Off The Booze

Meet the Guide

I’m Phillip Hawes. Thirty-two years sober.

Before sobriety, I managed to do what alcohol does best: quietly dismantle a promising radio broadcasting career in New Zealand. The low point came when I fell asleep during a live broadcast while thousands listened to dead air. That wasn’t rock bottom — just one of many warnings I ignored.

Sobriety didn’t end my working life. It rebuilt it. After getting sober, I returned to broadcasting, went on to win New Zealand Radio Awards, and held senior roles in the stations where I worked. Not because I’d “fixed” myself — but because clarity, consistency, and showing up sober changes everything.

Over the last three decades, and through fifteen years of mentoring others, I’ve learned what actually works when willpower collapses and your brain starts negotiating at exactly the wrong time. I don’t sell hope or transformation stories. I deal in practical understanding: neuroscience without the academic fog, honest language about craving, and strategies that still work when motivation is gone.

I didn’t stop drinking perfectly or magically. I just stopped — and kept going.

Welcome to Off The Booze. Let’s figure this out together.

— Phillip Hawes