Jim White has revealed he’s celebrating his 10th year of being sober after a long battle with alcohol.
The sports broadcaster yesterday said he was warned he was overdoing it by his bosses and pals including ex-Rangers manager Graeme Souness.
White, 63, was speaking on his daily radio phone-in show with Simon Jordan on TalkSport about alcoholism and encouraged listeners to give up problem drinking, saying: “I’d recommend that direction, I am exactly 10 years sober.”
When a listener called to say he couldn’t stop, White told him: “I’d no stop button and, in spite of people like Graeme Souness saying to me you can find yourself a stop button, I didn’t.
“I carried on and made life difficult for me and people around me. So find the stop button and you’ll see how much life improves. My life improved from the moment I made that decision.”
He added: “Speak to people, don’t pick up the first drink.”
The ex-Sky Sports host has previously spoken out about his drinking problem and said it almost wrecked his career.
White, who lives in London, said his boozing spiralled out of control when he would celebrate a big story or decent interview with a drink and this continued when he went down to London to join Sky.
And he said it was when Souness and his bosses at the station spoke to him that he realised he was overdoing it.
Speaking last year on the Blethered podcast with Sean McDonald, White said he regretted the toll his drinking took on his personal relationships and vowed he would stay sober.
He said: “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.”
He encouraged his listeners to give up alcohol completely.
“Make the change, the results are worth it,” he said.
White thanked his legion of fans for their support and said his life was much happier sober.
