I Woke Up Alone in a Tuk-Tuk in the Middle of a Jungle With No Idea How I Got There — And Went Back Out the Next Night

Episode 57 | Cameron Kidd — From Waking Up in a Jungle Tuk-Tuk to 14 Months Sober in Copenhagen: Jersey Boy Finally Finds Himself

In this warm, funny and deeply honest episode, Jimmy sits down with Cameron Kidd — Jersey-born, Copenhagen-based podcaster and host of TOMU: The Open Mic Unfiltered — whose story of binge drinking, blackouts, ADHD and finally getting sober at 34 is one of the most relatable the show has featured.

Cameron had a decent childhood — loving parents, good school — but his parents’ move to France at 16 without really consulting him sent him into a spiral of resentment and freedom. Spat on and called an English pig at the French college, he was back on Jersey within days, living between his auntie’s house and a mate’s farmhouse with a bar downstairs, huge fields and summer bonfires. His own mini festival, every weekend. Ecstasy, weed, alcohol — and none of it feeling like a problem because everyone around him was doing the same.

Through his twenties Cameron moved around constantly — Jersey, Glasgow, Thailand, back to Jersey, Copenhagen — chasing fresh starts that always ended the same way. In Thailand he woke up alone in a tuk-tuk in the middle of dense jungle on New Year’s Day with no memory of how he got there. He checked himself over, found his way back, and went out the following night. In Glasgow he woke up with the top of his ear hanging off and no idea how. He came home from a beach party with his hand badly burnt — found by friends trying to cool it in the sea, then wandering off, ending up at a corner shop where a stranger looked through his phone and called his dad. He had his jaw broken and didn’t go to hospital for two days because everyone told him he was fine.

The blackouts became total. Every single time he drank, he remembered nothing — just fragments. He’d wake up and scan the room, reading the energy to figure out what he needed to apologise for. Until a night out in Copenhagen when a stranger approached him in a pub: “You don’t remember me, do you? You took me and the boys around the whole city, showed us an incredible night.” Cameron had no recollection of any of it. That was the moment that really scared him.

The end came after a big night last October. He turned up at his girlfriend’s door wrecked, broke down completely — I’ve had enough, I don’t want to be here anymore, I’m tired — and she gave him an ultimatum. He went to KKUC, a Danish substance abuse programme, and it was there they asked: “Have you ever been tested for ADHD?” He hadn’t. He got the best grade of his life. The relief — and the grief — of finally understanding why he’d always been this way was overwhelming.

Now 14 months clean, medicated for ADHD, living in Copenhagen with his girlfriend and hosting his own podcast, Cameron is slowly learning who he is without alcohol. The hardest part? Someone once asked him what he enjoys — and he had no answer. But he’s finding his way back to the curious, excited boy he once was. One day at a time.

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Alcohol Explained - William Porter

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My Instagram is:

https://www.instagram.com/recovery_jimmy

And you can find all my other links at:

https://linktr.ee/jimmythistle

Buy me a coffee…

https://buymeacoffee.com/afterhourswithjimmyt

Alcohol Explained - William Porter

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This Naked Mind - Annie Grace

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A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

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Donate:

https://motiv8.im/donate/

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