didn't realize you were so young I know and it's so funny when still when people come up to me and they're like oh my god I love you for Maiden Chelsea I'm literally that was like over like 15 years ago that's actually

24:43Olivia Attwood:I because I guess when I was watching it I don't know everyone felt so much older do you think yeah I don't know the lives you were living and stuff yeah I don't know maybe that's just because when you're watching someone on telly they already seem like they're kind of you know like levels ahead of you I'm not sure but 21's really young to like thrust into the spotlight and obviously Made in Chelsea was still is one of the biggest reality shows ever I mean I can't believe it's still going I mean it's amazing it's amazing what and you were part of the original cast what was that how did it come about like what's the story of how Made in Chelsea came to exist and how you ended up on it so I wasn't involved in like the pilot episode but I knew some of the people that were so kind of in our group of friends we'd heard these like whispers we didn't really know what it was but there was some kind of thing being filmed um and so then they'd actually made the pilot and then they were looking at all the cast members like the they would go onto their the researchers would like go onto their facebook pages and look at who they were friends with and then they would try to like reach out to people like send them a private message and be like can we meet you um and they i was living with a flatmate and she was actually being interviewed for the show she didn't and she didn't end up doing it but she was um at home being interviewed I was like in my room trying to get ready for a date and I like walked out and like my underwear I was like should I wear like this or this and I don't know I was just talking about my dating life and then they were like who are you you need to be on the show obviously a producer was like yeah you're gonna be on telly yeah but I actually had wanted to go on Britain and Ireland's Next Top model okay and I'd and at that time I'd been auditioning for it and was like almost through to the round when you're actually on tv oh wow and then that didn't I didn't get through to the final round so at the beginning I was like no I'm not interested thinking I'm going to go and do this other show and then it didn't happen and I was ended up taking the meeting for Made in Chelsea and then just kind of happened and the rest is history I know what were you doing for work and what were you doing in your life at that time when you got cast um I was working at Space NK I was as a makeup artist so my favorite store I mean still my favorite store as well um and I really enjoyed it but I was you know earning like 12 pounds an hour on my feet for like you know eight to ten hour shifts so I was like why not like this could be really fun yeah and I you know I realized early on like the reason to do a show like that was because it could be a springboard to do other things that I wanted to do I wasn't like okay I'm planning to do this show like forever I just thought like fuck it why not it could be fun did you have ideas at that time of like because people always ask me when I went on love violin they're like did you go on love violin because you knew you wanted to be in telly and I was like genuinely I hadn't at that time my life I didn't know what the hell I was going to do or what I had no idea did you have any aspirations at that time about what you wanted from your life or were you just kind of like floating I was kind of floating I really didn't know yeah apart from being like I kind of wanted to be a makeup artist at the beginning.

27:41Olivia Attwood:Yeah. Do you remember your first day on set? I do remember this. I think it was the first day. It was definitely in the first episode when I got the bus to filming because I lived on New Kings Road, so kind of actually in Fulham. Yeah. Got the bus up to Kings Road and then they made me get in a Bentley. That's actually hilarious. With my friend Kagi and they filmed us getting out of a Bentley and going into this nightclub. And you actually just got off the bus? Yes. So a lot of that, like, you know, people in that show obviously are from very wealthy backgrounds, but the lifestyle you were living was heavily exaggerated.

28:19Olivia Attwood:I mean, I wasn't even living in Chelsea. People would watch that. Sorry, but like really ruining it. No, I think that people would think it's like fascinating. So this like the way that you were living in the way they wanted you guys to appear that you were living, they wanted you to appear you were living a lot bigger. I mean we were going out and partying and drinking a lot so that part definitely wasn't exaggerated and during those years you know the early years of Made in Chelsea and like the time you were on it was alcohol crutch for you during that time I think I was already definitely kind of you know enjoying myself like going out quite a lot drinking a lot but then suddenly the pressure of like being on tv and and those scenes when also sometimes you'd be you know confronting someone and it would be really uncomfortable you yeah I definitely would be drinking I'd be drinking before you know those drink throws didn't happen when I was sober so many of those clips from those early men in Chelsea days you must see them on TikTok too like they do the rounds yeah because also but they were they were really real for me those moments like obviously a lot of the show is fabricated but honestly the my storylines really weren't and when it started to feel like it was getting fabricated but I didn't have much that I wanted them to film anymore that's when I left but there was like one scene where it was it was they just planned it all they had kind of got me in a back room and kind of talking me into doing it and then they had all the cameras ready so like I literally did walk through in the whole sequence it wasn't like you could film it again no so it's like it was happening very real time and like you say it might not be the case for everyone but you had real relationships like your relationship with Hugo you've raised other people like they were happening in real time and they were just being filmed it wasn't a storyline it was your real life and how did you navigate that as like you know in your early 20s and it would go out and then people would discuss it well just like I remember watching it on a Monday night we'd all get together which was super awkward when you'd like fallen out with some of the castmates and you do like a group viewing yeah we do a group viewing and that was always just like a really boozy affair just remember sitting there was like an enormous glass of wine and just I'd be watching it whilst refreshing twitter oh my god and just of course thinking the wine because you'd be like seeing people commentating in real time responding to whatever had happened even it would probably been a few months before but you didn't know what had made the episode until you actually saw it air no you didn't know how it was going to be edited who do you you're still friends with kagi yeah who else do you keep in contact with from the show um or is that is that probably she's like the one person that she like we went into the show and like did it together and we were we'd been best friends for a long time yeah um she's the person that that i still see the most I see Binky a bit as well.

