The Jazz Drummer Who Quit Drinking At 25: Jack Cotterall's Story

Jack Cotterall is a 29-year-old jazz drummer from the Cheshire and Stoke-on-Trent border. He has been sober for four years. The drinking in his family goes back generations.

He takes Dave through it. His dad, a professional drummer, died of a heart attack at 32 when Jack was four. His granddad, also a professional drummer, died at 62 after a lifetime of twenty pints a night. Jack discovered drinking at his granddad's funeral surrounded by jazz musicians at age 11 or 12 and never really stopped. By 14 he was in a touring band of men two and three times his age, getting bought pints of mild at the bar because they looked like Coke. By his early twenties he was on three bottles of scotch a day, plus wine, plus cocaine to keep going. He was 25 when his liver started failing, when he turned yellow on a gig in Leeds, when he had what he was certain was the same heart attack that killed his dad on the side of the M62.

The breaking point came in September 2018. A relationship ended, the cocaine finally couldn't be hidden, and Jack called his old friend the trombonist Adrian Cox, who had been sober for a while. Adrian drove up and told him: you won't believe me yet, but you will feel better.

This conversation is about the long inheritance of drinking in music, the gigs Jack does not remember playing, the slow climb back, and the first time he walked down his street sober and noticed trees he had never seen before.

This episode of One For The Road is sponsored by https://tweaklife.co.uk/ Further information and links attached below.

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice and for Jack.

https://www.instagram.com/jackcotterill/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/jackcotterillmusic

www.jackcotterill.co.uk

https://alcoholchange.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services

https://nacoa.org.uk/

Show producer- Daniella Attanasio-Martinez

Instagram - @TheDaniellaMartinez

This season's podcast is sponsored by a great new start up called Tweak Life. They have built a well-being hub full of useful information and tweaks that can help you improve your mental and physical health and finances. There is a wide range of topics covered which includes mindfulness, eating well, exercise. managing addictions, improving finances, mortgages and even menopause.

This is free to use, just go to https://tweaklife.co.uk/ for more information.

https://www.instagram.com/tweaklifeuk

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https://www.linkedin.com/company/tweaklifeuk/

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