I decided that I desperately needed to get sober on 26th March 2016, when I woke up on the floor in a dingy hotel room, with an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s next to me, and no recollection of how I’d got there. Presumably I had been so drunk that I hadn’t even made it to the bed to pass out.
For three years, after a broken neck sustained playing rugby, I’d bulldozered through life in a series of drunken escapades, with little or no regard for anyone or anything around me. Family and friends had tried to help but were ultimately left in despair, a fiancée had given up on me altogether as I showed no signs of ever putting her before the booze. She was right that I couldn’t guarantee there wouldn’t be a ‘next time’; a next time I ended up in hospital with my head split open, or sleeping rough because I’d missed a train home – the latter of which was a reasonably frequent occurrence. (The former, fortunately, less so, but once was too frequent.)
I write in my book, READY, SET, LIFE, that Ollie, the loyal friend who would be best man at my wedding, has subsequently confessed, “It became a team effort to support James, and also to get past the bravado and get the real story about what was going on with him. It just meant worry on different levels; worries after a disappearance to go on a bender; worries about his physical health; and–probably most of all–worries about his state of mind and general mental health.”
But something clicked in my brain on that fateful morning of 26th March. Whether or not we need to hit ‘rock bottom’ to then drag ourselves out of our addictions is another debate, but certainly the fog of a Jack Daniel’s-induced hangover hit me hard enough to affirm that something had to change.
I struggled for a few weeks with the ‘how’ I would get sober because, although I knew I had to do it, I didn’t fully understand ‘why’. Which sounds hard to believe when you think about the havoc I’d wreaked over the previous three years, but that’s the thinking – or lack of it – of an addict, isn’t it? You can’t see the wood for the trees.
A few weeks later – perhaps it was fate, if you believe in such a thing – I found myself watching the London Marathon on television one Sunday morning. And I was overwhelmed with emotion seeing tens of thousands of people battling through the streets of our capital, pushing themselves to their limits, overcoming adversity, raising money for charity, dressed as dinosaurs and carrying fridges. It was an amazing spectacle and it hit me. This. Is. It. This is my ‘why’.
Alcoholics Anonymous encourages you to find your Higher Power, in whatever shape or form works for you. Rediscovering my health and fitness, including setting myself a challenge and sticking to a structured training plan, would give me back the discipline I’d lost from when I was playing rugby, and help me maintain my sobriety. It would be my Higher Power.
The very next day, I got in touch with a charity that I’d previously done some work with, and begged them to hold one of their places for me for the following year’s event. They agreed and I set about the challenge of training to lollop non-stop over a distance of 26.2 miles. Which, bearing in mind my 6ft5, 17-stone rugby-playing-frame, the abuse I had put my body through in those three years of drunken turmoil, and the extent of my running prior to this having only been from tackle to tackle over the 80 minutes of a rugby match, would be no mean feat. I set myself two goals; run the London Marathon, as in the whole thing, no walking, and in a time of under four hours.
364 days later, I crossed the finish line of the 2017 London Marathon … having run every single step … in a time of … drum roll please … 3 hours 55 mins. It was skin-of-my-teeth-type stuff, but I’d done it.
In some ways, being an addict has its advantages. Because I became addicted to sobriety through my fitness. There are two types of people who run a marathon. The first thinks, “That was awful; never again.” The second asks, “That wasn’t so awful; perhaps again?”
I fell into the second camp and, after recovering from some sore muscles, which left me having to walk backwards down flights of stairs due to something called eccentric exercise (which is to do with the lengthening of your muscles and not, in fact, a description of the people who attempt to play quidditch in real life), my new addiction led me down a fascinating road of pushing myself further and further in a series of increasingly arduous marathons and ultramarathons. The definition of an ultramarathon is anything longer than a marathon; and I ticked off 30-, 50-, 60-, and 70-mile events, each time thinking the distance was beyond my limit. But each time proving to myself that with the right mindset you can accomplish anything.
Now, before anyone counters with the argument that we’re confined by our genetics and, if you have parents who are both 5ft6, you’re unlikely to be a professional basketball player or an Olympic high jumper, I do believe this statement to be true. Certainly it has been scientifically proven that if you tell yourself you can achieve something, you are more likely to achieve it – indeed, a study showed that “half of a test group challenged to exercise until exhaustion recorded a ‘placebo-driven 18% improvement,’ when they were taught to use ‘motivational self-talk,’”1.
Take a 70-mile event I did back in 2018, for example, when I found myself trundling across northern England – along Hadrian’s Wall, or what remains of it – and through the spectacular Cumbrian countryside made famous by Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, when he and Morgan Freeman return to England and end up in a tussle with the Sheriff of Nottingham’s cronies over a slain deer. Incidentally, the iconic sycamore tree that features in the scene where Kevin Costner claims, “This is my land and … therefore whatever’s in it also belongs to me” was recently felled in a mindless act of vandalism but a rant about such a heinous crime against nature is best saved for another time. Where was I? Oh yes, Cumbria. The thought struck me that if I could run 70 miles, surely I could run 100. I decided this ‘three-figure itch’ needed scratching and mentally added the milestone to my list of sober goals.
Crossing that finish line after 14 hours of being on my feet, I was broken. I ached from head to toe. Everything chafed. I had blisters on my blisters. The prospect of running another marathon and some more on top of what I’d just done seemed impossible. But reminding myself of the ‘why’ was the fuel I needed to push myself further and I signed up for a 100-mile race the following summer. That took me 20 hours, then it was 25 hours for a 100-mile run with 5,000m of elevation, and 31 hours for a 145-mile race, in which I came second out of 75 crazy starters.
But so what? Well, believe it or not, I’m not going to insist that everyone reading this goes out and runs a series of ultramarathons. Or even one for that matter. I can fully understand why you wouldn’t want to. They hurt. (Did I mention the blisters?) What I am going to insist on, though, is that you believe that you could. Or that you believe you can do whatever it is that drives your ‘why’.
It could be that you’ve chosen sobriety because you want to be healthier or because drinking is no longer serving you. Or because you want to be a better friend, or a more engaged partner, or a more present parent. Whatever it is, focus every fibre of your being on it because reaffirming that ‘why’ makes the ‘how’ a million times easier.
Personally, that Higher Power has now shifted. I keep very active, but fitness is no longer the driver of my sobriety. That’s now my wife and my 18-month-old. They have never seen me drunk and that’s something that I’m fiercely proud of. They are my ‘why’.
My book, READY. SET. LIFE, covers my journey through sobriety and the lessons learned – please pick up a copy.
1. Study: Blanchfield AW, Hardy J, De Morree HM, Staiano W, Marcora SM. Talking yourself out of exhaustion: the effects of self-talk on endurance performance. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2014;46(5):998-1007. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000000184. PMID: 24121242.
With Mastering Mental Fitness you can read a blend of personal narratives, scientific insights, and actionable strategies focused on:
- Movement: Encouraging regular physical activity to boost endorphins and combat stress
- Mindfulness: Promoting practices that foster self-awareness and emotional regulation.
- Connection: Highlighting the role of community and relationships in sustaining mental health.
James’s contributions aim to equip individuals with the tools to build resilience, maintain sobriety, and lead fulfilling lives.
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