Dr Alex George rose to fame on the hit reality television show Love Island, before returning to his day job as an A&E doctor in London. Since then, he has gone on to become a government mental health ambassador and, several months ago, revealed to his followers on social media that he was giving up alcohol - read more on that here.
Now, after 150 days sober, the 32-year-old from Carmarthen admits it has been "challenging" but that it has made a "huge difference to his life". The Welsh former Love Island star and TV doctor said drinking at weekends would sometimes affect him for up to four days afterwards and was a big contributor to "mistakes" and "poor decisions". He said he ditched the booze to "see life with clarity and colour" again.
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He quit his A&E doctor job 18 months ago to focus on bringing the public accessible health advice, often on TV - including Channel 4's Naked Education - and says of cutting out alcohol five months ago: "It's made a really huge difference. I get to bed at 9pm every night, I wake up at 6am, I listen to music, I play music, I go to the gym, I spend quality time with a small number of people. I've developed really, really strong boundaries about how I spend my time and who I spend it with."
While he explains it's an "investment" in himself, he admits it isn't always easy: "When you've got a bank holiday weekend and a lot people are sat in a beer garden - that is a challenge," he reflects. "Because even if you're not addicted to alcohol, and you're just a part of the British culture, you'll feel challenges of not drinking in those times. But it's looking at what will future Alex be grateful for - you know, that delayed gratification."
The author of The Mind Manual - Alex's latest book, released on Thursday, May 11, which explores mental fitness foundations and encourages people to question their behaviour - and host of walking and wellness podcast Stompcast, adds: "I didn't like how alcohol made me feel. I was drinking pretty standard-ish for a young person in their 30s, but after four, five or six beers on a Saturday night, I'd feel bad. That would affect me a small percentage [of the time] all the way up to Tuesday or Wednesday. It affected my desire for the gym, it affected the way I ate, it affected the relationship I had with myself. So I had a really honest conversation with myself."
Alex is enthusiastic about, and advocate for, good mental health and it was once he quit his day job as an A&E doctor, his dream since the age of 12 or 13, that he was able to put his all into practising what he preached. He explains: "I thought, 'I'm here talking about finding balance and looking after your own mental health, and I'm actually damaging my own mental health by doing too much'.
"Since the age of 12 or 13, I'd wanted to be a doctor. You sacrifice a lot, university is tough, I worked in King's College Hospital then Lewisham Hospital [London]. It was my passion, I covered a lot of the pandemic - on social media, it was my identity. But I think sometimes, it's really, really important to remember that just because your identity is a part of your life, it doesn't have to be your identity your whole life. Walking away or changing direction [doesn't mean] that time of your life is now devalued. Even though I am not 'Alex the A&E doctor' anymore, it is all ingrained in who I am."
The news came out that he had left the profession in May 2022, but before he did, Alex had a significant impact on mental health support, securing £79 million funding for this in schools in 2021, funding he claims he wouldn't have received had he not gone on reality television show Love Island. He says: "Of course, if it wasn't for that show, I wouldn't have got that [money] for the kids."
As well as being a mental health ambassador for the government, Alex is also a campaigner. His #postyourpill campaign on social media saw him normalising and celebrating taking medication for conditions like depression in a big to remove the stigma surrounding it - he himself was prescribed with anti-depressants last year. Alongside this, he is also a campaigner for suicide prevention awareness. - something close to the former doctor's heart. His little brother Llŷr, who was only 19, died by suicide in 2020.
"The week before my brother passed away, my best friend's dad was terminally unwell and I stayed in London. In that time that I stayed, my brother passed away, so I could have seen him. You question whether that's a mistake or not. It's very complex, because you don't see the bigger picture always. [If] you know that a decision would have a certain outcome and it was a negative outcome, you wouldn't make that decision a lot of the time," Alex says. "I think that's probably one of the biggest ones that I'll have to live with."
After revealing he'd received "tens of thousands" of messages from people who had struggled in a similar way to his brother - and who received the support needed - the 32-year-old says: "How many lives have been saved off the back of Llŷr's death? There's an element of, 'What can we control?' I can't turn back time, all I can do is try and support other people with their mental health."
He adds: "In the last few years, there have been some significant highs and lows, but I do think what I'm grateful for is that in adversity, you learn a huge amount. I endured."
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