This is an AI transcription, apologies for any typos.

I remember the two record label executives arguing about who's going to put their card behind the bar and having two Double G and T's pushed into each hand. And then the final flashback hits me before the rest of the night goes back.

Ross Buchanan is a podcaster, producer and editor of the stories of men podcast, he's got so many great stories great guy, I thought, let's get him on. In his old job, he was a national radio presenter work in red carpet events, and award ceremonies in the music industry. However, his social anxiety regularly prevented him from enjoying what most people would consider a really cool job. I

wake up and I'm feeling the most dehydrated that I've ever felt in my life. Absolutely stinking of spirits, cigarettes, body odour, you can imagine a combination of those smells just been like the worst smell you've ever smelled in your life. And I've got a splitting headache, I'm trying to roll on the pillow to try and find the sweet spot to make it stop hurting. I'm feeling so low and down in the dumps. And as a lot of people do. At that time of day, I'm looking for that dopamine hit, I'm looking around and thinking, Where is my phone? I see it. It's completely flat. Oh, shit, I didn't plug it in last night classic. Alright, let's plug it in. And as it powers up, all I'm hearing is this Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And I look and I've got just an unreal amount of notifications. Like nobody normally texts me quite this much. And I'm scrolling through. And I'm looking at it. And it's like, from people that I've not spoken to in years, I've got one from a mate Luke, who I haven't spoken to since university. And I could just see the first line of the message and it says, Hey, long time, no speak, and another one below from John, like, Hey, how's it going. And then I start putting the pieces together. And the kind of jigsaw puzzle of me not feeling great this morning. And the amount of notifications on my phone, start adding up and the anxiety is just welling up inside of my chest. I just can't open them just yet. I can't bring myself to do it. So I've closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep again, just to delay that feeling of impending doom. And as I shut my eyes, these flashbacks, I just hit in me like boom. I'm remembering being at the Camden roundhouse for the Q Awards, and around so many celebrities, Louis Theroux is knocking about somewhere Stormzy, Lewis Capaldi, they're all just mingling, and I'm sitting down at dinner with some executives from the radio station that I work at. And I've just started this new antidepressants. And I've pledged to myself that I'll be on best behaviour. I'm remembering saying to myself, I will not drink tonight. I'm remembering just the feeling of social anxiety all these people in the room, this kind of like cacophony of sounds or these conversations of people at this event. Then the next flashback hits me, I'm having one beer, one very small beer. And the anxiety just slipping away. Two executives from a record label roll up and start chatting to me. I'm remembering one of them saying, hey, Ross, this is winding down a little bit, should we go across the road and grab a couple of beers. I remember the two record label executives arguing about who's going to put their card behind the bar and having to Double G and T's pushed into each hand. And then the final flashback hits me before the rest of the night goes back. And I'm on the floor. I can feel the wet muddy tarmac underneath my bum. I can feel the cold October err on my face. And I can just see this absolute beast of a bouncer towering over the top of me. And I felt like a child so insignificant and small, that had just been reprimanded and put on the naughty step. Open my eyes again. I pluck up the courage to open the notifications on my phone. And the one that I care about the most is the one I'm opening first. And it's from Lottie, my girlfriend. And it says, Ross, I've just seen page three of the Daily Mail. You're in it. What the hell happened last night.

So Ross, what was your relationship like to alcohol in 2019? And what's your relation? shipped alcohol, like now in 2024. So directly

after this night, I gave up alcohol for a year. And that went right through into the pandemic. So I did the first lockdown, and the second lockdown, without any alcohol to get me through that. So post the event, I definitely reassessed my relationship with alcohol, and why I felt like I needed to drink within that moment. Before the event, I definitely used it as a social lubricant to deal with my social anxiety.

