The Good Drinker: How I Learned to Love Drinking Less

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Before going to university he was a keen amateur actor, appearing in the Crescent Theatre's musical production of Mary O'Malley's Once A Catholic and Sandy Wilson's The Cheese. Ever since he was a teenager, drinking was his idea of a good time – and not just his, but seemingly the whole nation's. But that’s all I was thinking – mad, selfish, self-seeking, arrogant, proud, intolerant, impatient behaviour. On several occasions I managed to pack everything I needed, only to leave the whole suitcase behind.

Adrian is aware of the blurry - no pun intended - lines between binge drinking, psychological dependency and physical addiction, which destroys lives. in which he spoke again to the same people – more than two years on – on how they now felt about Brexit. Books telling us to give up drinking are 10 a penny, but how about something for those of us who like a social drink but are occasionally worried that two turn into four rather too easily?Or, as someone at the group Chiles goes to for people with alcohol issues puts it: “Does Adrian love Adrian? AC: There’s a therapist I interviewed for my book, and one of the things she does is go through each drink of an evening, and marks what benefit you get from it. In 2004, Chiles appeared with Johnny Vegas and Mackenzie Crook in the film Sex Lives of the Potato Men in a cameo role as the host of a sex party. That’s where Adrian Chiles’s likable and highly readable memoir of his relationship with booze comes in.

On 7 May 2008, his co-presenter on The One Show, Christine Lampard, sang part of a song with Chiles accompanying on piano. TheBookOfPhobiaaAndManias traces the rich and thought-provoking history in which our fixations have taken shape. Another man, Mark, drinks 80 to 100 units a week and has high blood pressure and cholesterol; he’s on beta blockers. AC: And now you must talk, to some extent, about sobriety – presumably there’s not a lot of comedy in lecturing people.AC: I’ve probably got down to between 20 and 30 a week, which is still too much, but it’s a third of what I was drinking. AC: I wish someone had told me – no, I’m blaming other people – I wish I’d been intelligent enough as a teenager to hear: alcohol is a drug, it is addictive, it can lead you into problems and, above all, it’s not the be-all and end-all.

He confirmed his relationship with the newspaper's editor, Katharine Viner, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph in April 2020, saying "I’ve got a horror of talking about relationships. If I was stranded on a desert island and there was one can of Guinness on there, it would still be there the day I was rescued. In January 2018, he was moved to Fridays only and the title was changed to Chiles on Friday, with Emma Barnett hosting from Monday to Thursday under the title The Emma Barnett Show, although the content remains essentially the same. I really came to understand – the only real joy is in the first drink, that affords you a change of state. For BBC One he created and fronted Royal Millions, an investigation of the Queen's finances, as well as reports for Panorama and various documentaries.Discover the captivating origins and hidden meanings of the flags that we all know today in this sparkling tour through this universal subject! He has since created, scripted and fronted a variety of other programmes for the BBC including, for BBC Two, the 2003 series So What Do You Do All Day? I ran the story past a few people I’m close to, who I knew would tell me if they thought it was all bollocks: my teenage daughters; a straight-talking TV producer from Belfast the same age as me; and a slightly older woman from Stourbridge I have worked with for years. That would be absolutely impossible for me to do, because once I have one drink, I then drink to exactly the same point every time. Without it, the meds were so uplifting that I felt there was a risk they might, like it is said about coffee, just help me do a lot of stupid things faster – but with even more energy.

Getting through a few morning pints isn’t the same as the lads he knows who get stuck into the Sambuca. AC: If you meet a friend for a couple of pints, a couple of nights a week, throw in a day out at the football, plus a couple of nights out, a long lunch on Sunday, you’re getting towards 100 units really bloody quickly. In 2020, he participated in Iaith ar Daith ('Language Road Trip'), a show for S4C where he and several other celebrities learned Welsh, broadcast in April 2020. As a radio presenter Adrian currently hosts Question Time Extra Time and Chiles on Friday, both on 5live.He is a supporter of West Bromwich Albion Football Club, [5] where he is a season-ticket holder and presenter on some of the club's official DVDs. Two months later, Chiles has managed to stick to a few non-drinking days a month and developed a taste for alcohol-free beer, but he’s still getting through 25 units a week. It recommends 14 units, but the problem with that is, big drinkers look at it and think: ridiculous.