From Craft Beer Obsession To Alcohol-Free Rituals After A Brain Injury

He went out for a bike ride and woke up almost three weeks later in critical care. Tom’s story is frightening, funny in places, and deeply human: a craft beer lover with “Reinheitsgebot” on his helmet, forced into sobriety after a severe traumatic brain injury and a 19-day coma, then left to rebuild a life where alcohol is suddenly a risk he can’t ignore.

We talk about what that does to identity when beer has been your social glue, your hobby, and your language with friends. We get into craft beer culture and the lure of collectability, the quiet snobbery that can creep into the alcohol-free space, and the reality that routines and rituals don’t vanish just because the ABV does. There’s also the oddly specific stuff only drinkers will recognise: the “fake buzz” after a few AF pints, the fridge full of favourites, and the way a perfect pour can hit you with gratitude when you least expect it.

Tom shares the practical medical side too: depression risk after TBI, seizure warnings, why doctors draw hard lines around alcohol during recovery, and how support networks extend beyond family to community. If you’re sober curious, cutting down, zebra striping, or simply looking for the best non-alcoholic craft beer, this one offers both perspective and real-world tools.

If it resonates, subscribe, share it with a mate who loves beer, and leave us a review so more people can find the show.

Some Important notes from Tom:

Three years ago I suffered a severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) in a road bike accident. Cause unknown. 

I wouldn’t ’wake up’ in critical care at King’s College Hospital until 19 days later. 

I had brain surgery on an extradural haemotoma (bleed between the skull and the membrane which surrounds the brain). 

I went through the same major trauma centre shown in Critical: Between Life and Death on Netflix. (A year before they filmed that show.)

My skull had shattered into seven pieces when my helmet hit the tarmac. It was pieced back together, away from me, then plugged back in to the rest of my skull. It all looked a lot “like tapping a hard boiled egg with a teaspoon” (John, my neurologist). 

Nearly three weeks of coma followed. Within which pneumonia and major organ failure got even closer to finishing me off than the tarmac ever did.

Some key stats would then be shared with me, first at my bedside and later in recovery:
- 50% Chance of developing depression after a TBI such as mine
- 60% of moderate-severe TBI patients never return to full time work in the same roll. (I’m now back to four days per week.)
- Risk of seizure is greatly elevated after TBI/brain surgery. Advised to completely eliminate booze for six months.
- In reality the return to my ‘old full fat drinking self’ is not recommended for years, if at all. 
- My consultants emphasised that the social fabric that booze provides is a critical part of recovery. That’s where the rise of AF slots in.
- AF beer hasn’t saved my life. But it has made living it more fulfilling in ways BIG and small. 
- I’m not an expert in brains or beer. But I feel sufficiently experienced to give my opinion on both, to whoever is unfortunate enough to be cornered by me...

To find out more about the wonderful world of alcohol free beer and to check in with me head to www.instagram.com/sober_boozers_club

This episode is Sponsored by Chance Clean Cider.

Transcript

Welcome And The AF Community

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome everybody to the Stop the Boozers Club Podcast season free with this time. We are not focusing on those that bring you alcohol-free beer. We're focusing on the community of drinkers. In this episode, I talked to Mr. Tom Crock, who is a gentleman that didn't just stumble into the world of alcohol-free beer. No no no. He fell, quite literally, off the bike and into a coma for 19 days. As a self-confessed craft beer boy, Tom had to reimagine what his life was going to look like without beer. Little did he know it was going to look a little bit like this. Hello, sir. Hello. How are you? I mean, we've already done the how are you in private, but for the rest of the world, how the devil are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:49

I'm very well. This is like um when you watch a TV programme and they do a fake hello and they shake hands at the door and all of that stuff. But I'm um Yeah, I'm I'm very well. It's like thank you for having me. It's uh pleasure. My first ever podcast was what do we do, one last week? Yeah. Like it feels a bit like um slight charlatan imposter syndrome of, you know, man speaks about beer that every everyone loves, but I know that it's a bit more niche than that, right? The thing we're into is a bit more niche, but uh Yeah, yeah, slightly.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Although although less and less niche year on year, is what I keep telling myself. Well sometimes it doesn't feel like it, does it? Yeah.

Escaping Nihilism With Small Joys

SPEAKER_00 1:27

I think um it's I I said this the other day, and I said it again for those who didn't get the pre-record to uh a man called Martin Dixon, who I'm sure everyone listening to will know Alcohol Free World. I said how the the club is growing, but it still feels like the kind of the magic period of like when you're into the cool band, or at least you think the band's cool, and you kind of got this kind of posse with you. And it's also friendly and genuinely welcoming because of the situation that it's kind of operating in, kind of people dealing with kind of health issues or alcoholism or whatever it is, and we'll get on to how I came at it, I'm sure. But in a kind of the world of the internet being just an absolute cesspit for 99% of the time, yeah. I have to kind of remind myself to be nice and not be too cynical in that group that we have, because it's quite easy to kind of make it bad for some reason. It's like, oh, why can't not ev it's almost like things can be good and that is it.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

I think there's just there's an there's an overwhelming sense of pessimism to just existing though, isn't there? So it's like, oh yeah, this is brilliant, but when's it gonna kill someone? Oh, this is brilliant, but when's someone gonna get arrested for drink driving because it's gonna continue to ferment in the can? Well, this is brilliant, but when are the macros gonna take over and we're not gonna get any more alcohol-free craft beer? It's that constant voice in your head that's just like, yeah, but things are shit. Things are shit, really, aren't they? I think it's very hard to battle against that just in everyday life, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 3:00

You've put that perfectly. Well summated. Yeah, it's like, what's the word that if I can try and be fancy, highfaluting, it's like en we, right? It's like we we kind of fade to nothing in the end. And it's like we don't always have to be so nihilistic. You can have a beer and go, that was brilliant, and it's not that was brilliant because, right? It's just good. End of you know, what's that it's like good, full stop, no more.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah, the end. The end. I love that we're we're three minutes in, if that, and already we're we're talking about the future that may not exist for us. We're already thinking about not existing and death and all of those wonderful things.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

I can't quite help myself. Like that is the way I um I'm genuinely a happy-go-lucky optimistic guy, honestly. I'm not I'm not some kind of hardcore nihilist, Satanist, awful thing. But it's uh and we will we will kind of get to it. I keep skirting around it and we'll we'll dive in, I'm sure, but like it's not that I live my life kind of every day with the spectral of death over me. I'm just very aware of it, and I'm trying in a way that's not high performance to just be like, enjoy the little things, and guess what? Alcohol-free beer, the reason why I'm talking to you now, is kind of my little thing. So other people find other outlets. This is just the one I kind of dove into.

