John Robins, the comedian and radio host, has revealed his diagnosis as an alcoholic in a new memoir titled Thirst. For years, Robins built his public persona around a love of drinking, with standup routines about pub crawls and a podcast series dedicated to designing the perfect pub. But in 2023, during a podcast with his friend Elis James called How Do You Cope?, he finally acknowledged his addiction.
Robins, who is Oxford-educated and won the Edinburgh Comedy Award, says he used alcohol to escape his own thoughts. ‘I wanted alcohol to take me to a place where I was not,’ he explains. The realisation came after years of denial, during which he assumed he got more out of alcohol than it took from him. Now he knows it was the other way round.
The cover of Thirst features a childhood photo of Robins, a blond curly-haired boy drinking directly from a can of lager. The image, he says, encapsulates his lifelong craving for alcohol. The publisher initially wanted a more marketable subtitle, Twelve Drinks That Changed My Life, but Robins insisted on the stark title.
Speaking from his home in Buckinghamshire, surrounded by football and cricket pitches, Robins describes his recovery as a process of learning to exist in a world with alcohol. He still wears a cap from a brewery, but insists it is not a problem. ‘The cap isn’t the issue. I have to exist in a world with alcohol in it, and I can make that really difficult or I can make that as easy as it’s ever going to be.’
Robins’s memoir details the role of alcohol in his life, from his first drink at age seven to his diagnosis. He hopes the book will help others recognise their own relationship with drinking. ‘I never found the right word to describe my relationship with alcohol until 2023: alcoholic.’