So you're saying also that the altercation with the bouncer was quite a good motivator as well? Yeah,

exactly. And I think like the fact that within this, this picture of me getting decked by a bouncer being in the Daily Mail, I'm smiling in that picture. I think if I if I'd looked like aggressive, it would have had very different connotations. But I remember going into the radio station, like the next the next day, and everyone being like, Ah, you're such a legend. Like, it's such a funny picture, like, Oh, my God, so rock and roll. That's

a really good point, actually. Because you just for the audience, I actually saw the image of this beast towering over you, with your smile on your face, as you're, as you're on this on this floor. And I didn't think of that. But things would have been different. If you'd have had a sad look on your face, the responses from people would have been very different, right. And also, you would have felt worse about the situation to,

I think this is one of the things that really made me regret the entire evening, is that any number of different things could have happened. I was completely out of control, I had no control over that evening, could have happened, which would have resulted in me going to jail me losing my job, like when you're not in control of yourself, and you're getting into physical altercations because of alcohol. Like that is a recipe for disaster isn't it

made me think about any situations I've been in that have been remotely similar. It's interesting you say about the social anxiety because I started going out when I was 17. So that was 19 years ago, when I think about some of the lads that I went out with, they were very different after a few beers. They were a lot more obnoxious in many ways, or a lot more rambunctious, lively, confident, you know, certain lads would not speak to girls at all until they had four or five beers inside. Like, if

you get to the crux of that issue is like, from my perspective, I don't think I fully realised the way that I was feeling I don't think I really was conscious of that social anxiety. I didn't really feel it, it was there. But I think with a lot of emotions, and men and feelings, it's not that we understand that we're having those feelings, and then we're trying to mask them. I think that comes later in life. I think we have all of those feelings that we think they're really normal, we think everybody feels like this. So we think this is the normal state of being, and that alcohol is the way to elevate that, rather than it being Oh, no, I've got social anxiety. And this is just bringing me to to normal. Or once I'm at normal, I'm taking it even further. And going to that level of you know, overconfidence or dislike aggression, or you know, all of those things.

Yeah, I think it's, it's a difference that awareness No, because there might be some people who are 1920 21 or older who are going out regularly. And they know about this concept of social anxiety. It could be someone in their family, could be friends, it could be something that they've seen on social media. So they go, Okay, I've got social anxiety. So I know that on the previous occasions, I've drank alcohol, it makes me feel better, those feelings, the symptoms that come with it are reduced. Whereas when perhaps you and I will go and out back in the day, you don't know what that is. You just think, Okay, I'm, I'm a bit jittery or I don't have much confidence. I'm a nervous person. And as soon as you start having a few beers, you start feeling better. So I think it's different nowadays, with knowing about this stuff. It's kind of out there more for people to you know, mental health is something that people are speaking about more and more.

I think that like, it's that it's that issue, really, isn't it of that kind of like, Oh, if I have one or two beers, I'll be at the perfect level. Like, I'll be there. But then when you get to one or two beers, you think, well, if this has made me feel this good, then three or four beers will make me feel even better. And that's not how it works. And that's why people have such shaky relationships with alcohol because they think I can temper my I'm drinking, when in actual fact, what they need to do, if they have social anxiety is not drink anything at all, and be themselves in an environment. And if they're feeling anxious, then they can then trust in the way that they feel. And go, Well, maybe I'm feeling anxious for a reason. Maybe I've come to a sketchy place that I shouldn't be in or, you know, maybe I'm feeling bored, and that I'll leave because it's actually boring, like no amount of alcohol is gonna make this night any better. And I think, yeah, if you're drinking to alleviate social anxiety or to be a lubricant, because you don't feel confident enough in your own social abilities, then the only way to get around that is to not drink until people don't

understand the concept of law of diminishing returns when they when they're drinking, like you say, if you have one or two, you'll feel like you're at some sort of baseline confidence in FAA of more and more, I'll feel even better. But obviously, there's that point where it starts to dwindle where you have a calibre ninth and 10th And that's when it really starts to go downhill. And you start doing things like having altercations with bounces or you start falling over or saying something that will get you slapped or whatever. Is it because people feel like they're not enough? If they don't have alcohol? I am not enough of a person. But I have to have this it's almost like