Becoming A Craft Beer Devotee

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Well, it's it's a little thing, but also it's it's kind of a huge thing for beer lovers that that no longer dabble, shall we say, which we will we will get on to. But first I wanna I wanna kind of ask about your your introduction into the world of beer, because you were a craft beer fan through and through. Am I right? I was a little craft beer boy.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Um I think probably kind of late teens, the 2020s was kind of the peak of it. So I I'm 33 years old right now, which I kind of always forget because in my head I'm still kind of 24, but I that is the age I am. So I'd say for for 10 years I've been drinking loosely what we'd loosely call craft beer, right? And everyone starts at the kind of supermarket end and the brew dogs and stuff, and then working my way through, and before you know it, I'm signed up to multiple subscription boxes, spending 60 quid a month on Fuzz Club, which I still really like. They're a great outlet, but they don't have much AF. Like enough fresh AF, that's why we go to the sloth. So for yeah, ten years I kind of worked my way through that kind of scene, and along with it was kind of a group of my mates, and we we would go to Manchester for a weekend away, and we'd just go round all the breweries drinking, right? And I feel like at this point I want to put a pin in it and say, because you raised something the other day that really stuck with me about this idea of falsely or I don't want to put words in your mouth here, but kind of going, that might be problematic. A little red flag, right? I don't believe any of my friends have pro a problem with alcohol. I think they like their booze, as is their right. And I think the same was true for me. But hindsight is a wonderful thing, and when you look back on it, it's very difficult to unpick because it was all normalized at the time. And I'm very grateful that I didn't go down the path of like having a a problem with alcohol to the point where it kind of inhibited my life in dramatic ways, right? But welcome to Mr. Tangent here, who's gonna go off in a million different directions, but as I raise it, I do have to say it. So I've been with my girlfriend for over ten years now. So she's seen me go from little craft beer boy the whole way through accident, put a pin in that, we'll come to that in a minute, and then she's seen me come out the other side, and she's undoubtedly clear on she I was gonna say she likes me more, you can keep that in. She doesn't she doesn't love me anymore or any less. I hope it's kind of grows right with time, but there is a difference in my personality and the fact I'm more present now, I'm tired for other reasons and other things are going on. But being around someone who isn't constantly chasing six, you know, dippers a night, not that I was drinking six dippers a night, Christ, but like on a Saturday night, once a fortnight, I might go out and have a bit of, I guess it would be called binge drinking, but I would never call it that at the time. So yeah, you end up in the situation where to go back to those trips of round Manchester or just any weekend we go down to Beak, it's near me. We've even been down to Cloud um to we've been up to Cloudwater, down to Verdant, all over the country, and that then kind of silently became the thing we do. Some mates go and watch football, others go and play sports. Our thing was play cards, drink lovely beer. And not for one second do I regret any of that because it built my palette, it built, you know, my friendships, we had a lovely time playing cards and just shooting the shit. Also, booze is kind of lovely. Let's not pretend it's not. Absolutely. I I feel like um I said this, I do feel like a bit of a charlatan in the kind of the AF space because I will have a sip of someone's dipper to try because I'm interested in it. But kind of my base level is hardcore moderation, I'd guess you'd call it. It's not sobriety, but it's somewhere it has to exist above sobriety because I'm not sober. But I really am here for all of the booze list beers.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

That's one of what I'm I would challenge that not being sober because if you haven't been intoxicated, you know, I think you you're okay to have a sip of something if you don't have the the disease of alcoholism. You know, I for me, I it's like cannabis use. People will smoke cannabis and some people say, Well, you're not sober then. It's like, no, because if you didn't have a problem with cannabis, you had a problem with with booze. California's sober, right? California's sober, exactly. You're still sober. So my my argument to you would be that you you do live a sober life. You don't drink to get intoxicated anymore. You might have a curiosity in terms of a palate. And I I think that's fine.

unknown 9:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

That's just I mean, that's my two cents. I mean, my my opinion doesn't mean shit, quite frankly. So I hate to break it to you.

unknown 9:20

Yeah.

