The Good Drinker: How I Learned to Love Drinking Less

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In 2019, Chiles wrote an opinion piece detailing his experience after several publications such as the Mail on Sunday republished false information about his alleged marriage to a woman named Maria Walsh in his Wikipedia article, presumably from erroneous information within a Daily Mail article. [39] The Daily Mail article has since been corrected. [40] JR: If you go online and ask: “Am I an alcoholic?” you get these long questionnaires: has alcohol ever affected your work life? Have you ever missed work due to alcohol? Has your family ever worried about your drinking? The questions are ridiculous because they are so broad. There’s not anyone who has ever been drunk, who wouldn’t be able to go, “Yeah, I lost a day to a hangover. Yes, it’s affected my mental health.” And, in some ways it doesn’t matter; your liver doesn’t care if you’re an alcoholic or a heavy drinker. But the real difference between us is that if we went to the pub and had two pints and then went home, you would be fine, and I would be in hell. Because I’d turned the machine on, the machine would want me to keep on going. My issue has always been that if you can stop, then you drink with impunity. That was very damaging, because it meant that I could go on drinking 100 units a week, thinking that was fine Adrian Chiles A scan of his liver shows he has mild to moderate fibrosis – scarring – of the liver and “significant liver fat”. “You can’t carry on like this,” his doctor tells him. Chiles is at risk of cirrhosis, end-stage liver disease and liver failure. “And death?” says Chiles. “And death,” the doctor confirms. We are all at risk of death, of course, it’s just that heavy drinkers are taking as much as 20 years off their lives. He can reverse the damage, but it involves drinking much less and having three to four consecutive alcohol-free days. This leaves Chiles as flat as leftover champagne. On 6 September 2010, he made his first appearance on Daybreak, ITV's new breakfast television programme. [20] The show failed to capture a larger market share than its competitor Breakfast, and on 18 November 2011 it was announced that Chiles would be axed from the show. He was replaced by Dan Lobb. [21] AC: When you’re doing your standup, how much of the audience is under the influence? Because it’s quite a big thing with comedy.

AC: I just happen to have an off-switch with drinking, in a way that I don’t have with food. Left to my own devices, I can eat myself to an absolute standstill. But I wouldn’t give myself that get-out, because I’ve got, probably, a less good on-switch than you. Anything can get me to start drinking. If you’ve got an easily triggered on-switch, and no off-switch, then you really have got a problem. Methven, Nicola (19 November 2011). "Christine Bleakley and Adrian Chiles axed as hosts of ITV flop Daybreak". Daily Record. Glasgow. Archived from the original on 30 July 2012. In April 2007, Chiles was a guest host of BBC One's satirical news quiz, Have I Got News for You. [11]

AC: Moderation is complicated. It’s more complicated than stopping in the sense that everyone knows you’ve stopped. There is no more decision-making. I’ve got 100 decisions to make all the time. I’m not looking for pity here, but I have to decide now, what will I drink tonight? I know all this, but I still worry. There’s something unsettling – as well as reassuring – in the increase in diagnosis and medication. When I type “ADD diagnosis” into Google, the first thing to come up is an ad for a Harley Street place offering “online diagnosis for ADHD today”. And further down the search suggestions are the words: “To be diagnosed with ADHD your child must have six or more symptoms of inattentiveness, or six or more symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsiveness.” Celebrity Fan Adrian Chiles Talks Everything West Brom Exclusively to TF90M TF90M – The First 90 Minutes Adrian Chiles is the sixth celebrity contestant confirmed for the Strictly Christmas special 2021". bbc.co.uk/mediacentre . Retrieved 25 December 2021.

Iaith ar Daith 'Dolig"[Language Road Trip: Christmas]. Boom Cymru. Archived from the original on 31 January 2021 . Retrieved 31 January 2021. JR: At the heart of this is one of the useful definitions of an alcoholic as opposed to a heavy drinker. When you take the first drink, are you able to limit your drinking from that point onwards? You talk about drinking two pints of Stella mixed with spring water as part of your moderation. 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. Keogh, Frank (23 November 2007). "Anthem gaffe 'lifted Croatia' ". BBC Sport . Retrieved 2 March 2008. JR: The fact that you can drink those pints in the morning and then stop means that, ironically, you’ll have drunk more than I would have done. Because I would have drunk until three in the afternoon and then passed out.

Chiles wrote the non-fiction book The Good Drinker: How I Learned to Love Drinking Less, published in October 2022. [29] [30] Personal life The stories of a varied cast of avid West Bromwich Albion supporters whom Chiles met over the course of the 2005–06 season, at the end of which the team was relegated from the Premier League. The book also documents Chiles' own obsession with his beloved "Baggies". Fletcher, Alex (28 April 2010). "Ten Things About... Adrian Chiles". Digital Spy. Archived from the original on 19 December 2019 . Retrieved 29 July 2016. He began presenting and producing his own show Chiles on Saturday for Radio 5 Live, which was awarded the sports category gold medal at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2002.

AC: I think people are led to believe that moderation isn’t possible: that if you successfully moderate, it’s because you didn’t have much of a problem in the first place. Otherwise, the ideas are very binary. People will stop you in the street and say: “I hear you’re on the wagon,” or: “Are you a friend of Bill’s?” or: “Are you still off the booze?” It doesn’t even occur to people that there could be a middle ground, either you’re completely befuddled and drunk the whole time, or you’re completely sober. The book is for people who like drinking. “The point is you can drink less and enjoy it more. If you boil it down to drinks you enjoy, you will enjoy your drinking more; there’s no doubt of that in my mind.” Chiles plays the double bass, as revealed when he dueted with violinist Nigel Kennedy playing "Fever" on The One Show. On 7 May 2008, his co-presenter on The One Show, Christine Lampard, sang part of a song with Chiles accompanying on piano. JR: If I could drink 36 units a week without it driving me to the edge of sanity, I would do that. But I can’t. A really important part of accepting my alcoholism was understanding I can never drink like that. I will never be a “normal” drinker. All the experts tell him to stop. “We know a third of the people coming into the unit with alcohol-related liver damage do not meet the criteria for alcoholism,” says David Nutt, the renowned neuropsychopharmacologist (“not easy to say after a unit or two”). Half of people who drink do it to deal with anxiety and depression, he says.JR: I would get to a wedding where they would greet you with a glass of prosecco, and I would immediately be in a bad mood. It’s midday – I don’t want to start with prosecco. Is there a bar? No, not til four. Four hours of prosecco. Chiles was the World Record holder for highest number of kisses received in 60 seconds from 2007 until 2009, with 78. [24] [25] Chiles converted to Catholicism in 2007. [34] During Lent 2015, he attended Mass daily and at a different church each time; a total of 46 different churches in 46 days. [35] Chiles was born in Quinton, Birmingham, to an English father and Croatian mother, and moved a few miles away to Hagley, Worcestershire at the age of four. [2] His Birmingham accent is a feature of his presentations. He also speaks Croatian, despite having a self-confessed imperfect understanding of the language's verbs, declensions, and cases. [3] Chiles started his education at Haybridge High School, and then worked in his father's scaffolding business, before graduating with a degree in English literature from the University of London (studying at Westfield College, now part of Queen Mary, University of London). [2]