30:58Oh, of course. Yeah, Binky. And you've all got kids now.

31:02Olivia Attwood:Yeah. It must be kind of wild to look back at what your life was like and now how you're all like adults. I was walking down Kings Road the other day taking my daughter to nursery and I saw them filming Maiden Chelsea at Bluebird. And it was just really funny. And it was some of the same producers. And it was just like this walk down memory lane. It was really nostalgic and kind of funny. Like a very full circle moment. Yeah, a really full circle. the next generation of people that that's wild you just said that obviously when you started to not have genuine storylines you wanted to bring to the show that's when you started to think about leaving how many years did you do in total i think two because that feels like a lot longer than that doesn't it yeah i think i was only in like the first four seasons and when you were starting to think about leaving was it like something that you decided quite quickly was it a decision that you let sort of you were mulling over for a while i think i had gone through a really painful breakup and I just was finding at that point the whole thing like really difficult and then when I met somebody new and then knew that that relationship wasn't going to be filmed it just didn't really make sense anymore I didn't want to just be there like someone to just comment on other people's drama yes so yeah it just it just kind of ended quite naturally because you basically you had a new relationship that was a serious relationship and you were like I'm gonna leave because he's not going to film so I might as well go and do that yeah was it scary to like close the door on that it was it was a bit scary um just being like what's going to come next yeah what was it was it what was it like when you finished Love Island well I guess Love Island's a different one isn't it because you know there's an end and people so I you know I you go in I guess Love Island's different because I guess with a show at Love Island every you know god how often do they like dump people every like four or five days they're chucking people off the show so I guess in those early weeks you're like fuck I'm really hoping I get sent home you know in like because all that is embarrassing that's what you always think in my head and then once you get past like a four or five week mark I don't know I think secretly I was like send me home how long how long were you you were I was away well I think I was uh our series I always get this wrong I think our series nine weeks in total and I did 10 days in lockdown so I was away from home for 10 weeks no phone no contact with anyone at home so the whole 10 weeks whole 10 weeks apart from they bring your family in on like the very last week of the show which you just don't know if it's going to happen if they kind of blindside you with it which actually I would say to people it's a very bittersweet thing I remember that night I couldn't sleep I was almost like I almost wish I hadn't seen my mom and sister because seeing them upset then made me start thinking about the like the what's been going on like why are they upset like and then they were very produced of like what they're allowed to talk to us about like we were in the garden having our interactions with our families and if anyone's family starts to talk to them about like you know too much of home or media they say on like that voice of god like um no conversations about you know because you want to be like to people like me or hate me yeah i remember when they left and i you only have at that point like a week left but I found actually I think I would have rather just gone through to the last week without seeing them in a weird way because once I'd seen my sister I was like I just want to go now I don't want to stay another week and but I did on the whole I had a really good time but you you're thrown out into it and then I guess I did I always get this wrong I did like a series and a half of TOWIE and then I got pulled off TOWIE by the channel to do my show so again I didn't really have to make that decision of leaving but I think I I'm not very good the ironic timing I'm not very good at leaving because I'm I'm I never really trust in German in any situation in life I know I'm not very good at trusting my gut because I actually don't like change so if I was on a show like Made in Chelsea and there wasn't something lined up next I think I'd find it really difficult to make the decision because I like to just I like to know what's Yeah.

34:59I'm so the same as you, but recently my thing has been getting better at being okay with not knowing. That's really good. Like leaping into it and being like, I don't know, but I'm going to figure it out.

