Jim White: I gave up booze after Souness warned me I was drinking way too much
Star hails Scotland legend Graeme for advice
SKY Sports presenter Jim White has revealed his battle with alcohol and how it threatened to ruin his career.
The Scots broadcaster said his drinking spiralled out of control and had caused great damage to his personal life.
He said he would booze to excess when meeting contacts and to celebrate big stories in his work as a sports journalist.
But the former STV star gave up drinking nine years ago after being warned by bosses at Sky and colleagues including Scotland and Liverpool legend Graeme Souness that he was overdoing it.
Speaking on the Blethered podcast with Sean McDonald, he said: “I had this ridiculous theory that if ever I got a big story or if I ever got a decent interview, I would always celebrate by going on the p**s.
“It was not great and I kept on doing that.
“I came down to London to join Sky and I was still drinking a fair bit.
“I had
people like my then boss, Andy Melvin, at Sky saying to me, ‘You’re drinking too much.’
“I remember having a conversation with Graeme Souness when we were doing a game together.
“He said, ‘Listen, just a little word of advice – a little bird’s told me you’re drinking too much’. He looked at me and said, ‘If it takes a friend to tell you then hopefully it will make a difference’.
“So obviously it was being publicly seen I was overdoing it. “Of course the last person to know was me. I used to love it, I thought it was brilliant, ‘Look at me, out on the p**s again.’ But it’s silly. “The long and short of it was it took me a while to realise I had done a lot of damage to my personal life and relationships within it, for which I’m eternally sorry. “I did it virtually overnight. I decided I wasn’t going to have another relationship that was going to be affected by it. I wasn’t going to put the next person through it as I had done in the past. “I didn’t want my job to be affected either and it was beginning to be affected.
“There was a whole bunch of component parts that made it quite clear to me that I have got to stop doing this.”
White was fined £750 and banned from driving for a year in 2005 after refusing a breath test. When taken to a police station in Glasgow, he told officers: “I’m providing f ****** zero.”
The former Scotsport host, who joined Sky in 1998, has urged others struggling with alcohol addiction to try total abstinence.
The 62-year-old, who also presents a daily radio show on TalkSport, said he is now in a much better place.
He said: “Somebody once told me, ‘Nothing changes if nothing changes’, so I made the change about nine years ago.
“I decided I’m reining it in altogether. Never again will I have a drink.
“For anybody out there who maybe does have a problem and you are considering trying to rein it in or stop altogether then stop altogether because, believe me, the rewards are fantastic.
“To this day I have never had a glass of wine or champagne or a gulp of anything alcoholic. I decided that is the way for me.
“I now look at pubs and see people buying rounds and I think, ‘Thank God that’s not me.’
“I will never go back to it. My personal life is great now and I couldn’t do my current work regime if I was on the p**s.”
It took a while to realise my personal life was damaged
JIM WHITE