Thirst by John Robins audiobook review – an e drinker’s darkly funny journey

Published 6 August 2026 · world

The comedian and broadcaster narrates the heartfelt and at times self-lacerating account of his relationship with alcohol A memoir chronicling the comic and broadcaster John

The comedian and broadcaster narrates the heartfelt and at times self-lacerating account of his relationship with alcohol A memoir chronicling the comic and broadcaster John Robins’s life in alcohol and his subsequent path to sobriety, Thirst is structured around the drinks that changed his life. There’s the bottle of Jacob’s Creek wine left out on a kitchen worktop which he helped himself to at the age of seven, secreting it into his orange juice, and the beer given to him at scout camp which he drank alone.

There’s also his stomach-churning recreation, while on a comedy tour of Australia, of the white russians drunk by the Dude in The Big Lebowski using a gallon of milk, a litre of vodka and a bottle of Kahlua. As an adult, Robins, who is best known for his shows on Radio X and on BBC5 Live, romanticised pubs, which he saw as places of peacefulness and refuge.

He even co-hosted the podcast The Moon Under Water where he invited guests to describe their ideal pub. Robins reveals that what kept him drinking for so long was the lie that he was in control. That he could, on occasion, get through a Dry January convinced him he couldn’t be an addict, although he got a wakeup call when a GP told him to “sort your fucking life out”.

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