35:10Olivia Attwood:And you mentioned therapy. I talked to my therapist about my resistance to change. And he said it's because you're, he was telling me, I'm so hung up on worst case scenarios. So if I think of anything, I'm like, I think all the things that go wrong. and he's like why don't you put as much energy into thinking all the things that could be good but I think it's also if you think of all the things that go wrong and all the ways it could be horrible it's self-protection isn't it I think it's like the ADHD brain as well yeah you tend to have more like negative thought patterns definitely you can rewire that you're like the sort of the the loop is on and I almost want to try and neutralize every possible scenario in my mind so that I'm never surprised never disappointed but you can't really live life like that there's a Mel Robbins quote that I love and she just she just says when you're having those thoughts you just have to stop them in your in their tracks by saying what if it all works out that's so you just say to yourself what if it all works out I'll be on a plane there's a bit of turbulence I'm like we're going down like we're going now not gonna get there I'm gonna die I'm never gonna see my children again and then I just have to stop myself and go like what if it all works out like what if it doesn't like what if it lands fine and like you know and I just have to and literally be like no and not let my thoughts like run away with me and let the fear take hold that there's another i actually i don't even know to credit for it's a book that i've read i've had so many books that like the you're not special theory and basically it's like so if you think about so for example you're how often a plane crash has happened right so if you're on a plane and you're thinking oh i'm going to be a plane crash the chances are so slim so he writes in this book why do you think you're so special that you're going to be this in this freak accident it's like why are you so always like if you think that's a really good way because i sometimes think about freak things like you well you're not that special so why do you think your life is not going to be mundane as every other day is for the next 10 years are gonna be the same mundane shit why do you think you're going to have this unique completely you know unusual experience you're probably not and actually we we make ourselves the main character always in our own mind but the chances are our lives just going to carry on day after day the same as the days before but it's it's like a human thing isn't it to try and predict bad things that could happen yeah it's like that hyper vigilance yeah talking about you're mel robbins fan obsessed yeah have you read the book yeah talk to me about the book because it's available it's out now what when did you actually let's talk about your sobriety journey okay when did you start thinking about the fact that you wanted to remove alcohol from your life in this serious way after i had kids okay after i had kids i mean obviously the book is called bad drunk so you know no secret there um i was a bad drunk and how do you how do you define a bad drunk okay so i would define a bad drunk as you know like you've there's i think there's like two types of people with drinking there's people that can kind of handle it and people that can't and people that can handle it They can probably know their limit or they can drink quite a lot and they don't really change.

38:11They're still in control. They can take it or leave it. They know when to stop. And then if you're on a night out with them, they're not going to have any drama. They're not going to be falling over. They're not going to be doing something they regret. And then you have the people that are falling off a table and having fun, but then it all goes a bit sour. There's always a point where it goes,

38:33Olivia Attwood:well, this isn't fun anymore. It's fun to a point, but then you don't know when to stop and black out and, you know, wake up the next morning with that shame, with that regret feeling horrific and being like, I just really wish I hadn't done that. And that was me. And I just couldn't break the cycle. I was like, I'm going to figure this out. Like, I'm going to learn my limit. Like, the next time will be different. I'm just going to drink tequila. I'm just going to have three drinks. I'll stop by nine. I'm going to have a water between each drink. I tried like all these different ways of moderating and none of them worked for me because as soon as I had one drink it was like the fuse had been lit and it was a ticking time bomb Were people around you at that time like friends family were they was it causing friction how you would behave if you drank too much?

39:21I think yeah there were times I could drink and it wouldn't be a total shit show so I think that also kept me for a long time thinking it's not that bad You kid yourself because you're like well I went out that time and it was fine I did just have one glass of wine and it was fine. I didn't do anything crazy. And then I'd be like, okay, I'm not going to drink that often because I just can't deal with the aftermath. But then that almost made it worse. I wouldn't have a drink for ages. And then when I did, the wheels would just completely come off. And I reckon when I was in my 30s was when I really first started to think, okay, I should actually just maybe not drink.

39:52And I actually took a bit of a break from drinking for a couple of months, used a sober coach, like kind of started to understand that my drinking was really unhealthy. but it didn't stop me at that point I don't think I was properly ready to stop I didn't take it really seriously I just was like okay I've taken a few months off like I'm fine and then after I had kids and like after you've had children you're so sleep deprived like your life has changed so much you are literally different like your your brain is different and I found that first baby in lockdown like really difficult and when I did have that kind of mum's night out and go out drinking like it was even more savage because i just wanted that much more susceptible to alcohol you wanted to let loose even more my hormones were different and the anxiety like the next day and i have heard you say that you think anxiety is a made-up construct so i need to question you on this because like i'm like i think it's amazing if you don't just don't get it but i am a very sensitive person i think everyone's so different like how it affects you but I've always had anxiety even since I was a teenager like I feel horrific the next day after drinking

