Man whose ‘drinking was so out of control’ he was shocked he ‘didn’t die’ explains major benefits of going sober

A bloke who forged a career out of his love of beer has told how his drinking became so 'out of control' that he's surprised he even survived.

Jono Yates went from getting 'paid in booze' while touring the world with his rock band, to 'monetising' his passion for putting away pint after pint on social media.

And to a lot of young lads, that might sound like a dream - but the reality of this kind of lifestyle is actually 'utter chaos', according to the 37-year-old.

Formerly the face behind @simplypints, Jono is now known online as @thesoberlap, after he performed a complete 180 in terms of his relationship with alcohol.

He ditched drinking for good in May last year after hitting his 'rock bottom' during a work trip to the US party city of Miami, which got rowdy, to say the least.

The content creator, from Manchester, has now found a new lease of life since going teetotal, as well as a new hobby which is a lot healthier than his former one - promoting sobriety.

Jono had certainly mastered the art of boozing in his heyday - hell, he'd pretty much wrote the book on it.

Like many Brits, he first got a taste for the stuff when he was working in pubs to earn a few quid as an 18-year-old - sampling a couple of beers on shift, heading out after work and partying the night away.

Speaking to LADbible, Jono said: "I feel like with my generation especially, it's just so normalised, going out and getting hammered.

"Going to the footy, meeting the lads in the pub, whatever excuse it was to do it. Now I'm on the other side of it, I see it and I'm like, ‘That's mad’."

He began working in social media at the age of 27 after ten years of touring with his band, seeing him go on to set up a series of successful accounts across Instagram and TikTok.

For example, he's built up a 894,000-strong following on his page @OnlyScrans, which he says is the 'most engaged food publisher in the UK'.

After his initial projects quickly became popular, Jono decided to create a page centred around 'pub and beer reviews', which ended up increasing the amount he was drinking by a lot more.

Jono Yates said he was 'lost in a sea of lager' for the last two decades or so (Supplied)

"I was drinking incredibly heavily and monetising it as well - which is dangerous," he said of @simplypints. "I was so incentivised to do it because I was filming content, I just kept telling myself, 'I’m doing content for the page'.

"But I was just losing the plot, really. It got well out of hand."

'I don’t know how I didn’t die'

During an epic trip to Miami last year, it all came to a head when Jono really hit the bottle, as he started sipping from the moment he stepped on the plane.

Reflecting on his 'seven-day bender', he said: "It just escalated and escalated and escalated. It all looked rosy and stuff on social media, but I was getting messages from my mates saying, ‘What are you doing? You look like a mess!’

"I was in the sea leathered. I’ve got GoPro footage of me and I’m falling in the sea, I can’t even see or speak. I don’t know how I didn’t die.

"It was so, so bad. I got back home, eventually. It was utter chaos."

While nursing a hellish hangover, Jono was confronted with the fact that his boozing habits had started to have a huge impact on the people around him.

His sister encouraged him to head to an Alcoholic's Anonymous meeting, which he credits as being the springboard for his life completely 'changing'.

He incredibly transformed his beer review page into one which encourages sobriety (Supplied)

"I was hurting people around me, my sister was just watching me drink myself to death," Jono said. "My wife put up with so much, didn’t know if I was coming home ever, didn’t know where I was, what I was doing, who I was with.

"I was just a complete wreck, really. But that’s the level it had to get to for me. I thought that I was so much fun to be around, the life and soul of the party.

"Looking back, I cringe at myself. Like oh my god, what are you doing? Who are you trying to impress?

"It was a rock bottom where I nearly lost it all - to now, it’s only eight months of sobriety and all of that bad stuff has sort of gone. It’s only good stuff now."

Although he admits it is 'not all roses' and that he 'still has an alcoholic brain', Jono remains dedicated to putting the work in - and he wants to help other people, too.

Jono has just wrapped up a Dry January series on his TikTok, where he shared his tips and tricks for staying on the wagon as well as words of encouragement on an almost daily basis.

'I had so much free time'

He's enjoying all of the benefits which ditching booze has brought into his life, but admitted he did not have a 'good time' throughout his first month off the hard stuff in two decades.

"It was towards the end of the second month that I started to actually even stopped being miserable," Jono said. "I started to be like, ‘What am I going to do instead of drink?’

"Because I spent so much time drinking, or thinking about drinking, or reminiscing about drinking, trying to chase those nights. When I did stop, I had so much free time.

The 37-year-old has been enjoying all of the benefits not drinking has brought (Supplied)

"Now, I’m learning Spanish - that’s loads of fun. I go walking everyday, go to the gym, I have really got into my nutrition," he said, while adding that he's completing a triathlon in May - which is something he 'never thought possible'.

As well as this, he's found time to pick his musical hobbies back up and has returned to playing both guitar and piano.

'The possibilities are endless'

Now he's something of a sober influencer, even though he admits he 'genuinely never thought it was possible to live a sober life' - but he found out it's actually not as 'boring' as he thought it would be.

Jono said: "I thought that I'd have to stay in all the time, I'd be doing nothing, I’d be sat on the couch staring at my phone, watching all my mates out with FOMO.

"But it's not like that. I can still go out. I'll meet my mates at six and when they start repeating themselves and slurring a little bit, I can be like, ‘I’m off home, I’m going to go now’.

"I still had a nice time with them. The rest of their night, they won’t really remember, so it won’t really matter!

"The possibilities are endless, really," he added. "I can do whatever I want, because I'm sober. I’m getting into different things that I wouldn't have got into.

"You just work stuff out in your head about who you are. We don't know who we are, because we're just lost in this f**king sea of lager. I was, anyway."

Jono's managed to wade his way out of the rough waters - and he's more than happy to throw a life raft to anyone who needs help getting through their own stormy period, too.