![\"Book](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/mental-health-campaigner-dr-alex-george-i-have-grown-tired-of-being-lonely.jpeg\")
(Octopus Books\/PA)<\/p>\nMental health campaigner, former A&E doctor and one-time Love Island contestant Dr Alex George has had enough neurodevelopmental conditions of his own to be able to talk with authority.<\/p>\n
He can count ADHD and OCD among them and is currently undergoing assessment for autism. In addition, alcohol misuse, grief, work addiction, poor self-image, and loneliness have featured in his raft of experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sound\u2019s like I\u2019m a b***** walking list, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d the genial health educator muses, chuckling, but is not afraid to recount the episodes which led him to stop drinking alcohol, take control of his diet, get therapy and medication, in his new book, Am I Normal?<\/p>\n
Drawing on his own experiences, he explores what society\u2019s view of normality is and how it can stand in the way of true wellness and happiness.<\/p>\n
His own diagnoses have brought him some peace and answered questions as to why he struggled from childhood, the facial tics he had at 11, his inability to focus, juxtaposed by obsessions, worries about \u2018what if\u2019, anxieties in social situations and huge rejection sensitivity.<\/p>\n
The Welsh doctor and broadcaster, who appeared in Love Island in 2018 but chooses not to discuss his private life, has appeared on shows including Good Morning Britain and Loose Women to speak about mental health, and until 2025 was the government\u2019s UK Youth Mental Health Ambassador (a role which has now been dropped).<\/p>\n
He was diagnosed with ADHD in September 2022 and with OCD last year. Now 34, he confesses that 2024 was one of the loneliest years of his life, having never come to terms with his post-Love Island existence, focusing on the challenges of the pandemic, and the intense grief he experienced when his 19-year-old brother Ll\u0177r died by suicide.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that I did, which I probably would do differently now, was I ended up kind of withdrawing. I felt like I needed to fix myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent too too little time with people and too much time thinking that I could solve all my own things. Actually one of the things I realised is that the antidote to a lot of your experience is human connection.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the book he recalls struggling with isolation after leaving Love Island, that fame didn\u2019t sit easily with him and that he became lonely. He returned to A&E for a while to regain a sense of normality and some respite from the loneliness he was experiencing.<\/p>\n
\u201cLoneliness is an epidemic in itself,\u201d he states today. \u201cI corrected it by rekindling my old friendships, by getting out of the house and making an effort with people, by putting myself into circles like running clubs to make friends and be with people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is some element that we have to accept within ourselves that you can\u2019t just sit in the house and expect other people to come to you. No one\u2019s coming to save you. There\u2019s no cavalry that\u2019s going to come into your house and change your life for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Things have changed for him. While he remains tight-lipped about his private life, he says: \u201cI don\u2019t think I am lonely. I have periods of feeling lost among some of the challenges but I\u2019m not lonely. I feel I do belong and I have connection.\u201d<\/p>\n
He observes that the loneliness epidemic is intensified by digital technology \u2013 he says he was desperately lonely when he didn\u2019t prioritise his social relationships in the post-pandemic years, sacrificing the relationships he had for social media connections.<\/p>\n
(Octopus Books\/PA)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt dawned on me one day last year as I walked around [London\u2019s] Battersea Park that I had 100,000 people who might respond to an Instagram post, but not one person to meet with in the park,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n
As a hugely popular content creator, with an \u2018Alcohol-Free Living\u2019 YouTube channel, impressive social media following and Stompcast podcast, as well as numerous TV engagements \u2013 how does he manage that?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to have screen-time controls to prevent how much you\u2019re using it, because you\u2019ll never beat the power of technology. The only way to win is tech against tech.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the evenings I don\u2019t want to be on my phone. I want to be able to do other things.\u201d<\/p>\n
He quotes figures about the average 25-year-old being on their phone for six hours a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019ve got eight hours in bed, eight hours at work, eight hours left and six hours a day on your phone and you don\u2019t feel good, it\u2019s (screen time controls) a good place to start.\u201d<\/p>\n
This aspect of his life is a work in progress, he admits, and says he has to prioritise finding time for old friends and making new ones over some of the work he does.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have grown tired of being lonely,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n
He still practices as a doctor, but has moved into health education and public health, rather than pursuing the clinical route.<\/p>\n
The book explores what it is we call \u2018normal\u2019 and how true wellness is ultimately about self-acceptance and he says writing it is the most difficult thing he\u2019s done professionally.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was trying to make sense in my own mind of how much of it is me and how much of it is the world. My feeling was, \u2018Am I not normal?\u2019 or \u2018Is the world not normal?\u2019 or is it both? I tried to work that out, because I guess since I was young, I felt different.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of friction in my life and have tried to work it out. I was at rock bottom just over three years ago, struggling hugely with grief, drinking quite a lot of alcohol, working 24\/7 and when I wasn\u2019t working I was drinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was completely physically, emotionally, mentally burnt out and I started writing the book because I just wanted to make sense of it all. It\u2019s been very painful.\u201d<\/p>\n
He now looks after himself very differently, has been off alcohol for three years, exercises regularly and eats healthily.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best thing that has ever happened to me in terms of change in my life has been being diagnosed with ADHD.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the book, he challenges some of the things society sees as normal, including the way alcohol is ingrained in our lives, gambling advertising on TV and the way grief is addressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember when my brother Ll\u0177r died, the next day there were 50, 60, 70 bouquets of flowers arriving to commiserate him dying. When the funeral was over, the flowers stopped. People stopped texting. No one mentioned it, everyone went quiet.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody mentioned his name. There\u2019s this belief that we should just go, \u2018Oh, the funeral\u2019s done, we just get on and move on with it\u2019 whereas in reality grief is a lifelong experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually, the goal of grief is to learn to live with it, not to get over it. Yet in this country we\u2019ve pushed this normality of \u2018Ignore death, pretend it doesn\u2019t happen\u2019 and when someone dies we take this Victorian approach to get over it as quickly as physically possible, get the funeral done and on with life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s madness. Everyone\u2019s walking around with suppressed grief that filters out into their life and erodes their relationships and lives \u2013 and it\u2019s just seen as normal. People chronically suffer and have sickness and early death even, because of grief, because we pretend it doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since his ADHD diagnosis he has focused on knowing and loving himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had to do a lot of therapy while writing this book because it\u2019s brought up a lot of very difficult things in my life,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I think it\u2019s helped me understand myself better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Am I Normal? By Dr Alex George is published by Octopus Books on January 15th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mental health campaigner, former A&E doctor and one-time Love Island contestant Dr Alex George has had enough neurodevelopmental…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,137,514,515],"class_list":{"0":"post-410699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}