Collecting Beer Without Gatekeeping

SPEAKER_01 9:20

But that's my take on it. You know, I mean, I I admitted in the the group session that we that we did, much to some people's shock, that I have I have tried full alcohol beer in a very safe environment and it was it was one sip and that was kind of a limit, but m more so I can understand where my palate is now, now that I've got into the world of beer, because I I I started to love craft beer. This is gonna sound like such a such a disaster, but I started to love craft beer just as I became a fully fledged alcoholic, if you like. That'll get you going, yeah. I was I was a lager drinker through and through. I mean, until until the age of about twenty-two, twenty-three, I smoked a lot of weed, but I'd only drink one beer and I I'd hated being drunk, couldn't stand it. Right. So I'd nurse one bottle of beer throughout a an evening at the pub and I'd smoke a few spliffs. Then I started to get more into beer in my tw in my kind of mid to late twenties, um and it it was always lager. I just loved to lager. And I could drink lager in volume, and I'd drink to get drunk. That that was that was the objective. But once I discovered craft beer, I thought, oh I can drink these at the same volume, but I'm drinking my lagers. And things just went to shit then. So that was my first introduction to craft beer, unfortunately, was just these can get me where I want to go a lot quicker. I didn't really pay much attention to the taste of things, which is, you know, how I became such a problematic drinker. But you know, we we mentioned you look back with with rose tinted glasses, but then you read between the lines and you think, were we problem drinking? I do that with some of my friends historically, and I think they could have been problem drinkers. But the fact of the matter is that they're not. Do you know what I mean? They like I've got maybe one friend that I would say is an alcoholic, and they know that they're an alcoholic, but they're very functioning with alcoholism, and they wouldn't mind me saying that. But the rest of my social group that could have been teaching on the edge but kind of didn't fall into that, I I look at it like a cancer, and that seems like a really thing to say, but it's with alcoholism you've either got it or or you don't have it. I don't think anybody knows what drink tips from over the edge or what point in their life they become an addict, but I I really do believe that there's just something inherently implanted in my brain that I have an addictive personality or whatever it is, but if I got into something, I was always going to become addicted to it. And I'm the same now with with alcohol free beer. If I can't drink it, I I scratch the walls. But yeah, that's that's my weird journey into craft beer. But yours was very much about the discovery, the collectibility, and and everything to do with it, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yeah. It's like um we don't we haven't quite got there yet with alcohol free, I don't think, because we haven't got enough alcohol free breweries doing it on their own. But I guess places like Jumpship are kind of leading the charge, right? But the kind of the big breweries, and by big they're still small, but like Verdant, Cloudwater, Track, those kind of size, Beak, big fed, big fan of Beak, who obviously make Nolia. Um like those guys turn out two or three, it seemed, new beers every week during the summer. So the collectibility of it is and you know, the cynics among us might say they're just doing a tiny recipe change and they're just dry hopping at the last minute and they're just getting too, you know, buried. I don't give a shit. I will have both. Like, and again, it's like because it's all part of that. I was never doing it for these reasons, but in hindsight, I kind of look back and I think, was I doing it because you kind of want to be it's fun to be the person who's like, Have you heard this new song by this band? Right? And it's the same way, it's like, oh, you have to try this, it's really good, because I was the first one to try it. So it's a bit like one-upmanship, right? And so there's always a bit of that, and it's kind of um you look at someone else's, they go, Oh, I got a good beer. I've got a one friend in particular I'm thinking of lots of my mates are very good at drinking lovely beer, but his beer fridge is stocked up to the fucking hill, and it's amazing to look at. And that that's a perfect example of like, I want to try that when you open that can, because it would be something amazing from America or some dipper from Verdant or whatever. So yeah, that was my kind of my journey through craft was I cannot overemphasise how typical late twenties white male I was. Going going around like estate you know, trading estates where the bins are overflowing, there's one broken loo that you have to use. Like you're paying eight pounds a pint. There's there's kind of one kind of ropey pizza stand over there that's ch churning out some pizza, and that was what we did with our Saturdays. Shot in tropical cordial for the rest of the week just to get through. Yeah. So so that's where we are. And then I'll I was I'll mention this at the start of my kind of craft journey, my full fat, if you like, craft beer journey, because it came up the other day actually. It was it's called Lupalin Threshold Shift, which is like the most nerdy craft beer kind of hypothesis you can get. But to kind of bastardise the approach that it takes, it's basically you start off on quite a simple, lovely craft beer from a local brewer, and then over the course of years you'll drink more and more hoppy stuff, and your tolerance for bitterness changes, and your tolerance for booze might go up, so you suddenly want to start drinking dippers rather than single IPAs, all that kind of stuff. So I did I don't think I was drinking quite enough with like the hardcore people who check in 10,000 beers a year on untapped, something insane. But I was kind of moving through that kind of pathway, so I was kind of up in the ante. It's why I've got a massive palette for New Zealand hops. I think they're amazing, I love them. It's why I was so into Phantasm when Mash Gang put Phantasm out, like how nerdy do you want this to get? Like all of that stuff I'm really into. And I'm convinced, I'm slightly jumping forward to my alcohol free days now, my current days, but I'm convinced this kind of threshold shift is happening, which is quite exciting, because it means alcohol-free beers getting better. So it means the beers that I tried when I first got into AF in summer of 2023. At first I thought there were some real winners in that, but there were a few of them, but I think I kind of had trouble thinking they were up to scratch at first, which I think is a lot of people's first instinct. And then I'll go back and I'll drink those kind of those good ones from back in the day, or even just like a bottle of a cold bottle of Stella at a barbecue in the summer really did work the first summer I had it, and I was like, yeah, fine, supermarket beer, we're here. And now I'm just like, but you know, I've actually got these incredibly nuanced different lagers I like and pills and some we can be friends, so actually I'm j I'm just a massive snob, right? As I think a lot of us are, whether we admit it or not. We kind of like when someone says, I found this new lager and I love it, the it inward in me I go, it's not as good as my one I had the other day though.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

