If you were to ask an AI model to spit out a parody of two earnest, do-your-own-research-touting, fitted-black-T-shirt-wearing bro-casters in conversation, it might sound a lot like Steven Bartlett talking to Chris Williamson about alcohol on an episode of the former’s smash hit podcast, Diary of a CEO. (The latter hosts the marginally less popular and equally pontificatory Modern Wisdom.)
“It’s one of those areas where you don’t understand the hidden cost until you really give it up for a while,” Bartlett says soberly, explaining that he had ditched the booze aged 30 (he’s only 33 now) and then tried drinking again a year later. Now he “could really A/B test it”.
“I had a couple of glasses of wine, didn’t get drunk — it ruined three days of my life because of the domino effect it caused,” Bartlett explains. “Because I got worse sleep that night, I ate more poorly the next day because my dopamine system or whatever, the cortisol system, was all messed up.” Quite literally stroking his beard, the Love Island star turned modern-day sage Williamson chimes in: “That’s resilience, yeah.”