I’m in a battle every day...fighting to create a better version of myself
SAS: Who Dares Wins’ Ollie Ollerton opens up to
about his descent into depression and alcoholism, and his journey out again ATTHEW ‘OLLIE’ process later, Ollie OLLERTON spent six was a qualified years on the frontline in frogman and Iraq, faced down child mini-sub driver, sex traffickers in Thailand, deployed on and was one of five out of 350 to be everything from selected for the SAS, but his greatest hostage rescue to foe is and always will be an covert counter aggressive chimp. insurgency.
Ollie was just 10 years old, when a But it still family trip to the circus had to be cut wasn’t enough, short when a 50kg primate went and after hanging rogue, pinning him to the ground up his uniform, and swiping at him wildly. Ollie worked
It sounds surreal, even comical, as a private but in reality it was anything but. “It contractor in was hideous,” he says, “I nearly lost Iraq. “I didn’t think I’d come back my life. At that age, you’re greatly from there,” he recalls, “I was influenced by your environment, working out of a war zone and we and I’ve only unravelled the were being attacked regularly. I was complexity of that trauma recently. I drinking too much, I was taking might not even have joined the valium, I was taking steroids. It had special forces if not for that chimp.” such a detrimental effect on my
Ollie’s brush with mortality left mental state, and there were many him in constant search of danger, times in Iraq that I was in a and he resolved to join the army by bottomless pit.” age 14. Fast forward to 2020 and he Brought up in a brewery town, is on the other side of a glittering Ollie was surrounded by booze from military career that helped him land a young age, and slipped into two book deals, and a job as DS on alcoholism in early adulthood. “I Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins. used to have so much stuff in my
But his journey has had as many head and I would reach for alcohol troughs as peaks, and come at great to numb the noise. I was either personal cost. working, or having a few drinks.”
His latest book, Battle Ready: His personal life was strained, and Eliminate Doubt, Embrace Courage, provided little stability. “I had
Transform Your Life, draws on a quite a contaminated view of decades-long struggle with, and relationships,” he says, “and I was victory over depression and moving from one to the next like a alcoholism. car lease – there was always an
He describes his younger self as overlap. There’s a big difference
“an extremist in all things” and his between being supportive and just need for intensity developed into enduring. People think they’re something bordering on a death supportive just by being there, but it wish. A tour of Northern Ireland takes more than that.” was followed by deployment on Ollie finally found purpose as part Operation Desert Storm, but Ollie of a civilian team freeing child sex still felt unfulfilled. “I wanted to go slaves in Thailand. But a political to war,” he recalls, “and fighting situation led him to flee the country every day made me feel alive, but and, having self-funded the there was something massive operation, he again found himself at missing in my life and I couldn’t home with nothing to his name. work it out.” “That was the worst stage of my
He may not have been satisfied life,” he says, “but it was the most with the military, but the military humbling thing I’ve ever done. was extremely satisfied with him, The thing I took away from it was and he was recommended for the understanding the gift of helping SAS at the tender age of 24. One people. It’s the most powerful thing, gruelling six-month selection and something you can’t buy.”
MDespite the darkness, Ollie returned to the UK with a renewed personal and professional purpose, and after a period of self-imposed isolation, he constructed a road map to lift himself from the funk.
He stopped drinking – “a mental milestone, a win that affected everything in my life” – and gained an almost philosophical approach to human frailty.
“No one could achieve the four-minute mile before Roger Bannister,” he says, “but as soon as he’d done it, everyone else was smashing it within months. Suddenly people understood it could be done. We create so many limitations and barriers for ourselves.”
In 2014, Ollie started developing Break Point, a company devoted to helping members of the public achieve positive growth and development, which shares its title with his first book. Channel 4 came calling not long after, and Who Dares Wins recently concluded its fifth civilian series and second celebrity one.
Now 49 and a fount of energy and positivity, you might think lockdown would be unkind to the reformed Ollie, but with the right frame of mind, he insists the pandemic can be an opportunity.
“A lot of what’s going on is similar to when people leave the military. The scaffolding to their day has fallen apart, the camaraderie is gone, and they’re suddenly left with this void. At the end of the day, the one thing we can control is our immediate environment, and my life used to be dictated by external factors. It’s when you start looking within that you become more resilient, more robust, and stronger from the inside out.”
Ollie gets up at five in the morning, and until nine o’clock is scheduled me time – for meditation, nutrition, physical and mental health. “When I get up on my terms, I take myself to the day and I dominate. Put some structure into your day where you’re investing in yourself, and it will pay back tenfold.”
He is still fighting, but now it’s on his terms. “I’m in a battle every day, just like everyone else, but I’m fighting to create a better version of myself. It’s all about short-term discomfort for long-term gain.”
“It all stems back to getting attacked by that chimp,” he continues. “I was laying under the chimp, and it was ripping me to bits, and I had to retaliate to avoid being killed, even though it could have made the chimp angrier. That’s why my company is called Break Point, because of that moment.”