So and it and it's obviously I'm guilty of uh I see it on people's when whenever I get tagged in a video or whenever somebody comments and it's like, Oh, have you tried the Days Lager? Brilliant. Days lager, great, supermarket lager, oh brilliant. And in my head, I'm like, right, you've got to be the guy now to be like, awesome, you go, you go try those alcohol-free beers. I support your journey, but in my head, I'm like, if you ever fucking t talk to me about Days Lager again. I mean, obviously not that violently, but no, I do find that I have to check in that kind of snobbery level in myself. It's like when people complain about the cost of it and how much alcohol-free beer costs, a risk of sounding incredibly white middle class. The cost of it has never even crossed my mind because it's like, well, how much do you pay for a craft beer? I don't know. A craft beer is worth whatever a hacking can says it's worth. And I take the same approach with alcohol free. It's just that's the price of it. Why not? I've never questioned it. I've never wanted to buy cheap alcohol free beer. I wanted to buy cheap beer with alcohol, but I've never wanted to buy cheap alcohol free beer.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Hmm. Yeah, it's like I let I shop in Audi every week, right? I'm out in myself here. I shop in Audi every week, but I will not scrimp on my beer. So that's a that's a decision I've made, right? And other people will get they'll go out and get the best car they can afford, and that's their thing, and they'll put new wheels on it or whatever, right? Like my thing is this. This is where I'm channeling my energy, and I will find other areas of my life where I don't need to go to shopping in MS every week. I love applications as much as the next man. But um, so yeah, the the price has never come into it. And in my in my day job, I kind of work for a what you might call like a high-end hospitality, so it's like a pub, farm shop, places, holiday lets and stuff like that. And so all I'm doing all day when I'm marketing those businesses is showing like the quality is worth it. So I'm justifying it all over the place. And with some people that's you just have to justify it by being like, this is for you, because you know, we have the right coffee making machine or whatever, and they just get it. And other people you have to kind of really over-explain. But what I've found is the kind of the inner sanctum core of the kind of AF scene that you've very much created, particularly with this group we have, is the people who just get it. They're the people who just you don't need to over-explain it to. But I guess the key is to not put out put off anyone who wants to join in by being like point at them, ha ha, you like days, like your palliative.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely not. That's that's what I mean. I have to I have to rein that part of me in because it is it's very easy to fall into that trap of being like, oh well I'm really into this, and all of my friends in this group that we have now are really into these really fancy beers, and I've got my I've got my second family now of beer lovers that I could talk to every day. And then you see people talking about supermarket beers over the internet and being like, Oh yeah, that one's quite good. And I think it's just I want to protect the little sector of beer that I love by being like, No, there's so much more out there. Like, please, please don't drink that. But then also, if that's people's only way to access it, then that's that's what they're gonna drink, and that's you know, complete.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

I've got a in case this were when this beer stops, I've got my favourite supermarket beer. I said it last time, it's a straya down. Like, there is nothing wrong with it. Go out and buy crates of it, it's brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Well, I I buy supermarket beers every day. And it's it's for collectability. So again, this is not even for collectability, this is the addict in me still. I I have one idea of like Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

What's the this was one of my key questions for you is what's the what's the volume of beer that you kind of w at what point do you go that's enough for today?

SPEAKER_01 20:40

When I go to bed. Okay. So I my my routine, I've got a very structured routine, is maybe three, four o'clock, I'll pick what beer I want to film out of my upstairs fridge. Upstairs fridge. That's my my kind of content room fridge. I found I sound like such a dick, but my little bar that I've built in my second bedroom, I've got a fridge in there that's full of one single cans. So I've got like the latest jump ship in there, or I've got whatever I've had to get or I've been sent to to film. I'll pick one of those beers and I'll film it. Then I'll cook dinner, finish that beer with that, and then I'll go to the downstairs fridge, the food fridge, which is usually full of at the moment it's Lucky St. Wheat beer, um, the there's Guinness in there, any duplicates if breweries have been really kind and sent me sent me some beers with duplicates going there, they get drunk first. But those beers, like the supermarket beers, they're my favourite beers to drink. Because forever beers when I'm I'm not it's not work, but I'm not working. I'm just enjoying them for me. Yeah. So I I jest about supermarket beers, but I do bloody love them. Um I mean if I go and venture out to a bottle shop I'll make sure that in a bottle shop I'll only buy beers for Already drunk before. Because then that feels really, really nice to get home and have nice beers, but I can just sit and be like, Yeah, I actually really bloody love this. But I'll drink my average, I'll probably drink about four or five a day.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

That was my nosy question I had. Because I think there's a this is kind of like peering like how the other half live, or right. It's like I if I have like one or two a night, right? Holly, my girlfriend, does say like I drink it just like I used to drink. So used she used to think I was drinking too much, and I would then have that kind of conversation. It's like, well, I don't think I am, and I'm not getting pissed. But if you drink six and a half percent beer every night for your entire life, it doesn't have to be alcoholism to still have an impact on your internal organs, right? So she thinks I've just kind of like subbed it out for this, which is kind of entirely true. So I just wondered if you were the same, if like you've basically just gone Yeah, I've I've fully replaced it.

When Alcohol-Free Beer Saves Lives

SPEAKER_01 23:02

It's just now, you know, I'm when it's time for bed, it's time for bed. You know, I'm not I'm not gonna just go and get another bottle just for the sake of staying up to drink it, because it's like, well there's no point in doing that. You know, I've I've had enough enough like of being awake for the day. So I'm just gonna go to bed now, whereas before, it's like, oh no, I'm gonna keep going back, I'm gonna keep going back. But my daily supermarket visit, I think, does come directly from having to go to the supermarket every day to stock up on on booze. So I think that is still it's part of the thing. It's like go get your nightly beers, limit yourself to free. I'll always get three bottles of like proper job or a four pack of Estrella or three bottles of of Lucky Saint or whatever. Limit yourself to free because that's all you're gonna drink. I think that's implanted into my brain. But then of course I'd I'd never just drink the free alcohol beers that I bought, I'd then raid for cupboards and drink people's whiskey and you know, all of that messy stuff. Um, is still there. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And do you know what I wouldn't although it sounds like a very sad, depressing ritual because I mean, you know, I was very sad and depressed. I tried to I can kill myself twice when I was an addict, but the ritual now is so different. Like I I will pour up a beer now and a tear will form in my eye sometimes. And I've had that with I poured the most perfect pills up recently, and I just looked at it and it hit the light, and everything came flooding back to me, just like what this beer represents. And it was really it's pathetic when I say it out loud. But actually it's like this stuff saved my life. This b this this little beer here, not the exact beer of course, because that'll be a silly thing to say, but the fact that this exists, I wouldn't be here without this. And it is that deep for some people.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Yeah. So I mean, you're very eloquent at speaking on that, right? And it's it is a powerful thing, and I think well done for sitting with it, because there's a slight sense of Britishness, which is like, this is awkward, this beer saved my life. Because But like I I share that sentiment so kind of profoundly, but from a different zone, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Yeah. Yeah, because yours was a very different journey, wasn't it? From going from drinker to non-drinking drinker, you had a well, a pretty dramatic route in, shall we say. Yeah.

