{"id":13101,"date":"2025-07-21T14:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T14:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/13101\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T14:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T14:05:10","slug":"anxiety-adhd-and-addiction-were-killing-me-these-simple-lifestyle-changes-saved-me-in-a-year-i-lost-54kg-and-finally-got-off-the-meds-doctors-said-id-need-for-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/13101\/","title":{"rendered":"Anxiety, ADHD and addiction were killing me. These simple lifestyle changes saved me in a YEAR, I lost\u00a054kg – and finally got off the meds doctors said I’d need for life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Weekends always started the same way for William Pattison.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After abstaining from alcohol<\/a> all week, he’d get stuck into some Friday afternoon beers. But letting off steam after a long week never ended there.<\/p>\n

‘I never really drank midweek, but come the weekend, I’d go on heavy benders that could last two or three days. No sleep. Just escaping,’ William, 30, tells me.<\/p>\n

‘The cycle was brutal. I’d feel like a shell of myself during the week – anxious, depleted, ashamed – then chase that high again the next weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I was stuck. And the worst part was, I knew it. I was doing damage not just to my body, but to my future and, more importantly, my family. I wasn’t achieving anything meaningful. Just numbing and surviving.’<\/p>\n

William, who started drinking as a teenager at boarding school, says for someone with ADHD<\/a>\u00a0and social anxiety, alcohol gave him a ‘quick hit of self-belief’ that he felt he lacked – but soon booze alone wasn’t enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Over time, drinking went hand in hand with drugs. Cocaine and MDMA were always in the mix when I was out,’ he admits.<\/p>\n

‘It got very severe. These addictions ruled my life for close to a decade. I lost motivation, direction and identity. My health was collapsing – high blood pressure, gout, early signs of diabetes, and mentally I was completely drained. I was constantly down on myself. But rather than face it, I’d just drink more, use more, avoid the truth.<\/p>\n

\"'Over <\/p>\n

‘Over time, drinking went hand in hand with drugs – cocaine, MDMA – always in the mix when I was out,’ says William\u00a0Pattison (pictured)<\/p>\n

\"At <\/p>\n

At his heaviest, William weighed 135kg (300lbs or 21st 4lbs) and had high blood pressure, gout and the early signs of diabetes\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘That lifestyle blanketed my identity. I was never honest with myself – or with the people who loved me the most. I’d tell white lies, play the joker, mask the pain. But behind the laughs was someone struggling to hold it together.’<\/p>\n

In addition to high blood pressure, gout and early signs of diabetes, William suffered from severe anxiety and his weight had ballooned to 135kg (300lbs or 21st 4lbs).\u00a0<\/p>\n

While he was prescribed medication for his anxiety, William likens it to ‘putting a bandage over a much deeper wound’.<\/p>\n

‘The meds dulled the edge, but they didn’t deal with the root of it. I wasn’t facing anything, just numbing it all – with substances, with distractions, even with prescriptions. It was survival mode, not healing,’ he says.<\/p>\n

While there were times throughout his life when William tried to make positive changes, he now realises he was doing it for the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n

‘I was always doing it for other people – to smooth things over, to rebuild bridges I had broken, or to prove I could. And every time, it was short-lived,’ he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

William finally hit rock bottom on a trip to Europe last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘At first, it was meant to be a bit of a break – a way to escape, reset, see the world. But it quickly spiralled into the same destructive patterns, just on a bigger stage,’ he says.<\/p>\n

‘I was drinking heavily, using drugs, partying constantly, living fast and reckless. On the outside, it might’ve looked like fun. But behind the scenes, I was completely lost.<\/p>\n

\"William <\/p>\n

William (pictured) is 54kg down, a year sober, and in training for the New York City marathon\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"After <\/p>\n

After losing weight, getting sober and taking up running, William (pictured) was able to come off the anxiety medication he thought he’d need for life\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘By the end of the trip, I was bloated, broken, mentally fried. I could barely look at myself in the mirror. My health had seriously declined… I remember thinking, “If I keep going like this, I’m not going to be around much longer.” And it’s so scary to think that wasn’t even a dramatic thought \u2013 it was the reality.’<\/p>\n

After returning home, William knew he had to take action.<\/p>\n

‘The Europe trip was a massive wake-up call. It stripped everything back and forced me to see the truth – I was wasting my life, lying to myself, and barely surviving. When I got home, something shifted. A trip to the doctor was a gut-punching reminder – this isn’t how my story is supposed to end.’<\/p>\n

From that moment, William says, he was ‘committed fully’.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I went eight months completely sober, and even though I did relapse last summer, it was actually a blessing. It reminded me how far I’d come, and why I couldn’t afford to go back.’<\/p>\n

William is keen to emphasise that relapse should not be seen as a failure.<\/p>\n

‘What defines your recovery process isn’t the relapse – it’s what happens next. It’s how you face it, how you carry yourself through it,’ he says.<\/p>\n

And for William, that meant going right back to a sober lifestyle.<\/p>\n

As well as ditching the booze, William made other lifestyle changes, which he says were ‘simple at first’.<\/p>\n

‘At the start of my transformation, I focused on a calorie deficit and high-protein diet. Nothing fancy – just whole foods, consistency, and keeping things simple. I made a commitment to move every single day, aiming for 10,000 steps, and I lifted weights twice a week. That was my foundation,’ he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘As I got stronger – physically and mentally – my capacity grew. What started with short walks turned into runs. Eventually, I fell in love with running. Now I average 100km a week, and movement has become a non-negotiable part of my life. It’s my outlet, my anchor, my therapy.’<\/p>\n

In under a year, William lost a whopping 54kg (119lbs or 8st 7lbs), and after that began to focus on food as fuel for endurance.<\/p>\n

He completed the Paris marathon, has pledged to run 365km in three days next month, and plans to take on the New York marathon later this year.<\/p>\n

‘One of the biggest mindset shifts has been learning to use my ADHD and addictive personality as a superpower. I’ve always had an all-or-nothing nature – and for years, it dragged me down into chaos. But now I’ve pointed that energy in a new direction. I’m addicted to growth, to progress, to pushing myself. That’s the fire that keeps me moving forward.’<\/p>\n

William says that since getting clean, building structure and moving his body every day, he’s been able to come off his anxiety medication completely.<\/p>\n

‘Movement, discipline and purpose have become my meds now. That’s not to say it was easy or that I don’t still have tough days – I do. But I’ve learned that mental health isn’t something you fix once and forget. It’s something you manage, you work on, you choose daily,’ he tells me.<\/p>\n

Now one year sober – and about to run and cycle 365km in three days to raise money for the Black Dog Institute – William says he’s genuinely excited about what’s ahead.<\/p>\n

‘For the first time in a long time, I’m building – not destroying. And that feeling is better than any high I ever chased,’ he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The details of William’s fundraising can be found here.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Weekends always started the same way for William Pattison.\u00a0 After abstaining from alcohol all week, he’d get stuck…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[97,59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-13101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}