Adrian Chiles – Drinkers Like Me

In this intimate Drinkers Like Me documentary, Adrian Chiles takes a hard look at his relationship with alcohol, questioning why he—and many others—don’t see themselves as addicted, despite finding it difficult to enjoy life without drinking. A near-daily drinker, he begins tracking his intake and quickly realizes it far exceeds recommended limits. As he reflects on his upbringing, he connects his early experiences with alcohol to a deeper sense of social belonging that has followed him into adulthood.

After years of heavy drinking, Adrian Chiles undergoes a liver check that serves as a wake-up call. Through conversations with an addiction therapist, he begins to confront the need for change—but is cutting back enough or is quitting the only option? Seeking clarity, he turns to his friend Frank Skinner, who gave up alcohol decades ago. Frank’s advice, however, takes Adrian by surprise.

More from Adrian Chiles:

“With a Fibroscan score of 8.9, we would classify that as a mild or even moderate fibrosis of the liver and on top of that you’ve got significant liver fat, which we call hepatic steatosis, which is something that we also see with heavy alcohol consumption … You can’t carry on like this – you’re at risk of disease progression.”

“You associate those good times with alcohol and actually, until you know of stop and go back and start changing some of those beliefs, then you’ll always do the same thing.”

“The question is now, do I have to abstain completely or can I drink more responsibly, to use the world’s most boring phrase. Can I do it and still get the joy out of drinking while drinking a lot less?”

“You think you need beer in order to carry on your social life … for some strange reason you need some sort of handrail in your social life, something that takes you somewhere that makes you a person that you aren’t or you don’t feel you are normally. That’s the question you’ve got to ask.”

“I envy your relationship with alcohol – it may be a bit above the norm but it’s near enough to the norm not to sacrifice all the good stuff.”

“A lot of people … one of their fears about giving up drinking completely is, how will I be able to socialize, I’ll never be able to enjoy myself, I’ll never be able to do this, I’ll never be able to do that, and that’s what stops them taking that final step but it’s simply not true."