The Crash, The Coma, The Helmet

Depression Risk And Support Networks

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Do you want me to give the quick rundown? Go on then. So it's the night of the 5th of August, 2023. So it's literally is that is correct. Um I um fell off my road bike, crushed my road bike, whatever you want to call it. I was cycling along, came off my bike, and I woke up 19 and a half days later in King's College Hospital in critical care. So complete it's not just knockout, it's coma time, right? So um I this is like my origin story for AF, right? So I'm I'm really keen to get it right because I've I've thought about this a lot and I'm trying to uh piece together the story in a way that's kind of succinct but is kind of clear because what I had was called a traumatic brain injury, people shorten it to TBI, and it is a far-reaching thing. So I had, I say with a big smile on myself, on my face, what's called a severe TBI. So I had one of the better ones. So I have something called uh an extra dural hematoma, which happened when my head hit the road. I was wearing a helmet. I need to make that clear. Please, everybody's listening, wear a helmet when you ride a bike. It saved my life. My helmet, by the way, had Reinheit's gebot on the back of it, which is the four purity laws of German brewing. So I've always been a little beer boy. It's very kind of um little touch point through the whole thing that the helmet that saved my life had the purity laws of German brewing on it. I got um Hem's team, which is the Helic helicopter service, by road because it was too stormy, took me to King's College Hospital. I was found after fifth I'm doing this in the wrong order. I was found after fifteen minutes when my hit head hit the tarmac. If I'd have not been found after fifteen minutes, I would be either permanently brain damaged or dead. It's quite hardcore stuff, right? And then go to King's, get the best free at the point of service healthcare on the NHS. Thank you very much. Can you imagine anyone that would want to take that away from us? I know, it's funny, isn't it? But he would make our pints 5p cheaper. I've got a um I've got an idea bubbling away. I am I also write about alcohol-free beer, but not into the same extent as Martin Dixon, he's very good. I'm just a mere Charlton in comparison. So that was that was kind of the big incident of my life. It was a Saturday night, head hit the tarmac, completely out, woke up in critical care after pneumonia, nearly dying in that. All quite bleak and stressful for my family, right? They come in to visit me every day and all of that stuff. And then let's cut to waking up in hospital, because that's the first bits I remember, and slightly dodgy memory for obvious reasons, because you're kind of Yeah, I think we can allow that. You pump pumped the absolute gills full of fentanyl, so you're on the most hardcore pain relief you can get, and you're kind of not all there hallucinating and stuff. And you've just been in a coma. And I've just been in a coma, right. And you're not people have to explain eight times a day where you are, what you're doing, all these texts. But when I first start to come round, which is like a day and a half after being reanimated, if you like, out of it, because the coma is you are sedated in the coma for the set for your betterment, for your own health. It's not that I knocked myself I did knock myself out, but it's not that I knocked myself out for those 19 days. A guy comes in called John, who's a neuroconsultant, nurse neuroconsultant, and like one of the most the best bedside manners you could ever have, like the nicest man on the planet, deeply caring, exactly what you want in this situation. And he told me a few key facts, and it touches back on what you were talking about when you were drinking, because the first stat I remember was after a brain injury like mine, you have a 50% chance of developing depression. And that just has hung over me like a specter for three years. And whilst I've had low moments, I'm incredibly grateful that I've never quite experienced what I, as I understand it, would be a depressive episode. Yeah, really keen not to be like, whoop do you do, go me, I'm not depressed.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

But like No, no, I think there's nothing wrong with saying, but you know, I thank goodness that you don't have that. Like, that's very there's nothing wrong with celebrating the fact that you haven't so far encountered one of those situations because they are they are horrible and it it would be a horrible thing to have to have to go through. So yeah, but you you're completely right in being grateful for that.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

