Eight Years Sober: Quint Bower On Growing Up With An Alcoholic Father

Quint Bower is eight years sober. He runs a video production and animation company with offices in London, the Netherlands, New York and Los Angeles. His father was Bruce Bower, the Canadian actor in Fawlty Towers, Full Metal Jacket, Octopussy and Empire Strikes Back. He was also a raging alcoholic who lay bedridden for much of Quint's childhood and only sobered up through AA when Quint was seven.

Quint takes Dave through it. Growing up in Kew with a house his dad bought from three commercials in the early sixties, between long stretches of being drunk. The fur coat, no knickers existence of looking middle class on the outside while everything inside was tumultuous. Drinking his first beers at 15 after martial arts training, the immediate sense of ease, the feeling of finally being hail fellow well met. The film-extra years in the eighties on the big Thatcher-era movies, Batman, Henry V, Full Metal Jacket. Two bottles of wine and a couple of pints a day, every day, from 18 onwards. Building a business through the financial crash. Writing a psychology MA thesis on addiction while drinking red wine at his desk. Trying to keep an entire startup running on alcohol as a coolant.

He talks honestly about the moments he is not proud of, including being drunk during his wife's labour and being woken by the midwife in time to cut the cord. The walk in Richmond Park where something finally said enough. The AA meeting under the arches at Richmond Bridge that he still recommends. The fitness and the studying that filled the space. And the animations he now makes on addiction, anxiety, anger and depression, used by teachers in classrooms, that grew directly out of getting sober.

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

If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on

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

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

https://www.instagram.com/quintboa/

https://www.instagram.com/shootyou/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/videoandanimationproductionlondon/

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

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/

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