41:01Olivia Attwood:you know my mum messaged me um about that I think it was on was it on Kiss Radio that clip and I talked about the hangout and she's she's like you're such a stupid I mean I'm literally 34 she messaged me you're such a stupid little girl she's like she was like encouraging your young followers to get blackout drunk she's like i've never heard so fucking ridiculous in all my life and i was like well hold on i was like i'm not i am not encouraging anyone to get blackout drunk but someone had called into the show being like anxiety kills me the thing is i know this from you know hang anxiety is is a real chemical imbalance in the brain because your serotonin everything's through the floor so actually it's a very real thing what i and i'm talking to you i really interesting conversation to have because you know as someone that I'm very open about the fact I like a drink I'm still I definitely am still a party girl but I think that there's a difference between people that I think go out and have a good time and then just give themselves hell the next day like yeah my thing to people is always like if you had fun you didn't hurt yourself you didn't hurt anyone else why do you fucking care like don't like at the other hand And if like, you know, you say, if you're going out, you're getting blackout drunk, you're falling out of your friends, you're putting yourself at harm, you're blacking out in a taxi, then you do need to think about your choices.

42:25Olivia Attwood:There is a line, you know, and I think that people shouldn't give themselves a hard time for having fun. And that's my kind of point I was making. But there's a difference between, you know, having a good time and having a good time at a detriment to like your own safety or the like the well-being of people around you. Totally. Because you talk about in the book that there was one of your worst moments. It was a 2016 Monaco Grand Prix. It was very brave of you to like, to kind of like... I would say 10 years ago. Yeah, to pull like this sort of, like to put yourself out there. What was it about that weekend that sticks in your memory of being a kind of low moment?

43:06Olivia Attwood:I don't know if this has ever happened to you. You're in the public eye and you like to party. So I know this happens to lots of people. Oh, pictures. Yeah, you have the night, you know, things get out of control. But you think, even though at the time, you just think you're having fun. Even you might know you've taken it a bit far. You wake up the next day and you're just like, fuck. Yeah. I was pictured. And then it's like that feeling of that anxiety inside of you. And then looking at your phone and seeing 100 messages. And just feelings like you just literally want the floor to open and like swallow you up.

43:41because it's that bad and then like with a shaky hand being like okay looking at you know doing the google search and and it being like way worse than you even could have imagined and just like the shame yeah like I kind of I wanted to put it in the book because I mean a lot of people would have seen it yeah see I know every time I talk about it probably loads more people go and look at it again um but I kind of felt like I had to like own it as well yeah and it was probably like my most mortifying moment ever just seeing yourself pictured in that

44:15Olivia Attwood:sort of stay and like being so wasted and how would you like we talk about anxiety though in a serious way how would you get through those next like the next day would you have another yeah okay so you'd like self-medicate like got out of bed yeah and that would then just kind of quiet the just trying to help you just kind of soothe that feeling of just that absolute dread so you're in that cycle where you're like and then I did end up drinking again to like deal with how bad I felt about it and it was just kind of you know it was like a three-day weekend um and then I kind of had to face the music when I got home that was a bad one if I ever feel tempted to drink it's a very good good thing to look at but you have that like that's like my wall of shame well there is I guess that you know being in this industry is savage and sometimes but there's an accountability factor that you say you almost there's like this you know this digital footprint you know not always but you know sometimes you can't avoid and you can use that I guess as like a marker point to like I don't want to be that person anymore when did you get the sober coach on on board I mean I really should have like decided then to get sober that would have made sense to really wish at that point maybe I'd thought about stopping no that was a thing an option I didn't I know well it didn't really occur to me you know what I thought I just said to myself don't get caught next time yeah so that's what it taught me at the time do it at home or do it somewhere more private don't do it somewhere else yeah so it didn't really i wasn't ready for the lesson at that point when i decided to stop drinking for good nearly four years ago i had had a big night out and i had a massive panic attack the next morning and I do get panic attacks but particularly after drinking that would just be a massive trigger and it was probably the most intense panic attack I'd ever had where I really felt like I was dying and I had young children and it was that fear in that moment of thinking I'm never going to see them again because I literally thought I was like blacking out I really thought I was about to die and when I like kind of a few hours later when I was feeling better I went for a hike I really hung out of a hike and I was like I just said it out loud I was like I just have to stop like I was like this is it I can't do this anymore and it'd been like in the back of my mind I think quite a few times um in the months before I'd gone to a wedding I'd gone to a hen where you know I'd like lost a shoe you know I'd just been that annoying drunk person that people don't want to be around like a liability yeah and I was like this is not who I want to be like I've become somebody else and this is not aligned with the women that I want to be and I finally was just like enough's enough now like this has got to stop I had like two young daughters to think about and I haven't had a drink since I mean that's incredible congratulations on that because that's like a huge feat and it's a huge decision to make and to stick to it as well especially when that has been part of your life like you say you know you probably know more of your life using alcohol as a crutch for social situations than you do without it