In what do you do, yeah. So I think there's there's things that you put in place to not go there when you've had a brain injury a bit like mine. First of all, it's a support network, right? So that is obviously friends and family, loved ones. But if you can extend that out, it is also things like our group chat, right? And that group chat comes alive with and I do kind of have to wind my neck in a bit, and I don't contribute as much when people are talking about having maybe like a a slip-up, or or they've thought about oh, I nearly did today because I can't empathize, but I can't I can't walk in their shoes, right? What I can try and offer from my point of view is that to a different extent and from a different angle, alcohol-free beer has changed my life for the better. So it's it's improved my overall well-being, it's improved my relationships with my friends and family. As I said earlier, Holly likes me more now because I don't drink, she's gonna enjoy that. But because we're on the kind of path to alcohol-free beer getting better all the time, this relentless growth of it, whether it's the sheer volume of it and also the quality, the two are going out. It's allowed me to kind of plug back into my old life so I can go out and I can albeit I now leave at ten o'clock rather than you used to get the last train home, I can actually participate and be there. And I mentioned this the other day to someone, I can't quite remember who, anyway. It seems that my friends have taken it in the spirit that I was worried so I was worried about losing my mates, right? Because I it was a big part of my social circle. I didn't think they were going to abandon me in any kind of dramatic way, but I just thought it would be a slow kind of fading out and you'd stop being invited to things. Just be different. It would be enough, isn't it? Exactly. I didn't want to be different, I wanted to be normal. And when you're recovering from a brain injury, Christ, you just want to be normal, right? You don't want to be fundamentally changed. So as far as I'm aware, I'm still the same person. I've got the same sense of humour, and I'm very grateful for that, and I can remember lots of long-form memories of like my previous, you know, life before the accident or whatever. But I was really hung up on this idea of just slowly the invite's drying out and kind of dissipating. But the opposite has happened because I guess I've picked my friends quite well, and we've known each other for so long, that they just kind of will now at the AF beer weekend, a perfect example, right? You had ten alcohol-free beers on, ten full fat beers on, and it was also putty day, which is like a big thing for the in the world of crafting nerds. So loads of my mates came to that. Like I think five of us went in total. All held a burger, had loads of beers, a lovely evening out, right? Fun for all the family. Would recommend. But one of them, Zebra Stripe the whole way through, but he didn't know that's what he was doing. He was just collecting beers in the same old way. And then the next morning, our group chat fires up, and guess who hasn't had the shits the next morning? Guess who's not bleary eyed? Like he's bushy-tailed, he's ready to go for a run. And I was like, sometimes you just have to lead the horse to water, and there you go. But it was a nice little kind of tiny, neatly packaged little point of like, here's my mate discovering it all on his own, without me shoving it down his throat. This is an option. And guess what? One of them was pretty ropey. There was a Norman Monk one we didn't like, but all the others were shit hard.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Yeah, but it was um it was beyond, wasn't it? Norman Monk Beyond as the so intense. In terms of just like, I think they got the like dank bitter note down, but then I think they just went more, more, more, to the point where it was like, fuck mate. I I that beer that evening, because we Martin and I were there on on the Saturday, and that was my fifth pint, and I got halfway through, and I looked at my hands and they were trembling. And I was like, right, this is either sugar rush or this is just like it was too much, like too much consumption of something. Um it's like the the weird effect that alcohol free gives you when you've had a certain amount, all of a sudden you do feel a little bit like dehydrated almost. 100%. It's weird, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 34:20

That the kind of that phenomenon, the the fake buzz that you get from it. I think it's like a learned behaviour kind of thing. I think as ever, it's nuanced and there's many things going on. But I do think if you've been drinking as long as we have before we went for alcohol-free beer, right? So it's like you kind of learned all those behaviours, and we mentioned rituals a minute ago. It's kind of you're fulfilling all of those things, you're in that setting, you're relaxed, you're with your mates, and then before you know it, it's time to walk home and get the last train, and you go to run and you're a bit wobbly. But it's just because you've set up too quick or whatever, rather than you're not absolutely blotted, right? But I think that well, that was the other thing that I was gonna mention about alcohol-free beer and brain injury, which is very much my niche.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Is because I'm really keen to brain injury affects so many people, and many people you don't even know that they've been affected by brain injury, because it concussion does count, by the way. Like you don't have to I know I was making a joke about I had quite a good one, but on the scale of it, it does get much, much worse than mine. It can be self-inflicted, like me hitting the ground, it can be someone whacking you in the face. I've a part of a group recently, a guy got punched in the face and he was on the same trial as me. Other people have an aneurysm, which are terrifying, right? Because that's just inside you. And I've fucking lost my thread because I've got a brain injury. I do I blame my brain injury when it suits as well, which is Yeah, it's very useful. Very useful. I recommend. On the one hand, don't ever say that I'm forgetful, because I'll find it really offensive, but if I can't remember my thread, I'd just be like, oh, I've had a brain injury.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

But to your right, you can hold that against us. You can hold that against us all all day long, quite frankly. Nobody can question it.

unknown 36:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

So we were on alcohol-free beer and the the a relation to the brain injury.

Doctors’ Rules On Alcohol After TBI

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Yeah. When during during my recovery period, which is frankly a lot longer than I thought it was going to be. Let me move to a slightly different point and I think I'll try and move on. Here's a good test of can I remember my thread? When I was seeing that guy John in hospital, and he came to my bedside and gave me that stat about depression. He then told me some really practical stuff, which is really important to understand, and they have to kind of get through because they they need to tell your parents this, your partner this, or whoever your kind of chaperone is, because you might not remember. And it's stuff like you need to hand your driving licence in to the DVLA and you can't drive for a bit until they say you can. Really practical stuff like that, which is kind of tick. You don't want people with brain injuries a week after driving. And then he got to know me as a person. We kind of really got along quite well, and we kind of shared interest in Adam Curtis documentaries, and we got really niche into that, and we kind of nerded out about that for a bit. And then he's like, What's your social life like? Or what do you do for fun? So I explained, and he was like, okay. He paused and then he explained to me in a very simple but matter-of-fact way that you cannot drink any alcohol for the next six months. Just like, no nuance about it. This is where there is no nuance in life. He just said, For your own sake, you cannot do it. And I took that on board in the way that I'm like I'm a good little boy, and when a doctor or a nurse tells me to do something, they're cleverer than me, I will do it. The next logical question is, well, can I have a beer on six months and a day? Because I I hadn't I'm not I wasn't where I am now. I was looking for my old life to come back as quickly as possible. And he goes, Well, that's a thing, seizures are a thing, and I'm incredibly grateful that I've not had a seizure, but in the first six months it's when your brain's resetting, you're coming off heavy opioids, if you add alcohol to that mix, even like too much coffee potentially to that mix, you can start to imbalance yourself. So you do have to be quite careful. So I come to my kind of wider point here, which is I said, Well, how long is this piece of string, John? Like, when can I have a drink? And he said, Ultimately it's your choice after six months. You're a you're a you're a big boy, you can go and make your own decisions. But for the love of God, don't play full contact sport and hit your head. Don't don't go out and get hammered, because you will put yourself at significant risk of seizure. Like the numbers are terrifying. And also if you fall over. Completely. So I was always a lovable drunk, right? I was never really getting in trouble, I wasn't getting in fights or anything like that. I'm very grateful for that kind of part of it. But you become much more aware of it after a head injury, which is quite good. It shakes shakes some sense into you. But he then said, if it were him, I said, like that's I put the put it to him and said, if you're in my shoes, and he said, honestly, I wouldn't think about beer for the first I wouldn't think about any alcohol for the first year, and then I might, on the very occasional social occasions, I might have one beer. I might have a half to start with, and I'd always do it with a friend who can like chaperone me and you know do that kind of thing. And he said you'd taper that off over the course of five years. So I'm just over halfway through this five year period, which is why I say occasionally I'd be like, Let me have a sip of that. In the early days of me saying, Can I have a sip of that? I have a vivid memory of one of my friends saying he nearly texts Holly, my girlfriend, being like, He's drinking. Because we there is also there is an alcoholic in our circle who doesn't drink any AFs, right? It's it's a trigger for him.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

