Giving up alcohol was life-changing, says Spencer Matthews

MADE In Chelsea star Spencer Matthews has told how he has changed his life by giving up consuming alcohol.

He told GB News: “What I’m saying is just from my own personal experience, I can’t really speak for others, but you know, I had a number of jobs where drinking alcohol was perceived to be almost a skill, you know, as a city trader. I had to entertain clients.

“Then I worked in nightclubs you know, so I kind of, it was ordinary for me to have a drink in my hand and I guess when I became more health conscious and more conscious of my kind of general well-being and wanting to improve my functionality so that I can achieve my goals more easily.

“I found that cutting out alcohol was really helpful for me, but you know, there was still that moment where I’d get back from the office, say 6pm or 7pm.

“I’d ordinarily pour myself a drink or a glass of wine, and that was what I found difficult to kick. It wasn’t necessarily, I wouldn’t really be drinking to get drunk.”

Spencer has started a business that makes non-alcoholic drinks, called CleanCo.

“We focus on non-alcoholic spirits, but obviously there’s loads of fantastic companies that do beer as well and wine is becoming more of a thing,” he said.

“Speaking from experience, when I stopped drinking alcohol, you would have to kind of change your social habits and that was almost the tougher part.

“The idea behind CleanCo is that you can enjoy a cocktail and have the same experience of drinking, say a gin and tonic, but without the alcohol.

“If you mix [an] alternative with tonic it’ll taste exactly like a gin and tonic. It smells like gin and behaves like gin.

“It can then replace that kind of ritual of having an alcoholic drink with a very similar non-alcoholic drink, so it allows people to make positive choices…”

Asked if he thought that demand for non-alcoholic drinks was a fad, he said: “It’s driven by people’s desire to be healthier. There’s evidence across a number of different markets, food training, therapy, mental well-being, just to just general health and wellness is incredibly important to people, particularly the younger generation.

“I actually think it will get more so. I believe that in five year’s time perhaps it’ll be entirely ordinary to have non-alcoholic cocktails but you know, at a higher level than the previously discussed mocktail.

“So, yeah, I believe that in time, it’ll be like a 50/50 thing.”

He added: “I used to be a big gin and tonic drinker. And now when I have a clean gin and tonic, it does a very similar thing for me.

“It’s kind of a very grown up, feels very grown-up drink. It tastes like there’s alcohol in the drink to the point now where we compare ourselves to full strength equivalents.

“When we’re out sampling, we will give strangers, potential customers, a full-strength gin and tonic and a clean gin and tonic and they often can’t tell the difference.”