{"id":184821,"date":"2025-10-08T06:27:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T06:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/184821\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T06:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T06:27:07","slug":"paul-weller-backs-tunstall-cyclist-on-his-sober-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/184821\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Weller backs Tunstall cyclist on his sober journey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mr James, from Tunstall, has found cycling an effective way to avoid drinking since going cold turkey in 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Before that, he would spend entire days consuming alcohol and smoking cigarettes in a darkened room, whilst on a waiting list for NHS support with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He was diagnosed with the condition after becoming homeless at 16, and took up the guitar at 19 as a coping mechanism after his first nervous breakdown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s like the stars had aligned or something,&#8221; he said, referring to the chance meeting with The Jam&#8217;s lead singer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;One of the first songs I learnt to play was Country by Paul Weller. So I was standing there telling Paul Weller &#8211; he looked a bit bemused!&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mr James, from Tunstall, has found cycling an effective way to avoid drinking since going cold turkey in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-184821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184821","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=184821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}