So that's our experience of it. So when I was like, Oh, let me have a bit, he kind of went to that default and I was like, I'm different, I'm okay. But then as soon as you start saying, Oh fine, the game's already lost, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Or just completely. Completely. But I I would say I was just listening to that that narrative and kind of putting myself there, or trying to put myself there, as I'm sure anybody that that listens will. And I'm this isn't me trying to be like, oh this person had it worse than this person, or this person had it worse for me. But I would so much rather have been an alcoholic that realized that they had to stop for themselves than have something that I love just taken away from me. Like there and then, that wasn't problematic. Because my I can look back at my relationship with Booze and think of the good times that then led to the shit times. So I almost had a transitional period where I was trying to barter with myself, but I knew the game was up. You know, I I was six points for the season and there were five games left to play. Mathematically I wasn't relegated, but I knew. I knew I was fucked. Um I'd already made peace with that really. Whereas for somebody that didn't have a problem with it, but still it was a part of your identity. Me thinking of that, it's a much worse reality to be in.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Yeah, okay. I think it's always interesting because it's like, you know, you've lived your version, I've lived my version. I'm I think we're both empathetic to a large degree. I would hope so.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

I would hope so. I'd say for you, you were probably you're probably listening to me talk about my my addiction and thinking, like, thank fuck, I didn't have to deal with that. You know?

Grieving Your Former Self

SPEAKER_00 41:42

Well, I think it's like I've almost had this kind of misplaced sense of guilt that I was able to enjoy alcohol and kind of stop. And occasionally, yeah, I'd push it and be like, Yeah, let's get another beer, but it wasn't like a Yeah, but that's normal. It's more like I'll get the final rounding kind of thing. Yeah. But there's something that it crops up a lot in um there's an amazing charity called Headway, which anyone who's into head injury, like I am, I would fully recommend. And I've read all of their endless leaflets about head injury. And one of the key things that jumped out at me recently, because I kind of reread them every now and again because I don't quite trust my memory. And uh it's this idea of grieving for your previous self. Your and I guess this is true across many aspects. It might be you've come out of a long-term relationship and you're grieving your old past, or you've had an injury of some kind, or you've had, you know, in your example, you've made a conscious decision at some point, and then from then on, you're looking at that date. I don't know if you have a hard date, but you're then you're then before and after that date. So I have that in my own way and you have it in yours. But the the notion of grieving for your former self, I hadn't quite put that all together in my head. And then I realized that in lots of I do lots of um I think I'm a it's like prized wanker territory of like journaling stuff, but I I had a I did some therapy to avoid the old depressos, right? And I was like, let's take some affirmative action. And um so did that. And I would recommend good therapy, I wouldn't recommend the therapy I had, I thought it was quite bad, but some interesting stuff came out of it, which was the idea of basically chucking it all out there on a page. And I think some people are really good at putting themselves out there on on on like Instagram speaking to camera, such as yourself. And then I think I'm more of a inward, I'll write it all down, and then that became something else, and I started talking about it like on a public forum. But um that helped me kind of grasp this idea that without putting my finger on it, that I had kind of I was worried about gre I was preemptively grieving for my former self because I hadn't given myself a chance yet to see how good in our example alcohol free beer can be, or that my friendships would stand the test of that. So I thought I'd raise that because I I think it's an interesting point, no matter what your relationship is with. If you're big into alcohol-free beer and you're not zebra striping, so you're not kind of actually I won't even say not, because I think zebra striping's brilliant. I'm certainly not saying it's a good thing, but if you've basically tried to go teetotal, then there is a kind of a before and after, a bit like mine. But what I'm hoping is that I can, in the fullness of time, be able to just my dream is I feel quite awkward saying this for an alcoholic, but here I go, is to be able to have like a really nice pint of cask by a fire on Christmas Eve. And like that's so just like wholesome and like good, right? And um and to not and to think, do you know what? I might even have two. Like that's that's big stuff. But the beauty of it is that I have found, whether it's I've tricked my brain or otherwise, I've replaced I'm not gonna say replaced, I've said it now. I haven't replaced my love of craft beer, full fat craft beer with AF. I found a new passion in it, and that is what makes me what makes me interested in it is like all the old things that I was interested in crafts. It's the storytelling, the brewing, the sharing it with your mates, the idea of being like you've got to try that one. It's like it's alive and well, but in my early days of recovery, it wasn't there. And um so I guess to kind of like wrap all of that up in my attempt to pretend like I can follow my own thread, I'm so grateful if I'm at risk of sounding painfully American that I'm like I've ridden the wave of craft beer to get here because I genuinely don't think it was there yet when I started. There were really good people doing it, and I'm sure there'll be someone out there who'll be like, it was actually brilliant in 2023. But the stuff I was drinking and first exposed to, frankly, was so poor as a level that I'm glad I persisted. Yeah, this isn't like a um trying my best not to make this like a soliloquy, like a preaching of things, but like I would really encourage anyone to stick with it and to just immerse yourself and nerd out a bit and find because you might love a Belgian beer. I don't love Belgian beers, you were speaking about them earlier. Oh okay. Because they tasted synthetic banana-y, but I do like an alcohol-free Belgian beer. I do like an alcohol-free Westie, but I didn't like a full-fat westie. So it's like you will find your thing, you just have to. It's the whole thing about like when you give an an aunt or an uncle their first craft beer and you watch their face and they're just like grapefruit, you know, like Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, when Homer eats a lemon in the Simpsons, it's like you see that reaction. But if you persist, you will get there. And New Zealand hops are the way forward.

