“I feel like I could be unstoppable” – Freddie Bennett-Willetts

My alcohol-free journey began as it often does:I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’d always been a binge drinker, but the hangovers were getting worse, the anxiety was intensifying, and I was drinking alone more often. My life was spiralling, and I was becoming someone I didn’t recognise.

I will go back to the beginning

I come from a family of scoundrels and creatives. My father grew up in Birmingham, where his own father supplied horses to a group of men now known as the Peaky Blinders.

In the late 80s, my father moved us to America to work with a new business partner called “Steve”. Things didn’t work out, and we returned to the UK 18 months later — bankrupt and homeless. Things turned out better for “Steve”, otherwise known as Steve Jobs, founder of Apple.

I’ve always had huge dreams and ambitions.I’ve broken Guinness World Records, run across the Sahara Desert, dived with Great White Sharks, cycled across the Atlas Mountains, jumped the world’s highest bungee, and become an Ironman.

But somewhere along the way, I got lost.I ended up stuck in a job I didn’t love, earning a salary I wasted on things I didn’t want… and nights out I couldn’t remember. I wanted desperately to find the version of myself who feared nothing — but I’d forgotten who that person was. Until I found OYNB.

Becoming sober curious

For a long time, I sensed that if I stopped drinking, amazing things would happen. Being alcohol-free would be the catalyst for the life I wanted.

But instead of choosing that path, I chose drinking — and with it, waved goodbye to my dreams. I was always the first one at the bar and the last to leave.

I’d never turned down a drink.Never declined a night out.Never considered moderation.

My “party stories” stopped being funny. They became dangerous.The blackout at my own 30th birthday.The time I almost got fired.The night a drug dealer in New York pulled a gun on me.

Then one weekday morning, I stumbled home at 7am with work starting 90 minutes later. I looked at myself in the mirror and finally said, “Enough is enough.”

My OYNB journey

The first two weeks were rough.I felt anxious, like every mistake I’d ever made was replaying in my mind. I was also shocked by how many people mocked my decision or assumed I’d fail.

But there were highs:

• Day 30: I ran a marathon and finished in 3 hours 20 minutes — a 22-minute PB.

• Day 83: I broke a Guinness World Record and became the fastest fisherman on the planet.

• Day 140: I became an Ironman.

These wins reminded me what life could feel like without alcohol dragging me down.

Keep your eyes on the prize

If I could offer one piece of advice, it would be this:Know your whys — and return to them constantly.

I reminded myself again and again:

• I want the life I dream of more than I want alcohol.

• I want 6am mornings with my children more than 6am hangovers.

• I want clarity, energy, focus and positivity.

• I want to like the person I see in the mirror.

I can now be the person who leaves a night out at 10pm because I’ve had enough — not the guy who wanted to leave at 10pm but stayed until 4am pouring tequila down his throat because it’s what people expected.

This challenge was hard.But to get a life you’ve never had, you must do things you’ve never done — like changing your relationship with alcohol.

I think of myself as the hero in my own movie. No one wants to watch a story where the hero is perfect and never struggles. We want stories of people who fall, fail, and suffer — but rise up again.

That is the hero I choose to be.