{"id":116060,"date":"2025-09-03T06:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T06:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116060\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T06:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T06:20:10","slug":"tunstall-man-marking-two-years-sober-with-epic-bike-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116060\/","title":{"rendered":"Tunstall man marking two years sober with epic bike ride"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt WeigoldBBC Radio Stoke<\/p>\n

Phil James explains how his bike has been crucial to his road to recovery<\/p>\n

A recovering alcoholic says the physical pain of cycling up Mount Vesuvius will be completely masked by the elation of being two years sober.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Phil James was in a state of deep depression, had a severe addiction to alcohol and had been told there was an extensive wait for NHS therapy sessions.<\/p>\n

After a “horrific” detox alone on his sofa for two weeks, he has since been drink-free, supported other recovering addicts and completed numerous cycling challenges to give him focus through his recovery.<\/p>\n

“I’ve always got something to look forward to, that requires me to be well,” he said ahead of his latest fundraising ride in Italy.<\/p>\n

“That’s why I’ve got all these challenges continually going.”<\/p>\n

\"@phil.james77@phil.james77<\/p>\n

Mr James cycled to the summit of Ben Nevis on 1 July 2025<\/p>\n

Mr James, 47, from Tunstall, Staffordshire, was diagnosed with PTSD at a young age, having become homeless at sixteen.<\/p>\n

Not being able, he said, to find help or support, he resorted to alcohol which only added to his state of depression.<\/p>\n

“I was drinking alcohol at home alone with the curtains closed 24 hours a day, smoking 30 cigarettes a day, I’d had a breakdown, I was crying uncontrollably every day for eight months,” he reflected.<\/p>\n

He admitted that two years into his sobriety, he still got cravings to have a drink but had “rewired his brain” in order to stop himself.<\/p>\n

“I changed that by visualising myself lying on my sofa, sweating, throwing up, shaking, the anxiety I had, the guilt and the shame,” he stated.<\/p>\n

He described the temptation to drink as “a rollercoaster” but reassured others in similar positions that challenging moments did pass.<\/p>\n

“The cravings don’t last forever, if you can remember that,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"@phil.james77@phil.james77<\/p>\n

Mr James’s other cycle challenges include Mount Snowdon, the Devil’s Ladder in Ireland and Mount Teide in Spain (pictured)<\/p>\n

Mr James has embraced peer support by regularly posting reflective videos on social media and exchanging messages with people in recovery from across the world.<\/p>\n

He shared the example of a man from Yorkshire with whom he connected via TikTok.<\/p>\n

That person had been an alcoholic for 30 years and, also documenting his sober journey via social media, he recently credited Mr James for inspiring him.<\/p>\n

“It made me really proud,” Mr James said through tears. “And now he’s got so many people he’s inspiring with his daily videos.”<\/p>\n

Mr James will jet off to Italy for his next cycling challenge on 19 September, ready to begin cycling on his two-years-sober date.<\/p>\n

“It’ll be emotional,” he said. “It won’t be hard because I’ll be thinking ‘this is brilliant, I’m two years sober’.”<\/p>\n

All donations to his cycling challenge will go to the mental health support network M.A.T.E. for which Mr James is a mentor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt WeigoldBBC Radio Stoke Phil James explains how his bike has been crucial to his road to recovery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-116060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}