Social Life, Confidence And Missing Booze

SPEAKER_01 46:52

I feel like. I remember my first experience of New Zealand hops for the first time I I knew what a New Zealand hop was that I was drinking. And it was actually at at Attic. They did a collab beer with I can't even remember who, it was a long time ago. And it was like, yeah, New Zealand hops. And I was like, oh, so that's what all of those flavours I've been drinking recently are because I I fell into flavour post post sobriety. I started to get into really into craft beer and understand what craft beer was and and started talking about craft beer in sobriety. I was I'd never done that before. So if if you were to take those those two versions of yourself, if you like, and compare them, let's say on a on an average night out.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Is there that much difference now? Obviously if if we and I'm not saying let's forget about your traumatic head injury. I'm not I'm not saying that, but if we were to ignore that obvious elephant in the room that is, you know, well, I didn't have a brain injury before, and I do now. But if we're talking purely on a beer sense and we ignore the the A B V, is there a difference in in behaviour really? Or would you say that it's it's more or less the same, it's just got a different shape.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Yeah, I think it is it is different, and it's kind of it's a slightly kind of awkward topic to broach in some ways, because there are still bits of it that I miss, and like there are bits, you know, the kind of the classic thing of like, guess what, talking to people's a bit easier. Yeah. But I think in a reverse way, whacking my head so hard and sadly addressing the elephant in the room has caused me to be a bit more confident in sobriety, if I'm allowed to say sobriety, because I haven't got the choice, right? I haven't got the fullback of um, you know, eight pints of Guinness or whatever. So it's you kind of take away that option, but it isn't there for me at the moment, and I don't think it ever quite will be there for me, like it used to be. Like I don't think I'm gonna get back up to the good old days, right, and and go back to it like that. So I think on a fundamental level, I'm I'm still the same person, I still tell the same jokes, share the same stories, all of that stuff. The only noticeable physical change is the fact that I do now arrive at 6 pm and leave at 10pm, whereas I used to arrive at 5 and leave at midnight. And that and that again does come down to the elephant. I'm a very tired boy. I've got a good reason for it. But Christ, it makes you very sleepy having a bruised brain. But again, that then is to my benefit in the long term, because guess what does also make you sleepy? Booze, and I'm then more fucking dizzy all the time as well, and that's got nothing to do with booze, but like it's it sets me up to be the best version I can. And I keep coming back to this point about what Holly said to me, but it really sticks with me, and I love it very much. But when she said like she prefers me now, she said it with a smile on her face, knowing that it would get a reaction. But I think it's like a it's a vote of confidence, right, in like you've you're doing well, you've made the right decisions. And because whilst I'm not quite at the end of that five-year journey, if we can be as crass as calling brain injury recovery five years, because you don't think you ever truly there's not an end point. You just always have a brain injury.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

It's kind of that mark that you've set in your own head, sort of that that that existing five-year kind of bracket that you have you have created almost, or that you've been given as a basic guideline.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

Yeah, like the they don't set it off, but I'm always gonna have the dog bones holding my skull together. Like they don't set the airport alarm off, right? Which I was quite disappointed on because I I went through head first like that. But so there's there's kind of physical manifestation. I'm always gonna have a dent in my head. Luckily, I've got a full head of hair, you can't see it. I was very nervous about that. But like it's it's always gonna be there. It's always a reminder, but I think you uh God, it really does you start to come across like uh I start to come across like more some kind of fucking high performance podcast, but it's like you do you learn to live with it and you learn to really enjoy the stuff that brings you genuine joy. And at first I thought I was lying to myself. When you've done as much therapy and life coaching as I've done, a lot of it comes down to what I construed as lying to yourself, which is not conducive to a positive route forward. So I took that and I thought I was lying to myself about alcohol-free beer. And I've either believed that lie and I fully psyoped myself, or it's actually true, and I'm I'm getting better at going, no, it's actually true. Don't worry, you're not lying to yourself. I think it is that good.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

Well look, thank you for being fond, so so open as as you are famously online and wonderfully so about everything that you have had to deal with since having that little whoopsie, shall we say. That little da that little raspberry. It's a pleasure just to talk to you about this, and it it's really interesting to talk to somebody that that will admit that there is a part of you that misses the full fat scene. Because I think I think people that say that they don't are as we've just discussed, I think they're lying to themselves a little bit. Because there's a reason that so many people drink booze. Because it is just it's a good thing. It's a good thing until it's not. And I say that as an alcoholic that that will never touch well hopefully, all being well, we'll never touch the stuff again. Very anti alcoholics. I'd be lying to myself if I said I didn't miss it. So thank you for the chat. It's been really interesting, and it's all it's always nice to talk to another alcohol-free beer lover. So thank you very much.

Thanks, Socials And Goodbye

SPEAKER_00 52:42

Well, thank you very much for having me on my first solo podcast. Very much appreciated. And thank you, like I'll say it now as well. Thank you for everything you're doing, right? It's like, let's all kind of bow down to you. Handful of people. You're you're operating in a very small niche. You are a big fish in a small pond, and long may it last.

SPEAKER_01 53:01

Making me blush over here, my goodness. Thank you everybody for listening to this episode of the Sober Boozers Club podcast. My name's Ben Gibbs. You can find me on all the socials at Sober Boozers Club. I want to say a huge thank you to Tom for being so open and so candid about his enforced sobriety. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope that whatever you do today, it's bloody lovely.